Heritage Daily

HMS St Albans : Wiki Commons

HMS St Albans has spent five days in Iceland to pay her respects to those mariners who took part in the convoys to the Soviet Union when sailors braved air and U-boat attack to deliver crucial aid 70 years ago.

The Commanding Officer of HMS St Albans, Commander Tom Sharpe, and Britain's Ambassador to Iceland, Ian Whitting, cast a wreath into Hvalfjörður (Whale Fjord) to honour the Arctic heroes 70 years on Credit: Abbie Herron

In rugged surroundings, the Commanding Officer of HMS St Albans, Commander Tom Sharpe, and Britain’s Ambassador to Iceland, Ian Whitting, cast a wreath into Hvalfjörður – a fjord which was once a vital staging area for the Arctic Convoys to the Soviet Union.

Seventy years ago this month, the lifeline delivering food, ammunition, trucks, tanks and other supplies to aid the Soviet war effort against the Third Reich entered a critical phase.

In May 1942, the 35 merchant ships of convoy PQ16 mustered in these same Icelandic waters. Despite a huge escorting force comprising British and American battleships, carriers, cruisers and destroyers, only 25 would safely reach their destinations of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, having run a gauntlet of U-boats and Luftwaffe bombers off northern Norway.

Eight ships were sunk, two more were damaged.

In spite of such losses, PQ16 was hailed a success, but its successor, PQ17, suffered even heavier losses – only 11 of the 35 ships making for northern Russia got through.

Seven decades later and Portsmouth-based frigate HMS St Albans sailed from Reykjavik with international dignitaries, British Embassy staff and the Icelandic media, accompanied by the coast guard patrol vessel Thor, for a service of commemoration in Hvalfjörður, just ten miles (16km) north of the island’s capital.

On the flight deck of the Type 23 frigate the ship’s company mustered for a service of remembrance, before a wreath was dropped into the chilly waters in memory of all those who served on the most challenging of all convoy routes during the Second World War.

Between 1941 and 1945, more than 100 merchant and warships were lost carrying aid to the Soviet Union.

Grievous though these losses were, they accounted for just seven per cent of the shipping; nearly four million tons of supplies were safely delivered – accounting for a quarter of all the material supplied by western powers to the Soviet Union throughout the war.

As well as ceremonies in Hvalfjörður, St Albans took the rare chance to exercise with the Icelandic Coast Guard, practising ‘officer of the watch’ manoeuvres with Icelandic patrol vessel Thor. There was also a winching exercise with St Alban’s Merlin helicopter.

These days Royal Navy visits to Iceland are few and far between, so St Albans made the most of her rare opportunity to see the land of fire and ice – and allow locals to see a cutting-edge British warship.

The frigate opened her gangway to several hundred Icelanders who toured the upper deck of the ship and her Merlin helicopter to see first-hand what the ship is capable of and speak to members of the ship’s company.

St Albans also hosted an official reception and capability demonstration for more than 60 foreign dignitaries and British Embassy staff. Guests witnessed a number of briefings and demonstrations, included firefighting, first aid, search and rescue helicopter operations and bridge reactions.

Away from the ship, which was berthed just a mile-and-a-half (2km) from the heart of Reykjavik, a large number of her crew visited the hot springs at the Blue Lagoon and went on the Golden Circle tour, which included Thingvellir National Park, a 30-metre geyser, which erupted every ten minutes, and the Gullfoss Waterfall.

Contributing Source : Defence News HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Burnt Pine Forest : Wiki Commons

Unprecedented study relies on more than 1,500 years of tree-ring data and hundreds of years of fire-scar records gathered from Ponderosa Pine forests

Tree ring with fire scars : SMU

Today’s mega forest fires of the southwestern U.S. are truly unusual and exceptional in the long-term record, suggests a new study that examined hundreds of years of ancient tree ring and fire data from two distinct climate periods.

Researchers constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest, according to study co-author and fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, according to Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

Today’s extreme droughts caused by climate change probably would not cause megafires if not for a century of livestock grazing and firefighting, which have combined to create more dense forests with accumulated logs and other fuels that now make them more vulnerable than ever to extreme droughts. One answer to today’s megafires might be changes in fire management.

“If anything, what climate change reminds us is that it’s pretty urgent that we deal with the structural problems in the forests. The forests may be equipped to handle the climate change, but not in the condition that they’re currently in. They haven’t been in that condition before,” Roos said.

Roos and Swetnam, director of the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, published their findings in the scientific journal The Holocene.

Study combines fire-scar records and tree-ring data of U.S. southwest

This new study is based on a first-of-its-kind analysis that combined fire-scar records and tree-ring data for Ponderosa Pine forests in the southwest United States.

Earlier research by other scientists has looked at forest fire records spanning the years from 1600 to the mid-1800s — a climate period known as the Little Ice Age — to understand current forest fire behavior. Those studies have found that fires during the Little Ice Age occurred frequently in the grasses and downed needles on the surface of the forest floor, but stayed on the floor and didn’t burn into the canopies.

Critics dispute the relevance of the Little Ice Age, however, saying the climate then was cooler and wetter than the climate now. They say a better comparison is A.D. 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, when the climate was hotter and drier, like today’s.

Scientists who favor that comparison hypothesize that forest fires during the Medieval Warm Period probably were similar to today’s megafires and probably more destructive than during the Little Ice Age.

Tree rings and fire scars provide the evidence for moisture, drought and burn activity

Scientists rely on tree rings not only to calculate a tree’s age, but also to determine wet and dry weather patterns of moisture and drought. Similarly, scientists’ best evidence for fire activity is the scarring on tree rings that dates the occurrence of fires. While tree-ring data for climate are available for long time periods, annual forest fire records don’t yet exist for the Medieval Warm Period.

In response to the need for data, Roos and Swetnam tested the Medieval Warm Period hypothesis by calibrating a statistical model that combined 200 years of Little Ice Age fire-scar data and nearly 1,500 years of climate data derived from existing tree rings. With that they were able to predict what the annual fire activity would have been almost 1,500 years ago.

They discovered that the Medieval Warm Period was no different from the Little Ice Age in terms of what drives frequent low-severity surface fires: year-to-year moisture patterns.

“It’s true that global warming is increasing the magnitude of the droughts we’re facing, but droughts were even more severe during the Medieval Warm Period,” Roos said. “It turns out that what’s driving the frequency of surface fires is having a couple wet years that allow grasses to grow continuously across the forest floor and then a dry year in which they can burn. We found a really strong statistical relationship between two or more wet years followed by a dry year, which produced lots of fires.”

Modeling of tree-ring and fire-scar data can be applied to any locale

The research, “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA,” was funded by the International Arid Lands Consortium.

“The best way to look at how fires may have varied — if climate were the only driver — is to do this type of modeling,” Roos said. “Our study is the first in the world to go this far back using this methodology. But this method can be used anyplace for which there is a fire-scar record.”

The study’s tree-ring-derived climate data are from the southern Colorado Plateau, a region that includes the world’s largest continuous stand of Ponderosa Pine stretching from Flagstaff, Ariz., into New Mexico. Large Ponderosa Pine forests have existed in the area for more than 10,000 years.

Fire-scar data for the region go back as far as the 1500s, but are most prevalent during the Little Ice Age period. Fire scientists have analyzed fire-scars from hundreds of trees from more than 100 locations across the Southwest. All fire-scar data are publically available through the International Multiproxy Paleofire Database, maintained by the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s paleoclimatology program.

Ancient fires were frequent, but didn’t burn the forest canopy

Fire scientists know that in ancient forests, frequent fires swept the forest floor, often sparked by lightning. Many of the fires were small, less than a few dozen acres. Other fires may have been quite large, covering tens of thousands of acres before being extinguished naturally. Fuel for the fires included grass, small trees, brush, bark, pine needles and fallen limbs on the ground.

