Friday, October 9, 2020

Latest Archaeology News

 Americas

 
The first human settlers on islands caused extinctions
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 day ago
Fossil records depict devastating effect of humans on birds in the Bahamas UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE ABACO PARROT ONCE LIVED ON AS MANY AS SEVEN ISLANDS IN THE BAHAMAS, BUT NOW CAN MAINLY BE FOUND ONLY ON TWO ISLANDS. view more CREDIT: (KAMELLA BOULLÉ/MACAULAY LIBRARY) Though some believe prehistoric humans lived in harmony with nature, a new analysis of fossils shows human arrival in the Bahamas caused some birds to be lost from the islands and other species to be completely wiped out. The researcher...
 
Diet of pre-Columbian societies in the Brazilian Amazon reconstructed
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 day ago
UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF BACANGA AT SãO LUíS ISLAND. view more CREDIT: ANDRÉ COLONESE An international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and the Department of Prehistory at the UAB has reconstructed the diets of pre-Columbian groups on the Amazon coast of Brazil, showing that tropical agroforestry was regionally variable. During the past few decades, there has been an increased interest in the origin and evolution of pre-Columbian econ...
 
To recreate ancient recipes, check out the vestiges of clay pots
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
Archaeologists find that unglazed ceramic cookware absorbs the chemical residue of present and past meals UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: SEVEN LA CHAMBA UNGLAZED CERAMIC POTS USED IN A YEARLONG COOKING EXPERIMENT THAT ANALYZED THE CHEMICAL RESIDUES OF MEALS PREPARED. view more CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF MELANIE MILLER If you happen to dig up an ancient ceramic cooking pot, don't clean it. Chances are, it contains the culinary secrets of the past. A research team led by University of California, Berkeley, archaeo...
 
Neanderthals and Denisovans
 
Neanderthals already had their characteristic barrel-shaped rib cages at birth
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 day ago
Neanderthal babies were born with the characteristic barrel-shaped rib cage shape previously identified in adult specimens, according to an analysis of digitally reconstructed rib cages from four Neanderthal infants. The findings suggest that Neanderthals' rib cages were already shorter and deeper than that of modern humans at birth, rather than shifting their shape later in development. While scientists have known that adult Neanderthals were heavier than modern humans, requiring significant differences in skeletal shape, there have been few studies that have compared the earli...
 
Neandertal gene variant increases risk of severe COVID-19
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 week ago
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL A study published in *Nature* shows that a segment of DNA that causes their carriers to have an up to three times higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals. The study was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. COVID-19 affects some people much more severely than others. Some reasons for this - such as old age - are already known, but other as yet unknown factors also play a role. This summer, a large international study l...
 
Y chromosomes of Neandertals and Denisovans now sequenced
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
Neandertals have adopted male sex chromosome from modern humans MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: MATTHIAS MEYER AT WORK IN THE CLEAN LABORATORY AT THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY. view more CREDIT: MPI F. EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY In 1997, the very first Neandertal DNA sequence - just a small part of the mitochondrial genome - was determined from an individual discovered in the Neander Valley, Germany, in 1856. Since then, improvements in molecular techniques have enabled scientists at the Max Planck I...
 
A 48,000 years old tooth that belonged to one of the last Neanderthals in Northern Italy
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: AN UPPER CANINE MILK-TOOTH THAT BELONGED TO A NEANDERTHAL CHILD, AGED 11 OR 12, THAT LIVED BETWEEN 48,000 AND 45,000 YEARS AGO. view more CREDIT: JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION A milk-tooth found in the vicinity of "Riparo del Broion" on the Berici Hills in the Veneto region bears evidence of one of the last Neanderthals in Italy. This small canine tooth belonged to a child between 11 and 12 that had lived in that area around 48,000 years ago. This is the most recent Neanderthal finding in Northern Italy. The study uncovering this tooth was c...
Europe
 
Anglo-Saxon warlord found by detectorists could redraw map of post-Roman Britain
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 days ago
First burial of its kind in mid-Thames region suggests it was more important than previously thought UNIVERSITY OF READING Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE REMAINS OF THE WARLORD. view more CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF READING Archaeologists have uncovered a warrior burial in Berkshire that could change historians' understanding of southern Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon era. The burial, on a hilltop site near with commanding views over the surrounding Thames valley, must be of a high-status warlord from the 6th century AD, archaeologists from the...
 
