Stone spheres could be from Ancient Greek board game

 

IMAGE: GROUPS OF SPHERES FROM AKROTIRI view more 

CREDIT: KONSTANTINOS TRIMMIS

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol have suggested that mysterious stone spheres found at various ancient settlements across the Aegean and Mediterranean could be playing pieces from one of the earliest ever board games.

There has been quite a lot of speculation around these spheres found at sites on Santorini, Crete, Cyprus, and other Greek Islands with theories around their use including being for some sort of sling stones, tossing balls, counting/record-keeping system or as counters/pawns.

Previous research by the same team from the University of Bristol indicated that there was variability in sphere size within specific clusters and collections of spheres. Following on from this the team wanted to explore potential patterning within these sphere concentrations, to help give an insight into their potential use. 

The latest study published this week in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports by Drs Christianne Fernée  and Konstantinos Trimmis from the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology examined common features on 700 stones – which range from around 4,500 to 3,600 years old – found at the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri on the island of Santorini.

The stones, which are smaller than golf balls, are in various colours and made from different materials. The analysis put the stones into two groups of larger stones and smaller. In addition, in Akrotiri and in other settlements across the Aegean there are stone slabs with shallow cup marks where the spheres could have sat or been placed.

Dr Ferneé said: “The most important finding of the study is that the speres fit two major clusters (one of smaller and one of larger stones). This supports the hypothesis that they were used as counters for a board game with the spheres most possibly have been collected to fit these clusters rather than a counting system for which you would expect more groupings.”

If these spheres are in-fact part of a boardgame, they will be one of the earliest examples, along with similar examples from the Levant and Egypt, such as the Egyptian Mehen and Senet.

Dr Trimmis added: “The social importance of the spheres, as indicated by the way they were deposited in specific cavities, further supports the idea of the spheres being part of a game that was played for social interaction. This gives a new insight into the social interaction in the Bronze Age Aegean.”

The next stage of the research is to apply a similar methodology to the slabs to see if there is clustering in the cup marks and trying to associate the spheres and slabs together. The team also hope to use artificial intelligence techniques to determine how the game was actually played.

Paper:

‘The rolling stones of Bronze Age Aegean: Applying machine learning to explore the use of lithic spheres from Akrotiri, Thera’ by C. Ferneé and K. Trimmis in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports

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JOURNAL

Journal of Archaeological Science Reports

Detailing a disastrous autumn day in ancient Italy

Volcanic eruptions evoke images of lava, fire, and destruction; however, this is not always the case. The Plinian eruption of Mount Vesuvius around 4,000 years ago – 2,000 years before the one that buried the Roman city of Pompeii— left a remarkably intact glimpse into Early Bronze Age village life in the Campania region of Southern Italy.

The village of Afragola was situated near present-day Naples, about 10 miles from Mount Vesuvius. Following the eruption, the village was encased in meters of ash, mud, and alluvial sediments, which lent a surprising degree of protection to the site, a rarity for archaeological sites from this era in Europe. Owing to the level of preservation and the diversity of preserved plants at the site, researchers were interested to see if they could pinpoint the time of year when the eruption occurred.

The village of Afragola was excavated over an area of 5,000 square meters, making it among the most extensively investigated sites of the Early Bronze Age in Italy, with a large group of archaeologists who meticulously carried out the sampling.

UConn Department of Anthropology researcher Tiziana Matarazzo ’14 (Ph.D.) and coauthors and archaeologists Monica Stanzione, Giuliana Boenzi, and Elena Laforgia from the Soprintendenza of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan Area of ​​Naples and Polo Museale Campania to tell the story of Afragola and have published their most recent findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

“The site is exceptional, because Afragola was buried by a gigantic eruption of Vesuvius, and it tells us a lot about the people who lived there, and the local habitat. In this case, by finding fruits and agricultural materials, we were able to identify the season of the eruption, which is usually impossible,” says Matarazzo.

Matarazzo explains that the course of the eruption happened in different phases, starting with a dramatic explosion that sent debris traveling primarily to the northeast. This gave the villagers time to flee, which is why the site does not contain human remains as other sites like Pompeii do, but it does contain several footprints of adults and children fleeing the area. Then the direction of the wind changed, bringing a copious amount of ash toward Afragola.

“The last phase brought mostly ash and water – called the phreatomagmatic phase — mainly dispersed to the west and northwest up to a distance of about 25 km from the volcano,” Matarazzo explains. “This last phase is also what completely buried the village. The thick layer of volcanic material replaced the molecules of the vegetal macro-remains and produced perfect casts in a material called cinerite,” and these conditions meant the materials were resistant to degradation, even after several millennia.

