All posts by Archaeology World Team

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

Courthouse News Service reports that a 13,000-year-old collection of 19 bone fishhooks and six grooved pebbles thought to have been used as sinkers has been unearthed on the banks of the Jordan River in northern Israel by a team of researchers led by Antonella Pedergnana of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution.

A reconstruction of a hook and a small grooved pebble on a line. Note the sophisticated knot.
Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

According to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. It’s some of the earliest evidence of complex fishing technology. Fish remains have been found at sites inhabited by human ancestors dating back to nearly 2 million years. But studying what technology early humans used to acquire fish is difficult because the fishing gear was typically made from perishable materials like wood and plant fibres, and they’re only preserved in unusual conditions.

The waterlogged Jordan River Dureijat site was discovered in 1999 as a result of a drainage operation. But back in the Levantine Epipaleolithic periods, it was a short-term encampment that was intermittently occupied over a span of about 10,000 years, according to an earlier study published in the PaleoAnthropology journal. It was never used for habitation, but rather it was a place that people repeatedly visited fish and hunt and take advantage of other natural resources.

In addition to the fish hooks and pebbles — the largest collection of early fishing technology to be found — arrowheads and limestone axes have also been found at the site. And because the site has been covered in water, tiny rodents and fish bones are well-preserved.

In Wednesday’s study, a team of archaeologists – led by Antonella Pedergnana of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution in Mainz, Germany – found plant residue on the hooks and stones that indicate the use of fishing line.

They also found a wide variety of hook shapes, suggesting they were used for catching a variety of fish sizes, and grooved lines and fibre residues on some hooks indicate the use of artificial lures.

“A look at the [the Jordan River Dureijat] fishing gear reveals that all fishing techniques and knowledge already existed some 13,000 years ago,” the study’s authors wrote in a statement. 

The innovations coincide with the beginning of the transition to agriculture, and the use of lures and a wide variety of hook shapes “suggests the humans of this time were not only hunting a broad spectrum of fish but also that they had a profound knowledge of fish behaviour and ecology,” researchers note.

Based on the size of the hooks and their grooves and the remains of captured fish at the site, researchers estimate the lines used in fishing were likely strong enough to pull a 2-pound, “and possibly even heavier,” fish out of the water, according to the study.

But the hooks don’t have any eyes or holes in the shank through which to thread the line, something researchers note was likely because it weakened the narrow shank. Instead, they have grooves or knobs on the shaft, and traces of wear indicate the line wasn’t connected by a single twist but by a “complex method of binding, wrapping and tying.”

Archaeologists also found residual evidence of an adhesive being used to secure the line.

The use of artificial bait was confirmed by the presence of deep grooves, adhesives and animal hair on the end of two hooks. These lures may have included “shell flutters,” or pieces of shiny mother-of-pearl that spin in the water and attract fish.

READ ALSO: PRESERVED IN POOP: 1,000-YEAR-OLD CHICKEN EGG FOUND IN ISRAEL

Modern anglers still use shiny lures today, and the use of lightweight lures are used with specific casting techniques, such as fly fishing.

“Given the small dimensions of the hooks likely to have been equipped with artificial lures at [Jordan River Dureijat], the possibility that a similar angling method was already in use during the Natufian [era] should not be ruled out,” the study authors note.

“Except for the use of metal and plastic, modern fishing has not invented anything new since the Natufian,” they added in a statement. 

SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Amazon rainforest rock art ‘depicts giant Ice Age creatures’

Amazon rainforest rock art ‘depicts giant Ice Age creatures’

This huge collection of ancient cliff art paints a dramatic picture of early humans and giant beasts in the Amazon. Early inhabitants worshipped and hunted elephant-like mastodons and giant horses – alongside other Ice Age animals – back when the lush rainforest was a parched savannah.

Researchers say these drawings include a depiction of a pig-like peccary, deer, humans performing rituals, felines and canines

At least that’s according to the extraordinary paintings, made with red ochre by long-dead artists.

They are believed to be between 11,800 and 12,600 years old and took at least hundreds of years to create. Experts are staggered at the scale of the find, one of the largest of its kind in South America.

