All posts by Archaeology World Team

WORLD

Evidence of advanced Civilizations living on earth more than 100,000 years ago

Evidence of advanced Civilizations living on earth more than 100,000 years ago

It only took five minutes for Gavin Schmidt to out-speculate me.

Schmidt is the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (a.k.a. GISS), a world-class climate science facility. One day last year, I came to GISS with a far-out proposal. In my work as an astrophysicist, I’d begun researching global warming from an “astrobiological perspective.” That meant asking whether any industrial civilization that rises on any planet will, through its own activity, trigger its own version of a climate shift. I was visiting GISS that day hoping to gain some climate science insights and, perhaps, collaborators. That’s how I ended up in Gavin’s office.

Just as I was revving up my pitch, Gavin stopped me in my tracks.

“Wait for a second,” he said. “How do you know we’re the only time there’s been a civilization on our own planet?”

It took me a few seconds to pick up my jaw off the floor. I had certainly come into Gavin’s office prepared for eye rolls at the mention of “exo-civilizations.” But the civilizations he was asking about would have existed many millions of years ago. Sitting there, seeing Earth’s vast evolutionary past telescope before my mind’s eye, I felt a kind of temporal vertigo. “Yeah,” I stammered. “Could we tell if there’d been an industrial civilization that deep in time?”

We never got back to aliens. Instead, that first conversation launched a new study we’ve recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Though neither of us could see it at that moment, Gavin’s penetrating question opened a window not just onto Earth’s past, but also onto our own future.

We’re used to imagining extinct civilizations in terms of sunken statues and subterranean ruins. These kinds of artefacts of previous societies are fine if you’re only interested in the timescales of a few thousands of years. But once you roll the clock back to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years, things get more complicated.

When it comes to direct evidence of an industrial civilization—things like cities, factories, and roads—the geologic record doesn’t go back past what’s called the Quaternary period 2.6 million years ago. For example, the oldest large-scale stretch of ancient surface lies in the Negev Desert. It’s “just” 1.8 million years old—older surfaces are mostly visible in cross-section via something like a cliff face or rock cuts. Go back much further than the Quaternary, and everything has been turned over and crushed to dust.

And, if we’re going back this far, we’re not talking about human civilizations anymore. Homo sapiens didn’t make their appearance on the planet until just 300,000 years or so ago. That means the question shifts to other species, which is why Gavin called the idea the Silurian hypothesis, after an old Doctor Who episode with intelligent reptiles.

So could researchers find clear evidence that an ancient species built a relatively short-lived industrial civilization long before our own? Perhaps, for example, some early mammal rose briefly to civilization building during the Paleocene epoch, about 60 million years ago. There are fossils, of course. But the fraction of life that gets fossilized is always minuscule and varies a lot depending on time and habitat. It would be easy, therefore, to miss an industrial civilization that lasted only 100,000 years—which would be 500 times longer than our industrial civilization has made it so far.

Given that all direct evidence would be long gone after many millions of years, what kinds of evidence might then still exist? The best way to answer this question is to figure out what evidence we’d leave behind if human civilization collapsed at its current stage of development.

Now that our industrial civilization has truly gone global, humanity’s collective activity is laying down a variety of traces that will be detectable by scientists 100 million years in the future. The extensive use of fertilizer, for example, keeps 7 billion people fed, but it also means we’re redirecting the planet’s flows of nitrogen into food production. Future researchers should see this in characteristics of nitrogen showing up in sediments from our era. Likewise our relentless hunger for the rare-Earth elements used in electronic gizmos. Far more of these atoms are now wandering around the planet’s surface because of us than would otherwise be the case. They might also show up in future sediments, too. Even our creation, and use, of synthetic steroids has now become so pervasive that it too may be detectable in geologic strata 10 million years from now.

And then there’s all that plastic. Studies have shown that increasing amounts of plastic “marine litter” are being deposited on the seafloor everywhere from coastal areas to deep basins, and even in the Arctic. Wind, sun, and waves grind down large-scale plastic artefacts, leaving the seas full of microscopic plastic particles that will eventually rain down on the ocean floor, creating a layer that could persist for geological timescales.