“Leaves that were in the woods nearby were also covered by mud and ash which was not super-hot, so we have beautiful imprints of the leaves in the cinerite,” she says.

The village offers a rare glimpse at how people lived in Italy in the Early Bronze Age, the researchers say.

“In Campania at this time, we have huts, but in Greece, they had palaces,” Matarazzo says. “These people probably lived in groups with maybe one or more persons was the head of the group.”

There was also one storage building in the village where all the grains and various agricultural goods and fruits were gathered from nearby woods to be stored and likely shared with the whole community.

Fortunately for this study, unlike the other huts in the village, the plant food warehouse caught fire probably due to the arrival of pyroclastic materials. Its collapse made indirect carbonization of the stored vegetal materials possible.

Matarazzo says the Bronze Age Campanian Plain was home to a rich diversity of food sources, including a variety of grains and barley, hazelnuts, acorns, wild apples, dogwood, pomegranates, and cornelian cherry, all extraordinarily well-preserved in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption.

The evidence points toward the eruption happening in the fall, as the villagers amassed their food stores from the nearby woods.  Matarazzo explains that imprints of leaves found at the base of the trees along with ripe fruits are very indicative of the seasonality.

Between climate change and development, Matarazzo explains the area looks vastly different from the way it once was.  “The reason we found the site is because of the construction of a high-speed train line. ”

For now, the researchers can reference the materials recovered from the site which are now housed off-site in a storage facility. The focus of future research includes a closer examination of animal bones found on site, including cattle, goats, pigs, and fish, as well as footprints, says Matarazzo.

“This eruption was so extraordinary that it changed the climate for many years afterward. The column of the Plinian eruption rose to basically the flight altitude of airplanes. It was unbelievable. The cover of ash was so deep that it left the site untouched for 4,000 years — no one even knew it was there. Now we get to learn about the people who lived there and tell their stories.”

This study would not have been possible without the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per l’Area Metropolitana di Napoli and the RFI-Italferr Team Ferrovie dello Stato Italiano.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Archaeological Science

DOI

10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103587 

Key phases of human evolution coincide with flickers in eastern Africa’s climate

  

 

IMAGE: CHEW BAHIR CORING SITE, EXTRACTING A LINER FULL OF RECOVERED SEDIMENT MATERIAL FROM THE 280-M-LONG CORE: THE DAY SHIFT TRYING TO PULL THE LINER OUT WITH COMBINED FORCES view more 

CREDIT: FRANK SCHAEBITZ

Three distinct phases of climate variability in eastern Africa coincided with shifts in hominin evolution and dispersal over the last 620,000 years, an analysis of environmental proxies from a lake sediment record has revealed. The project explores the youngest chapter in human evolution by analysing lacustrine sediments in close vicinity to paleo-anthropological key sites in eastern Africa using scientific deep drilling. The research endeavour included more than 22 researchers from 19 institutions in 6 countries, and was led by Dr Verena Foerster at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Geography Education. The article ‘Pleistocene climate variability in eastern Africa influenced hominin evolution’ has now appeared in Nature Geoscience.

Despite more than half a century of hominin fossil discoveries in eastern Africa, the regional environmental context of the evolution and dispersal of modern humans and their ancestors is not well established. Particularly for the Pleistocene (or Ice Age) between 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, there are no continuous high-resolution paleo-environmental records available for the African continent.

The research team extracted two continuous 280-metre sediment cores from the Chew Bahir Basin in southern Ethiopia, an area where early humans lived and developed during the Pleistocene. Chew Bahir is very remotely situated in a deep tectonic basement in close vicinity to the Turkana area and the Omo-Kibish, key paleo-anthropological and archaeological sites. The cores yielded the most complete record for such a long period ever extracted in the area, revealing how different climates influenced the biological and cultural transformation of humans inhabiting the region.

An interdisciplinary team including geoscientists, sedimentologists, micro-paleontologists, geologists, geographers, geochemists, archaeologists, chronologists, and climate modellers worked towards recovering the two continuous sediment cores, from which so-called proxies (like microfossils or elemental variations) were used to glean data to reconstruct the region’s climate history. Archaeologists, evolutionary biologists, and evolutionary anthropologists then identified phases of climatic stress as well as more favourable conditions and interpreted how these factors changed human habitats, influencing human biological and cultural evolution as well as their dispersal.

