Israel
Major Archaeological Discovery Puts Biblical Excavators and Israeli Highway Construction
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 22 hours ago
A major archaeological discovery in Israel raised the question of how to preserve the past without stopping progress towards the future when a modern highway and an ancient town came to a crossroads. "No one expected it, including the Israel Antiquities Authority," said Yehuda Govrin, who headed the salvage excavation at Beit Shemesh. What they found was the biblical town of Beit Shemesh from the time of Isaiah and Hezekiah. "We thought the Assyrians destroyed (it) and it took years for us (the Jewish people) to come back and that everyone left and there was no one here. But ... more »
Archaeologist: Thick wall found at Lachish indicates King Solomon’s son built it
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 day ago
[image: Archaeologists at work excavating the biblical city of Lachish, where an early 12th century BCE Canaanite alphabet inscription was found in 2014. (courtesy of Yossi Garfinkel, Hebrew University)] Archaeologists at work excavating the biblical city of Lachish, where an early 12th century BCE Canaanite alphabet inscription was found in 2014. (courtesy of Yossi Garfinkel, Hebrew University) An archaeologist has recently uncovered a fortified wall in the ancient city of Lachish, a discovery he said shores up the biblical account of the site and suggests that a centralized kingd... more »
Neanderthals/Denisovans
Modern analysis of ancient hearths reveals Neanderthal settlement patterns
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 day ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Field photograph of Neanderthal combustion structure and microscope photograph of organic components in the black layer of the combustion structure. view more Credit: Leierer et al, 2019 Ancient fire remains provide evidence of Neanderthal group mobility and settlement patterns and indicate specific occupation episodes, according to a new study published in *PLOS ONE* on April 24, 2019 by Lucia Leierer and colleagues from Universidad de La Laguna, Spain. Most paleolithic household activities are thought to have taken place around hearths or fires. The author... more »
Archaeologists discovered a flintstone workshop of Neanderthals in the southern Poland
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 3 days ago
Complete article Researchers discovered a flint workshop of Neanderthals in Pietraszyno (Silesia). According to scientists, it is the first such large workshop in Central Europe that was not located in a cave. So far, researchers have counted 17,000 stone products created 60 thousand years ago. Neandertals (*Homo neanderthalensis*) were very close relatives of contemporary man (*Homo sapiens*). They probably appeared in Poland approximately 300,000 years ago. The oldest stone tools they used, discovered on the Vistula, are over 200,000 years old, and the remains are over 100,00... more »
Woolly mammoths and Neanderthals may have shared genetic traits
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
A new Tel Aviv University study suggests that the genetic profiles of two extinct mammals with African ancestry -- woolly mammoths, elephant-like animals that evolved in the arctic peninsula of Eurasia around 600,000 years ago, and Neanderthals, highly skilled early humans who evolved in Europe around 400,000 years ago -- shared molecular characteristics of adaptation to cold environments. The research attributes the human-elephant relationship during the Pleistocene epoch to their mutual ecology and shared living environments, in addition to other possible interactions between the... more »
Ancient DNA reveals new branches of the Denisovan family tree
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
It's widely accepted that anatomically modern humans interbred with their close relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, as they dispersed out of Africa. But a study examining DNA fragments passed down from these ancient hominins to modern people living in Island Southeast Asia and New Guinea now suggests that the ancestry of Papuans includes not just one but two distinct Denisovan lineages, which had been separated from each other for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, the researchers suggest, one of those Denisovan lineages is so different from the other that they really ... more »
Americas
Human settlements in Amazonia much older than previously thought
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 day ago
Humans settled in southwestern Amazonia and even experimented with agriculture much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of researchers. "We have long been aware that complex societies emerged in Llanos de Moxos in southwestern Amazonia, Bolivia, around 2,500 years ago, but our new evidence suggests that humans first settled in the region up to 10,000 years ago during the early Holocene period," said Jose Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology. "These groups of people were hunter gatherers; however, our data show that they were beginning to de... more »
Archaeologists recreate ancient brewing techniques in Peru to learn how beer kept an empire afloat