The big question is how long any of these traces of our civilization will last. In our study, we found that each had the possibility of making it into future sediments. Ironically, however, the most promising marker of humanity’s presence as an advanced civilization is a by-product of one activity that may threaten it most.

When we burn fossil fuels, we’re releasing carbon back into the atmosphere that was once part of living tissues. This ancient carbon is depleted in one of that element’s three naturally occurring varieties or isotopes. The more fossil fuels we burn, the more the balance of these carbon isotopes shifts. Atmospheric scientists call this shift the Suess effect and the change in isotopic ratios of carbon due to fossil-fuel use is easy to see over the past century. Increases in temperature also leave isotopic signals. These shifts should be apparent to any future scientist who chemically analyzes exposed layers of rock from our era. Along with these spikes, this Anthropocene layer might also hold brief peaks in nitrogen, plastic nanoparticles, and even synthetic steroids. So if these are traces our civilization is bound to leave for the future, might the same “signals” exist right now in rocks just waiting to tell us of civilizations long gone?

Fifty-six million years ago, Earth passed through the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During the PETM, the planet’s average temperature climbed as high as 15 degrees Fahrenheit above what we experience today. It was a world almost without ice, as typical summer temperatures at the poles reached close to a balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Looking at the isotopic record from the PETM, scientists see both carbon and oxygen isotope ratios spiking in exactly the way we expect to see in the Anthropocene record. There are also other events like the PETM in Earth’s history that show traces like our hypothetical Anthropocene signal. These include an event a few million years after the PETM dubbed the Eocene Layers of Mysterious Origin, and massive events in the Cretaceous that left the ocean without oxygen for many millennia (or even longer).

Are these events indications of previous nonhuman industrial civilizations? Almost certainly not. While there is evidence that the PETM may have been driven by a massive release of buried fossil carbon into the air, it’s the timescale of these changes that matter. The PETM’s isotope spikes rise and fall over a few hundred thousand years. But what makes the Anthropocene so remarkable in terms of Earth’s history is the speed at which we’re dumping fossil carbon into the atmosphere. There have been geological periods where Earth’s CO2 has been as high or higher than it is today, but never before in the planet’s multibillion-year history has so much buried carbon been dumped back into the atmosphere so quickly. So the isotopic spikes we do see in the geologic record may not be spiky enough to fit the Silurian hypothesis’s bill.

But there is a conundrum here. If an earlier species’ industrial activity is short-lived, we might not be able to easily see it. The PETM’s spikes mostly show us Earth’s timescales for responding to whatever caused it, not necessarily the timescale of the cause. So it might take both dedicated and novel detection methods to find evidence of a truly short-lived event in ancient sediments. In other words, if you’re not explicitly looking for it, you might not see it. That recognition was, perhaps, the most concrete conclusion of our study.

It’s not often that you write a paper proposing a hypothesis that you don’t support. Gavin and I don’t believe the Earth once hosted a 50-million-year-old Paleocene civilization. But by asking if we could “see” truly ancient industrial civilizations, we were forced to ask about the generic kinds of impacts any civilization might have on a planet. That’s exactly what the astrobiological perspective on climate change is all about. Civilization building means harvesting energy from the planet to do work (i.e., the work of civilization building). Once the civilization reaches truly planetary scales, there has to be some feedback on the coupled planetary systems that gave it life (air, water, rock). This will be particularly true for young civilizations like ours still climbing up the ladder of technological capacity. There is, in other words, no free lunch. While some energy sources will have a lower impact—say solar versus fossil fuels—you can’t power a global civilization without some degree of impact on the planet.

Once you realize, through climate change, the need to find lower-impact energy sources, the less impact you will leave. So the more sustainable your civilization becomes, the smaller the signal you’ll leave for future generations.

