4,000-year-old evidence of siege warfare in ancient Mesopotamia

New discoveries from a UCF-led excavation in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil, are reshaping what researchers know about how ancient cities lived, governed and fell

Reports and Proceedings

University of Central Florida

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The landscape surrounding the ancient site of Kurd Qaburstan, where UCF-led excavations uncovered evidence of siege warfare, administrative archives and urban life dating back thousands of years.

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Credit: Photo courtesy of the Kurd Qaburstan Project

At Kurd Qaburstan, an ancient site in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, archaeologists have uncovered the first substantial group of cuneiform administrative tablets found in the Erbil region, along with evidence of large-scale destruction, mass graves and citywide fortifications. Together, the discoveries are providing one of the clearest archaeological records yet uncovered of siege warfare and urban life during the Middle Bronze Age. 

“Our 2025 research produced clear archaeological  evidence linking the site to the siege of Qabra, beginning with the first significant group of cuneiform tablets found on the Erbil Plain,” says Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida and director of the Kurd Qaburstan project. “Several tablets are dated within days of each other, matching the timeline of the city’s fall.” 
 
The project is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and conducted in partnership with the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Heritage in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The funded excavations took place during two summer seasons in 2024 and 2025. 

A Lost Archive Emerges  

Researchers recovered 20 cuneiform tablets and more than 100 administrative sealings from destruction layers within the Lower Town East Palace (FIG 1). The artifacts are being studied by epigraphers Paul Delnero (Johns Hopkins University) and Parker Zane (Yale University), along with art historian Marian Feldman (Johns Hopkins University). 

The texts include palace administrative records and a letter that may reference a high-ranking official connected to Qabra. Some inscriptions may also correspond to the destruction described on the Victory Stele of Dadusha.  

“Most of the tablets are administrative and provide a snapshot of palace life and the economy of the ancient city,” Earley-Spadoni says. “One tablet appears to have been written by a high-ranking official in ancient Qabra.”  

Evidence of Siege Warfare 

Collapsed structures, burned layers and concentrated debris suggest a coordinated and possibly prolonged assault (FIG 2).  

“The two superimposed destructions match the historical sequence of the siege of Qabra and its conquest by Shamshi Addu,” Earley-Spadoni says. “The charred debris, the large number of ceramic vessels and individuals who met untimely deaths and were buried in the destruction layers, provide the clearest archaeological case of Middle Bronze Age siege warfare yet discovered in northern Mesopotamia.” 

The Human Toll of Conflict 

Within the palace destruction layers, researchers discovered the remains of 17 individuals, studied by bioarchaeologist Andrea Zurek-Ost at Michigan State University (FIG 3). 

“The individuals were not formally buried and had no associated grave goods,” Earley-Spadoni says. “Some appear to have been left where they died, including possible palace workers. One individual was found face down over a stone basin.” 

Researchers also uncovered a preserved street with an engineered drainage system and domestic spaces used for food processing and textile production, pointing to sophisticated infrastructure and economic activity. 

Mapping an Ancient City at Scale 

The team also completed a magnetometer survey covering more than 80 hectares (about 180 acres). The survey, which measures changes in Earth’s magnetic field to detect buried structures, was led by Andrew Creekmore III at the University of Northern Colorado. The survey revealed a monumental wall with bastions encircling the site.  

The fortifications correspond with those depicted on the Victory Stele of Dadusha and support the identification of Kurd Qaburstan as the ancient city of Qabra. 

Rewriting the Story of Northern Mesopotamia  

Mesopotamia is often associated with southern cities like Uruk, long viewed as the center of early urban civilization. Discoveries at Kurd Qaburstan are helping highlight the value of northern cities, Earley-Spadoni says. 

“The evidence from Kurd Qaburstan shows that northern cities could be large, complex, and politically significant, with administrative systems, fortifications, and infrastructure comparable to those of the best-known southern sites,” she says.  

These discoveries build on a decade of prior excavation at Kurd Qaburstan by Johns Hopkins University, revealing a city long absent from the historical record. 

“Laboratory investigations are underway, including isotopic and ancient DNA analyses of the 17 individuals,” Earley-Spadoni says. “This work will help researchers understand their origins and relationships.” 

Each discovery brings researchers closer to understanding how this ancient city functioned and how it ultimately fell. 

