All posts by Archaeology World Team

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

World’s Oldest Pants, Turfan Man’s Trousers, was Made through Three Weaving Techniques

World’s Oldest Pants, Turfan Man’s Trousers, was Made through Three Weaving Techniques

What little rain that falls on a gravelly desert located in western China’s Tarim Basin evaporates as it hits the blistering turf. Here, in this parched wasteland, lie the ancient remains of people who made one of the biggest fashion splashes of all time. Herders and horse riders who buried their dead in the Tarim Basin’s Yanghai graveyard pioneered pants making between roughly 3,200 and 3,000 years ago. Their deft combination of weaving techniques and decorative patterns — displaying influences from societies across Eurasia — yielded a pair of stylish yet durable trousers now recognized as the oldest such garment known in the world (SN: 5/30/14).

World's Oldest Pants, Turfan Man's Trousers, was Made through Three Weaving Techniques
This pair of approximately 3,000-year-old pants, the oldest ever found, displays weaving techniques and decorative patterns that were influenced by cultures across Asia, researchers say.

Now, an international team of archaeologists, fashion designers, geoscientists, chemists and conservators has untangled how those trousers were made and painstakingly created a modern replica. The vintage slacks weave a tale not only of textile innovation but also of how cultural practices fanned out across Asia, the researchers report in the March Archaeological Research in Asia.

“A diversity of textile techniques and patterns of different local origins, traditions and times merged into something new in this garment,” says archaeologist and project director Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. “Eastern Central Asia was a laboratory where people, plants, animals, knowledge and experiences from different directions and sources came … and were transformed.”

Fashion icon

One man brought the pants to scientists’ attention without uttering a word. His naturally mummified body, as well as the preserved bodies of more than 500 others, was uncovered during excavations conducted by Chinese archaeologists since the early 1970s at the Yanghai cemetery.

He sported an outfit that consisted of the trousers, a poncho belted at the waist, one pair of braided bands to fasten the trouser legs below the knees, another pair to fasten soft leather boots at the ankles and a wool headband with four bronze disks and two seashells sewn on it. A leather bridle, wooden horse bit and battle-axe that had been placed in his grave indicated he had been a horse-riding warrior. Researchers now call him Turfan Man because the Yanghai site lies about 43 kilometres southeast of the Chinese city of Turfan.

A woven reproduction of Turfan Man’s outfit, worn here by a model, includes a belted poncho, pants with braided leg fasteners and boots.

Of all of Turfan Man’s garments, his trousers stood out as truly special. Not only were they older by at least several centuries than any other examples of such gear, but the Yanghai pants also boasted a sophisticated, modern look. The pants feature two leg pieces that gradually widen at the top, connected by a crotch piece that widens and bunches in the middle to increase leg mobility.

Within a few hundred years, mobile groups across Eurasia began wearing pants like those at Yanghai, other archaeological finds have shown. Woven leg covers connected by a flexible crotch piece eased the strain of riding horses bareback over long distances. Not surprisingly, mounted armies debuted around that time.

Today, people everywhere don denim jeans and dress slacks that incorporate the design and production principles of the ancient Yanghai trousers.

In short, Turfan Man was the ultimate trendsetter.

Fancy pants

Despite being so fashion-forward, the ancient Yanghai horseman left researchers wondering how his remarkable pants had been made. No traces of cutting appeared on the fabric, so Wagner’s team suspected that the garment had been woven to fit its wearer. A close examination of Turfan Man’s trousers revealed a combination of three weaving techniques, the scientists report in the new study. A re-created version of the find — fashioned by an expert weaver from the yarn of coarse-wooled sheep similar to those whose wool was used by ancient Yanghai weavers — confirmed that observation.

Much of the garment consists of twill weave, a major innovation in the history of textiles.