“The fires cleaned up the understory, kept it very open, and made it resilient to climate changes because even if there was a really severe drought, there weren’t the big explosive fires that burn through the canopy because there were no fuels to take it up there,” Roos said. “The trees had adapted to frequent surface fires, and adult trees didn’t die from massive fire events because the fires burned on the surface and not in the canopy.”

Today’s huge canopy fires are the cumulative result of human activity

The ancient pattern of generally small, frequent fires changed by the late 1800s. The transcontinental railroad had pushed West, bringing farmers, ranchers, cattle and sheep. Those animals grazed the forest floor, consuming the grasses that fueled small fires but leaving small saplings and brush, which then grew up into dense, mature bushes and trees. In addition, the U.S. began to restrict the traditional land use of the region’s Native American communities, including confining them to reservations. This removed another source for frequent surface fires in the forests — burning by Native Americans for horticulture and hunting.

By the early 20th century, the U.S. Forest Service had been established, and fighting fires was a key part of the agency’s mission. Without continuous fuel, fires on the forest floor ceased.

“Many of our modern forests in central Arizona and New Mexico haven’t had a fire of any kind on them in 130 or 140 years,” Roos said. “That’s very different from the records of the ancient forests. The longest they would have gone without fires was 40 or 50 years, and even that length of time would have been exceptional.”

The research reported in The Holocene is the basis for a new four-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation in which Roos and Swetnam are co-principal investigators. That project will examine how human activities have changed forests and forest fires over the past 1,000 years of Native American occupation, as well as the influence of droughts during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains. — Margaret Allen

Background:

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smuresearch.com.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Contributing Source: SMU HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

The Vasa : Wiki Commons

Sulphur and iron compounds have now been found in shipwrecks both in the Baltic and off the west coast of Sweden. The group behind the results, presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science, includes scientists from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University.

A few years ago scientists reported large quantities of sulphur and iron compounds in the salvaged 17th century warship Vasa, resulting in the development of sulphuric acid and acidic salt precipitates on the surface of the hull and loose wooden objects.

Similar sulphur compounds have now been discovered also in other shipwrecks both from the Baltic and off the west coast of Sweden, including fellow 17th century warships Kronan, Riksnyckeln and Stora Sofia, the 17th century merchant vessel in Gothenburg known as the Göta wreck, and the Viking ships excavated at Skuldelev in Denmark.

This is a result of natural biological and chemical processes that occur in low-oxygen water and sediments, explains Yvonne Fors from the University of Gothenburg’s Department of Conservation, one of the scientists behind the study in collaboration with Stockholm University.

Preventive action possible

Besides the Vasa, similar problems have previously been reported for Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose in the UK, which sank off Portsmouth in 1545, and the Dutch vessel Batavia in Australia, which was lost in 1629, the year after the Vasa.

Our work on the Vasa and the Mary Rose has given us a good insight into these problems, Yvonne Fors says. With the right actions, such as new preservation procedures, we’ll be better able to prevent these shipwrecks from developing such serious problems with sulphuric acid.

Toxic hydrogen sulphide reacts with wood

Skuldelev : University of Gothenburg

Even in low-oxygen-water, bacteria can break down organic material including the wood cells in a vessel’s hull. Sulphates that occur naturally in the water are transformed by bacteria into toxic hydrogen sulphide which reacts with the wood. In the presence of iron ions, sulphur and iron compounds form which readily oxidise into sulphuric acid and acid salt precipitates in a damp museum environment once the vessel has been recovered.

For some of the wrecks, such as the Skuldelev Viking ships and the Göta wreck, the conservation treatment is already finished,  says Fors. It’s then a matter of keeping an eye on the chemical developments, which requires additional resources.

Many of the chemical analyses in the study were performed at the advanced radiation facilities at SSRL in Stanford in the USA and at ESRF in France.

Read more here: Click Here

 

Written by Carina Eliasson Contributing Source : University of Gothenburg HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

BY: Carina Eliasson

Scarborough castle : Wiki Commons

It is good for the north that the Hepworth Wakefield has reached the final four of the Museum of the Year competition, but there is less happy heritage news from Scarborough.

This article titled “Vandals damage Roman stonework at Scarborough castle” was written by Martin Wainwright, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 15th May 2012 06.00 UTC

Vandals have clambered into the town’s castle, whose position on the headland is one of the glories of both bays, and done significant damage to Roman stonework.

The fortress is generally well capable of looking after itself, with walls up to 12ft thick and the mortar so hard in places that it has crystallised into spar. There is also a tradition of local people having a go at it; back in 1265, just over a century after the castle’s foundation by William the Fat, Earl of Albermarle, Royal troops had to take over to protect the place and its constable from constant attacks.

It has subsequently fallen to four sieges and was damaged in 1914 when German warships shelled the town and killed 19 people. But the latest attack has concentrated on the most vulnerable part; the modest remains of the Roman watchtower and signal station which date back to 370AD.

This was the very end of the Romans’ four centuries in Britain and they were gone within the year, but their stonework has lasted, albeit with quite a lot of modern pointing. Damage to upper layers of stone has been compounded by the wrecking of signs and stealing of metal caps from fence posts, no doubt for the flourishing trade in illegal scrap metal.

English Heritage is also concerned about the vulnerability of archaeology in the area surrounding the Roman remains, which were built on earlier prehistoric fortifications dated back to 500BC. Part of the signal station was later used as an early Saxon chapel and by Viking invaders, led by Skarthi the Hare-lipped, who left their own traces.

PC Alasdair McNeill of Scarborough police says that the incident happened overnight, a time when climbing the 300ft cliffs is a dangerous but not infrequent dare. He says:

We need to find whoever is responsible for this completely mindless act of criminal damage. It’s very sad that people feel the need to destroy something which has stood for many hundreds of years, is a landmark for the town and contributes to the culture and economy of the area. The signposts can be repaired and replaced but the Roman ruins cannot. I urge anyone who has any information to contact the police as soon as possible.

Peter Bleach, English Heritage’s site manager for the castle, said:

Scarborough Castle is often a target of anti-social behaviour and the latest damage is extremely disappointing. Deliberate acts of vandalism are illegal and we take this very seriously. People often climb the 300ft cliff walls to gain access during the night.

This is very dangerous as the walls are 900 years old and are unstable. People risk a fatal fall whilst climbing them. Removing the fence and warning signs is also very irresponsible. Whoever did this placed themselves and the public at serious risk of death.

For more than 3,000 years there has been some form of defence at Scarborough, from pre-historic settlers to a secret listening post in the Second World War. The castle has stood proud for centuries and is Scarborough’s major landmark. To see it damaged in this way is heartbreaking.

The attack’s other consequence could be more security, spoiling the comparatively open and trusting nature of the spectacular site. Scarborough has suffered other vandalism recently, including the flinging of yellow paint over the North Bay statue by Durham sculptor Ray Lonsdale of an old soldier resting on a bench. Based on a friend of the artist, a miner called Freddie Gilroy who was one of the first Allied soldiers to liberate Belsen concentration camp, it has the moving inscription:

They said for king and country
we should do as we were bid,
They said old soldiers never die
but plenty young ones did.

Maureen Robinson, a long-standing resident who gave £50,000 for Scarborough to keep the statue after it was exhibited on loan in two years ago, broke down in tears when she was told about the attack by the Scarborough Evening News. She says:

There is just no comprehension of the meaning behind the statue by whoever has done this.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Phil Kurz, labels items unearthed at a recent dig near South Amana. The dig yielded hundreds of artifacts. Photos by Tim Schoon.

State Archaeologist and volunteers dig up evidence linking Meskwaki with early traders

Photo by Steve Parrott.

