Early Neolithic sheep-breeders were faced with high levels of mortality among young animals

 A study of ancient bones shows that Early Neolithic sheep-breeders were faced with high levels of mortality among young animals in their herds. A statistical model, partly developed at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, allowed the age distribution of the bones to be precisely determined.

In the 8th millennium BCE, early sheep-herders were already aware that the conditions under which their animals were housed had an impact on mortality rates among the lambs. This one result of a study researchers led by Nadja Pöllath (a curator at the State Collection for Anthropology and Palaeoanatomy in Munich), LMU zooarchaeologist Joris Peters (who is also the Director of the state collection) and LMU statistician Sevag Kevork have now taken a closer look at the bones of unborn and neonatal lambs, which form part of the collections studied by them. The material comes from the Early Neolithic site Aşıklı Höyük, one of the largest and best investigated settlements from this period in Central Anatolia. The site was occupied from 8350 to around 7300 BCE, and the study reveals that the life expectancy of newborn lambs gradually increased over this timespan. The researchers attribute this finding to improvements in husbandry of the herds, which enabled a larger proportion of neonates to survive the nursing period, and be let out to graze the nearby pastures.

The archaeological remains that have come to light at Aşıklı Höyük provide valuable information, not only on its domestic architecture and cultural practices, but also on the surrounding vegetation and the diets of the people and animals living in the area. Moreover, it sheds light on the development of agriculture and animal husbandry during the Early Neolithic period. The finds indicate that, in the settlement's earliest phase, its inhabitants still obtained their meat mainly from hunting. Later on, however, domesticated animals - primarily sheep - supplied much of the animal protein consumed. The discovery of compacted dung layers within the settlement indicates that sheep were kept for longer periods within the boundaries of the settlement.

A new analysis of the age distribution of the animal bones found at Aşıklı Höyük illustrates the problems with which early sheep-herders were confronted - and on how they learned to mitigate them. Most of the conventional approaches used to determine the exact age at which the animals died focus on teeth. However, such methods are not sufficiently sensitive to enable researchers to reliably differentiate between developmental stages in very young animals - in this case, sheep covering the age range from the fetus to newborns and juveniles.

In order to determine the ages of fetuses and lambs as accurately as possible, the researchers developed a new statistical model. They first analyzed the morphology of the humerus or upper-arm bone in a sample of modern sheep breeds, based on material kept in anatomical reference collections in the US, the UK, Spain, Portugal and Germany, and used the results to construct a comparative model for Neolithic sheep. In this way, the age at death of the bones of lambs from Aşıklı Höyük could be precisely determined. "Our analyses were of great value in enabling us to narrow down the range of possible ages of death in fetuses and lambs," says Nadja Pöllath. "We now have a better understanding of the difficulties that early herders faced in the early phases of sheep domestication in Aşıklı Höyük." Infections were the primary causes of early mortality, together with malnutrition and dietary deficiencies. In addition, the animals were kept under overcrowded conditions. When they were subsequently let out to grass their health improved. The zooarchaeological data also suggest that, towards the end of the occupation of Aşıklı Höyük, fetal mortality fell and more lambs survived. Prof. Peters concludes: "Our research thus proves for the first time that learning by doing determined the early phase of livestock farming in the 9th and 8th millennia BCE."

Underwater sites challenge the current understanding of ancient coastal life in the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Europe

 The excavation of shell middens off two sites in the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Europe dating back to when the seabed was dry land thousands of years ago, reveal how they can offer new ground-breaking insights into the hidden history of submerged landscapes.

An international team of archaeologists from Moesgaard Museum (Denmark), the University Of Georgia (USA), the University of York (UK) Flinders University and James Cook University partnered to excavate two sites containing shell middens in the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Jutland in Denmark in 2018, showing that middens can be clearly differentiated from natural shells on the seabed to reveal a coastline's inhabitation past.

The research, published in two companion papers in Quaternary Science Reviews, shows they are culturally significant underwater sites which challenge the current understanding of coastal life in the Gulf of Mexico and Northern Europe, by pushing back the inhabitation timeframe by hundreds of years.

The shell middens also represent deep connections with the underwater environments and seascapes to many First Nations people, and the new evidence will support policy changes towards the adequate management and cultural heritage of their ancestral land.

"Shell middens are a classic, world-wide marker for the intensive use of marine resources, but archaeologist have always assumed that these sites would have been destroyed by sea-level rise", says Professor Geoff Bailey of the University of York and Visiting Professor at Flinders University.

In Denmark, the discovery of these shell middens, which are rare in the south, hints that this type of site was more common than previously thought, shifting understandings of how intensive coastal use was 5000-7300 years ago.