Specifically, the scientists found that various anatomically diverse hominin groups inhabited the area during a phase of long-lasting and relatively stable humid conditions from approximately 620,000 to 275,000 years BP (Before Present). However, a series of shorter abrupt and extreme arid pulses interrupted this long generally stable and wet phase. Most likely, this resulted in a fragmentation of habitats, shifts in population dynamics and even the extinctions of local populations. As a result, small, reproductively and culturally isolated populations then had to adapt to dramatically transformed local environments, likely stimulating the appearance of the many geographically and anatomically distinct hominin groups and the separation of our modern human ancestors from archaic groups.

A phase with significant climate swings resulting in regularly transformed habitats in the area from approximately 275,000 to 60,000 years BP repeatedly resulted in environmental shifts from lush vegetation with deep fresh water lakes to highly arid landscapes with the extensive lakes reduced to small saline puddles. In this phase, the population groups gradually transitioned from Acheulean technologies (oval  hand axes made of stone and primarily associated with Homo ergaster/erectus) to more sophisticated Middle Stone Age technologies. This crucial phase also encompasses the emergence of Homo sapiens in eastern Africa as well as key human social, technological, and cultural innovations that could have buffered early Homo sapiens from the impacts of severe environmental changes. ‘These innovations, such as more varied toolkits and long-distance transport, would have equipped modern humans with an unprecedented adaptability to the repeated expansions and contractions of habitats,’ said Dr Foerster, the paper’s lead author.

The phase from approximately 60,000 to 10,000 years BP saw the most extreme environmental fluctuations, but also the most arid phase of the entire record, which could have acted as a motor for continuous indigenous cultural change. The scientists believe that the brief alignment of humid pulses in eastern Africa with wet phases in north-eastern Africa and the Mediterranean was key to opening favourable migration routes out of Africa on a roughly north-south axis along the East African Rift System (EARS) and into the Levant, facilitating the global dispersal of Homo sapiens.

‘In view of current threats to the human habitat from climate change and the overuse of natural resources through human activity, understanding how the relationship between climate and human evolution has become more relevant than ever,’ Foerster concluded.

This research is part of the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP). In order to evaluate the impact that different timescales and magnitudes of climatic shifts have had on the living conditions of early humans, the project has cored five lake archives of climate change during the last 3.5 million years. All five sites in Kenya and Ethiopia are located in close vicinity to paleoanthropological key sites covering various steps in human evolution, with the site in southern Ethiopia exploring the youngest chapter.

As part of HSPDP, the project has received funding from the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the DFG Collaborative Research Centre 806 ‘Our Way to Europe’. CRC 806 was based at the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen and received generous financial and infrastructural support from these institutions from 2009 to 2021.

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JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-022-01032-y 

The neighbors of the caliph: Archaeologists uncover ancient mosaics on the shore of the Sea of Galilee

 

IMAGE: KHIRBAT AL-MINYA: THE EXCAVATION SITE (BROWN) WITH ITS SUNSHADE CANOPIES LOCATED ON THE NORTHWESTERN SHORE OF THE SEA OF GALILEE – HERE VIEWED FROM THE ELEVATION OF TEL KINNERET. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO/©: HANS-PETER KUHNEN

With the help of geomagnetic surface surveys and subsequent hands-on digging, an excavation team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has revealed new insights into the area in which the caliph's palace of Khirbat al-Minya was built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. According to these findings, there had already been a settlement occupied by Christian or Jewish inhabitants in the immediate vicinity long before the palace was built.

"This time we have really hit the jackpot with our excavations," said site director and archaeologist Professor Hans-Peter Kuhnen with regard to the outcome of the most recent undertakings in the area around the early Islamic caliph's palace Khirbat al-Minya in Israel. The team of archaeologists from Mainz made this major discovery using geomagnetic methods and by digging test pits on the basis of the findings. They discovered that in the early 8th century the caliph had commissioned the building of his palace, with its incorporated mosque and a 15-meter-high gateway tower, not – as hitherto suspected – on greenfield land on the unoccupied shore of the Sea of Galilee, but adjacent to and respectfully co-existing with a prior settlement. The research project was initially conceived as a means of training students in archeological field work. It was undertaken with the support of the Israel Antiquities Authority and financed by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Axel Springer Foundation, the Santander Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The team was accommodated in the Tabgha Pilgerhaus guesthouse run by the German Association of the Holy Land (DVHL), which has owned the site of the excavations on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee since 1895.