What do you call six or eight people lying flat on the ground with their heads in a small hole in a big farm field?

In this case, very dedicated volunteer archaeologists having a good time while also making a significant contribution to our understanding of Meskwaki life around 1840.

Sixty volunteers helped out with a 10-day dig this past March and April on the Amana Society farmland just outside of South Amana. They came from as far away as Minneapolis and St. Louis, but also from much closer to home, including a retiree from the Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA) at the University of Iowa, which coordinated the dig.

Julie Hoyer of North Liberty recently retired after many years as a librarian and archivist for the OSA. She was excited about the opportunity to get her hands in the dirt.

“In the screen I was working with, we found an 1835 coin,” she says. “I also found a nice, multi-colored cylindrical bead. I would do it again in a minute. It’s enjoyable!”

Jim Mallory, a retiree from Riverside, echoed that assessment. “I’ve always been interested in archaeology and geology,” he says. “It’s just avocational, but it’s fun.” Mallory found two-thirds of a pipe that may have originated in Ohio and a green, faceted bead.

Cindy Peterson, a research specialist with the OSA who coordinated the dig, was not surprised by the reaction of the volunteers. “You almost get a scream of delight when they find things,” she says with a smile.

The small finds that bring delight to volunteers contribute to the larger picture, Peterson quickly adds. “We’ve discovered that a good portion of what was known as the Patterson Trading Post is intact even though this field has been plowed since the 1850s,” she notes.

“By studying the trading post, we were also able to identify the adjacent Meskwaki village, thanks to an 1850s story handed down in the family of Amana Colonist Ewald Leichsenring,” Peterson adds. One of his great-granddaughters, Ramona Gerard of Amana, told how Ewald stood on a prominent hill and could see the Meskwaki village in the distance to the north. Peterson and her volunteers went to that spot and found archaeological traces of the village.

The one-cent coin from 1835. Photo by Tim Schoon.

How did they find the trading post in a field of hundreds of acres?

First, they went to the approximate area of a “Trading House” cabin drawn on an 1843 map. There, the workers divided a section of the field into 55 grids each 10 meters square. Next, they collected surface artifacts and counted which grids had the most. The high-count grids were revisited with metal detectors. One of those grids had more than 190 hits, and that’s where the group drilled their first auger holes.

The process worked beautifully. Not only did the diggers find dozens of small items, they also located the trading post’s ash pit, another 3-foot deep pit, and a root cellar.

The Patterson Trading Post site is only the third such trading post discovered in Iowa, Peterson adds. The discoveries on this particular site provide new information about what the Meskwaki and the traders were exchanging.

That information is treasured not only by the OSA professionals, their volunteers, and the archaeological community—it’s also of great moment to Peter Hoehnle, coordinator of the Iowa Valley Scenic Byway and the executive director of the Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development Council, based in Amana.

His organization and the OSA have worked together to create a new management plan for the byway, which follows the Iowa River and stretches from Montour on the west to the Amana Colonies on the east. That plan will guide the marketing of the area as a tourist destination, but it also addresses issues of conservation of resources. And it has done so with many a community meeting to ensure that the people who live in the byway have been consulted about what is important to them, both historically and culturally.

“This site tells an important story that we’ve been highlighting in our management plan,” Hoehnle explains. “It’s about the unique interaction between the Meskwaki, the Amana area, and, later, the Amana people. Those interactions continued for some 70 years. It’s an unusual American story and it’s one that we hope to hang our hat on.”

Contacts Cindy Peterson, Office of the State Archaeologist at the University of Iowa, 319-384-0732 - Contributing Source : Iowa University HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Small shell pendant left as an offering in the large communal building of Klimonas © J.-D. Vigne, CNRS-MNHN

The oldest agricultural settlement ever found on a Mediterranean island has been discovered in Cyprus by a team of French archaeologists involving CNRS, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History), INRAP, EHESS and the University of Toulouse II-Le Mirail.

The communal building in Klimonas partially excavated. It measures 10 m in diameter. CNRS-MNHN Credit: J.-D. Vigne

Previously it was believed that, due to the island’s geographic isolation, the first Neolithic farming societies did not reach Cyprus until a thousand years after the birth of agriculture in the Middle East (ca. 9500 to 9400 BCE).

However, the discovery of Klimonas, a village that dates from nearly 9000 years before Christ, proves that early cultivators migrated to Cyprus from the Middle Eastern continent shortly after the emergence of agriculture there, bringing with them wheat as well as dogs and cats. The findings, which also reveal the early development of maritime navigational skills by these populations, have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

Sedentary villagers of the Early Neolithic began cultivating wild grains in the Middle East in about 9500 BCE. Recent discoveries have shown that the island of Cyprus was visited by human groups during that period, but until now the earliest traces of cereal crops and the construction of villages did not predate 8400 BCE.

The latest findings from the archaeological excavations of Klimonas indicate that organized communities were built in Cyprus between 9100 and 8600 BCE: the site has yielded the remnants of a half-buried mud brick communal building, 10 meters in diameter and surrounded by dwellings, that must have been used to store the village’s harvests.

The archaeologists have found a few votive offerings inside the building, including flint arrowheads and green stone beads. A great many remnants of other objects, including flint chips, stone tools and shell adornments, have been discovered in the village.

The stone tools and the structures erected by these early villagers resemble those found at Neolithic sites from the same period on the nearby continent. Remains of carbonized seeds of local plants and grains introduced from the Levantine coasts (including emmer, one of the first Middle Eastern wheats) have also been found in Klimonas.

An analysis of the bone remains found on the site has revealed that the meat consumed by these villagers came from the hunting of a small wild boar indigenous to Cyprus (the only large game on the island at the time), and that small domestic dogs and cats had been introduced from the continent.

This would indicate that these early farming societies migrated from the continent shortly after the emergence of agriculture there. In addition, their ability to move a whole group of people long distances shows that they had already mastered maritime navigation at the dawn of the Neolithic period.

The Klimonas site will be excavated until the end of May 2012, and a new round of excavations will begin in 2013. Uniting several laboratories, (1) the research is funded by CNRS, the European LeCHE project, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History, or MNHN), INRAP, the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Ecole Française d’Athènes (French School at Athens).

Contributing Source : CNRS HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

L’abri Castanet : Image Source : Wiki Commons

Anthropologists working in southern France have determined that a 1.5 metric ton block of engraved limestone constitutes the earliest evidence of wall art.

Their research, reported in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows the piece to be approximately 37,000 years old and offers rich evidence of the role art played in the daily lives of Early Aurignacian humans.

1.5 metric ton block of engraved limestone constitutes the earliest evidence of wall art. Their research shows the piece to be approximately 37,000 years old. Images courtesy of Raphaëlle Bourrillon.

The research team, comprised of more than a dozen scientists from American and European universities and research institutions, has been excavating at the site of the discovery—Abri Castanet—for the past 15 years.

Abri Castanet and its sister site Abri Blanchard have long been recognized as being among the oldest sites in Eurasia bearing artifacts of human symbolism. Hundreds of personal ornaments have been discovered, including pierced animal teeth, pierced shells, ivory and soapstone beads, engravings, and paintings on limestone slabs.

“Early Aurignacian humans functioned, more or less, like humans today,” explained New York University anthropology professor Randall White, one of the study’s co-authors. “They had relatively complex social identities communicated through personal ornamentation, and they practiced sculpture and graphic arts.”

Aurignacian culture existed until approximately 28,000 years ago.

In 2007, the team discovered an engraved block of limestone in what had been a rock shelter occupied by a group of Aurignacian reindeer hunters. Subsequent geological analysis revealed the ceiling had been about two meters above the floor on which the Aurignacians lived—within arms’ reach.

Using carbon dating, the researchers determined that both the engraved ceiling, which includes depictions of animals and geometric forms, and the other artifacts found on the living surface below were approximately 37,000 years old.