Twill changes the character of woven wool from firm to elastic, providing enough “give” to let a person move freely in a pair of tight-fitting pants. The fabric is created by using rods on a loom to weave a pattern of parallel, diagonal lines. Lengthwise warp threads are held in place so that a row of weft threads can be passed over and under them at regular intervals. The starting point of this weaving pattern shifts slightly to the right or left for each ensuing row so that a diagonal line forms.

A twill weave like that used to make the oldest known pants in the world is illustrated here. Horizontal weft threads pass over one and under two or more vertical warp threads, shifting slightly on each row to produce a diagonal pattern (dark gray).

Variations in the number and colour of weft threads in the twill weave on Turfan Man’s trousers were used to create pairs of brown stripes running up the off-white crotch piece, the researchers found.

Textile archaeologist Karina Grömer of the Natural History Museum Vienna says she recognized twill weave on Turfan Man’s trousers when she examined them around five years ago. Grömer had previously reported that pieces of woven fabric found in Austria’s Hallstatt salt mine, where such delicate textiles preserve well, displayed the oldest known twill weave. Radiocarbon dating places the Hallstatt textiles between around 3,500 and 3,200 years old — roughly 200 years before Turfan man sported his britches.

People in Europe and Central Asia may have independently invented twill weaving, says Grömer, who did not participate in the new study. But at the Yanghai site, weavers combined twill with other weaving techniques and innovative designs to create high-quality riding pants.

“This is not a beginner’s item,” Grömer says. “It’s like the Rolls-Royce of trousers.”

Consider the ancient trousers’ knee sections. A technique now known as tapestry weaving produced a thicker, more protective fabric at these joints, the researchers found. A third weaving method was used on the upper border of the pants to create a thick waistband.

Other features of the trousers involved an unusual twining method, in which two differently colored weft threads were twisted around each other by hand and laced through warp threads, creating a decorative, geometric pattern across the knees that resembles interlocking T’s leaning to the side. The same twining method produced zigzag stripes at the trousers’ ankles and calves.

Wagner’s team could find only a few historical examples of such twining, including borders on cloaks of the Maori people, an Indigenous group in New Zealand.

Yanghai artisans also showed their ingenuity in designing a formfitting crotch piece that was wider at its centre than at its ends, Grömer says. Trousers dating to a few hundred years later than the Yanghai find, found in several parts of Asia, often consist of woven legs connected by square fabric crotch pieces that resulted in a less comfortable and flexible fit. In tests with a man riding a horse bareback while wearing a re-created version of Turfan Man’s entire outfit, the trousers fit snugly yet allowed the legs to clamp firmly around the horse.

Today’s denim jeans are made from one piece of twill material following some of the same design principles as those favoured by Yanghai pants makers three millennia ago.

Ancient trousers (partly shown at bottom) from China’s Tarim Basin display twill weaving that was used to produce alternating brown and off-white diagonal lines at the tops of the legs (far left) and dark brown stripes on the crotch piece (second from left). Another technique for manipulating threads enabled artisans to create a geometric pattern at the knees (second from right) and zigzag stripes at the ankles (far right).

Clothes connections

Perhaps most striking, Turfan Man’s trousers tell a story of how ancient herding groups carried their cultural practices and knowledge across Asia, spreading seeds of innovation. For instance, the interlocking T pattern decorating the ancient horseman’s pants at the knees appears on bronze vessels found in what’s now China from around the same time, roughly 3,300 years ago, Wagner’s team says. The nearly simultaneous adoption of this geometric form in Central and East Asia coincides with the arrival in those regions of herders from West Eurasian grasslands riding horses that they domesticated 4,200 years ago or more (SN: 10/20/21).

Pottery found at those horse riders’ home sites in western Siberia and Kazakhstan displays interlocking T’s as well. Any deeper meaning this pattern held aside from its artistic appeal remains unknown. But West Eurasian horse breeders probably spread the interlocking T design across much of ancient Asia, Wagner and her colleagues suspect.