New clues into how North African cultures adapted to ocean living

 

Canary Island relics offer new clues into how North African cultures adapted to ocean living

By the 11th century, fish and shellfish harvests may have been a key part of a complex local economy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

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Location of Playa Chica on Gran Canaria, Canary Islands. a) position of the Canary Islands in Northwestern Africa; b) setting of Gran Canaria within the Canarian archipelago; c) place of Playa Chica in northwestern Gran Canaria and other sites cited within the text; d) general view of the site prior to archaeological intervention indicating Zone 1 and Zone 2. Large volcanic tuff blocks, detached from the cliff face, are visible across the area; e) western section of the site showing Zone 1 and the stone structure separating it from Zone 2.

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Credit: Santana et al., 2026, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Archaeological evidence from the Canary Islands suggests that by the 11th century, people here were harvesting and processing a variety of fish and other marine organisms — indicating that coastal resources may have played a vital role in the economic system, according to a study published June 10, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Jonathan Santana from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, and colleagues.

The Atlantic archipelago was colonized by Berber populations during the late Holocene. The Canary Islands, which were inhabited by people originally from Berber-speaking areas in northwestern Africa beginning in the 1st century, provide critical comparative data for insight into the development of coastal economies in Africa, a region where maritime adaptations remain relatively understudied.

The researchers studied samples from Playa Chica, an archaeological site along the coast of the island of Gran Canaria, dating back between the 11th and 13th centuries. They found fish scales on site, as well as goat horns that they believe were used as tools to scale fish — evidence that this site may have been used for processing harvests from the sea. In addition, the team found remnants of plant material that produces a lot of smoke when burned, such as pine cones, which suggests that fish might have been smoked or dried for preservation.

Most of the fish remains came from near-shore species, suggesting that fishing was mostly done close to land. Based on the species present and the discovery of fishhooks made out of pig tusks, the researchers say that it’s likely that people here used both net and line fishing.

Limited data from earlier phases at Playa Chica, and the scarcity of excavated coastal sites across the archipelago, render these conclusions preliminary. Nevertheless, the study indicates that Playa Chica may have been a central site for supplying seafood to the broader island community. This aligns with the development of mature island economies — and these findings help paint a rich picture of the historical and still largely mysterious coastal cultures of northwestern Africa. Future research should prioritize the excavation and sampling of additional coastal areas for comparable patterns of marine exploitation.

Dr. Jonathan Santana, lead author of the study, adds: “What makes Playa Chica exceptional is that we are not simply looking at a place where people occasionally ate fish and shellfish. The concentration of specialized fishing tools, the thousands of fish scales, the abundance of hearths and the near-absence of domestic pottery all point to a space dedicated to capturing, processing and preserving marine food. For the first time we can see, at this level of detail, how the Indigenous communities of the Canary Islands organized their relationship with the sea, and understand the coast not as a last resort, but as a central part of their economy and their way of life.”

Dr. Jacob Morales, archaeobotanist and co-author, adds: “The plant remains tell a very particular story. Rather than the pine wood normally used for cooking and heating across the island, the people here deliberately gathered plants that smoke heavily at low temperatures. Burning them over shallow fires would have slowly dried and lightly smoked the fish, reducing its moisture and its spoilage so that it could be stored or exchanged with inland communities. It is, in essence, an early form of food preservation captured in the archaeological record.”

  The freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4v1ZV0w

Citation: Santana J, Morales J, Gilson S-P, Brito-Mayor A, González-Ruiz MdC, Vidal-Matutano P, et al. (2026) Specialized marine exploitation on African islands: A multiproxy archaeological analysis of the Playa Chica site, Gran Canaria (11th–13th CE). PLoS One 21(6): e0349347. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0349347

DNA of Iberians of the northeast remained largely unchanged for 6 centuries

A UAB research team has analysed the genome of 54 newborns with the aim of tracking the genetic history of their culture since it developed in the Early Iron Age until the start of the Roman period, some 2,700 to 2,100 years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

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Despite being in contact with other Mediterranean cultures, the genetic identity of the Iberian people from the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula existing in the Iron Age remained largely stable throughout six centuries. Emerging from local Bronze Age populations, they evolved gradually without any major migratory movements bringing substantial changes to their DNA. It was not until the arrival of the Romans that they integrated new genetic influences that shaped a more diverse population, in parallel with the political and social transformations that took place.

This is the conclusion reached in a study led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Published in the journal iScience, the study has obtained the most complete and precise image to date of the genetic history and evolution of the Iberian peoples inhabiting the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula from the beginning of the Iron Age until the Roman conquest, between 2,700 and 2,100 years ago.