“This art appears to be slightly older than the famous paintings from the Grotte Chauvet in southeastern France,” explained White, referring to the cave paintings discovered in 1994.

“But unlike the Chauvet paintings and engravings, which are deep underground and away from living areas, the engravings and paintings at Castanet are directly associated with everyday life, given their proximity to tools, fireplaces, bone and antler tool production, and ornament workshops.”

He added that this discovery, combined with others of approximately the same time period in southern Germany, northern Italy, and southeastern France, raises new questions about the evolutionary and adaptive significance of art and other forms of graphic representation in the lives of modern human populations.

Contributing Source : New York University HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Loch Sloy : Image Source Flinders University

Students from Flinders University believe they have discovered the exact location of a Scottish sailing ship which sank in waters off Kangaroo Island more than 100 years ago.

A group of four archaeology students searched the sea and land on Kangaroo Island’s west coast earlier this month in a bid to find the historic Loch Sloy and the burial sites of 11 bodies recovered from the sea when the barque, en-route from Glasgow to Port Adelaide, sank on April 24, 1899.

Records show 30 people, including the captain, six passengers and most crewmen, died when the ship ran into rocky waters while heading towards the Cape Borda lighthouse.

There were four survivors, one of whom died after reaching land, but the exact location of the shipwreck and the bodies recovered from the waters, except for one, has remained a mystery.

During the week-long field trip – led by Department of Environment and Natural Resources Maritime Archaeologist and Flinders graduate Amer Khan – the team excavated an area between Cape Borda and Cape du Couedic in the hope of finding any remnants from the tragic incident.

Flinders archaeology masters student Lynda Bignell said the researchers believed they had found the exact position of the wreck, using a magnetometer.

“Historically the whereabouts of the ship has been roughly documented but we used a special maritime metal detector at that location and it came up with a high reading, indicating that something is definitely down there,” Ms Bignell said.

“It’s quite exciting because we originally went out there to look mainly for the graves, the search for the shipwreck was just one part of our extensive research into the incident.

“We’ve been researching the Loch Sloy and the graves since last October, and we staged a preliminary trip in December, so it’s great to see that work is paying off.”

While the expedition primarily hoped to unearth the graves of those who died in the sinking, Ms Bignell said the team had no luck finding any burial sites.

“The site we thought had a good chance of being a grave actually wasn’t,” she said.

“Excavation of the site went down to the bedrock and didn’t find anything but it was a good experience for the students involved.”

Ms Bignell said the team hoped to return to Kangaroo Island later this year to find the shipwreck, although no definite plans had been made yet.

She said the ship was an important part of South Australia’s maritime history.

“The Loch Sloy is one of four historic shipwrecks on the west coast of Kangaroo Island and between those four ships 82 people lost their lives, making the stretch of coast one of the most treacherous in SA,” she said.

“Yet the Loch Sloy was particularly important because public opinion after the incident resulted in the construction of another lighthouse at Cape de Couedic.”

Ms Bignell also thanked the Kangaroo Island community for their enthusiasm and participation.

Contributing Source : Flinders University HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

John Cabot : Image Source : Wiki Commons

Evidence that a Florentine merchant house financed the earliest English voyages to North America, has been published on-line in the academic journal Historical Research.

The article by Dr Francesco Guidi-Bruscoli, a member of a project based at the University of Bristol, indicates that the Venetian merchant John Cabot (alias Zuan Caboto) received funding in April 1496 from the Bardi banking house in London.

The payment of 50 nobles (£16 13s. 4d.) was made so that ‘Giovanni Chabotte’ of Venice, as he is styled in the document, could undertake expeditions ‘to go and find the new land’.

With a royal patent from Henry VII of England, Cabot went on to lead expeditions from Bristol during the summers of 1496 and 1497. The second of these was to result in the European discovery of North America – Christopher Columbus not having ventured beyond the Caribbean islands.

Dr Evan Jones – Bristol University

Dr Evan Jones, who leads the project in Bristol, describes the new evidence as a “fantastic find”. He adds, “We have long known that Italy’s great merchant banks were key to the success of the ventures launched by Portugal and Spain. But it always seemed that the English ventures were an exception. Now it is clear that they too were part of network of Italian-financed expeditions to explore beyond the limits of the known world.”

Dr Guidi-Bruscoli, who is based at the University of Florence and is also a Fellow at Queen Mary in London, found the financial records after being contacted by Jones and his co-researcher, Margaret Condon.

For several years they have been attempting to relocate the research findings of a deceased historian, Dr Alwyn Ruddock.

She had made some extraordinary finds about Cabot’s voyages, but had all her notes destroyed following her death in 2005.

One of Ruddock’s claims was that Cabot was financed by an Italian bank. She had, however, refused to reveal the source of her information. Following an invitation to visit the deceased historian’s house in 2010, Jones and Condon discovered the source – in the form of a sticky label on an old shoe cupboard: ‘The Bardi firm of London’. They then contacted Dr Guidi-Bruscoli in Florence, who was able to locate the archive, the financial ledger and the entry concerned.

Finding out about the funding of Cabot’s voyages is exciting because, while it has long been known that the explorer received political support from the King, the identity and motivations of those who paid for the expeditions has never been known.

The entry itself is also curious in that the reference to “the new land” implies that the money was given so that Cabot could find a land that was already known about. As such, it may revive claims that Bristol merchants had discovered North America at an earlier time. Dr Guidi-Bruscoli is more cautious on this score, however. “While the entry implies that the Bardi believed in a prior discovery, we can’t assume this had occurred. It is likely the Bardi were referring to the mythical ‘Island of Brasil’, which Bristol mariners certainly claimed had been found by one of their number in times past. Whether this story can be equated with an actual discovery is much more uncertain, however.”

Dr Jones agrees. “It would be wonderful to find that Bristol mariners had first visited North America before the 1480s – if only because it would cast new light on the originality of Columbus’ venture of 1492. Right now, however, we can’t be sure about that. Although one never knows, that could change.”

Contributing Source : University of Bristol HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Coelacanth : Wiki Commons

Coelacanths, an ancient group of fishes once thought to be long extinct, made headlines in 1938 when one of their modern relatives was caught off the coast of South Africa. Now coelacanths are making another splash and University of Alberta researchers are responsible.

Lead U of A researcher Andrew Wendruff identified fossils of a coelacanth that he says are so dramatically different from previous finds, they shatter the theory that coelacanths were evolutionarily stagnant in that their body shape and life-style changed little since the origin of the group.

Wendruff says his one-metre-long, forked tailed coelacanth was an ‘off-shoot’ lineage that lived 240 million years ago. It falls between the earliest coelacanth fossils of 410 million years ago and the latest fossils dated about 75 million years ago, near the end of the age of dinosaurs.

“Our coelacanth had a forked tail, indicating it was a fast-moving, aggressive predator, which is very different from the shape and movement of all other coelacanths in the fossil record,” said Wendruff.

Wendruff’s research co-author, U of A Professor Emeritus Mark Wilson, describes typical coelacanths as having chunky bodies, fins of varying size and broad, flexible tails. “These fish were slow moving and probably lay in wait for their prey,” said Wilson.

Fossil of an extinct coelacanth : Wiki Commons

Wendruff’s coelacanth is named Rebellatrix, which means rebel coelacanth. The researchers say Rebellatrix came along after the end-Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago, an event so lethal it wiped out 90 per cent of marine life. Rebellatrix filled a previously unoccupied predator niche, but it didn’t fare well.

“Rebellatrix was likely a spectacular failure in the evolution of cruising predation,” said Wendruff. “Clearly some other fish groups with forked-tails must have outperformed this coelacanth as it does not appear later in the fossil record.”