During their dig, the Mainz archaeological team found stone structures made of basalt dating to various periods, with plastered walls, colorful mosaic floors, and a water cistern. The plants portrayed in one of the mosaics are particularly remarkable as they have the long, curved stems typical of those also depicted in so-called Nile-scene mosaics created in the 5th to 6th centuries. The mosaic's images of the flora and fauna native to the Nile valley symbolized the life-giving power of the mighty river with its annual floods guaranteeing Egypt's agricultural fertility. That explains why both late-antique churches, such as that in the nearby Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, and luxurious dwellings in cities of late antiquity were decorated with Nile-scene mosaics.

Lakeside settlement was there long before the caliph's palace was planned

The recently discovered mosaic, together with related ceramic finds dating to the 5th to 7th centuries, show that the settlement on the shores of the lake was already thriving centuries before the work on the caliph's palace had commenced. Its original inhabitants were either Christians or Jews and they were subsequently joined by a small Islamic community, for whom the caliph had a side entrance constructed in the early 8th century so that they could access his palace mosque. The unearthed ceramics have revealed that the site remained occupied under the control of the Umayyad and then Abbasid caliphates from the 7th to the 11th century. New construction projects were initiated in this period during which parts of the mosaics fell victim to pickaxes wielded by religiously inspired iconoclasts, sections of old walls were demolished, and the stones were transported away for reuse elsewhere. The remains finally became the location of a graveyard in which the dead were buried, in accordance with Muslim custom, lying on their side with their faces directed towards Mecca.

Nearby, the Mainz team also exposed a stone built furnace used to process sugar cane. Although sugar cane represented one of the top agricultural exports of the Holy Land from the period of the early Middle Ages and brought in considerable wealth for the landowners, vast volumes of water were needed to cultivate it while large amounts of wood were required to operate boiling furnaces. The result was extensive soil erosion and an environmental disaster that the area around the lake had not fully recovered from even by the 20th century. The immense scale of sugarcane cultivation in the Middle Ages was demonstrated by both the findings of the excavations at the Caliph’s Palace – those from 1936 to 1939 and those in 2016 – and by the 2019 Mainz geomagnetic surveys, which all revealed evidence of dozens of such furnaces in operation between the 12th and 13th/14th centuries. "Our most recent excavations show that Caliph Walid had his palace built on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in an already carefully structured landscape that had long been inhabited. It was here that considerable money was subsequently made through the cultivation of sugar cane, sadly causing lasting damage to the ecosystem," said Kuhnen. "Our research has brought this settlement adjacent to the caliph’s palace to light again, putting it in its rightful context among the history of human settlement of the Holy Land. Over the centuries, it experienced alternating periods of innovation and decline, but there was no real disruption to its existence during its lifetime."

Geomagnetic surface surveys showed where to dig

The Mainz-based team was able to locate this historic hotspot so accurately with its test pits due to the results of geomagnetic surface surveys conducted on-site in a pilot project in 2019. The technology employs magnetic sensors to detect and map tiny variations in the Earth's magnetic field caused by soil disturbances, for example those caused by construction work. This allows archaeologists to predict with a fair degree of confidence the course of walls and flooring and to identify the site of hearths and ovens hidden under the soil, without recourse to a spade. However, to actually verify whether magnetometry results indeed indicate the presence of something interesting and in order to date the potential structures, archaeologists need to dig targeted test pits – as did the team from JGU's Department of Ancient Studies at Khirbat al-Minya.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kuhnen and his team had to wait three long years before they were able to get back to the site to see what was waiting for them. However, toiling away under the scorching August sun, they were richly rewarded for their efforts. "It was our prior geomagnetic scans that provided us with unusually accurate indications of what we were likely to find below the surface. The outcome of our excavations has been exactly what we hoped for. Combining these two methods of investigation requires less exertion, helps preserve the archaeological heritage, and is thus the future of our discipline," concluded Professor Hans-Peter Kuhnen in the light of the current excavations on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, which will continue next year.