In addition, our work also opened up the speculative possibility that some planets might have fossil-fuel-driven cycles of civilization building and collapse. If a civilization uses fossil fuels, the climate change they trigger can lead to a large decrease in ocean oxygen levels. These low oxygen levels (called ocean anoxia) help trigger the conditions needed for making fossil fuels like oil and coal in the first place. In this way, a civilization and its demise might sow the seed for new civilizations in the future.

By asking about civilizations lost in deep time, we’re also asking about the possibility for universal rules guiding the evolution of all biospheres in all their creative potential, including the emergence of civilizations. Even without pickup-driving Paleocenians, we’re only now learning to see how rich that potential might be.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David

Archaeologists have found evidence of an earthquake that hit the City of David in Jerusalem about 2,800 years ago and that could be a major event described in the Hebrew Bible.

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David
The 2,800-year-old earthquake was so severe that it was mentioned in the bible, archaeologists say.

During their excavations, the archaeological team, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, discovered a layer of destruction dating to that time in the City of David National Park. Inside the layer was “a row of shattered vessels, including bowls, lamps, cooking utensils, storage and storage jars, which were smashed as [a] building’s walls collapsed,” the archaeological team said in a statement from the IAA.

Archaeologists also found no signs of a fire, and they are doubtful that the city was attacked by an invading force. 

Other sites in the region had similar destruction around 2,800 years ago, the researchers found, adding that the signs of destruction from several sites in the southern Levant could be evidence for a biblical earthquake.

The books of Amos and Zechariah both mention an earthquake that happened around this time when Jerusalem was the capital of the kingdom of Judah and was ruled by a king called Uzziah. “You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah,” Zechariah 14:5 reads. 

Shown here, part of the area in Jerusalem that the team is excavating. Their finds reveal that the area was hit by an earthquake 2,800 years ago.

“It seems likely that although Jerusalem was not the epicentre [of the earthquake], it was significantly affected,” Joe Uziel, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who is one of the team leaders, told Live Science.

The observation that Jerusalem was likely not the epicentre of the earthquake is based on the damage found in Jerusalem and other sites in the region. 

Excavations reveal that after the destruction, people rebuilt the destroyed buildings and walls, Uziel said. The fact that the earthquake is mentioned in the bible is “a sign that [the earthquake] was likely quite traumatic,” Uziel said.

Did it really happen?

Scholars not involved with the team’s research were cautiously supportive of the team’s conclusions. “The interpretation of the archaeologists sounds possible,” said Israel Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

The team’s study, including the interpretation of the pottery, has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, Finkelstein cautioned; the team used that pottery to help date the earthquake.

Finkelstein also said that the area in Jerusalem that was excavated needs to be studied by seismologists to firm up the case for a past earthquake. 

Finkelstein noted that evidence for a large eighth-century B.C. earthquake can also be found at other sites in the region, including at Megiddo — a spot investigated by Finkelstein.

About 15 years ago, a team of seismologists and archaeologists documented evidence for the earthquake at Megiddo, which “included tilted and fractured walls,” said Finkelstein. 

“I haven’t seen the excavations, but it was quite expected that some damage triggered by the mid-eighth century [B.C.] earthquake would be found in Jerusalem,” said Shmuel Marco, a professor of geophysics at Tel Aviv University who took part in the Megiddo earthquake study 15 years ago.

“We found it in the ruins of the same age at Megiddo, and others reported it in other excavations and in the deep Dead Sea drilling.” which suggests that the earthquake impacted a wide area.

The Jerusalem team’s “interpretation seems reasonable to me,” said Jason Radine, who is chair of the Department of Global Religions at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

He noted that the Hebrew Bible mentions that Jerusalem was attacked around the 790s or 780s B.C. by Israel (which at the time was a separate kingdom from Judah). However, “such an attack might leave a burn layer, which the excavators point out is not present in their find,” suggesting that an earthquake is the more likely cause of the destruction, Radine said. 

Thomas Levy, who is a distinguished professor of Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, also thought the damage was likely caused by an earthquake and that a strong case can be made that this earthquake is the same one mentioned in the bible.