Similarly, a stepped pyramid pattern woven into the Yanghai pants appears on pottery from Central Asia’s Petrovka culture, which dates to between around 3,900 and 3,750 years ago. The same pattern resembles architectural designs that are more than 4,000 years old from western and southwestern Asian and Middle Eastern societies, including Mesopotamian stepped pyramids, the researchers say. Tapestry weaving such as that observed on Turfan Man’s trousers also originated in those societies.

It’s no surprise that cultural influences from throughout Asia affected ancient people in the Tarim Basin, says anthropologist Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis. Yanghai people inhabited a region at a crossroads of seasonal migration routes followed by herding groups starting more than 4,000 years ago (SN: 3/8/17). Those routes ran from the Altai Mountains in Central and East Asia to Southwest Asia where Iran is located today. Excavations at sites along those routes indicate that herders spread crops across much of Asia too (SN: 4/2/14).

Cultural transitions in the Tarim Basin may have started even earlier. Ancient DNA suggests that western Asian herders in oxen-pulled wagons moved through much of Europe and Asia around 5,000 years ago (SN: 11/15/17).

By around 2,000 years ago, herders’ migration paths formed part of a trade and travel network running from China to Europe that became known as the Silk Road. Cultural mixing and mingling intensified as thousands of local routes throughout Eurasia formed a massive network.

Turfan Man’s multicultural riding pants show that even in the Silk Road’s early stages, migrating herders carried new ideas and practices to distant communities. “The Yanghai pants are an entry point for examining how the Silk Road transformed the world,” Frachetti says.

Looming questions

A more basic question concerns how exactly Yanghai clothes makers transformed yarn spun from sheep’s wool into Turfan Man’s trousers. Even after making a replica of those pants on a modern loom, Wagner’s team is unsure what an ancient Yanghai loom looked like. No remnants of those devices have been found. The researchers suspect a loom constructed to be operated from a sitting position would have made it possible to create intricate, twined patterns. Experiments with different weaving devices are the next step in untangling how Turfan Man’s trousers were made, Wagner says.

It’s clear, though, that the makers of these ancient pants blended several complex techniques into a revolutionary piece of apparel, says archaeologist and linguist Elizabeth Barber of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Barber has studied the origins and development of cloth and clothing in West Asia.

“We truly know so little about how clever the ancient weavers were,” Barber says. Turfan Man may not have had time to ponder his clothes makers’ prowess. With a pair of pants like that, he was ready to ride.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Israel Museum obtains world’s ‘first Jewish coin’

Israel Museum obtains world’s ‘first Jewish coin’

The Israel Museum has acquired over 1,200 ancient silver Persian coins, among the earliest known currency from the area, including what the museum has identified as the world’s oldest Jewish coin.

Israel Museum obtains world’s ‘first Jewish coin’
A 5th-century silver drachm from Persian era Palestine with a gorgoneion on the obverse (left) and a lion and bovine on the reverse (right). Above the lion are the Aramaic letters yod, heh and dalet — Judea.

The coins, dated to the 5th and 4th centuries BCE when the region was controlled by the Persian Empire, constitute “the largest collection in the world of Persian-period coins.”

The collection includes a number of previously unknown varieties, the museum said. Chief among the rare artefacts is a silver drachm, an ancient coin based upon the Greek drachma, which, in clearly legible Aramaic script, bears the word yehud, or Judea.

“It’s the earliest coin from the province of Judea,” the museum’s chief curator of archaeology, Haim Gitler, said in an interview with The Times of Israel, calling the 5th-century silver drachm the “first Jewish coin.”

The coin collection dates to the period a century or more after the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Cyrus II (the Great) conquered and annexed the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE.  The Persians ruled the Levant for the next two centuries until Alexander of Macedon stormed through and toppled their empire. Roughly a century before Persia conquered the Middle East, the earliest known currency was minted from electrum — a silver-gold alloy — in Lydia, western Asia Minor.