 

Related links:
http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=25391&mag_id=126 – Horbat Minnim. Preliminary Report, Excavations and Surveys in Israel 130, 2018

 

Read more:
https://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/20518_ENG_HTML.php – press release "Archaeologists from Mainz reveal new findings on the history of the early-Islamic caliphate palace Khirbat al-Minya" (21 Oct. 2016) ;
https://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/20179_ENG_HTML.php – press release "German Federal Foreign Office sponsors conservation of the early-Islamic caliphate palace of Khirbat al-Minya in Israel" (10 March 2016) ;
https://www.magazin.uni-mainz.de/3979_ENG_HTML.php – JGU Magazine: "Saving a desert palace in the green Jordan valley" (9 Nov. 2015) ;
https://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/19396_ENG_HTML.php – press release "Archaeologists from Mainz University restore early Islamic caliph's palace on the shores of the Sea of Galilee" (2 June 2015)

Ancient Maya cities were dangerously contaminated with mercury

The cities of the ancient Maya in Mesoamerica never fail to impress. But beneath the soil surface, an unexpected danger lurks there: mercury pollution. In a review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science, researchers conclude that this pollution isn’t modern: it’s due to the frequent use of mercury and mercury-containing products by the Maya of the Classic Period, between 250 and 1100 CE. This pollution is in places so heavy that even today, it pose a potential health hazard for unwary archeologists.

Lead author Dr Duncan Cook, an associate professor of Geography at the Australian Catholic University, said: “Mercury pollution in the environment is usually found in contemporary urban areas and industrial landscapes. Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries.”

Ancient anthropogenic pollution

For the first time, Cook and colleagues here reviewed all data on mercury concentrations in soil and sediments at archeological sites across the ancient Maya world. They show that at sites from the Classical Period for which measurements are available –  Chunchumil in today’s Mexico, Marco Gonzales, Chan b’i, and Actuncan in Belize, La Corona, Tikal, Petén Itzá, Piedras Negras, and Cancuén in Guatemala, Palmarejo in Honduras, and Cerén, a Mesoamerican ‘Pompeii’, in El Salvador –mercury pollution is detectable everywhere except at Chan b’i.

Concentrations range from 0.016 ppm at Actuncan to an extraordinary 17.16 ppm at Tikal. For comparison, the Toxic Effect Threshold (TET) for mercury in sediments is defined as 1 ppm.

Heavy users of mercury

What caused this prehistoric mercury pollution? The authors highlight that sealed vessels filled with ‘elemental’ (ie, liquid) mercury have been found at several Maya sites, for example Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraíso in Honduras, and the former multi-ethnic megacity Teotihucan in Central Mexico. Elsewhere in the Maya region, archeologists have found objects painted with mercury-containing paints, mainly made from the mineral cinnabar.

The authors conclude that the ancient Maya frequently used cinnabar and mercury-containing paints and powders for decoration. This mercury could then have leached from patios, floor areas, walls, and ceramics, and subsequently spread into the soil and water.

"For the Maya, objects could contain ch’ulel, or soul-force, which resided in blood. Hence, the brilliant red pigment of cinnabar was an invaluable and sacred substance, but unbeknownst to them it was also deadly and its legacy persists in soils and sediments around ancient Maya sites," said co-author Dr Nicholas Dunning, a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

As mercury is rare in the limestone that underlies much of the Maya region, they speculate that elemental mercury and cinnabar found at Maya sites could have been originally mined from known deposits on the northern and southern confines of the ancient Maya world, and imported to the cities by traders.

Health hazards and the ‘Mayacene’

All this mercury would have posed a health hazard for the ancient Maya: for example, the effects of chronic mercury poisoning include damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver, and cause tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, and mental health problems. It’s perhaps significant that one of the last Maya rulers of Tikal, Dark Sun, who ruled around 810 CE, is depicted in frescoes as pathologically obese. Obesity is a known effect of metabolic syndrome, which can be caused by chronic mercury poisoning.

More research is needed to determine whether mercury exposure played a role in larger sociocultural change and trends in the Maya world, such as those towards the end of the Classic Period.

Co-author Dr Tim Beach, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: “We conclude that even the ancient Maya, who barely used metals, caused mercury concentrations to be greatly elevated in their environment. This result is yet more evidence that just like we live today in the ‘Anthropocene’, there also was a ‘Maya anthropocene’ or ‘Mayacene’. Metal contamination seems to have been effect of human activity through history.”  

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Environmental Science

DOI

10.3389/fenvs.2022.986119 

The Anglo-Saxon migration: new insights from genetics

 Almost three hundred years after the Romans left, scholars like Bede wrote about the Angles and the Saxons and their migrations to the British Isles. Scholars of many disciplines, including archaeology, history, linguists and genetics, have debated what his words might have described, and what the scale, the nature and the impact of human migration were at that time.

 

CAPTION

Grave goods from inhumation grave 3532 at Issendorf cemetery.