Located in the Serranía La Lindosa region of Colombia, the discovery has been dubbed “The Sistine Chapel of the Ancients”. However, instead of a beautiful man-made structure, this canvas is all Mother Nature’s handiwork.

The cliff faces paintings number in the tens of thousands and was spotted across a trio of rock shelters. Cerro Azul is the biggest, stretching nearly 3 miles. There is around 8 miles’ worth of historic artworks in total. The quality is said to be highly realistic for the time.

Human figures are depicted with colossal creatures. How big were they? Mark Robinson, speaking via a statement from the University of Exeter, refers to “giant herbivores, some which were the size of a small car.”

Researchers believe this rock art depicts a giant sloth (a); a mastodon (b); a camelid (c); horses (d and e); and a three-toed ungulate with a trunk (f)

This “megafauna” gave Robinson and co a possible insight into the ancient art exhibit. Examples of extinct wildlife, such as super-sized sloths and mastodons, offered major clues concerning dates. As Business Insider writes, “by about 11,600 BC, humans had likely killed many of the mastodons off.”

Other features daubed include trees, handprints and “geometric shapes”. A tree wasn’t just a tree to humankind in the dying years of this Ice Age.

Quoted by The Guardian, team leader Prof José Iriarte (University of Exeter) says plants had souls, and that they communicated with people “in cooperative or hostile ways”.

The group, funded by the ERC (European Research Council) and made up of experts from Britain/Colombia, also noted the surroundings.

Artists took their lunch to work with them it seems, before leaving litter on site. Delicacies like frog, armadillo and piranha were consumed, according to the University’s statement.

Amazon rainforest rock art 'depicts giant Ice Age creatures'

It sounds like the painters needed their strength. Some art is so high up it required drones to take a gander. Images of towers made from wood are displayed.

Reportedly the artists clambered onto these before jumping down. All that work was worth it in the end. Quoted by the statement, Prof Iriarte says the art was “a powerful part of the culture and a way for people to connect socially.”

The team began investigating the area in 2017. It was no easy task. For starters, the journey there was punishing. Once they completed a 2-hour drive from the town of San José del Guaviare, they had a 4-hour trek to look forward to. And access was only permitted after the signing of a peace treaty in 2016 between the Colombian government and FARC (the People’s Army). A civil war raged there for half a century.
Even then additional permissions had to be sought to avoid danger.

While the cliff paintings were known about since April this year, the find was kept under the radar till now. A TV crew from Channel 4 joined the group throughout the process. Exciting details are about to be revealed to the public as part of a new series, ‘Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon’.

Presented by archaeologist Ella Al-Shamahi, it really was a matter of life and death. As reported by The Guardian, at one point the party had to sneak past a highly venomous bushmaster snake in the dark.

The ancient cliff art provides a much-needed window into a mysterious time for the Amazon. This rich and diverse environment changed a lot over the centuries. What role humans played in the shift can be examined like never before, thanks to these stunning and perfectly preserved visuals.

CHINA, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World

The Atacama Giant is a large anthropomorphic geoglyph in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The Atacama Giant is one out of nearly 5,000 geoglyphs – ancient artwork that is drawn into the landscape – that have been discovered in the Atacama in the last three decades.

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World
The Atacama Giant in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

It is the largest prehistoric representation of a human figure in the world with a height of 119 metres (390 ft). Its location is about 497 miles (800 kilometres) south of Peru’s Nazca lines – the best-known geoglyphs in the world.

The Atacama Giant lies in the Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert on Earth. The desert plateau stretches almost 1,000 miles along the coast of Chile and Peru. Scattered over the desert in hills, valleys, and plains, these motifs are found alongside tracks that pre-Hispanic civilizations built and used for llama caravans.

In fact, llama caravans are depicted in geoglyphs across the Atacama, suggesting the images were somehow deeply linked to the nearby trade routes.

Moon Valley, Atacama Desert, Chile.

The geoglyphs include geometric designs such as stepped rhombuses, concentric circles, and arrows. Figures resembling people (or perhaps gods) are also represented performing different activities—for example, hunting. Animals, too, are found among the figures. Llamas, lizards, and monkeys are just a few examples.

Scholars believe some animals may correspond to divine rites, such as amphibians being used in water rituals. Modern flight and drone abilities have enabled closer study and better photography of such ancient creations around the world.

