Ancient Maya blessed their ballcourts

 

Researchers find evidence of ceremonial offerings beneath ballcourt in Mexico

 

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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI PROFESSOR DAVID LENTZ HOLDS UP A REPRODUCTION TILE FEATURING ANCIENT MAYA GLYPHS. RESEARCHERS DISCOVERED EVIDENCE OF CEREMONIAL OFFERINGS AT THE SITE OF AN ANCIENT MAYA BALLCOURT IN YAXNOHCAH, MEXICO.

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CREDIT: ANDREW HIGLEY

For sports fans, places like Fenway Park, Wembley Stadium or Wimbledon's Centre Court are practically hallowed ground.

Archaeologists at the University of Cincinnati found evidence of similar reverence at ballcourts built by the ancient Maya in Mexico.

Using environmental DNA analysis, researchers were able to identify a collection of plants used in ceremonial rituals in the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah. The plants, known for their religious associations and medicinal properties, were discovered beneath a plaza floor upon which a ballcourt was built.

Researchers said the ancient Maya likely made a ceremonial offering during the ballcourt’s construction.

“When they erected a new building, they asked the goodwill of the gods to protect the people inhabiting it,” UC Professor David Lentz said. “Some people call it an ensouling ritual, to get a blessing from and appease the gods.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

The research was carried out through Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History in collaboration with researchers from the University of Calgary, the Autonomous University of Campeche and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Researchers from 2016 to 2022 worked at Yaxnohcah in Campeche about 9 miles north of the border of Guatemala, where they excavated a small area of a ballcourt.

The ancient Maya played several ball games, including pok-a-tok, which has rules similar to soccer and basketball. Players tried to get a ball through a ring or hoop on a wall.

UC Professor Emeritus Nicholas Dunning said when buildings were expanded or repurposed, as with the ballcourt, the ancient Maya made offerings to bless the site. Archaeologists sometimes find ceramics or jewelry in these offerings along with plants of cultural significance.

“We have known for years from ethnohistorical sources that the Maya also used perishable materials in these offerings, but it is almost impossible to find them archaeologically, which is what makes this discovery using eDNA so extraordinary,” Dunning said.

Ancient plant remains are rarely discovered in tropical climates, where they decompose quickly. But using environmental DNA, researchers were able to identify several types known for their ritual significance.

They discovered evidence of a morning glory called xtabentun, known for its hallucinogenic properties, lancewood, chili peppers and jool, the leaves of which were used to wrap ceremonial offerings.

Botanist and UC Associate Professor Eric Tepe said finding evidence of these plants together in the same tiny sediment sample is telling. He has studied modern plants in the same forests once traveled by the ancient Maya.

“I think the fact that these four plants which have a known cultural importance to the Maya were found in a concentrated sample tells us it was an intentional and purposeful collection under this platform,” Tepe said.

Researchers noted the challenge of trying to interpret a collection of plants through the opaque lens of 2,000 years of prehistory. But Lentz said the findings help add to the story of this sophisticated culture.

Researchers believe the ancient Maya devised water filtration systems and employed conservation-minded forestry practices. But they were helpless against years-long droughts and also are believed to have deforested vast tracts for agriculture.

“We see the yin and yang of human existence in the ancient Maya,” Lentz said. “To me that’s why they’re so fascinating.”

Forgotten city:” the identification of Dura-Europos’ neglected sister site in Syria

 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Dura-Europos site in modern-day Syria is famous for its exceptional state of preservation. Like Pompeii, this ancient city has yielded many great discoveries, and serves as a window into the world of the ancient Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman periods. Yet despite the prominence of Dura-Europos in Near Eastern scholarship, there is another city, only some miles down the Euphrates river, that presents a long-neglected opportunity for study. A new paper in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, entitled "The Ancient City of Giddan/Eddana (Anqa, Iraq), the 'Forgotten Twin' of Dura-Europos," identifies the city of Anqa as a near mirror image of Dura-Europos, of the same size, comparable composition, and potentially equal value to scholars of the region.