“When the biblical data is coupled with the archaeological and paleo-seismic data from the southern Levant, a strong correlation is clearly seen between the Book of Amos, a prophet in the Hebrew Bible, and the archaeological record,” Levy told Live Science. 

The team’s research will be presented in September at the “City of David Research” conference. 

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

2,200 Year Old Alexander the Great Statue Discovered in Alexandria

2,200 Year Old Alexander the Great Statue Discovered in Alexandria

The Ministry of Antiquities in Cairo has discovered a statue of Alexander the Great within an ancient “residential and commercial zone” in Alexandria that they believe was a trade centre in the region during the Ptolemaic period.

These pots were also found at the ancient Alexandria settlement and indicate that it was a major regional trade centre during the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC).

The archaeologists made their discovery after 9 months of excavations.

The team discovered moulds for statues of Alexander the Great at the site as well as an alabaster bust of the iconic ancient leader. Also amongst these items were materials for creating amulets for warriors.

The new Alexander the Great statue, made of alabaster, was unearthed at a large dig in Alexandria, Egypt.

As they explored this area of Alexandria, known as the al-Shatby neighbourhood, “the mission found a large network of tunnel tanks painted in pink for storing rain, flood and groundwater to be used during the draught time” said Mostafa Waziri, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt to the Xinhua news agency.

Waziri further explained the layout of the town: “it was composed of the main street and several branch roads that are all connected with a sanitation network.”

He believes that the area was active from the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. Waziri also noted that the team found an array of pottery pots, coins, plates, fishing tools, and rest houses for travellers.

A wealth of pottery artefacts has been unearthed at the site.

The ruins of the area’s buildings combined with the artefacts found there have led the team to believe that the town had a lively market that sold pots and had workshops for the construction of statues, amulets, and other items.

Amulets were unearthed at the site.

The fascinating Greek history behind the Egyptian city of Alexandria

The story of Hellenism in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, goes back more than two millennia and is marked by Alexander the Great’s placement of the first stone as part of the city’s first street in 331 BC.

Alexander III, the “Basileus of Macedon”, the “Hegemon of the Hellenic League”, the “Shahanshah” of Persia, the “Pharaoh” of Egypt and the “Lord of Asia” — better known as Alexander the Great — was one of the most significant figures in human history.

Born in Pella, in modern-day Central Macedonia, northern Greece, in 356 B.C., he was the son of Philip II, the King of Macedon and his wife, Olympias.

But Alexander was no royal place-holder. He became renowned at a very early age both for his military and political capabilities.

Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (the Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world); and its Necropolis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages.

Alexandria was at one time the second-most powerful city of the ancient Mediterranean region, after Rome.

In modern times, Greeks began to settle in Alexandria again in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A new wave of immigration flooded Alexandria shortly after the Greek revolution of 1821, marking the beginning of the so-called European era of the city.

EUROPE, WORLD

A 400-year old ship has been found in the Baltic Sea

A 400-year old ship has been found in the Baltic Sea

In June 2011, a Finnish treasure hunting company was scanning the Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Bothnia when “they claimed” their sonar captured what tabloid newspapers reported was “a sunken UFO.”

While most scientists agree that the 2011 Baltic Sea discovery is most likely a natural geological formation, another mystery craft has just been identified by a team of divers in the Baltic Sea. The divers who discovered the “mystery shipwreck” said the “near-perfect” ship they found on the Baltic Sea floor in 2020 was “miraculous.”

Now, that mysterious Baltic Sea ship that was discovered between the mainland of Finland and the Estonian island of Hiiumaa has been identified. The Badewanne dive team that found the Baltic Sea wreck consists of voluntary divers of different nationalities.

The team specializes in documenting wrecks in the Gulf of Finland. Another team of archaeologists and maritime historians solved the ship’s identity, and the answers are amazing.

A bird motif on the Baltic Sea ship, which was initially discovered on the seafloor off the coast of southern Finland in July 2020, and then intensively researched by various experts.