The study provides a global view of the genetic ancestry, admixture, and demographic dynamics of the region, based on the analysis of the genome of 54 newborns buried in the houses and productive areas of three sites: Els Vilars (Arbeca, Lleida), from the Ilergeta people, which allowed researchers to see the transition from Bronze to Iron Age; Sant Miquel d'Olèrdola (Olèrdola, Penedès) belonging to the Coseta people, to analyse the Middle Iron Age; and El Camp de les Lloses (Tona, Barcelona), from the Ausetans group, for the final stage and beginning of the Roman era.

The researchers expected to find a greater external genetic influence, but the results surprised them: "We see that there is a great genetic continuity, that the population changes much less than we had imagined from the archaeological evidence of Mediterranean cultures found in these peoples, such as those of the Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians. These influences did occur, but very gradually," explains Cristina Santos, researcher in Biological Anthropology at the UAB who led the study.

No massive migration to explain the Iberian culture

The results rule out that Iberian culture arose from a mass migration and confirm the indications noted in previous studies: Iberian groups emerged from the pre-existing local population. All the individuals studied had the genetic profile established by the prehistoric people of the Iberian Peninsula of the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG), Anatolian Neolithic, and Steppe or Yamnaya Bronze Age ancestries.

This would corroborate the theory that the change in social organisation towards a more hierarchical one, characteristic of Iberian culture, would not have been the result of a major migration. "Archaeologically it is clear that there must have been a very important cultural change, but we see that the genetic substrate is maintained. Our study suggests that this change would not have been associated with a major genetic change," says Assumpció Malgosa, director of the Biological Anthropology Research Group (GREAB) at the UAB and co-author of the study.

The mark of other cultures

The study detects occasional contacts with other Mediterranean cultures, with individuals from Els Vilars and Olèrdola who may have had ancestors from the eastern Mediterranean and/or North Africa. These genomic-scale contacts are also visible in the material recovered in archaeological excavations of these sites, which have brought to light amphorae and other objects characteristic of Phoenician, Greek, Punic and Italic cultures.

Already in the Iron Age, the Iberians may have incorporated a higher proportion of the Yamnaya ancestor than Bronze Age populations, in addition to influences from other Mediterranean sources. “This apparent steppe increase may be the result of the still limited number of Bronze Age samples available, especially from the northeast of the peninsula, but it could also be linked to migrations from eastern Europe. We are now working with more Bronze Age samples and from this period to clarify it,” explains Santos.

A gradual cultural and genetic transformation occurred in the Roman era, visible in the constructions and materials recovered in the Camp de Les Lloses. This Roman influence contributed to a greater introduction of Mediterranean and North African ancestors. The latter could also have come from the Punic culture, in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, or from the Balearic Islands. In any case, all these influences shaped a more diverse Ibero-Roman population, although it continued to retain a strong genetic signature of the previous local Iberians.

A network of active contacts between Iberian groups

The analysis of mitochondrial DNA, inherited through the mother, confirms the results of a previous study by the same research group with samples from the sites of this study and other Iberian settlements. "Despite not detecting significant differences between the different Iberian groups, we did identify subtle differences in the lineages, some of which are more frequent in certain groups," says Daniel Ruiz de la Cuesta Aguirre, first author in this study and in the previous one. "This makes us think that, although the groups interacted with each other, they had a certain level of autonomy. And we also corroborated that most of these lineages were already present in the Iberian Peninsula before the Bronze Age. This makes us think that perhaps the women were local, but there are some lineages that had never been detected in the peninsula, which would imply some female mobility," he adds.

The research has revealed no degree of kinship among the individuals studied at Els Vilars. At Olèrdola, it was ruled out that two infants buried in the same grave were twins or related, whereas at Les Lloses a pair of sisters and two second-degree relatives were identified.

As for the Y chromosome, linked to male sex, it detects the arrival of the steppe component that largely replaced the previous paternal lineages in the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age. However, some Neolithic lineages persist, demonstrating continuity with earlier populations.

"Our study reveals the complex and lasting genetic legacy of Iberian communities, one of the main pre-Roman civilisations of the Iberian Peninsula," Cristina Santos highlights. "It connects genetics and archaeology: it shows that cultural exchanges also leave a biological mark and, at the same time, that history is often not made up of sudden changes, but of gradual processes with human and cultural contacts," concludes the UAB researcher.

Iberian newborns, highly valuable study material

Iberian newborns are very valuable when studying Iberian culture, given the scarcity of remains of individuals from this culture, whose main funerary rite was cremation. In 22 of the 54 newborns studied, the research team was able to recover more than 20,000 genetic variants (SNPs) from the entire genome (from the variant panel used in ancient DNA studies), in addition to the almost complete mitochondrial genome, and in nine more newborns, the mitochondrial genome was recovered.