Geoglyphs are generally categorized into three types. The first is additive, or positive, meaning that rocks and other materials are strategically piled on top of the ground to create the desired shape.

A second type is considered extractive, or negative. In this case, topsoil and other materials are scraped away to reveal differently coloured subsoil.

The third type of geoglyph is a combination of both styles. While it may seem like these ancient creations would be very ephemeral, a shocking number have survived to modern times.

In the Atacama desert, the dry climate likely contributed to the preservation of the thousands of ancient designs still visible today. However, even in wetter climates such as the United Kingdom, geoglyphs such as the Uffington Horse still survive.

Other geoglyphs in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

The Atacama geoglyphs are thought to have been created by a succession of cultures, including the Inca. However, the purpose of many of the images remains a mystery. Some may have been intended as guiding information for the ancient llama caravans. Others may have been devoted to deities or used in religious practices.

The Atacama giant—notable for its size and hillside position on the hill Cerro Unitas—has been assumed to be an astronomical guide. The rays emanating from the figure’s head may have represented a headdress, but they align with the moon to tell the time in a way that was probably quite practical. By gauging the seasons, the ancients who crafted the hill figure sometime between 1000 and 1400 CE could better predict the rainy season.

READ ALSO: ANCIENT WALL PAINTING IN THE NUBIAN PYRAMIDS DEPICTING A GIANT CARRYING TWO ELEPHANTS

Hill figures are often thought to have been intended to view from some distance, suggesting the giant may have been strategically placed.

Another giant figural geoglyph; part of the Nazca Lines UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru.

Another famous set of geoglyphs are the Nazca Lines, located in the Nazca Desert in Peru. Created earlier than the Atacama images, the Nazca Lines date from about 500 BCE to 500 CE. They draw their name from the heavy use of long lines, created in an extractive style.

These lines surround or compose shapes and animals. Spiders, humans, hummingbirds, and more are depicted in the dry soil. Over the years, experts have suggested a variety of explanations for the geoglyphs. Ritual use, representations of constellations, and other astronomical purposes have all been hypothesized. Still, others have suggested the lines, in part, performed an important irrigation function.

While the true function of the Nazca Lines remains a mystery, much the same can be said of geoglyphs around the world. The clear importance of the sites—and the fascination they hold for modern audiences—suggest that the Atacama Giant and others of its stature will remain the focus of research for years to come.

Spider geoglyph; part of the Nazca Lines UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru.
EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Treasure hunters explode 2500-year-old Lycian Rock-cut Tombs in Turkey

Treasure hunters explode 2500-year-old Lycian Rock-cut Tombs in Turkey

Treasure hunters have exploded the entrance of a 2,500-year-old rock-cut tomb, one of the six ancient sepulchres in the Elmalı district of the southern province of Antalya.

“These are cultural heritages, we must protect them to leave to the next generations,” Durmuş Altan, an archaeologist, told Demirören News Agency on Oct. 6.

According to Altan, who is also the head of the provincial directorate of cultural and social affairs, there are six rock tombs in the neighbourhood.

“Four of them are from the Lycian period,” he said and added: “Today’s Armutlu was in the territory of the then Lycia Kingdom.”

“The meticulous cut of the rock tombs shows that there was once a genuine settlement in the area,” he added.

But the latest state of the rock tombs is not pleasant. Doomed to their destiny, the rock tombs were damaged with writings on them.

Treasure hunters recently flattened the entrance of a rock tomb with explosives, the archaeologist noted.

Treasure hunters explode 2500-year-old Lycian Rock-cut Tombs in Turkey
The entrance to this ancient Lycian rock-cut tomb in Turkey was recently blasted open with dynamite.

“They think they can find sculptures or gold here in the region. These people, unfortunately, damage the cultural assets,” he added.

Few written records remain from the distinctive Lycian culture.

Lycia was located in the region that is now the Antalya and Muğla provinces, on Turkey’s southern coast, and also in Burdur province, which lies further inland. Given that there are few written records left by the ancient Lycians, not much is known about the civilization. What we do know is that they had a distinct culture that had unique aspects not found elsewhere in the ancient world.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of Lycian culture was the striking tombs they built and Ancient Origins wrote a great article about these remarkable tombs a few years ago.