The idea of precious metal coinage spread across the empire. Judea, Samaria and Philistia, part of the satrapy of Syria and Jerusalem, began minting their own coins shortly thereafter. The 3.58 gram yehud coin — a hair or two lighter than today’s one shekel coin — was reportedly found in the hills southwest of Hebron and was bought at auction by New York antiquities collector Jonathan Rosen.

Rosen, “one of the world’s most important private collectors of Mesopotamian art” according to The New York Times, agreed to donate his entire collection of Persian-era coins to the museum in March 2013.  The acquisition was completed in November. Apollo, an international art magazine, ranked the collection among the top museum acquisitions of 2013.

Although there are a handful of other examples of coins bearing the name Judea, Gitler said the silver drachm was a “unique coin” in its design, and was likely minted in Philistia, the coastal plain encompassing the modern cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza, for use in the province of Jerusalem. “Only later did Judea start to mint its own coins,” he said.

Then, as now, Judea, Samaria and Philistia sat at the crossroads of civilizations and at the far reaches of the Persian Empire, and local artisans would imitate styles from coins that arrived from abroad.

The coinage represented in the collection consequently exhibits a stunning array of artistic influences from Persia, Greece, Anatolia and Egypt. Many coins feature owls, a symbol closely associated with the goddess Athena, both of which appeared on Greek drachmas in antiquity. Other coins bear images of deities, heroes, mythical beasts and animals familiar to the Middle East — including camels, horses, cows, eagles, and lions.

The Judean drachm’s iconography is representative of the local fusion of artistic designs. Emblazoned on its obverse is a gorgoneion, a Greek icon of the head of a gorgon that serves as a talisman against evil, but its hair is stylized like the Egyptian goddess Hathor. On the reverse side is a lion astride a cow with the Aramaic letters yod, heh and dalet. The exact meaning of the coin’s iconography remains undetermined.

Based on the stylization of the gorgon head, which in earlier incarnations was demonic and bestial and over the centuries became more anthropomorphic, and the style of the Aramaic script, Gitler dated the coin to the early 4th century BCE.

“We barely have any information or texts describing the Persian period in Palestine, so almost all that we know comes from these coins,” he said. Gitler explained that the tiny images engraved in silver offer a glimpse into the appearance, manner of dress and language spoken by inhabitants of the region at the time.

It is clear from the collection that the die-engravers of Persian Palestine who designed the coins demonstrated a proclivity for creative expression unseen elsewhere in the empire, creating a “local flavour” of coinage, Gitler said. Coins from Tyre and Sidon, just up the coast, have a much smaller variety of styles.

A Philistian drachm from the late 5th century BCE in the collection employs a clever example of “optical trickery” in its design, he noted.

When turned 90˚ counterclockwise, the lion on the coin’s reverse becomes the helmet of the bearded man, and its paws become the man’s hair. Gitler said such illusions were fairly common, noting that a Samarian coin from the same period showed the head of a bearded man whose face is composed of two faces in profile. Hidden owls also roost within the designs of other creatures. 

The obverse of a Samarian drachm with a lion (left) which, when turned 90˚ (right), becomes a bearded man.

“The coins really show us a variety of motifs which is unequaled” in the Persian Empire, Gitler said. “It shows that the people who were designing these coins weren’t just making the coins because they had to do them, but they enjoyed doing it.”

A selection of coins from the collection is now on display in the Israel Museum’s Archaeology Wing, including the lion optical illusion coin shown above. 

“Of course in the future we’ll start incorporating more of the collection,” he said, voicing interest in holding an exhibition of a selection of the coins in the collection which he said would be “even more amazing” than the White Gold exhibit in 2012 that showcased the world’s earliest electrum currency.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Chinese explorers discovered America before Columbus?

Chinese explorers discovered America before Columbus?

History may be rewritten as new evidence suggests ancient Chinese explorers landed on the New World around 2,500 years before Christopher Columbus, contrary to popular belief that the Italian seafarer ‘discovered’ America.