Anqa is located just across the Syrian border from Dura-Europos, in the present-day Al-Qaim district of the Anbar Governorate in Iraq. Its remains include an identifying tell mound, at the northern end of the site, a polygonal inner wall circuit, and a large outer defensive wall, or enceinte. Situated at a point where the Euphrates floodplain drastically narrows, the city would have controlled movement between the populous section of the valley upstream and the trade route downstream linking Syria, Northern Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, giving it great strategic and economic significance. However, the site was ignored entirely by archaeologists until the 1850 publication of a British Middle Euphrates expedition survey. A more thorough study of the site was performed in the late 1930s by Aurel Stein, including aerial photographs of the standing structures, but even after these forays, there was little desire to learn more than the geographical location of this twin city to Dura-Europos.

One reason for the disparity in interest between Anqa and Dura-Europos, posits article author Simon James, is the history of British and French colonial intervention in the region. In 1920, as a result of the San Remo conference, Iraq was seized for British control, and Syria for French. As James writes, the “new political, military, and administrative boundary created a barrier to research and understanding of the earlier history of the region as a whole.” Yet while Dura-Europos and some other sites in Iraq and Syria have suffered from looting, destruction, and civilian death as a consequence of conflict in the region, Anqa has remained relatively untouched. As further archaeological inquiry is performed, Anqa may continue to provide valuable insight into the history of the Middle Euphrates. And furthermore, as methods of digital scholarship bring thinkers together “despite political borders,” the practice of studying sites like it may even, in the words of Simon James, help “address the consequences of colonialism in archaeology.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

DOI

10.1086/729226 

Humans occupied a lava tube in Saudi Arabia for thousands of years

Bones and artifacts indicate a timeline of herding and agriculture in northern Arabia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

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RESEARCHERS EXPLORING THE UMM JIRSAN LAVA TUBE SYSTEM.

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CREDIT: PALAEODESERTS PROJECT, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

A large lava tube in Saudia Arabia provided valuable shelter for humans herding livestock over at least the past 7,000 years, according to a study published April 17, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mathew Stewart of Griffith University, Brisbane and colleagues.

Research in northern Arabia over the last decade has highlighted a diverse Holocene archaeological record. However, the timing of human occupations and their connections with the nearby Levant remain poorly understood, primarily due to poor preservation of organic remains in the region’s arid conditions. To circumvent this problem, Stewart and colleagues focused investigations on caves and other underground settings where ancient materials are sheltered from sun, wind and high fluctuations in temperature. In this study, they analyze an archaeological site from a lava tube called Umm Jirsan located in the volcanic field of Harrat Khaybar in Saudi Arabia, approximately 125km north of Medina.

Within the lava tube are artifacts, rock art, and skeletal remains that document repeated human occupation over at least the past 7,000 years. The lava tube seems to have been an important resource for pastoralists keeping and herding livestock, as evidenced by rock art and animal bones representing domesticated sheep and goats. Isotopic analysis of human remains reveals an increase over time in C3 plants such as cereal and fruit in the diet, possibly linked to a rise in oasis agriculture in the Bronze Age.

The authors conclude that Umm Jirsan was likely not a permanent home, but instead a valuable stopping point for people traveling between oasis settlements. Lava tubes and other natural shelters were valuable resources for communities surviving in a challenging environment, and with further investigation, they present a key source of archaeological information about the history of human occupation in Arabia.

The authors add: “Exploring Arabia’s hidden past, our study uncovers millennia of human occupation within and around the Umm Jirsan lava tube, shedding light on ancient lifestyles and adaptations to environmental change in this harsh desert environment.”

The freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299292

The resettlement history of the Iron-Age metropolis of Hazor in Israel

 

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DURING THE BRONZE AGE, HAZOR WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST CITIES IN THE REGION. THE SETTLEMENT MOUND IS LOCATED IN THE NORTH OF ISRAEL.