The Lycians made rock-cut, sarcophagus, and pillar tombs. Of these three known types, rock-cut tombs are the most common. The earliest Lycian rock-cut tombs dating to the 5th century BC.

The Lycians believed that a mythical winged creature would carry them into the afterlife, and this is perhaps one of the reasons their tombs were carved directly into rock faces, often a cliff.

Fascinatingly, the Lycian tombs were usually carved to resemble the façade of their houses. They often had one or two stories and sometimes even three. The tombs sometimes held more than one body, most probably of people related to each other, thus extending family ties into the afterlife.

The mythological reliefs sometimes carved on the rock-cut tombs also tell us something about their religious beliefs. The Lycian tombs, rock-cut or otherwise, are thus a precious relic of an ancient culture that has not left behind many written records to help us understand them better. Archaeologist Durmuş Altan’s distress at the callous damage done to one of them by treasure seekers is, therefore, most understandable.

READ ALSO: 1,800-YEAR-OLD ROCK TOMBS FOUND IN TURKEY’S ANCIENT CITY BLAUNDUS

Of course, this is not the first time that ancient tombs and monuments have been broken open by treasure hunters. Tomb robbery goes all the way back to antiquity and has occurred all over the world.

One of the most well-known examples is from Egypt where most of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were looted within a hundred years of their being sealed. In modern times, robbing ancient tombs is sometimes the work of organized gangs.

It is hoped that episodes like the latest tomb raid in Elmali will be prevented in future by greater cooperation between governments, UNESCO, and other world heritage bodies. As Altan stated, these are sacred heirlooms, and we owe it to future generations to leave them in even better shape than we found them ourselves.

EUROPE, PORTUGAL, WORLD

Who Were the First People to Arrive in the Azores?

Who Were the First People to Arrive in the Azores?

A group of international academics discovered evidence that people inhabited islands in the Azores archipelago 700 years earlier than previously thought. The group explains their research of sediment cores taken from lakes on some of the archipelago’s islands in their report, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Who Were the First People to Arrive in the Azores?
Landscape view of Pico (foreground) and Faial (background) Islands.

Due to the absence of other evidence, historians have believed that people first arrived in the Azores in 1427, when Portuguese sailor Diogo de Silves landed on Santa Maria Island.

Soon thereafter, others from Portugal arrived and made the archipelago their home. In this new effort, the researchers found evidence that humans were living on some of the islands in the Azores approximately 700 years earlier.

Looking to learn more about the history of the Azores, the researchers began collecting sediment samples from several of the lakes on the islands and studying them to see what they might reveal.

Sediment samples can serve as historical evidence because the material in the air that falls to the surface of a lake and then to the lake bottom is covered over by new layers of sediment as time passes.

Analysis of the sediment cores showed an increase in 5-beta-stigmasterol in a core layer dated to a time between 700 CE and 850 CE, taken from Peixinho Lake. The compound is typically found in the faeces of livestock, such as cows and sheep—neither of which lived in the Azores prior to the arrival of humans.

They also saw upticks in charcoal particles (suggesting large fires had been burning) along with a dip in native tree pollens.

READ ALSO: ‘SUNKEN ATLANTIS PYRAMID’ DISCOVERED OFF AZORES COAST IN PORTUGAL

The findings suggest someone had burned down the forest to provide more land for livestock. The researchers found similar evidence in cores taken from Caldeirão Lake, which is on a different island, though it appeared approximately a century later. And they found evidence of non-native ryegrass in the sediment taken from a lake on a third island.

Lake Caldeirão inside the collapsed caldera of Corvo Island.

The findings present strong evidence of humans inhabiting the archipelago hundreds of years before the Portuguese arrived.

The researchers theorize that they were likely Norse seafarers, noting their accomplishments in sailing up and down the coasts of many parts of Europe.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Historic First Baptist Church Original Permanent Structure Discovered During Archaeological Dig

Historic First Baptist Church Original Permanent Structure Discovered During Archaeological Dig

Inside the small barrier fence that encircled the S. Nassau Street dig site, there was a buzz of excitement. Because they couldn’t be certain of their latest discovery, the archaeologist team working there resisted the enthusiasm. An older 16-by-20-foot foundation extended along the eastern wall, almost to the asphalt street, sandwiched between the walls of an 1856 building.