A tale of two cesspits: DNA reveals intestinal health in Medieval Europe and Middle East
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 days ago
New research proves the feasibility of retrieving bacterial DNA from ancient latrines MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE MEDIEVAL LATRINE AT RIGA DURING EXCAVATION view more CREDIT: ULDIS KAL?JIS A new study published this week demonstrates a first attempt at using the methods of ancient bacterial detection, pioneered in studies of past epidemics, to characterize the microbial diversity of ancient gut contents from two medieval latrines. The findings provide insights into the microbiomes of p...
 
Danish King got enshrined in his own clothes, appeared with his brothers' when examined
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Scientific analysis solve puzzle about the age and destiny of precious silk textiles from AD 1100L [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE MOTIVE IS BIRDS, PROBABLY PEACOCKS, FLANKING A STYLIZED TREE OR CROSS. IT CONSISTS OF SEVERAL SILK PIECES SEWN TOGETHER. ONE PIECE, 30X40 CM, COVERS THE FRONT OF THE PILLOW... view more CREDIT: © NATIONALMUSEET / THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF DENMARK The cathedral in Odense, Denmark, has for nine centuries held the relics of the Danish King St. Canute the Holy and his brother Benedikt. They were both murdered here in AD 1086, and just a few years later, in AD 1...
 
Modern humans reached westernmost Europe 5,000 years earlier than previously known
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 1 week ago
Discovery may indicate modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the area concurrently UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: VIEW OF LAPA DO PICAREIRO LOOKING IN FROM THE ENTRANCE. view more CREDIT: JONATHAN HAWS LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Modern humans arrived in the westernmost part of Europe 41,000 - 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to Jonathan Haws, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville, and an international team of researchers. The team h...
 
New Viking DNA research yields unexpected information about who they were
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
In the popular imagination, Vikings were fearsome blonde-haired warriors from Scandinavia who used longboats to carry out raids across Europe in a brief but bloody reign of terror. But the reality is more complex, says SFU Archaeology Prof. Mark Collard. Collard is a member of an international team of researchers that has just published the results of the world's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons, in this week's edition of *Nature*. Led by Prof. Eske Willerslev of the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen, the research team extracted and analysed DNA from the remains ...
 
Ancient hunters stayed in frozen Northern Europe rather than migrating to warmer area
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 4 weeks ago
Ancient hunters stayed in the coldest part of Northern Europe rather than migrating to escape freezing winter conditions, archaeologists have found. Evidence from Arctic fox bones show communities living around 27,500 years ago were killing small prey in the inhospitable North European Plains during the winter months of the last Ice Age. Researchers have found no evidence of dwellings, suggesting people only stayed for a short time or lived in tents in the area excavated, Kraków Spadzista in Southern Poland -- one of the largest Upper Palaeolithic sites in Central Europe. Until now i...
 
 
 
 
 
Israel and 
 
6,500-year-old copper workshop uncovered in the Negev Desert's Beer Sheva
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 days ago
Tel Aviv University and Israel Antiquities Authority believe copper-producing technology was closely guarded secret AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: WORK ON THE DIG IN BEER SHEVA. view more CREDIT: ANAT RASIUK, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY A new study by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority indicates that a workshop for smelting copper ore once operated in the Neveh Noy neighborhood of Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev Desert. The study, conducted over several years, began in 2017 in Beer...
 
 
Study confirms widespread literacy in biblical-period kingdom of Judah
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) have analyzed 18 ancient texts dating back to around 600 BCE from the Tel Arad military post using state-of-the-art image processing, machine learning technologies, and the expertise of a senior handwriting examiner. They have concluded that the texts were written by no fewer than 12 authors, suggesting that many of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah during that period were able to read and write, with literacy not reserved as an exclusive domain in the hands of a few royal scribes. The special interdisciplinary study was conducted ...
 
Ancient earthquake may have caused destruction of Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
Flourishing Canaanite palatial site suddenly abandoned 3,700 years ago; new evidence points to earthquake as probable culprit GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: AERIAL VIEW SHOWING THE SOUTHERN STORAGE COMPLEX (SSC), THE NORTHERN STORAGE COMPLEX (NSC; BLUE DASHED BOX) AND THE TRENCH (RED DASHED LINES) view more CREDIT: ERIC CLINE/GW WASHINGTON (Sept. 11, 2020)--A team of Israeli and American researchers funded by grants from the National Geographic Society and the Israel Science Foundation has uncovered new evidence that...
 