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CREDIT: MARYAM MATTA

The early origins of the Israelites are at the centre of a new research project at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. A team of researchers led by Hebrew Bible scholar and archaeologist Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel will explore over a three-year period how one of the largest “megacities” of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean was abandoned and then resettled over centuries – and how the narratives about these events influenced the shaping of early Israelite identities.

The Gerda Henkel Foundation is providing around 400,000 euros in funding for the project, titled “Resettlement of Ruins and Memories in the Making – A Case Study on Hazor and the Shaping of Early Israelite Identities during the Iron Age”, as part of its “Lost Cities” programme. The international team of researchers based in Oldenburg will work closely with academics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the University of Regensburg.

The ruins of the ancient city of Hazor are located in northern Israel, north of the Sea of Galilee. Based on the archaeological findings the site was first settled about 5,000 years ago, in the Early Bronze Age. By the Middle and Late Bronze Age Hazor’s population had grown to between 10,000 and 15,000 people thanks to its strategic location at the crossroads of several trade routes, making it the largest city in the entire region. Various sources from this period, including letters and clay tablets from cities in Syria and Egypt with which the rulers of Hazor conducted trade, testify to the central role Hazor played as a trading hub and cultural melting pot for the entire Near East region.

At the end of the Bronze Age, around 1300 B.C., Hazor was destroyed and temporarily abandoned for unknown reasons. In the subsequent Iron Age, the site was repopulated, albeit on a much smaller scale. “Which culture the inhabitants of Hazor belonged to is something we don’t know for sure,” says Hensel. In addition to the archaeological findings, biblical texts have also served as a key source of information on Hazor. The Book of Joshua from the Old Testament, for instance, describes how the Israelites conquered Hazor, which was inhabited by Canaanites at the time. The historicity of these passages is, however, disputed among researchers, because the texts date from a much later period. “They are probably not directly connected to the resettlement of Hazor,” says Hensel, whose specialty is biblical archaeology.

The interdisciplinary research team is now examining the resettlement period in greater detail. Researchers from the fields of archaeology, social and cultural history, anthropology and Hebrew biblical studies plan to use the results to create a comprehensive overview of the cultural and ethnic transformations that took place in the area between the Euphrates and the Sinai Peninsula known as the Levant during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age – and of how the identity of the early Israelites developed in the course of these upheavals.

Why did the new settlers avoid certain places in the abandoned city?

One of the project’s key objectives is to investigate the resettlement of the Bronze Age ruins during the Iron Age. The researchers aim to learn more about how the new settlers viewed and treated the remains of the destroyed buildings at the site and gain insights into their cultural and ethnic identity. “The new settlers seem to have deliberately avoided certain places in the city, such as the former temple district in the upper city, which would actually have been an ideal place to settle,” Hensel explains. The team plans to carry out further excavations to locate other sites with a similar history within the city complex.

A second objective of the project is the literary-historical and cultural-historical reconstruction of the accounts of Hazor and the Canaanites within the biblical tradition, and an examination of how these narratives are linked to the biblical imagination of Israel as an early tribal culture. “In the biblical narratives, Hazor is portrayed as the capital of the Canaanites. This image is for the most part artificial, but over the centuries during which the biblical texts were compiled it endured – even long after the settlement had been abandoned,” Hensel explains. “Hazor serves as a counter-image to the Israelites, shaping the identity of biblical Israel through literary means," he observes. The project team is investigating the potential historical anchor points of these identity-building processes.

Extensive archaeological excavations have been underway in Hazor since the 1990s. They are led by Professor Hensel and by Dr. Igor Kreimermann from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who is also involved in the current project. Oldenburg students also took part in the Hazor Excavations Project for the first time last year. The project funds will enable volunteers from Oldenburg to continue to participate in the archaeological work.