Historic First Baptist Church Original Permanent Structure Discovered During Archaeological Dig
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has announced the discovery of what archaeologists believe to be the permanent structure of the original Historic First Baptist Church (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

For Colonial Williamsburg’s Director of Archaeology Jack Gary, it was a good sign that the team had uncovered First Baptist Church’s first permanent church structure dating back to the early 1800s — after a year of excavating at the site of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.

But Gary and his team had to be sure it was the original structure.

Jack Gary, Director of Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, stands near the First Baptist Church’s first permanent church structure brick building foundation Thursday morning October 7, 2021.

The team got to work digging up a portion of the foundation near the front steps of where the original building would have sat. There, the team uncovered an 1817 coin, hairpins, buttons and furniture tacks. For Gary, the discoveries solidified the team’s assumptions. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Archaeology team had discovered the original early 1800s church building that First Baptist Church’s original congregation worshipped in.

Katie Wagner, the project archaeologist, works in the area of the First Baptist Church’s location Thursday morning October 7, 2021.

For Connie Harshaw, the president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, an organization aimed at the preservation and conservation of Williamsburg’s historic Black churches, the discovery is one the descendants of the church never anticipated.

Harshaw is among other living descendants who can trace their lineage to the church’s first congregation. In recent years, the descendants have worked alongside Colonial Williamsburg and other community partners to ensure the church’s legacy is historically preserved and to reconcile past injustices.

“Never in our wildest imagination did we think that we would find intact burials or even the foundation of an 1818 structure. That is just mind-blowing,” Harshaw said. “It’s a pretty remarkable discovery.”

1776 beginnings

As the Founding Fathers stood in a Philadelphia statehouse and declared the nation’s independence, in direct defiance of the king, another group of individuals was reclaiming a piece of their own independence. In 1776, a group of free and enslaved Black men and women met in secrecy with the sole purpose of worshipping together. Despite the risks, as laws forbid them to congregate, they became the original First Baptist Church congregation.

From there, the congregation has become one of the oldest Black churches in the country, creating a community that has continued its legacy for centuries. While the original congregation continued to meet, it would not have a permanent structure until the 1800s when a Williamsburg man, Jesse Cole, moved by the congregation’s hymns and prayer, offered them a building on what is now Nassau Street in the Historic Area. The structure on the property was referred to as the Baptist Meeting House.

Its existence was short-lived, however, as a tornado destroyed it. The 1856 building was constructed over top of it, then it was paved over into a parking lot, remaining buried for 165 years. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation announced Thursday that its archaeological team discovered the structure which will bring the organization one step closer to its final goal: preservation, recreation and interpretation.

In order to better understand the site, Gary said the team is working to better understand the people who used to congregate within its walls. By uncovering artefacts, relics from the past, the team can paint a better picture of what their life was like.

“We’ve gone from being able to say, this is the first church building to being able to say a little bit about the people themselves,” Gary said. “Any church will tell you that the church is the people. It’s not the physical evidence, it’s the people and we have both here.”

The artefacts that were uncovered underneath the original structure, hairpins, buttons and furniture tacks, reveal a lot about what the original congregation was wearing at the time, according to Gary. The items were uncovered in front of where the church steps would have been located. As the church was swept, the inside contents made their way over the front steps and into the ground only to be uncovered nearly 165 years later, Gary said.

“It was an exciting day when we made that discovery,” Gary said. “Now, we can start to better understand the building and the people who congregated there. That’s what makes this project so special.”

Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists, under the guidance of First Baptist Church, first began digging at the site in September 2020. The team has been working in phases since then in hopes of uncovering the previous church structures, including Thursday’s discovery of the 1818 Meeting House.

Jack Gary, Director of Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, stands near the First Baptist Church’s first permanent church structure brick building foundation Thursday morning October 7, 2021.

In addition to the original structure, the archaeologists have discovered at least 25 confirmed human burials with the first bone fragments uncovered in February. During Phase II of the dig, one of the first priorities was to determine how many individuals may be buried in the west end of the South Nassau Street lot after discovering evidence of grave shafts during the first phase.