History may be rewritten as new evidence suggests ancient Chinese explorers landed on the New World around 2,500 years before Christopher Columbus, contrary to popular belief that the Italian seafarer ‘discovered’ America.

John Ruskamp, a research doctorate in Education Illinois, claims to have spotted petroglyphs or carvings high above a walking path in Albuquerque’s Petroglyph National Monument in the US state of New Mexico.

The carvings, a series of inscriptions with Asian characters, struck him as unusual.

“After consulting with experts on Native American rock and ancient Chinese writing scripts to corroborate his analysis, I’ve concluded that preserved by the readable message was likely these petroglyphs inscribed by a group of Chinese explorers thousands of years ago,” Ruskamp was quoted as saying by the New York-based Epoch Times.

Spanish daily ABC reported on Friday the carvings could reveal that the Chinese stepped on that region before the sailors who came in known caravels.

Ruskamp’s thesis enabled him to write a book and make good money and now, the author claims to have deciphered inscriptions that corroborate his new theory, it said.

To date, over 82 Ruskamp-identified petroglyphs have matching unique ancient Chinese scripts not only at multiple sites in Albuquerque, but also nearby in Arizona, as well as in Utah, Nevada, California, Oklahoma, and Ontario.

“Collectively, I believe that most of these artefacts were created by an early Chinese exploratory expedition” though it appears that some reproductions were made by native people for their own purposes, he said.

One ancient message, cartouche or carved tablet preserved by three Arizona petroglyphs, translates as: “Set apart (for) 10 years together; declaring (to) return, (the) journey completed, (to the) house of the Sun; (The) journey completed together.”

At the end of this text is an unidentified character that might be the author’s signature, the report said.

Ruskamp said the mixed styles of Chinese scripts found in the petroglyphs indicate that they were made during a transitional period of writing in China, not long after 1046 BC – hundreds of years before Columbus arrived at the New World in 1492.

It is difficult to physically date petroglyphs with absolute certainty, notes Ruskamp.

Yet the syntax and mix of Chinese scripts found at two locations in original correspond to what experts would expect to use explorers from China some 2,500 years ago.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Large Cache of Embalming Materials Discovered in Egypt

Large Cache of Embalming Materials Discovered in Egypt

A team of Egyptologists from Charles University in Prague made the discovery in the western part of the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Abusir in the spring of last year when exploring a group of large shaft tombs located there.

The collection of large ceramic vessels, containing residues of various materials used during the mummification ritual, was found in one huge shaft, carefully placed in 14 layers.

Large Cache of Embalming Materials Discovered in Egypt

The deposit, which dates back to the 6th century B.C., also included some other objects, says Jiří Janák from the Institute of Egyptology, who was one of the members of the research team:

“Among the objects, we found there were other smaller vessels as well as pieces of ashes from a fire that burned somewhere near the place where the person was mummified. We also found remnants of natron, a substance that the Egyptians used to dry the dead body.”

Experts also found residues of resins, oils or myrrh in the amphora-shaped containers. In addition to these, the deposit also contained four so-called canopic jars made of limestone, that were used for storing the viscera removed from the body during the embalming process.

“What we found were empty canopic jars, which had not yet been used. Interestingly, there were inscriptions on them including the name of the owner. That’s what helped us identify the person to whom this deposit belonged.”

So far, experts from the Czech Institute of Egyptology have only opened a part of the nearly 400 sealed vessels.

This year, they are going to continue to analyse the ceramic containers and their contents.

Another part of the team will be examining the adjacent structure right next to the mummification deposit. That will most likely be the tomb of the deposit’s owner, who, according to the inscriptions on the jars, was named Wahibre-mery-Neith.

The team of Czech Egyptologists has been working on the site in Abusir already since the 1960s and has one of the largest archaeological sites loaned by the Egyptians to foreigners, explains archaeologist Veronika Dulíková:

“Imagine an area that’s about two square kilometres in size. We have an amazing concession here with enormous potential.

We estimate that only around ten per cent of the total area has been explored so far.”