The genetic analyses of the 54 newborns were conducted at the Ancient DNA Lab located at the Faculty of Biosciences of the UAB.

Researchers from the universities of Granada, Lleida, Coimbra (Portugal) and Copenhagen (Denmark), and Brown University (USA), as well as the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia and of the site, the El Camp de les Lloses Museum, and the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA of the University of Adelaide (Australia) also participated in the research.

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Journal

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2026.116186 

 

43 helmets recovered off the coast of Benicarló were not Roman in origin, but Late Medieval

University of Alicante redefines major Mediterranean archaeological discovery

Research conducted by a PhD candidate under a joint supervision agreement with the University of Salerno has revealed that the 43 helmets recovered off the coast of Benicarló were not Roman in origin, but formed part of a Late Medieval military cargo

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Alicante

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Helmets recovered off the coast of Benicarló were not Roman in origin, but formed part of a Late Medieval military cargo

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Credit: University of Alicante

For more than three decades, it was thought to be a relic of the Roman era. New research, however, has shown it to be a key source of evidence for understanding the commercial and military networks of the Late Medieval Mediterranean.

Research led by the University of Alicante (UA) has enabled a reassessment of one of the most remarkable assemblages of weaponry ever discovered in Spanish waters: the 43 helmets unearthed in 1990 at the Piedras de la Barbada underwater archaeological site, off the coast of Benicarló.

Published in the Cambridge University Press journal Antiquity, the study was led by Manuel Frallicciardi, a doctoral student under joint supervision between the University of Alicante and the University of Salerno. The scientific results place the manufacture of the weaponry between the late 14th and early 15th centuries, completely dismantling the Roman attribution that had stuck to the find since its recovery.

The helmets were originally discovered by chance when local fishermen accidentally snagged two large metallic blocks, compacted by marine corrosion, in their nets. Inside lay an exceptional haul of iron headpieces. While this concentration of 43 items represents what remains of a potentially much larger shipment, the quantity makes it the largest hoard of medieval helmets discovered to date in the western Mediterranean.

According to Raimon Graells, a UA lecturer, co-director of Frallicciardi’s doctoral project, and co-author of the paper, the sheer scale of the find goes beyond purely archaeological curiosity. “We are looking at direct evidence of large-scale arms trading. This discovery reveals a network of exchange and communication that was far more complex than previously thought,” he noted.

The research points to a flow of weaponry between the coast of the Valencia Region and the major commercial hubs of northern Italy, such as Genoa, which was one of the dominant mercantile powers of the era. The presence of such a substantial shipment suggests that transporting military equipment was integrated into perfectly structured commercial circuits connecting different Mediterranean territories.

An innovative approach developed at the University of Alicante

One of the most innovative aspects of the project was the application of an analytical methodology developed at the University of Alicante. Although this system is routinely used in other archaeological contexts, it had never been employed to examine medieval weaponry of these characteristics. Thanks to this approach, combined with radiocarbon dating of textile remnants preserved inside several helmets, the team established a highly precise chronology.

Frallicciardi recalled that initial identification posed numerous challenges. "At the beginning, it was difficult to place them in a specific era because they featured traits that recalled both Late Roman models and potential medieval pieces inspired by classical traditions," he explained. The surprise came when scientific analysis confirmed that the typology did not match any category catalogued to date.

"When I started the research, it was incredible to see that practically no known parallels existed," the doctoral student remarked. His search for references led him to some similar 14th-century iconographic representations in England, though without exact matches. The carbon-14 results ultimately confirmed that this was a poorly documented helmet shape belonging to a technological transition phase that left no later lineage.

Specialists believe that all the pieces formed a single shipment when they hit the seabed. The most probable hypothesis is that the batch was packed and transported by sea when an incident occurred during loading or unloading operations. The cache was found at a depth of just six metres, right next to an area used as a jetty.

Dr Graells suggested that a portion of the cargo became trapped under the sand and could not be recovered at the time. This accidental mishap allowed the package to remain hidden for centuries, safely buried out of sight.

The exceptional preservation of the helmets was achieved through the combined action of marine concretions and sediment. In some specimens, these deposits sealed the fabrics lining the interior, creating stable micro-environments that protected organic materials that would normally decay. These very textile fragments proved fundamental to reconstructing the history of the hoard.