CREDIT

©Landesmuseum Hannover

New genetic results now show that around 75 percent of the population in Eastern and Southern England was made up of migrant families whose ancestors must have originated from continental regions bordering the North Sea, including the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. What is more, these families interbred with the existing population of Britain, but importantly this integration varied from region to region and community to community.

“With 278 ancient genomes from England and hundreds more from Europe, we now gained really fascinating insights into population-scale and individual histories during post-Roman times”, says Joscha Gretzinger, a lead author of the study. “Not only do we now have an idea of the scale of migration, but also how it played out in communities and families.” Using published genetic data from more than 4,000 ancient and 10,000 present-day Europeans, Gretzinger and colleagues identified subtle genetic differences between the closely related groups inhabiting the ancient North Sea region.

Migrants intermixed with the local population

 

Upon arrival, the migrants intermixed with the local population. In one case, in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery from Buckland near Dover, researchers were able to reconstruct a family tree across at least four generations and identify the point in time when migrants and locals intermarried. This family showed a large degree of interaction between the two gene pools. Overall, the researchers witnessed burials of prominent status across the studied cemeteries of both local and migrant origin.

The interdisciplinary team consisting of over 70 authors was able to integrate archaeological data with these new genetic results, which revealed that women of immigrant origin were buried with artifacts more often than women of local origin, especially considering items such as brooches and beads. Interestingly, men with weapons were found to have both genetic origins equally often. These differences were locally mediated with prominent burials or wealthy graves seen across the range of origins. For example, a woman buried with a complete cow in Cambridgeshire was genetically mixed, with majority local ancestry.

Duncan Sayer, archaeologist from the University of Central Lancashire and a lead author of the study says, “We see considerable variation in how this migration affected communities. In some places, we see clear signs of active integration between locals and immigrants, as in the case of Buckland near Dover, or Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Yet in other cases, like Apple Down in West Sussex, we see that people with immigrant and local ancestry were buried separately in the cemetery. Perhaps this is evidence of some degree of social separation at this site.”

Impact of this historic migration on present-day English people

With the new data, the team could also consider the impact of this historic migration today. Notably the present-day English derive only 40 percent of their DNA from these historic continental ancestors, whereas 20 to 40 percent of their genetic profile likely came from France or Belgium. This genetic component can be seen in the archaeological individuals and in the graves with Frankish objects found in early Medieval graves, particularly in Kent.

“It remains unclear whether this additional ancestry related to Iron Age France is connected to a few punctuated migration events, such as the Norman conquest, or whether it was the result of centuries-long mobility across the English Channel”, says Stephan Schiffels, lead senior author of the study. “Future work, specifically targeting the medieval period and later will reveal the nature of this additional genetic signal.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-05247-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the Early English gene pool

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Sep-2022

Greek volcano mystery: Archaeologist narrows on date of Thera eruption

 

 A Cornell University researcher is using cutting-edge statistical analysis to narrow down the time range for one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the Holocene epoch — and settle one of modern archaeology’s longstanding disputes.

The eruption on the Greek island of Santorini, traditionally known as Thera, is considered a pivotal event in the prehistory of the Aegean and East Mediterranean region.

By parsing available data and combining it with cutting-edge statistical analysis, Sturt Manning, professor of archaeology, has zeroed in on a narrow range of dates for the eruption. His modeling identified the most likely range of dates to be: between about 1609–1560 BCE (95.4% probability), or about 1606–1589 BCE (68.3% probability).

Archeologists in the early 20th century theorized the volcano erupted around 1500 BCE, during the Egyptian New Kingdom period, and created a history around this assumption. But beginning in the 1970s, advances in radiocarbon dating threw that timeline into chaos.

“This has been the single most contested date in Mediterranean history for over 40 years,” said Manning. “I’m hoping with this paper people may suddenly go, ‘You know what, this actually limits and defines the problem in a way that we’ve never been able to do before, and narrows it down to where, usefully, we can say it’s in the Second Intermediate Period. So, we should start writing a different history.’”

The new timeline synchronizes the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean while also ruling out several ancillary theories, such as the idea that the Thera eruption was responsible for destroying Minoan palaces on the coast of Crete as the first excavator of Akrotiri, Spyridon Marinatos, proposed in 1939.

Manning’s paper, “Second Intermediate Period Date for the Thera (Santorini) Eruption and Historical Implications,” published Sept. 20 in PLOS ONE.