The burial site at Abusir has been continuously used throughout the whole of ancient Egypt’s history. Czech experts believe that the new discovery will shed more light on the process of mummification.

ANTARCTICA, WORLD

Researchers Find a Lost Subterranean World in a Cave Beneath Antarctica

Researchers Find a Lost Subterranean World in a Cave Beneath Antarctica

The 24th Ukrainian expedition members to Antarctica have managed to trace down a cave that had long been lost. The subterranean formation is three times larger than previously thought and features several lakes and a river, as reported on September 10 by the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

The subterranean world is found inside the Cave of a remote place, the Island of Galindez.

The Cave was actually found long ago when the first Antarctic expeditions took place. Through time, experts lost track of the Cave, and it was forgotten. The Ukrainian expedition has revealed that the Antarctic cave was actually three times larger than previously thought.

A Lost Subterranean World

Ukrainian researchers exploring the Cave. Image Credit: Press Service of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

The entrance at the time was on the opposite side of the island and under the top of a glacier near the Vernadsky Research Base. However, the glacier collapsed, and the entrance was sealed.

The chief of the 24th Antarctic expedition, Igor Diki, explained that it took quite some time to find the Cave entrance again.

A researcher standing inside the mysterious Cave. Image Credit: Press Service of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

“There were several failed attempts to find it from the side of the Penola Strait. But we were lucky to find the entrance from the side of the Wordie House, the former British base,” he revealed in a statement.

This fascinating subterranean world has three levels with a total width of around 200 meters. Inside the Cave, there is an ice river and two lakes; the explorers have revealed that the Cave is at least three times bigger than initially thought.

The frozen Cave was found by Ukrainian explorers.

In addition to that, the researchers claim to have discovered the plume of a bird that they say is definitely not that of a penguin.

This unexpected find was recovered and set to Ukraine for further testing. Researchers also took water samples from the frozen river and lake for hydrochemical analysis and further studies on the presence of viruses and bacteria and their environmental DNA.

The statement revealed that the ice samples would be stored for further research in Ukrainian laboratories.

The Cave turned out to be three times bigger than initially thought.

The Vernadsky Research Base has been operating since 1996 and was founded in 1953 on Galindez’s island by British researchers, who initially named the station Faraday.

Galindez Island owes its name to the ARA Uruguay corvette commander of the Argentine Navy, Captain Ismael Galíndez.

An explorer walking through the Cave.

The ship rescued the explorers from the third French Antarctic expedition that discovered the islet in the early twentieth century.

The Vernadsky Research base was named after Russian and Ukrainian mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863–1945), the first president of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

World War II POW Camp Excavated in England

World War II POW Camp Excavated in England

The German Second World War soldiers were imprisoned close to the Park Hall military camp, near Oswestry. Excavations have been taking place at Mile End where work is continuing on the multi-million pound revamp of the A5/A483 junction to the south of the town.

Experts from Wessex Archaeology, who carried out the excavations, said the evidence they have found suggests that the camp was in use between 1940 and 1948 and believe it will give them an insight into what life was like as a prisoner of war in Shropshire.

Among the finds were a loaded German pistol and a spent .303 cartridge as well as signs of comfort including beer bottles from the now-defunct Border Breweries in Wrexham.

A map showing the layout of the camp at Mile End
A spent .303 cartridge was found at Mile End.

John Winfer, project manager at Wessex Archaeology, said: “What we have revealed is surprising evidence of some (relatively speaking) comfortable conditions for the inmates.

“We know from our documentary research that the Red Cross, which visited many POW camps across Europe during the Second World War, came to assess conditions at the Mile End camp.

“The visit report highlights the range of facilities and activities on offer to the prisoners, which is supported by the archaeological evidence we uncovered.”

Glass bottles once containing hygiene and cleaning products.
Toothbrushes and other personal items were found at the camp.
A second roundabout has been built at Mile End in the latest multi-million-pound change to the layout

He said the prisoners benefited from sports pitches, musical performances, electricity to power lights and heating, enough toilets available for everyone at the camp, and several hot and cold showers and washbasins.