"Importantly, both studies show that as more of these sites are found, our histories of past coastal use may have to be rewritten. The underwater archaeological aspect to shell midden studies is extremely important moving forward," says Dr Peter Moe Astrup, Lead Author and Curator of the Maritime Archaeology division at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark.

"The team of archaeologists used cutting-edge techniques, including microscopy, geological and geophysical techniques, 3D reconstructions, and biological and ecological studies to tease out evidence that offers new insights into midden sites, particularly on how to locate other sites in watery depths around the globe."

"For a large portion of humanity's existence, sea levels have been significantly lower, up to 130 metres than what they are today, exposing millions of square kilometres of land. And the archaeological record clearly demonstrates that people in the past lived on these coastal plains before they were drowned by past sea-level rise" says Associate Professor Jonathan Benjamin who is the Director of the Deep History of Sea Country Project and Maritime Archaeology Program Coordinator at Flinders University's College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

"Within archaeological shell middens, we can find old food remains, discarded tools and ornaments, old living surfaces, and in some cultures, human burials," says Dr Katherine Woo at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University in Australia.

"These in turn provide us with fundamental information about past food choices, tool technology, and trade practices. More importantly, these different types of information allow us to understand how people adapted their cultures over time, and how they interacted with their surrounding environments including during times of sea level rise and climate change."

The excavation of these sites emphasises the need for stronger recognition and rights to protect and manage the cultural heritage of underwater ancestral lands around the globe, which hold significant insights into human history and deep connections to marine environments.

"The discovery of these underwater sites, and the promise of more to be found, means that industry, developers, archaeologists, and government bodies must reassess how we classify and handle Indigenous heritage on the continental shelf," says Dr Jessica Cook Hale from the University of Georgia. "This is especially critical because offshore development is accelerating; here in North America the big push for offshore windfarms is underway, but Indigenous voices must remain foremost. These new findings support ongoing work to ensure that Indigenous and First Nations have a critical seat at the table, so to speak, in managing the offshore cultural heritage of their ancestral lands by documenting these relationships into the deep past."

"They are real, they are important, and we must all engage with them in a rigorous and serious fashion.

Worth one's salt- Researchers uncover more on the ancient Maya commodity

 

Research News

The first documented record of salt as an ancient Maya commodity at a marketplace is depicted in a mural painted more than 2,500 years ago at Calakmul, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. In the mural that portrays daily life, a salt vendor shows what appears to be a salt cake wrapped in leaves to another person, who holds a large spoon over a basket, presumably of loose, granular salt. This is the earliest known record of salt being sold at a marketplace in the Maya region. Salt is a basic biological necessity and is also useful for preserving food. Salt also was valued in the Maya area because of its restricted distribution.

Salt cakes could have been easily transported in canoes along the coast and up rivers in southern Belize, writes LSU archaeologist Heather McKillop in a new paper published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. She discovered in 2004 the first remnants of ancient Maya salt kitchen buildings made of pole and thatch that had been submerged and preserved in a saltwater lagoon in a mangrove forest in Belize. Since then, she and her team of LSU graduate and undergraduate students and colleagues have mapped 70 sites that comprise an extensive network of rooms and buildings of the Paynes Creek Salt Works.

"It's like a blueprint for what happened in the past," McKillop said. "They were boiling brine in pots over fires to make salt."

A pot 3D printed in the LSU Digital Imaging & Visualization in Archeology Lab by archeology students based on scans collected at the ancient Maya salt works field site.Photo Credit: LSU

Her research team has discovered at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, 4,042 submerged architectural wooden posts, a canoe, an oar, a high-quality jadeite tool, stone tools used to salt fish and meat and hundreds of pieces of pottery.

"I think the ancient Maya who worked here were producer-vendors and they would take the salt by canoe up the river. They were making large quantities of salt, much more than they needed for their immediate families. This was their living," said McKillop, who is the Thomas & Lillian Landrum Alumni Professor in the LSU Department of Geography & Anthropology.

She investigated hundreds of pieces of pottery including 449 rims of ceramic vessels used to make salt. Two of her graduate students were able to replicate the pottery on a 3D printer in McKillop's Digital Imaging Visualization in Archaeology lab at LSU based on scans taken in Belize at the study site. She discovered that the ceramic jars used to boil the brine were standardized in volume; thus, the salt producers were making standardized units of salt.

"Produced as homogeneous units, salt may have been used as money in exchanges," McKillop said.

An ethnographic interview with a modern day salt producer in Sacapulas, Guatemala collected in 1981 supports the idea that the ancient Maya also may have viewed salt as a valuable commodity:

"The kitchen is a bank with money for us...So when we need money at any time during the year we come to the kitchen and make money, salt."

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Latest Archaeology Reports

Ancient bone artefact found

Archaeologists describe rare Lower Murray find

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: FIGURE 1. MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF MURRAWONG IN THE LOWER MURRAY RIVER GORGE REGION OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. view more 

CREDIT: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

The discovery of a rare bone artefact near the Lower Murray River casts more light on the rich archaeological record on Ngarrindjeri country in southern Australia.