1,500 Indigenous Australian message sticks analyzed

 Indigenous Australian message sticks, which feature markings to convey messages over long distances, analyzed for first time at scale through new database of 1,500 artifacts

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Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299712

Pacific cities much older than previously thought

 

 

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A VIEW OF THE URBAN AREA AT MU‘A. 

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CREDIT: CREDIT: PHILLIP PARTON/ANU.

New evidence of one of the first cities in the Pacific shows they were established much earlier than previously thought, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU).  

The study used aerial laser scanning to map archaeological sites on the island of Tongatapu in Tonga.  

Lead author, PhD scholar Phillip Parton, said the new timeline also indicates that urbanisation in the Pacific was an indigenous innovation that developed before Western influence.

“Earth structures were being constructed in Tongatapu around AD 300. This is 700 years earlier than previously thought,” Mr Parton said.  

“As settlements grew, they had to come up with new ways of supporting that growing population. This kind of set-up – what we call low density urbanisation – sets in motion huge social and economic change. People are interacting more and doing different kinds of work.” 

Mr Parton said traditionally, studying urbanisation in the Pacific has been tricky due to challenges collecting data, but new technology has changed that.  

“We were able to combine high-tech mapping and archaeological fieldwork to understand what was happening in Tongatapu,” he said.                                                                                                 

“Having this type of information really adds to our understanding of early Pacific societies.

“Urbanisation is not an area that had been investigated much until now. When people think of early cities they usually think of traditional old European cities with compact housing and windy cobblestone streets. This is a very different kind of city. 

“But it shows the contribution of the Pacific to urban science. We can see clues that Tongatapu’s influence spread across the southwest Pacific Ocean between the 13th and 19th centuries.” 

According to Mr Parton, the collapse of this kind of low-density urbanisation in Tonga was largely due to the arrival of Europeans. 

“It didn’t collapse because the system was flawed; it was more to do with the arrival of Europeans and introduced diseases,” he said. 

“This is just the beginning in terms of early Pacific settlements. There’s likely still much to be discovered.”  

The study has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

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JOURNAL

Experimental collaboration highlights the prevalence of equifinality in archaeological interpretation

 

 

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CLOVIS FLUTED POINTS HAFTED ONTO WOODEN HANDLES BY MICHAEL WILSON. (IMAGES CREDIT: METIN I. EREN)

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CREDIT: METIN I. EREN

Kent State University’s experimental archaeologists, along with those from several other universities, joined forces with the popular hunting, outdoors, and conservation media platform, MeatEater, Inc., for a unique animal processing experiment, shedding new light on ancient stone knives and showcasing the importance of testing and looking for equifinality.  ‘Equifinality’ is when two or more distinct processes can lead to the same outcome or result.

The Kent State archaeologists included Professor Metin I. Eren, Ph.D.; Assistant Professor Michelle Bebber, Ph.D. and Alumni Michael Wilson (Kent State B.A., ‘18; M.A., ‘21) and Lawrence Mukusha (Kent State M.A., ‘23). The primary objective of the experiment was to test the efficiency of Clovis stone tools in processing a bison, offering insights into early human technologies. ‘Clovis’ refers to 13,000-year-old archaeological culture that represents some of the earliest hunting and gathering peoples in North America.

The experiment was meticulously documented and detailed in a recently published open-access article in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

While the researchers learned much about Clovis knife efficiency and other aspects of stone tool animal processing, one outcome that the researchers did not anticipate was that several of the replica knives broke during animal processing very similarly to breaks some assume would result from shooting the Clovis points.

“Even though one can use Clovis stone points for both hunting and processing, the breakage resulting from these distinct activities can be similar,” Eren said. “If an archaeological site is found that is comprised of a large animal and broken Clovis points, some archaeologists might assume that's because the points were used to hunt the animal. What our experiment suggests is another interpretation: the animal was already dead and people scavenged it and processed it with knives.”