For more information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

-30-

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0274835 

A new study reveals the earliest evidence of opium use in the Land of Israel

 

IMAGE: THIS IS A CANAANITE TOMB WITH VARIOUS GRAVEGOODS AND SACRIFICED ANIMALS, WHICH WERE OFFERED TO THE DECEASED BY HIS RELATIVES DURING THE BURIAL CEREMONY. A STORAGE JAR, COVERED BY TWO CUPS, WAS PLACED ABOVE HIS LEGS TO MARK HIS BURIAL PLACE. THE CUPS MAY HAVE SERVED IN A CEREMONIAL FEAST OR IN A LIBATION CEREMONY. THE VESSELS PLACED BESIDE THE DECEASED WERE INTENDED FOR USE IN THE AFTERLIFE. view more 

CREDIT: ASSAF PERETZ, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY.

A joint study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science:

reveals the world’s earliest evidence of opium use

 

• Opium residue was found in pottery vessels excavated at Tel Yehud, dating back to the 14th century BC.
• According to the researchers, the Canaanites used the psychoactive drug as an offering for the dead.

A new study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University and The Weizmann Institute of Science has revealed the earliest known evidence of the use of the hallucinogenic drug opium, and psychoactive drugs in general, in the world. The opium residue was found in ceramic vessels discovered at Tel Yehud, in an excavation conducted by Eriola Jakoel on behalf of the Antiquities Authority. The vessels that contained the opium date back to the 14th century BC, and they were found in Canaanite graves, apparently having been used in local burial rituals. This exciting discovery confirms historical writings and archeological hypotheses according to which opium and its trade played a central role in the cultures of the Near East.

 

The research was conducted as part of Vanessa Linares’s doctoral thesis, under the guidance of Prof. Oded Lipschits and Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archeology and Prof. Ronny Neumann of the Weizmann Institute, in collaboration with Eriola Jakoel and Dr. Ron Be’eri of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and The study was published in the journal Archaeometry.

 

In 2012, the Antiquities Authority conducted a salvage excavation at the Tel Yehud site, prior to the construction of residences there. A number of Canaanite graves from the Late Bronze Age were found in the excavation, and next to them burial offerings – vessels intended to accompany the dead into the afterlife. Among the pottery, a large group of vessels made in Cyprus and referred to in the study as “Base-Ring juglets,” stood out.

 

Because the vessels are similar in shape to the poppy flower when it is closed and upside down, the hypothesis arose already in the 19th century that they were used as ritual vessels for the drug. Now, an organic residue analysis has revealed opium residue in eight vessels, some local and some made in Cyprus. This is the first time that opium has been found in pottery in general, and in Base-Ring vessels in particular. It is also the earliest known evidence of the use of hallucinogens in the world.

 

Dr. Ron Be’eri of the Israel Antiquities Authority says, "In the excavations conducted at Tel Yehud to date, hundreds of Canaanite graves from the 18th to the 13th centuries BC have been unearthed. Most of the bodies buried were those of adults, of both sexes. The pottery vessels had been placed within the graves were used for ceremonial meals, rites and rituals performed by the living for their deceased family members. The dead were honored with foods and drinks that were either placed in the vessels, or consumed during a feast that took place over the grave, at which the deceased was considered a participant. It may be that during these ceremonies, conducted by family members or by a priest on their behalf, participants attempted to raise the spirits of their dead relatives in order to express a request, and would enter an ecstatic state by using opium. Alternatively, it is possible that the opium, which was placed next to the body, was intended to help the person’s spirit rise from the grave in preparation for the meeting with their relatives in the next life".

 

Vanessa Linares of Tel Aviv University explains: “This is the only psychoactive drug that has been found in the Levant in the Late Bronze Age. In 2020, researchers discovered cannabis residue on an altar in Tel Arad, but this dated back the Iron Age, hundreds of years after the opium in Tel Yehud. Because the opium was found at a burial site, it offers us a rare glimpse into the burial customs of the ancient world. Of course, we do not know what the opium’s role was in the ceremony – whether the Canaanites in Yehud believed that the dead would need opium in the afterlife, or whether it was the priests who consumed the drug for the purposes of the ceremony. Moreover, the discovery sheds light on the opium trade in general. One must remember that opium is produced from poppies, which grew in Asia Minor – that is, in the territory of current-day Turkey – whereas the pottery in which we identified the opium were made in Cyprus. In other words, the opium was brought to Yehud from Turkey, through Cyprus; this of course indicates the importance that was attributed to the drug.”