READ ALSO: ‘ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH’ IN STOKE MANDEVILLE DISCOVERED BY HS2 ARCHAEOLOGISTS

By July, the team had uncovered 21 grave shafts. The most recent grave was discovered just last week, likely predating the church building, inside the foundation of the 1856 church. A community meeting is scheduled for Oct. 30 for the church’s descendants to discuss the next steps and make decisions regarding the investigation of the burial sites.

The discovery of the 1818 structure comes ahead of the church’s community-wide 245th-anniversary celebration that will begin Saturday and conclude mid-November.

When the church was relocated in 1956 to 727 Scotland St., some of the descendants remember worshipping, as children, in the 1856 building. The recent discoveries, for many, have been a long time coming, Harshaw said.

“It has been more than a year for them, it has been since 1956. They were disappointed and hurt when the church on Nassau Street, was levelled and paved over with a parking lot,” Harshaw said. “They’ve carried the history of that church and their memories with them.”

Excavations at the Nassau Street site will continue from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, weather permitting. The public is welcome to view the site. This is an ongoing multi-year project funded primarily by individual donors.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

Skeleton with bird skull in its mouth identified as a 12-year-old Scandinavian girl from 17th century

Skeleton with bird skull in its mouth identified as 12-year-old Scandinavian girl from 17th century

When long-dead human remains are found buried in unusual circumstances, anthropologists are usually able to piece together why. But the bones of a child that lived just a couple of hundred years ago in Poland are proving to be a bit of a head-scratcher.

The Tunel Wielki Cave is located within Ojców National Park. There are over 400 caves within the area which is also known for its rock formations

In a shallow grave in Tunel Wielki Cave, located in Sąspowska Valley in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, the body of a young child was found buried all alone. The only other human bones in the cave were over 4,500 years old, so it wasn’t a location in regular use for burials.

It’s the only modern human found buried in a cave in the region, archaeologists believe.

But it gets even weirder: the skull of a small bird, a chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), was found in the child’s mouth, and another chaffinch skull was found next to its cheek.

The skeleton is not fresh, exactly. The remains were first discovered 50 years ago during excavations of the caves, but almost all the finds had been placed in storage pretty much immediately without ever having been examined or described.

Archaeologist Małgorzata Kot from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Warsaw had embarked on a project to analyse these artefacts when she stumbled upon the remains.

“When we opened another dusty box from an old research project, we found small child’s bones,” she told Science in Poland, a science outreach website run by the Polish government’s Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

“Their discoverer, professor Waldemar Chmielewski, never published the details of this find, he only included a photograph of it in a book published in the 1980s.”

Dr. Malgorzata Kot came across the mysterious remains while looking through artefacts from old research projects in the storage rooms of the University of Warsaw.

Radiocarbon dating suggests the child was buried in the later half of the 18th century CE, or very early in the 19th century, and died at about the age of 10. Preliminary examination of the bones also suggests that the child was suffering from malnutrition.

As for why it was buried in a cave all by itself, with the heads (or skulls) of chaffinches, that’s still an utter enigma.

“This practice is not known among the ethnologists we have asked for opinions. It remains a mystery why the child was buried in a cave in this way, not in a cemetery in a nearby village,” Kot said.

The bird skulls had already been described in an earlier paper, but the authors had not known that they had been found as part of a human burial, since this burial has never before been described in published research.

“We returned to [the bird] skulls, but the new analysis did not show anything that could at least explain why the chaffinch heads accompanied the child. For example, there are no traces of cuts on the skulls. We only know that these were the remains of adult birds,” Kot said.

This bizarre mystery raises many questions, and unfortunately, there’s a serious hindrance to the team’s quest to find more answers – the child’s skull is missing. It was sent to anthropologists in Wrocław straight after excavation, and no one knows what became of it.

Sadly, the dozens of caves in the Sąspowska Valley have been extremely damaged by humans since the child was interred.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, farmers removed much of the sediment from the caves to use as fertiliser, damaging countless artefacts dating back to at least the Palaeolithic, including human remains and Neanderthal tools.

Industrial exploitation of the caves has been banned for decades, but there’s no telling how much damage had already been done – or if there were any clues that may reveal why these much more recent remains had been buried there and in such a strange way.