 
Near East
 
A tale of two cesspits: DNA reveals intestinal health in Medieval Europe and Middle East
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 days ago
New research proves the feasibility of retrieving bacterial DNA from ancient latrines MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: THE MEDIEVAL LATRINE AT RIGA DURING EXCAVATION view more CREDIT: ULDIS KAL?JIS A new study published this week demonstrates a first attempt at using the methods of ancient bacterial detection, pioneered in studies of past epidemics, to characterize the microbial diversity of ancient gut contents from two medieval latrines. The findings provide insights into the microbiomes of p...
 
Ancient human footprints in Saudi Arabia give glimpse of Arabian ecology 120000 years ago
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
Situated between Africa and Eurasia, the Arabian Peninsula is an important yet understudied region for understanding human evolution across the continents. Recent research highlighting the role of the Arabian Peninsula in human prehistory shows that humans repeatedly dispersed into the peninsula's interior at times when its harsh deserts were transformed into lush grasslands. However, the nature and timing of these dispersals have remained elusive, due to a scarcity of datable material and poor-resolution paleoecological data associated with evidence for humans. In a new study ...
 
 
Wild birds as offerings to the Egyptian gods
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
CNRS Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: FIRST AUTHOR MARIE LINGLIN SAMPLES A MUMMIFIED NORTHERN LONG-LEGGED BUZZARD SPECIMEN AT THE MUSÉE DES CONFLUENCES, LYON. view more CREDIT: © ROMAIN AMIOT/LGL-TPE/CNRS Millions of ibis and birds of prey mummies, sacrificed to the Egyptian gods Horus, Ra or Thoth, have been discovered in the necropolises of the Nile Valley. Such a quantity of mummified birds raises the question of their origin: were they bred, like cats, or were they hunted? Scientists from the CNRS, the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and the C...
 
Ancient DNA shows domestic horses were introduced in the southern Caucasus and Anatolia during the Bronze Age
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
Domestic horses likely did not originate in Anatolia as previously suspected, according to a new study of ancient horse remains dating as far back as 9000 BCE. Instead, they may have been introduced to the peninsula - which makes up most of modern-day Turkey - and the nearby Caucasus region from the Eurasian Steppe by about 2000 BCE, during the Bronze Age. The findings also suggest imported domestic horses were bred with local wild Anatolian horses and donkeys and provide the earliest genomic evidence for a mule in southwest Asia, dating to between 1100 and 800 BCE. Domestication ...
 
Dust may have controlled ancient human civilization
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
New study published in Geology GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL [image: IMAGE] IMAGE: MAP SHOWS THE LEVANT REGION (SHADED IN ORANGE), WHICH IS THE WESTERN PART OF THE OVERALL FERTILE CRESCENT REGION (SHADED IN YELLOW); THE STUDY AREAS IN ISRAEL AND CRETE ARE... view more CREDIT: RIVKA AMIT ET AL. AND GEOLOGY Boulder, Colo., USA: When early humans began to travel out of Africa and spread into Eurasia over a hundred thousand years ago, a fertile region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea called the Levant served as a critical gateway betwee...
Asia
 
Archaeology uncovers infectious disease spread in Asia - 4000 years ago
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 2 weeks ago
New bioarchaeology research from a University of Otago PhD candidate has shown how infectious diseases may have spread 4000 years ago, while highlighting the dangers of letting such diseases run rife. Yaws - from the same bacteria species responsible for syphilis (*Treponema pallidum*) - is a childhood disease causing highly infectious skin lesions. It is spread via touch from person to person and, in advanced cases, can leave sufferers with severe bone disfigurement. While it is easily curable in its early stages, the bone disfigurements are irreversible. The disease has been er...
 
 
 
Africa
 
Did our early ancestors boil their food in hot springs?
Jonathan Kantrowitz, Archaeology News Report - 3 weeks ago
Scientists have found evidence of hot springs near sites where ancient hominids settled, long before the control of fire MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Research News SHARE PRINT E-MAIL Some of the oldest remains of early human ancestors have been unearthed in Olduvai Gorge, a rift valley setting in northern Tanzania where anthropologists have discovered fossils of hominids that existed 1.8 million years ago. The region has preserved many fossils and stone tools, indicating that early humans settled and hunted there. Now a team led by researchers at MIT and the Uni...

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