The researchers also documented several other instances of equifinality, involving bone cut marks, tool functional morphology, and resharpening.  

“I used to think that the power of experimental archaeology was that it allowed us to help reverse engineer past technologies. And it can,” Eren said. “But, I think a more valuable aspect of experimental archaeology that's becoming more and more consequential is that it documents equifinality, providing a vital check on archaeologists’ interpretations.”

Partnering with MeatEater, Inc.
Inspiration for the experiment stemmed from previous conversations that David J. Meltzer, Ph.D. (Southern Methodist University) and Eren had during their guest appearances on The MeatEater Podcast, where discussions about mammoth hunting led to the idea of a collaborative butchery experiment. Meltzer was a co-author on the study.

“The unique skills of the MeatEater crew in animal processing and media documentaries, combined with our expertise in archaeology and artifact recreation, sparked the idea of testing Clovis stone tools’ efficiency,” Eren said.

The entire experiment was recorded by a MeatEater film crew, and an edited version of the video was posted on YouTube as a documentary entitled Butchering a Bison with Clovis Points and Tools (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmsrkFjPiKM).

“It was a career highlight for us to work with all the folks at MeatEater who have amazing experience and skills; we learned so much from them,” Eren said. “And they’re so curious – they’re natural scientists.”

 

LINK TO STUDY: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104480

Unraveling the iconography of the Etruscan lamp of Cortona

A re-evaluation of the ancient bronze lamp concludes that it is a cult object associated with the mystery cult of the god Dionysus

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DE GRUYTER

 

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THE ETRUSCAN LAMP OF CORTONA

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CREDIT: MUSEO DELL'ACCADEMIA ETRUSCA E DELLA CITTÀ DI CORTONA

A large, highly decorated bronze lamp found in a ditch near the town of Cortona, central Italy, is significantly older than previously estimated and shows the god Dionysus, a new study published in De Gruyter’s Etruscan and Italic Studies argues.

The date of the lamp and the meaning and significance of its decorations have been the subject of controversy since its discovery in 1840. Now, PhD student Ronak Alburz and Associate Professor Gijs Willem Tol of the University of Melbourne, Australia, have used literary sources and other iconographic evidence to provide a comprehensive new analysis of the object.

The Cortona lamp is a bronze hanging oil lamp, roughly in the shape of a chandelier, measuring 60cm across and weighing almost 60kg. It originates from the Etruscan civilization of Archaic Etruria, a region of central Italy corresponding roughly to present-day Tuscany and part of Umbria. The Etruscan civilization thrived from about 900 BCE, but was gradually absorbed into the Roman Republic after about 400 BCE.

The Cortona lamp has defied a comprehensive and satisfactory explanation for two main reasons. Firstly, very few similar objects (‘comparanda’) have been discovered in Etruscan or Ancient Greek art, making it difficult to draw insightful comparisons. Secondly, the lamp lacks context, having been found with only an inscribed bronze plaque which originates from much later. This means there is no information about the building in which it was used or how it related to other artifacts. Scholars were therefore restricted to analyzing individual decorative motifs displayed on the lamp.

In their re-evaluation, Alburz and Tol identify new comparanda that indicate the lamp originated in about 480 BCE, significantly earlier than many other estimates.

They also argue that earlier scholars were incorrect in identifying the lamp’s 16 bull-horned figures as the Greek river god Acheloos. By drawing on various literary sources and presenting new iconographic evidence, they show that Dionysus, the Ancient Greek god of wine and pleasure, was also often portrayed with bull features. They thus propose that the lamp depicts the Dionysian thiasus, the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus who are often portrayed as inebriated revelers.

Lead author Alburz said: “The lamp was probably an object associated with the mystery cult of Dionysus. Its decoration represents the Dionysian thiasus, perhaps engaged in a cultic performance in the cosmos of the mysteries in celebration of Dionysus.”