 

Dr. Ron Be’eri of the Antiquities Authority adds, “Until now, no written sources have been discovered that describe the exact use of narcotics in burial ceremonies, so we can only speculate what was done with opium. From documents that were discovered in the Ancient Near East, it appears that the Canaanites attached great importance to ‘satisfying the needs of the dead’ through ritual ceremonies performed for them by the living, and believed that in return, the spirits would ensure the health and safety of their living relatives.”

 

According to Eli Eskosido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “New scientific capabilities have opened a window for us to fascinating information and have provided us with answers to questions that we never would have dreamed of finding in the past. One can only imagine what other information we will be able to extract from the underground discoveries that will emerge in the future.”

 

Link to the article:

http://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12806

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JOURNAL

Archaeometry

Archaeological excavations in Romania show life of earliest modern humans in Europe

 

A new article provides insights in the life and craftsmanship of the earliest modern humans in Europe around 40 thousand years ago, allowing an important glimpse into how early Homo sapiens adapted to their environment on the newly populated continent. The study, which was published in Nature: Scientific Reports’, reports on recent excavations in western Romania at Româneşti, one of the most important sites in southeastern Europe associated with the earliest Homo sapiens. The excavation was led by archaeologist Dr Wei Chu from the University of Cologne (Germany) and Leiden University (Netherlands) with contributions by Dr Jacopo Gennai from the University of Cologne (Germany) and University of Pisa (Italy).

Many early Homo sapiens fossils have been found in southeastern Europe, presumably because they first entered the continent through the Balkan Peninsula. Still, few Homo sapiens fossils have been found in association with cultural remains. Româneşti, however, offers numerous artefacts and is therefore an important window into observing how the first European Homo sapiens coped with their new environments.

The researchers found that artefacts at Româneşti were geared towards producing highly standardized chipped stone bladelets that could have been used as inserts for arrows or spears. Also, particular grindstones might have been used to straighten wooden shafts, suggesting that Româneşti was a kind of a projectile workshop. This is further corroborated by microscopic analyses of the artefact surfaces, which demonstrate that most of them were not used. This suggests that the site may have been used as a place for manufacturing tools that were later transported offsite.

Thousands of artefacts, some of which must have been carried to the site from over 300 km away based on geochemical evidence, combined with evidence for onsite fire use demonstrate that Româneşti was an important place in the landscape. Apparently, the early Homo sapiens of the area repeatedly returned to it.

The results of the large lithic assemblages and their high-quality contexts from the new excavations at Româneşti indicate changes in the ways Homo sapiens subsisted compared to Neanderthals, helping to explain their success. ‘Nearby contemporary fossils indicate that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were interbreeding, but we still don’t know what that means for the ways in which their mutual lifestyles were changing and how we can see that in their archaeological remains,’ said Dr Jacopo Gennai of the University of Cologne’s Institute of Archaeology. ‘The next step is to try to elaborate on the relationship of these early Homo sapiens to earlier Neanderthals.’

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Donkey domestication occurred more than 7,000 years ago in Africa, genomic study finds

 

A comprehensive genomic analysis of modern and ancient donkeys reveals the origins, expansion and management practices underlying the important pack animal’s domestication over thousands of years. Understanding the donkey’s largely overlooked genetic history is not only important in assessing their contribution to human history but could also improve their local management in the future. 

Domestic donkeys (Equus asinus) have been important to humans for thousands of years, providing a source of animal labor and long-distance transport for many cultures. However, despite their importance to ancient pastoral societies across Africa, Europe and Asia, little is known about their long history with humans, particularly regarding their origin, domestication and the impact of human management on their genomes. Although these creatures remain essential for developing low- and middle-income communities, particularly those in semi-arid and upland environments, they remain notably understudied, likely due to their currently undervalued status and loss of utility in modern industrialized societies, according to the authors. 

To address this gap, Evelyn Todd and colleagues evaluated 238 modern and ancient donkey genomes, discovering new insights into their domestication history. Todd et al. found strong phylogeographic evidence supporting a single domestication event in eastern Africa more than 7000 years ago (~5000 BCE). This was followed by a series of expansions throughout Africa and into Eurasia where subpopulations eventually became isolated and differentiated, perhaps due to the aridification of the Sahara. Eventually, genetic streams from Europe and the Near East found their way back into western African donkey populations. 

The analysis also uncovered a new genetic lineage from the Levant region that existed roughly 2200 years ago and contributed increasing gene flow toward Asian donkey populations. Todd et al. also revealed insights into donkey management, including breeding and husbandry, including evidence for selection for large size and significant inbreeding in ancient donkey populations.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abo3503