The fossils of Rebellatrix described by the U of A team were found in the Rocky Mountains near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.

The research by Wendruff and Wilson was published May 2, as the cover article in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Contributor : University of Alberta HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Release

Image Source : Western News

Gently cradling a 5,000-year-old cuneiform clay tablet from Ur (modern day Iraq), Andrew Nelson wishes he could peel back the layers to find out what makes up this first-generation iPad. And thanks to a new microCT scanner at Western’s Sustainable Archaeology Repository (SAR), the Anthropology professor has done just that.

With the touch of a button, the object was scanned, reconstructed and fully rendered using more than 3,000 individual images, allowing for high-quality visualization and inspection.

“Imaging is a signature strength at Western, and that ranges from clinical imaging to the microCT imaging facilities down at Robarts (Research Institute). Western has established this as a No. 1 place for CT imaging,” said Nelson, adding he knows of only one similar microCT unit, located at National Research Council in Montreal. Western’s scanner is the only one dedicated strictly to archaeological research.

“What this instrument does is it extends the range of what we have available. The ability for object size, its power and speed is what really makes this a unique machine. It’s the rotating target head also allows us to do very high-detailed CT scans in a short period of time.”

This latest addition to the SAR, a collaborative venture between Western and McMaster University, and funded through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund, will allow for a range of archaeological research on an unprecedented scale.

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Located at the Western-based Museum of Ontario Archaeology, and open since last fall, the facility is closer to being fully operational, said principal investigator Neal Ferris.

“I’m so tired of talking about what we will be doing, so the chance to actually talk about what we are doing is very exciting,” said Ferris, adding the facility will be consolidating archaeological collections from across the province into a single digital database and remotely accessible research centre.

With an 18,000-square-foot storage capacity between Western and McMaster – enough for 90,000 boxes of archaeological findings – the SAR works with commercial archaeologists who have meticulously documented the millions of artifacts and organic remains recovered through housing and highway developments.

“The scale of research you can do from a click of a mouse is something that is impossible now because all those collections that will fill these shelves are right now sitting in people’s basements or their lock-ups,” Ferris said. “No one knows about them and no one can find them.”

That’s where the SAR comes in.

“The collections here are designed for access for research primarily,” said Rhonda Bathurst, SAR operations manager. “But by digitizing it, we are making it accessible to everyone. That’s the beauty of having a digitized collection is that anyone at home can access the cultural history of Ontario, be it a first-grader doing a project on archaeological heritage or be it someone in First Nations who wants to access it to learn a bit more about their cultural heritage.

“It’s access to anyone in the world.”

An archaeologist by training, Bathurst admits this facility will change everything.

“I had to search down these collections in Toronto, Hamilton, London,” Bathurst said of her time as a student. “It took about half a year to a year to get all the information together I needed. And now, it’s here. What took me close to a year, I could sit down at a database and it’s right there in front on me on the screen, or right here within the building, and away I go.

“It truly liberates cultural heritage in a way we haven’t had here in Ontario before; that’s pretty exciting.”

While the SAR’s Object Conversion Lab uses digital X-Rays – and a bank of five laser scanners expected to arrive this summer for building 3D models – the microCT scanner will allow Nelson and other researchers a non-destructive way to look inside objects.

“With the scans, we’ll be able to cut sections of the object to see how they were constructed, to see the materials used to make it,” he said. “Anything that is ceramic, like the clay tablet or a ceramic vessel, you can now tell how it was made by the image. The tablet looked like there were circular motions to it. It gives us clues into the actual actions of the person and the decision-making process the person is going through. It adds really unique personal dimensions to this object.

“It is no longer a static object, it’s the end product of a series of decisions that this individual has made.”

Ferris added the microCT scanner opens a whole new raft of material studies research simply not accessible elsewhere in North America in archaeology.

“You’re scanning, for example, a thousand-year-old earthen vessel a woman made in a village during a completely different way of life. You’ll get to reveal the entire craft in making the pot,” he said. “We’re going to be constantly scanning this sort of stuff, so imagine what happens when we have 2,000 of these pots scanned. We’ll likely be able to track the history of a particular artisan.”

Nelson said other applications for the microCT scanner are possible. For instance, he has a graduate student interested in primate evolution and primate facial morphology; the Earth and Planetary Science team is interested in scans of their meteorite collections; and a luthier from Sudbury is interested in scanning violins to look at what makes a Stradivarius different from a garden-variety violin.

“This is unbelievable,” Nelson said. “To have access to a unit like this, that we can really push to the limits of imaging in the archaeological context, is extremely exciting and will really this facility on the map. There are lots of other applications that we are only really beginning to start exploring.”

While the facility is in its infancy, the future holds nothing but excitement.

“With these tools we’re going to be completely redefining what research in Ontario archaeology is and telling stories people don’t even know archaeology can tell right now,” Ferris said.

Contributing Source : Western University Canada HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

RAF Dakota : Wiki Commons

British Army and RAF personnel killed in a plane crash in the Malaysian jungle in 1950 have been buried with military honours.

For over 60 years their remains have lain deep inside the Malaysian jungle in a shallow grave, but thanks to the misdirection of a letter to the Malaysian Tourist Office in November 2007 the crew and passengers of Royal Air Force Dakota KN630 have finally been laid to rest in the Cheras Road Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Kuala Lumpur.

The Dakota aircraft took off from Changi Airfield in Singapore, on 25 August 1950, on a target-marking sortie for Lincoln bombers tasked to destroy Communist insurgent camps.

Members of the 150-strong expedition to the crash site of Dakota KN630 lay a poppy wreath at the wreckage of the aircraft which crashed deep in the Malaysian jungle on 25 August 1950 Credit : MOD 2012

After one successful sweep the aircraft suffered catastrophic engine failure and crashed into a ravine killing all 12 on board, including the RAF crew of three and four Royal Army Service Corps despatchers.

Due to the prevailing security risk and the inhospitable terrain, a rescue party was forced to bury the remains in makeshift graves close to the crash site.

57 years later, Dennis Carpenter, the 82-year-old brother of the plane’s navigator, Geoffrey Carpenter, wrote to the Malaysian Tourist Office asking for a map of the area, but due to a twist of fate his letter fell into the hands of a military officer in the Malaysian High Commission in London who passed the details to colleagues in Kuala Lumpur:

“All I ever wanted was a map, just a map to see where he crashed,” said Dennis, from Croydon in Surrey.

“I knew he crashed somewhere in the jungle but I just wanted to see the spot for myself on a map.”

In 2008, an expedition funded by the Malaysian Government was launched which involved a 150-strong team of military, police, specialist forensic archaeologists and civilian search teams, and in another stroke of luck on the last day of searching, whilst facing rising flood waters, they recovered human remains.

Following analysis, they were confirmed as belonging to the crew and passengers of the Dakota.

Following an extensive search by staff at the Ministry of Defence’s Service Personnel and Veterans Agency, the relatives of all but one on board were traced and invited to attend a commemorative and committal service at the Cheras Road Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.

During a forty-minute ceremony Dennis was presented with the Union flag, which dressed the single coffin, in recognition of his determination and work to see all the crew and passengers receive the burial they deserved.

“It is important to pay respect to those who died 62 years ago and, whilst we can do that by leaving their shallow graves in the jungle where they first died where the Dakota came down, to do that in the presence of the families and to give them a lasting memorial in a Commonwealth War Graves site is very special,” said the Reverend Group Captain Jonathan Chaffey, who conducted the service.

“It is appropriate that those who flew together and died together should be buried together,” he added.

In a symbolic gesture, the single coffin was carried jointly by members of the Royal Air Force’s Queen’s Colour Squadron and 47 Air Despatch Squadron Royal Logistic Corps, whose former Commanding Officer, Colonel Sean English, read the exhortation:

“There is something very personal to the air despatch community whenever you bury someone from that community. We hold our forebears very dear and there is a clear linkage for the soldiers of today with the soldiers of the 1950s.”