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Field Museum [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The team worked with Peruvian brewers to recreate the ancient chicha recipe used at Cerro Baul. view more Credit: Donna Nash A thousand years ago, the Wari empire stretched across Peru. At its height, it covered an area the size of the Eastern seaboard of the US from New York City to Jacksonville. It lasted for 500 years, from 600 to 1100 AD, before eventually giving rise to the Inca. That's a long time for an empire to remain intact, and archaeologists are studying remnants of the Wari culture to see what kept it ticking. A new study found an im... more »
Researchers interpret Cherokee inscriptions in Alabama cave
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
For the first time, a team of scholars and archaeologists has recorded and interpreted Cherokee inscriptions in Manitou Cave, Alabama. These inscriptions reveal evidence of secluded ceremonial activities at a time of crisis for the Cherokee, who were displaced from their ancestral lands and sent westward on the Trail of Tears in the 1830s. "These are the first Cherokee inscriptions ever found in a cave context, and the first from a cave to be translated," said Jan Simek, president emeritus of the University of Tennessee System and Distinguished Professor of Science in UT's Departme... more »
Europe
Mary Rose crew 'was from Mediterranean and North Africa'
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 day ago
Complete article The crew on board the sunken Henry VIII ship the Mary Rose was from the Mediterranean, North Africa and beyond, researchers have found. Bone structure and DNA of 10 skeletons found on board were analysed by team at Cardiff and Portsmouth universities. They said four of the skeletons were of southern European heritage, and one seems to have hailed from Morocco or Algeria. The findings cast fresh light on the ethnic makeup of Tudor Britain. - The Mary Rose: A Tudor ship's secrets revealed - Mary Rose ship crew 'to be identified using DNA' - Shipwreck skulls go o... more »
Mysterious Ritual Burials From the Iron Age
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 6 days ago
Complete report [image: One woman was buried with her feet removed and placed by her side, and her arms behind her head.]One woman was buried with her feet removed and placed by her side, and her arms behind her head. Thames Water While laying down some water pipes, workers at the U.K. utility company Thames Water had a workday interrupted in a rather macabre fashion when they unearthed what turned out to be the remains of 26 people who had been ritualistically buried in pits in Oxfordshire. One set of remains belonged to a woman who was interred with her feet cut off and placed by ... more »
Funerary customs, diet, and social behavior in a pre-Roman Italian Celtic community
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Localization of main Celtic necropolises of Italy and examples of burials from SV. view more Credit: Laffranchi *et al*, 2019. Analysis of human remains from a Pre-Roman Celtic cemetery in Italy shows variations in funerary treatment between individuals that could be related to social status, but these variations were not reflected by differences in their living conditions. Zita Laffranchi of Universidad de Granada, Spain, and colleagues present these new findings in the open access journal *PLOS ONE* on April 17, 2019. Archeological and written evidence have... more »
Megalith tombs were family graves in European Stone Age
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Uppsala University [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Ansarve site on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea is embedded in an area with mostly hunter-gathers at the time. view more Credit: Magdalena Fraser In a new study published in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, an international research team, led from Uppsala University, discovered kin relationships among Stone Age individuals buried in megalithic tombs on Ireland and in Sweden. The kin relations can be traced for more than ten generations and suggests that megaliths were graves for kindred groups in Stone Age... more »
Archaeologists identify first prehistoric figurative cave art in Balkans
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Digital tracing of Bison featured in rock art. view more Credit: Aitor Ruiz-Redondo An international team, led by an archaeologist from the University of Southampton and the University of Bordeaux, has revealed the first example of Palaeolithic figurative cave art found in the Balkan Peninsula. Dr Aitor Ruiz-Redondo worked with researchers from the universities of Cantabria (Spain), Newfoundland (Canada), Zagreb (Croatia) and the Archaeological Museum of Istria (Croatia) to study the paintings, which could be up to 34,000 years old. The cave art was first disc... more »
Beowulf is the subject of fierce academic debate
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
Beowulf is the subject of fierce academic debate, in part between those who claim the epic poem is the work of a single author and those who claim it was stitched together from multiple sources. Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is arguably one of the most important works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025.[3] The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the "*B... more »
Near East
Mesopotamian King Sargon II envisioned ancient city Karkemish as western Assyrian capital
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 3 days ago