The researchers place the sinking during a particularly turbulent period for the western Mediterranean. The expansion of Islamic piracy along the Valencian coast during the mid-14th century, alongside the growing militarisation of the coastline, generated a high demand for defensive equipment. In this context, the cargo may have been destined for local militias, troops of the Kingdom of Valencia, or armed companies tasked with protecting the maritime frontier.

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Journal

Antiquity

The role of insects in the diet of our ancestors revealed

In recent years, human population growth, coupled with the climate crisis, environmental pressures, and current production and consumption patterns, has driven the search for alternative food sources. With 1,611 insect species listed as edible, organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have proposed insects as a sustainable food source. However, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of people already consume them, Western societies continue to show aversion to entomophagy. While this rejection may have a cultural basis, its origin remains unknown.

To explore its roots, a study by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE), a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), has used genomic analyses to reconstruct insect consumption over the past thousands of years. The research, published in Science Advances, suggests that insect consumption was sporadic and accidental in Europe, Central and East Asia, while it would have been more frequent in tropical regions and among Neanderthal populations. The results shed light on human evolution, ecology, and current insect consumption.

Genomic analysis reconstructs the history of entomophagy in Eurasia

To find evidence of insect consumption, the IBE team analyzed 745 samples of dental calculus (tartar) from anatomically modern humans, dating back up to 33,000 years. Tartar preserves traces of DNA from the species regularly consumed in the diet. The dental analyses suggest that modern humans in northern Eurasia did not routinely practice entomophagy. The team also studied the human genes involved in the digestion of chitin, a component of the insect exoskeleton. In North Eurasian human populations, chitinase genes carry mutations that confer a reduced capacity to digest insect exoskeletons, a trait that has persisted for the last 9,000 years, since the advent of agriculture.

“The scarce presence of insects in the diet of northern Eurasians suggests that the absence of entomophagy is not solely due to recent cultural factors, but also to a long ecological and evolutionary history”, says Pablo Librado, principal investigator at the IBE who led the study.

Neanderthals may have consumed insects more frequently

Despite inhabiting the same environment, Neanderthals had a greater abundance of insect DNA in their dental calculus than anatomically modern humans. These levels in Neanderthals are comparable to those found in western chimpanzees, which rely on entomophagy to supplement their diet on the savanna, especially during periods of drought.

The most abundant DNA remains in Neanderthal tartar belong to Diptera, the insect group that includes flies and mosquitoes, with the latter being particularly prominent. These findings support a recent hypothesis about the regular consumption of animal carcasses infested with fly larvae. The abundance of mosquito remains reinforces the possibility that the carcasses of their prey were kept in ponds and marshy areas, where mosquitoes lay their eggs.

The study also revealed that Neanderthal chitinase genes facilitate better digestion of insects, as also observed in the only Denisovan specimen analyzed.

The genetic imprint of entomophagy persists in tropical populations

The team analyzed genes linked to the digestion of insect exoskeleton chitin. These genes are expressed in the stomach and encode the enzymes chitinase acid (CHIA) and chitobiase (CTBS). In both ancient and modern samples, the researchers identified genetic variants associated with a greater expression of these enzymes in populations inhabiting areas near the tropics.

“Large quantities of insects need to be ingested to compensate for the high caloric expenditure involved in their collection. In the tropics, there is a greater availability of social insects, such as termites and locusts: their biomass and diversity allow for sustainable exploitation throughout the year, which even contributes to pest control”, explains Manuel Piñero, a predoctoral researcher at the IBE and first author of the study.

The expression of these enzymes gradually decreased as populations moved towards higher latitudes. This latitudinal genetic variation, maintained for at least 9,000 years, reflects the abandonment of entomophagy in European populations.

The future of entomophagy in Europe

“Beyond cultural or religious factors, our results suggest that the reduced availability of insects in non-tropical areas may have been a key factor in the abandonment of entomophagy, leading to a reduced capacity to digest insect exoskeletons”, Librado comments.

However, modern industrial processing allows us to take advantage of the nutritional properties of the food source without needing to digest this component, in addition to allowing its mass production in edible insect farms.

The Ancient Population Genomics research group led by Pablo Librado at the IBE studies the domestication process, using insect species recently approved for human consumption as a model and by comparing the genomes of farmed insects with the genomes of pre-domestication individuals extracted from entomological collections. “We investigate the evolution of domestication in animals, which also gives us information to improve the exploitation of insects for consumption, both as animal feed and for human consumption”, Librado concludes.

CSIC Comunicación

comunicacion@csic.es 

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aec6939