The team intends to conduct a more thorough series of DNA tests on the remaining bones to see if it yields any more clues about the child’s tragic end. So it may not be the last we hear of this strange burial.

NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Scientists discover “once-in-a-generation” fossilized water bear in 16-million-year-old amber

Scientists discover “once-in-a-generation” fossilized water bear in 16-million-year-old amber

Scientists have discovered a new species of tardigrade almost perfectly preserved in 16-million-year-old amber. Also known as water bears, the creatures are a group of microscopic invertebrates that are best known for their ability to survive extreme conditions.

Due to their microscopic size and non-biomineralising body, the chance of them becoming fossilised is small. In the new paper, researchers describe a modern-looking tardigrade fossil that represents a new genus and new species.

They were able to obtain higher resolution images of important anatomical characteristics that helped them to analyse the fossil. Researchers say the new fossil, Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus, is only the third tardigrade amber fossil to be fully described and formally named to date.

Scientists discover "once-in-a-generation" fossilized water bear in 16-million-year-old amber
Scientists have discovered a new species of tardigrade almost perfectly preserved in 16-million-year-old amber

The other two fully described modern-looking tardigrade fossils are Milnesium swolenskyi and Beorn leggi, both known from Cretaceous-age amber in North America. 

On a 2007 trip to space, tardigrades were exposed to the space vacuum and harmful solar radiation but still managed to survive and reproduce after returning to Earth. The tiny eight-legged animals are found on all the continents and in different environments including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial.

While they have survived all five Phanerozoic Great Mass Extinction events, the earliest modern-looking tardigrades are only known from the Cretaceous period – around 80 million years ago. Despite their long evolutionary history and global distribution, there is a lot lacking in their fossil record.

Paradoryphoribius is the first fossil to be found embedded in the Miocene (approximately 16 million years ago) Dominican amber and the first fossil representative of the tardigrade superfamily Isohypsibioidea.

Lead author Marc Mapalo, from the department of organismic and evolutionary biology, Harvard University, said: ‘The difficulty of working with this amber specimen is that it’s far too small for dissecting microscopes, we needed a special microscope to fully see the fossil.’

Researchers say the new tardigrade has a total body length of only 559 micrometres – or slightly over half a millimetre.

On such a small scale, a dissecting microscope can only reveal the external morphology of the fossil.

Fortunately, Tardigrade’s cuticle is made of chitin, a fibrous glucose substance that is a primary component of cell walls in fungi and the exoskeletons of some other invertebrates.

Chitin is fluorescent and easily excited by lasers, making it possible to fully visualise the tardigrade fossil using a specific method.

The use of confocal laser microscopy instead of transmitted light to study the fossil created degrees of fluorescence allowing a more clear view of the internal morphology.

This method allowed researchers to visualise two very important characters of the fossil – the claws and the buccal apparatus, or the foregut of the animal which is also made of the cuticle.

Paradoryphoribius is the first fossil to be found embedded in Miocene (approximately 16 million years ago) Dominican amber and the first fossil representative of the tardigrade superfamily Isohypsibioidea
Beorn leggi, the first fossil tardigrade, was recovered in 1964 from Campanian-age Canadian amber (78 ~Ma.). Milnesium swolenskyi (92 ~Ma.) was found in Turonian-age amber from New Jersey and described 36 years later. A putative ancestral sister of tardigrades, the so-called ‘Orsten tardigrade’ from the middle Cambrian period, was recovered in Siberia and evaluated in 1995

Senior author Professor Javier Ortega-Hernandez, also of the department of organismic and evolutionary biology, Harvard, said: ‘Tardigrade fossils are rare.

‘With our new study, the full tally includes only four specimens, from which only three are formally described and named, including Paradoryphoribius.

‘This paper basically encompasses a third of the tardigrade fossil record known to date.

The use of confocal laser microscopy instead of transmitted light to study the fossil created degrees of fluorescence allowing a more clear view of the internal morphology

‘Furthermore, Paradoryphoribius offers the only data on a tardigrade buccal apparatus in their entire fossil record.’

The authors note there is a strong preservation bias for tardigrade fossils in amber due to their small size and habitat preferences.

Therefore amber deposits provide the most reliable source for finding new tardigrade fossils, even though that does not mean finding them is an easy task.

The findings are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.