Details of the Murrawong bone point, dated between c. 5,300-3,800 years old, has have been described by Flinders University, Griffith University and other experts in a new paper in Australian Archaeology.

Probably made from a macropod (kangaroo or wallaby) bone, the point was likely used for piercing soft materials - for example, used as a pin on a cloak made of possum furs - or possibly as a projectile point, say the research leaders Dr Christopher Wilson and Professor Amy Roberts from Flinders University Archaeology.

While stone artefacts and shell middens are commonly found on the surface, bone objects are mostly uncovered during excavations. The last similar one was uncovered in the Lower Murray River Gorge was in the 1970s.

Dr Wilson, a Ngarrindjeri man, says that "even one find of this kind provides us with opportunities to understand the use of bone technologies in the region and how such artefacts were adapted to a riverine environment."

"Bone artefacts have lacked the same amount of study in comparison to artefacts made of stone, so every discovery reminds us of the diverse material culture used by Aboriginal peoples in this country," adds Professor Roberts.

The artefact was found during recent excavation work. The project was undertaken in collaboration with the Ngarrindjeri community.

Roof-tiles in imperial China: Creating Ximing Temple's lotus-pattern tile ends

 

Researchers from Kanazawa University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences cast light on the production of roof tiles during the Tang dynasty through a study of variations in lotus-pattern tile ends recovered from the Ximing Temple in Xi'an

KANAZAWA UNIVERSITY

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IMAGE: BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT TILE ENDS AND IMBRICES. THE FIGURE SHOWS THE STRUCTURE OF A TILE END AND HOW TILE ENDS AND IMBRICES ARE USED. view more 

CREDIT: KANAZAWA UNIVERSITY

Kanazawa, Japan -- Any visitor to China will have noticed the spectacular roofs on buildings dating from imperial times. However, the question of how these roof tiles were produced has attracted relatively little attention from archaeologists. Now, a team of researchers has conducted a major study of tile ends unearthed at the Ximing Temple in Xi'an, yielding exciting insights into their production.

In a study published in Archaeological Research in Asia, researchers from Kanazawa University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have revealed the significance of minute variations in the tile ends used in the roof of the famous Ximing Temple in Xi'an, built during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) when Xi'an (then known as Chang'an) was the imperial capital.

The researchers conducted an investigation of 449 tile ends with lotus patterns from various periods during the Tang dynasty that had been recovered from the Ximing Temple. "We were interested in the variations in the tile ends, both those within the conscious control of the artisans who made the tiles, such as whether to use simple or complex lotus patterns, and those outside their control, such as the marks left by the deterioration of the molds used to make the tiles," says lead author of the study Meng Lyu.

"We discovered that the degree of minor variation in the tile ends increases significantly in the later samples," adds author Guoqiang Gong. "This suggests to us that there was a shift away from the centralized manufacturing of imperial building materials during the Early Tang period toward one in which small private artisans played an important role in the Late Tang period."

Intriguingly, the study has revealed traces of the coming together of two distinct cultural traditions. "We found that there were, in fact, two separate production systems at work to make the title ends," notes author Chunlin Li. "One produced tile ends with compound petal patterns and curved incisions, whereas the other made end tiles with simple petal patterns and scratched incisions." These two styles may ultimately have their origins during an earlier historical period when the Northern Wei dynasty was divided into two regimes on either side of the Taihang mountain range.

This study demonstrates that studying the roof tiles of China's grand imperial buildings can reveal a great deal about the circumstances of their production and yield insights into larger historical questions.

Bible scroll fragments among dazzling artifacts found in Dead Sea Cave

 Complete article with pictures

Parts of books of Nahum and Zechariah, world’s oldest woven basket, 6,000-year-old mummified child, Bar Kochba Revolt coins among stunning finds from daring Judean Desert rescue op

In a stunningly rare discovery, dozens of 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments have been excavated from Judean Desert caves during a daring rescue operation. Most of the newly discovered scroll fragments — the first such finds in 60 years — are Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nahum from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, and are written in two scribal hands. Only the name of God is written in Hebrew in the texts.

The fragments from the Prophets have been identified as coming from a larger scroll that was found in the 1950s, in the same “Cave of Horror” in Nahal Hever, which is some 80 meters (260 feet) below a cliff top. According to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release, the cave is “flanked by gorges and can only be reached by rappelling precariously down the sheer cliff.”

Along with the “new” biblical scroll fragments from the Books of the Minor Prophets, the team excavated a huge 10,500-year-old perfectly preserved woven basket — the oldest complete basket in the world — and a 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a child, tucked into its blanket for a final sleep.