Many of the prisoners would have been employed in carpentry workshops, with younger inmates given time off to study at the camp’s school, he said,

“Those overseeing the camp enjoyed more spacious accommodation, and our work uncovered military issue ceramic tableware accompanied by beer glasses. This all paints a civilised and rather unexpected picture of a POW camp,” Mr Winfer said.

A toy camel was also found.
Wings from a German uniform.

Artefacts giving more personal insights to those living at the camp include a lead alloy toy camel and toiletries including toothbrushes.

But it is an aluminium metal identification tag from a German soldier that has excited archaeologists the most.

Mr Winfer said: “This is an intriguing find with so much potential. In the event of death during the war, the tag would have been snapped, with one half-buried with the body for later identification and the other given to unit administrators for recording.

World War II POW Camp Excavated in England
A loaded German pistol.
Beer bottles were found at the camp.

“In this case, it tells us that the German POW in question belonged to the 3rd Company, Landesschützen Battalion XI/I marking the capture of this prisoner early in the war, September 1939 to 1940.

“We know his serial number too, so we’ll be doing further research to reveal the full story.”

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

New Study Suggests Fisherman Drowned Some 5,000 Years Ago

New Study Suggests Fisherman Drowned Some 5,000 Years Ago

A new study has confirmed saltwater drowning as the cause of death for a Neolithic man whose remains were found in a mass grave on the coast of Northern Chile. The method developed to solve the 5000-year-old cold case opens up new possibilities for assessing the remains of our prehistoric ancestors.

New Study Suggests Fisherman Drowned Some 5,000 Years Ago
The Neolithic fisherman in the burial site

The scientists believe it will help archaeologists understand more about past civilisations in coastal regions and the human stories behind the remains they discover.

Modern forensics can confirm drowning as the cause of death in recent victims by testing for diatoms inside the bones of the victims. Diatoms are a group of algae found in oceans, freshwater and soils. If they are found inside the bones of victims’ bodies, it is likely that they drowned.

This is because if they had died before entering the water, they would not have swallowed any saltwater. The test has never been successfully tried to determine drowning in saltwater on prehistoric human remains, until now.

In addition to the diatom test, the research team, led by the University of Southampton, carried out a wide-ranging microscopic analysis of bone marrow extracted from a man found in a 5000-year-old mass burial site.

This allowed them to search for a greater range of microscopic particles that could provide more insight into the cause of his death.

The results, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, found a variety of marine particles that suggested he drowned in saltwater. These particles included fossilised algae, parasite eggs and sediment, which would not have been detected by the standard diatom test.

Professor James Goff of the University of Southampton, who led the study said, “mass burials have often been necessary after natural disasters such as tsunamis, floods or large storms.

However, we know very little about whether prehistoric mass burial sites near coastlines could be the result of natural disasters or other causes such as war, famine and disease. This gave us our light bulb moment of developing an enhanced version of a modern forensic test to use on ancient bones.”

After scanning archaeological papers for records of mass burial sites near coastlines, Prof Goff and his team worked with Prof Pedro Andrade of the Universidad de Concepción in Chile.

Prof Andrade had previously studied an archaeological site known as Copaca 1, 30 kilometres south of Tocopilla on the Chilean coastline. The site area contains a grave with three well-preserved skeletons.

The individual they studied was a male hunter-gather aged between 35 and 45. The condition of his bones suggested he was a fisherman as there were signs of frequent harpooning, rowing and harvesting of shellfish.

This made him the ideal candidate to study for signs of drowning and for evidence of the event that led to his death.

Genevieve Cain, Prof Pedro Andrade and the fisherman

“By looking at what we found in his bone marrow, we know that he drowned in shallow saltwater,” Prof Goff continued. “We could see that the poor man swallowed sediment in his final moments and sediment does not tend to float around in sufficient concentrations in deeper waters.”