In "A New Historical Inscription of Sargon II from Karkemish," published in the *Journal of Near Eastern Studies*, Gianni Marchesi translates a recently discovered inscription of the Assyrian King Sargon II found at the ruins of the ancient city of Karkemish. The inscription, which dates to around 713 B.C., details Sargon's conquest, occupation, and reorganization of Karkemish, including his rebuilding the city with ritual ceremonies usually reserved for royal palaces in capital cities. The text implies that Sargon may have been planning to make Karkemish a western capital of Assyr... more »
Crusaders made love and war, genetic study finds
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
First genetic study of the Crusaders confirms that warriors mixed and had families with local people in the near East, and died together in battle Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The first genetic study of ancient human remains believed to be Crusaders confirms that warriors travelled from western Europe to the near East, where they mixed and had families with local people, and died together in battle. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators analysed ancient DNA extracted from nine skeletons dating back to the 13th century, which were discovered in a bu... more »
Urine salts provide evidence of Early Neolithic animal management
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
A close examination of midden soil layers at the early Neolithic site of A??kl? Höyük in Turkey reveals that they are highly enriched in sodium, chlorine, and nitrate salts commonly found in human and goat and sheep urine, offering a distinct signal for following the management of those animals through the history of the site. The findings, along with an enriched nitrogen signal in the soil, suggest a new way for archaeologists to study the evolution of animal management at this critical point in human history, at similarly dry, thickly stratified sites that may not contain other d... more »
General archaeology
Better labor practices could improve archaeological output
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 3 days ago
New analysis illuminates how much archaeological knowledge production has fundamentally relied upon site workers' active choices in responding to labor conditions Lehigh University [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *An excavation site in Petra, Jordan. view more Credit: Allison Mickel Archaeological excavation has, historically, operated in a very hierarchical structure, according to archaeologist Allison Mickel. The history of the enterprise is deeply entangled with Western colonial and imperial pursuits, she says. Excavations have been, and often still are, according to Mickel, led by fore... mor
People used natural dyes to color their clothing thousands of years ago
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *With the help their new method the researchers were able to reconstruct the distribution of the dyes. view more Credit: Annemarie Kramell Even thousands of years ago people wore clothing with colourful patterns made from plant and animal-based dyes. Chemists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have created new analytical methods to examine textiles from China and Peru that are several thousand years old. In the scientific journal *Scientific Reports* they describe their new method that is able to rec... more »
Asia
Genome analysis showed common origin of Russian Pskov, Novgorod and Yakutia populations
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Scientists for the first time compared complete genome data of different ethnic groups in Russia. Using a special algorithm, they traced the development history for some groups. In the future, such data can be used in other important studies: for example, it can help to identify genetic risk factors in various populations of Russian people. The results are published in *Genomics*. The Russian Federation is a large country uniting many nationalities and populations. However, their genetic diversity is still understudied: existing researchs consider either a specific population or a p... mo
New species of early human found in the Philippines
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Professor Philip Piper from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology inspects the cast of a hominin third metatarsal discovered in 2007. The bone is from a new species of... view more Credit: Lannon Harley, ANU An international team of researchers have uncovered the remains of a new species of human in the Philippines, proving the region played a key role in hominin evolutionary history. The new species, Homo luzonensis is named after Luzon Island, where the more than 50,000 year old fossils were found during excavations at Callao Cave. Co-author and a ... more »
Egypt
Egypt unveils colourful Fifth Dynasty tomb
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report - 1 week ago
This picture taken on April 13, 2019 shows a view inside the newly-discovered tomb of the ancient Egyptian nobleman "Khewi" dating back to the 5th dynasty (2494–2345 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis, about 35 kilometres south of the capital Cairo. Mohamed el-Shahed / AFP. 27 In a major archaeological discovery, Egypt on Saturday unveiled the tomb of a Fifth Dynasty official adorned with colourful reliefs and well preserved inscriptions. Complete article The tomb, near Saqqara, a vast necropolis south of Cairo, belongs to a senior official named Khuwy who is believed ... more »
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