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JOURNAL

Etruscan and Italic Studies

DOI

10.1515/etst-2023-0019 

Early herding communities of the Southern Iberian Peninsula

 

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DENTAL PIECES OF SHEEP FOUND IN THE CUEVA DE EL TORO SAMPLED FOR THIS STUDY. (AUTHOR: ALEJANDRO SIERRA, UAB).

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CREDIT: ALEJANDRO SIERRA, UAB

The herding groups of the Southern Iberian Peninsula applied different management strategies for their livestock at the beginning of the Neolithic period, with different breeding, feeding and movement patterns, depending on their ecological and productive needs. This is indicated by a study led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) that has reconstructed the feeding practices of the first herding communities occupying the Cueva de El Toro (Antequera, Malaga) 7,200 years ago, with the aim of exploring their feeding strategies and the socioeconomic factors that could have influenced them.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, involved researchers from the Department of Prehistory of the UAB, as well as from the University of La Laguna (Tenerife), Milà i Fontanals Institution of Humanities Research (IMF-CSIC), the University of Cardiff, and the Natural History Museum of Paris.

The agricultural economy in the Iberian Peninsula during the Neolithic period developed very quickly, between 7,600 and 7,400 years ago. However, specific information on the herding strategies of the first Neolithic communities, especially in the south, is limited, mainly due to the difficulty of investigating these management practices in the same place and in such a short archaeological period of time.

The study published today has been able to reconstruct their livestock management practices, including those of altitudinal mobility, in the same site and with a very precise time resolution. By means of high-resolution radiocarbon dating of eight dental specimens from the Cueva de El Toro and the analysis of stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in the enamel, researchers were able to confirm that the animals were managed in the cave during a period of only 240 years, during the Neolithic expansion throughout the Iberian Peninsula, and to establish their feeding patterns.

The results show that the herding communities applied different breeding patterns - in the autumn, winter and spring - thereby controlling the reproduction of their herds; they fed the animals different plants throughout the annual cycle, with some animals consuming species typical of saline areas in the summer and had them graze at different altitudes and in mountainous areas. This large variability indicates that, probably, each sheep was herded in a different way, and that it was possible to apply different patterns within one same flock.

These discoveries question the previous perception of homogeneity in the management of livestock at the beginning of the Neolithic in the western Mediterranean and reinforce the hypothesis of the complexity of the first Neolithic populations of southern Iberia. "The different herding strategies that we have found fit in the economic model proposed for the Neolithic communities of southern Iberia, which have been considered as highly mobile herding communities", says Alejandro Sierra, researcher at the UAB who coordinated the study.

The variability identified could be explained as an adaptive response of the first agricultural and farming societies for diverse and not unrelated reasons, such as better access to resources, changes in climatic conditions or the dominant socio-economic characteristics of each location. In this sense, the study published today "may have broader implications for understanding the adaptability of the first agricultural and farming communities at the beginning of the Neolithic period in the Iberian Peninsula", says María Saña, researcher at the UAB and coordinator of the research.

Wood was crucial raw material 300,000 years ago

During archaeological excavations in the Schöningen open-cast coal mine in 1994, the discovery of the oldest, remarkably well-preserved hunting weapons known to humanity caused an international sensation. Spears and a double-pointed throwing stick were found lying between animal bones about ten meters below the surface in deposits at a former lakeshore. In the years that followed, extensive excavations have gradually yielded numerous wooden objects from a layer dating from the end of a warm interglacial period 300,000 years ago. The findings suggested a hunting ground on the lakeshore. An interdisciplinary research team from the Universities of Göttingen and Reading (UK), and the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage (NLD) has now examined all the wood objects for the first time. State-of-the-art imaging techniques such as 3D microscopy and micro-CT scanners have produced surprising results. The research was published in PNAS.