Following the burial service, during which a lone bugler from the Royal Gurkha Rifles played the Last Post, the families were presented with Elizabeth Crosses by the British Defence Adviser, Captain Kenneth Taylor RN, in recognition of the loss and sacrifice of their loved ones.

An emotional Dennis Carpenter said:

“This now brings closure – Geoff is settled now, in a proper grave, and where my children and grandchildren can visit.”

Contributing Source : Defence News HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Mammoth : Wiki Commons

The smallest mammoth known to have ever lived has been identified by Natural History Museum scientists, and is reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

The extinct dwarf mammoth, species Mammuthus creticus, was around 1m tall, about the size of a modern baby African or Asian elephant.

The mini mammoth weighed about 300kg, half the weight of the previous known smallest dwarf mammoth, M. lamarmorai.

The fossils, unearthed in 1904 in Cape Malekas, Crete, have been re-examined and identified by the Museum’s fossil mammal experts Dr Victoria Herridge and Dr Adrian Lister.

Mammoths are elephants, and ‘elephant’ is the broad term used for all elephant and mammoth species, living and extinct.

The identity settles a long-held debate about which part of the elephant family tree the Cretan dwarf belonged to.

Previous thoughts

It was thought that the Cretan dwarf was most likely a descendant of the extinct straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, because this was the ancestor of nearly all the other extinct dwarf elephants found on various Mediterranean islands including Sicily, Malta and Cyprus. But the new work showed that this was not the case.

‘Our work has meant that we can not only show it is a mammoth, but also demonstrate it is the smallest mammoth known to have existed,’ says Herridge.

Dr Herridge with the dwarf mammoth tooth and a normal sized mammoth tooth.

Identifying a mammoth

Mammoths had twisted tusks and a single-domed head. But it is an elephant’s teeth that are most often preserved as fossils and these are used to tell elephant species apart. The teeth wear down during the animal’s life, creating a surface with enamel ‘rings’.

‘The enamel rings on the Cretan tooth fossil had 3 character features that resembled mammoths, the genus Mammuthus, and, importantly, not the straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon,’ says Herridge.

‘Once we had identified it as a mammoth, we then used tooth shape to help us work out which species of mammoth it was most like.’

They compared the Cretan specimen to species of elephant known to have lived in mainland Europe in the past, the 3 mammoth species, Mammuthus rumanus, M. meridionalis and M. trogontherii, as well as P. antiquus.

They also discovered new fossils of the mini mammoth from the original Cape Malekas site, located using the notes and diaries of pioneering fossil hunter Dorothea Bate who collected the original Cretan specimens in 1904.

A fragment of the humerus (upper arm bone) allowed the team to take a measurement of the total bone length so they could reconstruct the size of the adult mammoth as approximately 1.1m tall.

Cretan dwarf mammoth tooth fossil. Scientists identify different species of elephant by looking at the enamel 'rings'.

Mammoth results

The results showed the Cretan specimen was most similar to the species M. meridionalis that lived in Europe 2.5 million to 800,000 years ago.

‘But we couldn’t rule out another species M. rumanus,’ explains Herridge. ‘M. rumanus is the earliest species of mammoth found in Europe (as long ago as 3.5 million years). This means the ancestor of M. creticus could have reached Crete as long ago as 3.5 million years.’

Dwarfism on islands

Dwarfism is a well-known evolutionary response of large mammals living on islands, known as the Island Rule (which conversely includes small mammals becoming larger).

However, the Cretan animal was not only a dwarf, it was an extreme dwarf. Herridge adds, ‘This is the first time that extreme island dwarfism has been shown to have occurred in mammoths’.

The new research shows that such extreme island dwarfism has evolved in 2 lineages of European elephant independently (the other being the straight-tusked elephants).

Lister explains, ‘By showing that the Cretan dwarf was descended from mammoths, we illustrate an example of parallel evolution – two quite distinct lineages of elephant dwarfed in similar fashion on different islands.

‘This also emphasises that there is something about island habitats that causes elephants in general (as well as other kinds of large mammal) to dwarf.’

Not a woolly mammoth

The woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius is by far the best-known species of mammoth, but it was not the only one. Lister explains, ‘There was a series of mammoth species that preceded the woolly mammoth, and it was from one of these – indeed one of the earliest – that we believe M. creticus to be descended.’

‘We do not have soft-tissue evidence for these earlier species, but it is likely they did not have such a woolly coat or such a high head dome as the woolly mammoth.’

Still mysteries about its age

There is still much debate about how old the Cretan fossil material is, so the next step is to try and find out how long ago the mini mammoth was living on Crete. Herridge and other colleagues have already begun this work.

Although they didn’t test for dates in this research, their results suggest M. creticus may have been there longer than previously thought. Herridge explains, ‘I hadn’t previously considered M. rumanus as a plausible ancestor because it was so old, geologically speaking, and so the evidence here has reminded me it doesn’t do well to make assumptions in science!

‘In fact, this has now got us wondering about how long ago M. creticus arrived on Crete. Perhaps it got there much earlier than people generally think.’

Contributing Source : The Natural History Museum HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Homo Sapien (Left) comparison to a Neanderthal (Right) Image Source : Wiki Commons

While the disappearance of Neanderthals remains a mystery, paleoanthropologists have an increasing understanding of what allowed their younger cousins, Homo sapiens, to conquer the planet. According to Ariane Burke, Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal, the rapid dispersal of anatomically modern humans was not so much due to superior intelligence or improved hunting or gathering techniques, but rather to the creation of symbolic objects that allowed them to extend their social relations across vast territories. Symbolism and social exchanges

Homo sapiens arrived in Europe some 45,000 years ago, from Africa. In less than 15,000 years, they managed to occupy the whole of Europe and Eurasia—an extremely rapid expansion. Neanderthals, on the other hand, were born of Europe, appearing on the continent more than 250,000 years ago, after their ancestors, Homo ergaster, had established there 600,000 years earlier. Though physiologically well adapted to the cold climate of the glacial and postglacial periods, why were Neanderthals not as successful as their newly landed rivals in colonizing the continent?

“Neanderthals were quite capable of hunting herd animals and big game,” said the researcher. “They also knew how to feed on shellfish, plants, and nuts.”

Furthermore, they occupied diverse territories, with a variety of climates, ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to the Middle East and the Altai Mountains. Yet they never occupied the northern plains of Europe, where they would have been able to survive quite well.

Based on these facts, and considering that the territories occupied by Neanderthals were small and distant from each other, Burke speculates that the superiority of Homo sapiens was in their social organization, which developed during the Middle Paleolithic period between 200,000 and 35,000 years ago. This “modern” social organization is characterized by the maintenance of personal relations despite the absence of the persons involved, and over long distances.

These extended relationships were made possible by the invention of cultural and symbolic objects that facilitated intergroup exchanges.

“Objects of symbolic value, such as adornments, personal ornaments, animal tooth and shell necklaces, weapon decorations, and aesthetic stone incisions abound during the rapid dispersal of Homo sapiens in Eurasia,” says the researcher. The presence of these objects across vast territories indicates that exchanges took place; “these objects allowed those who possessed them to recall the social link they had established and, in turn, to develop an obligation of reciprocity.”

These social contracts, consolidated by intergroup marriages, brought new territories, promoted exchange of information useful for survival, and allowed relying on allies in the face of adverse environmental conditions.

Neanderthals also made symbolic cultural objects, possibly intended for trade, but much later, in the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 years ago). “It was probably too little, too late,” says Burke.