Based on their initial findings, the team believe that he died in a marine accident rather than in a major catastrophic event. This is partly because the bones of the others he was buried with did not contain marine particles so it is unlikely they all died by saltwater drowning.

The team advise they could shed more light on this by testing other human remains on the site and studying geological records for evidence of natural disasters in the area.

Most importantly, scientists believe this new technique can be used for ancient mass burial sites around the world to get a richer picture of the lives of people in coastal communities throughout history.

“In taking more time over the forensic technique and testing for a broader range of beasties inside the prehistoric bones, we’ve cracked open a whole new way to do things,” Prof Goff continued. “This can help us understand much more about how tough it was living by the coast in pre-historic days – and how people there were affected by catastrophic events, just as we are today.”

“There are many coastal mass burial sites around the world where excellent archaeological studies have been carried out but the fundamental question of what caused so many deaths have not been addressed. Now we can take this new technique out around the world and potentially re-write prehistory.”

Prof James Goff and the fisherman
EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Analysis Identifies Ancient Roman Chamber Pot

Analysis Identifies Ancient Roman Chamber Pot

Storage jar or long-abandoned lavatory? That, for some reason, is the question archaeologists from the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, sought to answer while studying an ancient Sicilian villa site.

Now, according to a new paper published last week in the Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, they’ve solved this smelly mystery.

As it turns out, a conical jar found at the site – found widely across the Roman empire and long thought to have stored unidentified objects or resources – was actually an ancient Roman toilet. 

A chamber pot from the 5th century CE from the Roman villa at Gerace, Sicily (Italy). Scale: 10 cm.

“Conical pots of this type have been recognised quite widely in the Roman Empire and in the absence of other evidence they have often been called storage jars,” says Roger Wilson, a professor in UBC’s Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, who directs the archaeological project in Sicily. 

But Wilson says these pots were often found suspiciously close to public latrines, leading archaeologists to wonder exactly what treasures had been contained within.

“The discovery of many in or near public latrines had led to a suggestion that they might have been used as chamber pots, but until now proof has been lacking,” says Wilson.

To decode the pots’ long-disappeared contents, Cambridge archaeologists analysed a “crusty material” (yuck) formed on the inside surface of a pot found in the bathing complex at the site. Using microscopy, a team from the Ancient Parasite Laboratory confirmed the present of whipworm eggs – a human intestinal parasite.

“It was incredibly exciting to find the eggs of these parasitic worms 1,500 years after they’d been deposited,” says co-author Tianyi Wang, of Cambridge, who took part in the microscopy work.

Whipworms are human parasites, around five centimetres long, that live on the lining of our intestines. Their eggs would have mixed in with human faeces, and built up as residue over time with continuous use.

“We found that the parasite eggs became entrapped within the layers of minerals that formed on the pot surface, so preserving them for centuries,” says co-author Sophie Rabinow, also of the Cambridge team.

This is the first time parasite eggs have been identified from concretions inside a Roman ceramic vessel, and it confirms the Sicilian pot must have been used to contain human faeces.

A microscopic whipworm egg from the chamber pot. The black scale bar represents 20 micrometres.

Archaeologists say the 31x34cm pot could have been sat on but was more likely used in conjunction with a wickerwork or timber chair, under which the pot could be set.

The researchers say their method of parasite analysis could help unlock the stinky secrets of ceramics across the ancient Roman world.

“The findings show that parasite analysis can provide important clues for ceramic research,” says Rabinow.

Although the technique only works if the person producing the poop was infected with a common parasite, the researchers note that where parasites are endemic in the developing world, around half of all people are infected by at least one type. If Romans were as often infected, it’s likely many if not most chamber pots will be identifiable.

“Where Roman pots in museums are noted to have these mineralised concretions inside the base, they can now be sampled using our technique to see if they were also used as chamber pots,” says Piers Mitchell, a parasite expert and leader of the laboratory study.