 

This is the first time that researchers have been able to demonstrate new ways of handling and working the wood, such as the “splitting technique”. Small pieces of split wood were sharpened, for example to use them in processing hunted animals. First author Dr Dirk Leder from NLD says: "There is evidence of much more extensive and varied processing of spruce and pine wood than previously thought. Selected logs were shaped into spears and throwing sticks and brought to the site, while broken tools were repaired and recycled on site." At least 20 spears and throwing sticks had been left behind on the former lakeshore. This doubles the number of known wooden weapons at the site. Dr Tim Koddenberg from the University of Göttingen explains: "The extraordinary state of preservation of the Schöningen wood has enabled us, for the first time, to document and identify the woodworking techniques in detail thanks to state-of-the-art microscopy methods.”

 

The wide range of woodworking techniques used, as well as the various weapons and tools of early humans, show the outstanding importance of wood as a raw material, which is almost never preserved from this period. The Schöningen finds bear witness to extensive experience in woodworking, technical know-how and sophisticated work processes. Project leader Professor Thomas Terberger, who works at the NLD and the University of Göttingen, states: "Wood was a crucial raw material for human evolution, but it is only in Schöningen that it has survived from the Palaeolithic period in such quality". Schöningen is therefore part of the internationally outstanding cultural heritage of early humans. Only recently, the site was included in the nomination list for UNESCO World Heritage Site at the request of the state of Lower Saxony.

Chickens were widely raised across southern Central Asia from 400 BCE through medieval period

 

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AN EGGSHELL FRAGMENT FROM THE SITE OF BASH TEPA, REPRESENTING ONE OF THE EARLIEST PIECES OF EVIDENCE FOR CHICKENS ON THE SILK ROAD

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CREDIT: ROBERT SPENGLER

Chickens are one of the most economically important animals in the world today. However, the story of their origins and dispersal across the ancient world is still poorly understood. In fact, new archaeological techniques have recently led to the recognition that many finds of bones previously thought to represent early chickens in fact belonged to wild birds. Now, in a new publication, an international team of archaeologists, historians, and biomolecular scientists present the earliest clear evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, and argue that the loss of seasonal egg laying was the main driver for the dispersal of domestic chickens across Eurasia and northeast Africa. 

Using eggshell fragments collected from 12 archaeological sites spanning roughly 1500 years, the researchers show that chickens were widely raised in Central Asia from approximately 400 BCE to 1000 CE and were likely dispersed along the ancient Silk Road. The abundance of eggshells further suggests that the birds were laying out of season. It was this trait of prolific egg laying, the researchers argue, that made the domestic chicken so attractive to ancient peoples.

To reach these conclusions, the team collected tens of thousands of eggshell fragments from sites located along the main Central Asian corridor of the Silk Road. They then used a method of biomolecular analysis called ZooMS to identify the source of the eggs. Much like genetic analysis, ZooMS can make species identifications from animal remains such as bone, skin and shell, but it relies on protein signals rather than DNA. This makes it a faster and more cost-effective option than genetic analysis.

“This study showcases the potential of ZooMS to shed light on human-animal interactions in the past,” says Dr. Carli Peters, researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and first author of the new paper.

The identification of these shell fragments as chickens, and their abundance throughout the sediment layers at each site, led the researchers to an important conclusion: the birds must have been laying more frequently than their wild ancestor, the red jungle fowl, which nests once per year and typically lays six eggs per clutch.

“This is the earliest evidence for the loss of seasonal egg laying yet identified in the archaeological record,” says Dr. Robert Spengler, leader of the Domestication and Anthropogenic Evolution research group and principal investigator on the study. “This is an important clue for better understanding the mutualistic relationships between humans and animals that resulted in domestication.”

Taken together, the new study suggests an answer to the age-old riddle of the chicken and the egg. In Central Asia, evidence suggests that the ability to lay a multitude of eggs is what made the chicken the chicken we know today – a global species of enormous economic importance. The authors hope that this study will demonstrate the potential of new, cost-effective methods and interdisciplinary collaboration to address long-standing questions about the past.