Navigation abilities

During the millennia-long expansion of these social exchanges, this development exerted selective pressure on the cognitive abilities of Homo sapiens. Indeed, occupying a vast territory requires special navigation abilities. Also according to Burke, it was during this period that humans developed their sense of orientation through an internal compass, or cognitive map, which allows spatial projection. This mode of locomotion is particularly suited to travelling long distances over plains, where nomads have few visual clues. On the other hand, navigating using topographical landmarks was well suited to the small spaces occupied by Neanderthals.

For Burke, however, it was brain plasticity that benefited the most from this selective effect. According to the anthropologist, the two navigation modes are based on separate abilities; the intersex differences observed today in this area, in which men are more successful in spatial projection and women in memorizing landmarks, are, in her view, artefacts of separate and sexually differentiated social behaviours.

While these elements may explain the rapid dispersal of Homo sapiens, they are less able to explain the disappearance of Neanderthals. Burke blames this on the great amount of stress placed on Neanderthals: environmental stress, climate stress, and population stress caused by competition from rivals who could better cope because of their more extensive networks.

This article was translated from a text originally written in French by Daniel Baril.

Contributing Source : University of Montreal HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

 

 

Image Source : Wiki Commons

Huddersfield scientist heads project which unearths new data on the repopulation of Europe after the big freeze

Scientists have used DNA analysis to gain important new insights into how human beings repopulated Europe as the Ice Age relaxed its grip.

Dr Maria Pala

Dr Maria Pala (pictured), who is based at the University of Huddersfield – now a key centre for archaeogenetics research – is the lead author of an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics which shows how the Near East was a major source of replenishment when huge areas of European territory became habitable again, up to 19,000 years ago.

Until the new findings, it was thought that there were two principal safe havens for humans as the Ice Age, or Last Glacial Maximum, descended, approximately 26,000 years ago.  They were a “Franco-Cantabrian” area roughly coinciding with northern Spain/southern France, and a “Periglacial province” on the Ukrainian plains.

Now Dr Pala and her colleagues have greatly added to this picture by analysing large quantities of mitochondrial DNA from Europeans who belong to two major lineages – who share a common genetic ancestor – named J and T.  It is known that these haplogroups originated in the Middle East and until the latest research it was thought that they migrated to Europe in the Neolithic age, approximately 9,000 years ago.

The research project outlined in the American Journal of Human Genetics presents evidence that humans belonging to the J and T haplogroups actually migrated to Europe much earlier than previously believed, as the Ice Age drew to a close.

“The end of the Last Glacial Maximum allowed people to recolonise the parts of Europe that  had  been deserted and this expansion allowed increase of human populations,” says Sardinian-born Dr Pala, who begun research into the topic while at the University of Pavia in Italy.

She later relocated to the UK and is now a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield, where archaeogenetics research – in newly-equipped laboratories – is headed by

Professor Martin Richards, a leader in a field of science which combines archaeology with genetics to learn about the early history of humans and how they colonised the planet.

In addition to purely scientific challenges and discoveries, Dr Pala believes that archaeogenetics has important lessons to teach humanity.

“It helps us to revaluate the perception of our identity.  We are highly focussed on identifying ourselves as Italians, British or whatever, but by analysing DNA we discover that originally, not such a long time ago, we came from a common source.”

Contributing Source : University of Hudderfield HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

They were the stone-age equivalent of Glastonbury festival. People gathered in their hundreds to drink, eat and party every summer at revelries lasting several days and nights. Young men met women from nearby communities and married them. Herds of cattle were slaughtered to provide food.

This article titled “How stone age man invented the art of raving” was written by Robin McKie, for The Observer on Saturday 12th May 2012 23.06 UTC

These neolithic carousals even had special sites. They were held on causewayed enclosures, large hilltop earthworks built by our forebears after they brought farming to Britain from the continent 6,000 years ago.

This picture of ancient British bacchanalia has been created by researchers led by Professor Alasdair Whittle of Cardiff University and Dr Alex Bayliss of English Heritage. Using a revolutionary technique for dating ancient remains, they have built up a detailed chronology of the first farmers’ arrival in Britain and have shown that agriculture spread with dramatic rapidity. In its wake, profound social changes gripped the country, culminating in the construction of causewayed enclosures where chieftains or priests held revelries to help establish their power bases.

Until recently, archaeologists had an imprecise knowledge of the timing of agriculture’s arrival in Britain. “We knew the first long-barrow chambers, often used for communal burials, and the first causewayed enclosures appeared not long after the first farmers started taking over the land from existing hunter-gatherer tribes,” said Bayliss. “But we thought these processes took hundreds of years. In fact, they took about a tenth of that. Armed with this precise sequence, we can understand the social and political revolution that happened with agriculture’s arrival.”

The technique developed by the team is known as Bayesian chronological modelling; it exploits the theorems of the 18th-century mathematician Thomas Bayes to bring new precision to radiocarbon dating of prehistoric samples. In the past, bones or pieces of wood could only be ascribed dates to within a few hundred years. “Now, in many cases, we can date bones or tools with an accuracy of only a couple of decades. That changes everything,” said Whittle.

As a result of their successes, Whittle and Bayliss have won a £2m grant from the European Research Council to date neolithic sites across the continent. The aim is to show the technique’s power to create precise chronologies of ancient events, as it has for stone-age Britain.

The first farmers arrived in Britain from France and appeared in Kent around 4050BC. At first, agriculture spread very slowly — by 3900BC farming had only reached the Cotswolds. Then it went through a period of explosive growth. Within 50 years it had spread across almost all of mainland Britain, reaching as far as Aberdeen. “Presumably a critical mass of farming folk had arrived in Britain while our native hunter-gatherers had seen the game was up and turned to agriculture and a sedentary way of life,” said Whittle.

Once farming was established, ideas were imported from the continent in its wake. First came long barrows, distinctive earth mounds which are often found to contain human remains. They appeared around 3800BC. Then, in 3700BC, came causewayed enclosures. “The difference between the two structures is critical,” said Bayliss. “An extended family could build a long barrow in a summer. It would have taken several hundred men to build a causewayed enclosure.”

In a century, society had changed profoundly from the days when a few isolated farmsteads celebrated their clan links with communal burial grounds. “Chieftains or religious leaders had causewayed enclosures built. Hundreds of people would have been involved. Then they used them for celebrations that bound these people to a common cause,” said Bayliss. “Huge festivals were held. We also know from digs at the enclosure at Hambledon Hill in Dorset that festivals there were held in August or September, to judge from the condition of the teeth of the cattle that were slaughtered there. The man who ran these celebrations would have been very powerful, it is clear.

“The crucial point is that, until we developed this precision in dating, we had no idea of the chronology of neolithic Britain and could not make sense of its of politics. Now we understand a lot more.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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Corals, trees and marine sediments, among others, are direct evidence of the climate of the past, but they are not the only indicators. A team led by Spanish scientists has interpreted records written in Iraq by Arabic historians for the first time and has made a chronology of climatic events from the year 816 to 1009, when cold waves and snow were normal.

The Arabic historians’ records chronologically narrate social, political and religious matters, and some of them mention climate. A study led by researchers from the University of Extremadura (Spain) has focused on ancient meteorological notes of the Iraqi city of Baghdad.

“We have recovered an interesting chronology of climatic events, such as droughts, floods, rain, frost, heat and cold waves as well as strong winds during the period between 816-1009 in the areas now known as Iraq and Syria” Fernando Domínguez-Castro, lead author and researcher in the Physics department at the University of Extremadura, informed SINC.

This study, which has been published in the ‘Weather’ journal, highlights a high number of cold waves. “The period between 902 and 944 had a high number if we compare them to current weather data. Examples of this are the six snowfalls that occurred in that period, whilst in our era, we only know of one snowfall in Baghdad on 11 January 2008″ Domínguez-Castro highlights.

More cold days due to volcanic eruptions

The research team was especially surprised by the “unexpected” drop in temperatures in July 920. According to the documents analysed, the people of Baghdad had to come down from their roofs (where they would usually sleep in the summer) and go inside their houses and even use blankets. The temperatures could have dropped 9ºC compared to the current average for the month of July.

“It is difficult to identify the cause of this drop in temperature, but it could be due to a volcanic eruption the year before, as it is common for summer temperatures to drop in these cases” the expert points out and says that during some of those nights in July 920, temperatures did not exceed 18ºC.

There were two significant volcanic eruptions during that period, which could be the cause of the cold waves, “although there is a lot of doubt surrounding the dates”, the researcher states. One of those was the Ceboruco volcano (Mexico), around 930, and the other was the Guagua Pichincha (Ecuador), around 910. Nonetheless, “more evidence is necessary to confirm this hypothesis” the expert warns.

The research shows that during the first half of the tenth century, the cold climatic events in Baghdad were more frequent and more intense than today. Although in the Iraqi city only two days with temperatures below 0ºC were registered between 1954 and 2008, there were at least six very cold days in a 42 year period in the tenth century.

According to the researchers, “the Arabic records are very useful for reconstructing the climate in eras and places about which we know very little”. Thanks to the synergy of humans and science ‘robust climate information’ has been extracted” they conclude.

Baghdad, the centre of the empire

In 762, Abu Ja’far Abdallah al-Mansur, the second Abbasid Caliph (the second Islamic dynasty), founded the city of Baghdad and established it as the capital of the empire. The city soon became the most prosperous place at the time, and the centre of international trade and agricultural development, which attracted a growing population.

Historians of the era debated reasons as to why the Caliph gave so much importance to Baghdad. As well as its strategic location between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the city had good weather conditions. “There was plenty of water, the weather was very warm in the summer, very cold in the winter, and moderate in spring and autumn,” Al-Ya`qubi described, author of a geographical treatise in 891.

Contributing Source : SINC

The Scientific Information and News Service (Servicio de Información y Noticias Científicas – SINC), is a new public and nationwide multimedia scientific news platform supported by an open source software tool based in Spain. The primary objective behind the creation of SINC is to increase the number of high quality scientific news items in the media, as a means of bringing the public closer to science.

HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

Two skulls with perforations have been exhumed in the area of Gormaz in Soria, Spain by researchers from the universities of Oviedo and Leon. They have been dated from the 13th and 14th centuries – a period in which trepanation was not commonly practiced.

Trepanation has been around for a very long time. The earliest examples found go back to the beginning of the Neolithic Period some 10,000 years ago. There are even authors who suggest that such iatrogenic practices (induced by physicians) began at the end of both the Palaeolithic Period and the Mesolithic Period some 12,000 years ago.

Nonetheless, little evidence exists for later periods, such as the Middle Ages. The two skulls in Soria trepanned for medical purposes between the 13th and 14th centuries are therefore a surprising finding. They were discovered in the area surrounding the San Miguel hermitage in the area of Gormaz by researchers from the universities of Oviedo and Leon.

“As of the Bronze Age, cases of trepanation are common throughout Europe, mainly in the Mediterranean Basin. In the Iberian Peninsula there are many cases that have been dated back to the Copper Age some 4,000 years ago. However, our scientific literature lacks much more in the description of trepanation during the Middle Ages,” explains SINC Belén López Martínez, researcher and the University of Oviedo and co-author of the study.

One of the most salient cases actually comes from Spain. The King of Castile, Henry I (1204-1217) underwent trepanation whilst still alive possibly in an attempt to stop a haemorrhage caused by an accidental blow to the head. The accident subsequently brought him to his death.

The two skulls found in the cemetery in Soria belong to a male between 50 and 55 years and a woman between 45 and 50 years. The expert points out that “another interesting aspect of this finding is that trepanation in women is considered rare throughout all periods in history. In Spain, only 10% of those trepanned skulls found belonged to women.”

Drawing of the two skulls and their trepanation (above is the female and below is the male). Image: Esther Gómez López.

Different techniques, different results

The trepanation technique differs in each of the skulls. The skull of the male has been grooved with a sharp object and it is unknown whether trepanation occurred before or after his death. López Martínez confirms that “if the procedure took place whilst still alive, there is no sign of regeneration and the subject did not survive.”

In the woman, a scraping technique was used while she was still alive. According to the researchers, she survived for a “relatively long” amount of time afterwards given that the wound scarring is advanced.

Regarding why trepanation was performed, researchers suspect differing reasons. As the researchers conclude, “this is the big question on trepanation. Its practice can be attributed to many reasons: magic/religious reasons such as to free people from daemons that could be torturing them; initiations as a way of giving right of passage to adulthood or to turn someone into a warrior; therapeutic reasons to treat tumours, convulsions, epilepsy, migraines, loss of consciousness and behavioural changes and; the treatment of traumatisms like skull fractures.”

Contributing Source : SINC

The Scientific Information and News Service (Servicio de Información y Noticias Científicas – SINC), is a new public and nationwide multimedia scientific news platform supported by an open source software tool based in Spain. The primary objective behind the creation of SINC is to increase the number of high quality scientific news items in the media, as a means of bringing the public closer to science.

HeritageDaily : Archaeology News : Archaeology Press Releases

New research led by the University of Reading has revealed that finds at Glastonbury Abbey provide the earliest archaeological evidence of glass-making in Britain.

Professor Roberta Gilchrist, from the Department of Archaeology, has re-examined the records of excavations that took place at Glastonbury in the 1950s and 1960s.

Glass Ware

Glass furnaces recorded in 1955-7 were previously thought to date from before the Norman Conquest. However, radiocarbon dating has now revealed that they date approximately to the 680s, and are likely to be associated with a major rebuilding of the abbey undertaken by King Ine of Wessex. Glass-making at York and Wearmouth is recorded in historical documents in the 670s but Glastonbury provides the earliest and most substantial archaeological evidence for glass-making in Saxon Britain.

The extensive remains of five furnaces have been identified, together with fragments of clay crucibles and glass for window glazing and drinking vessels, mainly of vivid blue-green colour. It is likely that specialist glassworkers came from Gaul (France) to work at Glastonbury. The glass will be analysed chemically to provide further information on the sourcing and processing of materials.

Professor Gilchrist said: “Glastonbury Abbey is a site of international historical importance but until now the excavations have remained unpublished. The research project reveals new evidence for the early date of the monastery at Glastonbury and charts its development over one thousand years, from the 6th century to its dissolution in the 16th century.”

An exhibition at Glastonbury Abbey Museum, ‘From Fire & Earth’, tells the story of the Abbey’s pioneering role in medieval crafts and technology, and runs until 16 September 2012.

The full archive of excavations will be brought to publication by Professor Gilchrist, in partnership with the Trustees of Glastonbury Abbey and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Radiocarbon dating was funded by the Somerset Archaeology & Natural History Society and the Society for Medieval Archaeology. Specialist analyses of the glass are being undertaken by Dr Hugh Willmott (University of Sheffield) and Dr Kate Welham (University of Bournemouth).

Background:

For more information please contact Rona Cheeseman, research communications manager, on 0118 378 7388 or email r.cheeseman@reading.ac.uk

The University of Reading has been awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize 2009 in recognition of the excellence of the University’s Department of Archaeology, which, uniquely within the study of archaeology, combines ground-breaking research, enterprise and teaching.

Staff research interests focus on European and Mediterranean archaeology from early prehistory to the later medieval period, and on social archaeology, environmental archaeology and geoarchaeology. Undergraduate and postgraduate courses are wide-ranging and include archaeological science, theory and practical experience of archaeology in the field through our training excavation of the Roman town of Silchester

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