The Baltic Sea Ship Mystery Solved By Its Ancient Motifs

Discovered in great condition at a depth of 85 meters (279 feet) in the Baltic Sea last summer, the Dutch “fluyt” ship was engineered to “carry maximum cargo with a minimum crew,” according to a report in Dutch News. The identity of the ship remained unknown until a team of deep-sea archaeological divers discovered “carved motifs on the transom.”

Archaeologist Niklas Eriksson of Stockholm University, who led the team of divers that solved the mystery of the 400-year-old sunken ship, said the archaeologists are now celebrating a “miraculous breakthrough.”

An article on Diver Net quotes Minna Koivikko, from the Finnish Heritage Agency, who said the discovery “restores one’s faith in miracles.” Koivikko revealed to the media that the ship was named “Swan.”

Furthermore, it is known the craft was built in 1636 AD, and the archaeologists believe that closer examinations of the transom will reveal the coat of arms for the ship’s home port. Archaeologist Martijn Manders, from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, said the new information found on the ship might even yield the names of the crew members.

A 400-year old ship has been found in the Baltic Sea
A 3D photogrammetric model of the fluyt Baltic Sea ship as it was found on the Baltic Seafloor. Orthometric projection model made with Metashape software.

A Ghost Ship Symbolic Of Dutch Pride

Professor Eriksson said that while divers have found fragments of motifs on previous dives, now archaeologists “have the entire composition.” And with the newly discovered motifs, the team of researchers can now identify the ship in the same way that people in the 17th century did, according to Dutch News, who also said this specific design of seaborne craft “helped forge the Dutch Empire.”

The “fluyt” was a three-masted vessel with a capacious hull, so designed to maximize her cargo capacity. It also had specially designed rigging so that smaller crews could hoist and maintain the sails, and this rig structure also enabled more space, and therefore cut operational costs.

Manders said the fluyt highlighted “the typical Dutch approach to shipbuilding and symbolized the flourishing seafaring trade of the time.”

A drawing of a typical three-masted Dutch fluyt ship by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677).

Fluyts: Kings Among The Fleets Of Early Globalization

The discovery of this ship will add volumes to what is known about how fluyts operated. Moreover, it will almost complete archaeologists’ picture of an ancient transportation vessel that was “a simple, common ship, that created the right circumstances for early globalization,” according to Professor Niklas Eriksson.

Putting the discovery into historic context, when the ship was afloat and serving the Dutch Empire, it added to what was a global powerhouse. In the mid-17th century, Dutch ships carried around half of Europe’s produce and goods. The ship was functional in a period of European history that is known as “The Dutch Golden Age ” and that nation’s maritime power lasted until the late 17th century.

Manders told Dutch News that the team of researchers invited amateur sleuths who are interested in maritime history to join in the search for more clues.

The heritage specialist explained that new research archives have become available in digital form online and that this whole investigation “is an interesting puzzle, just the thing for a bad summer.”

The story of the divers who discovered the ship, and the archaeological team who researched and interpreted the motifs, is currently being made into a new documentary by Handle Productions of Helsinki, Finland, which Ancient Origins will no doubt discuss after it’s aired.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

The mystery of ‘The Screaming Mummy’ is finally revealed, and it’s chilling

The mystery of ‘The Screaming Mummy’ is finally revealed, and it’s chilling

He’s back. Prince Pentawere, a man who tried (probably successfully) to murder his own father, Pharaoh Ramesses III, and later took his own life after he was put on trial, is now on public display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Pentawere’s mummy, popularly known as the “screaming mummy,” was not properly mummified. No embalming fluid was used, and his body was allowed to naturally mummify, with his mouth agape and his facial muscles strained in order to make it appear as if the mummy were screaming.

Whether he died screaming or whether he was made to look like that after death is unclear.

The “screaming mummy,” likely that of Prince Pentawere, a man who tried (likely successfully) to kill his own father pharaoh Ramesses III, is now on public display at the Egyptian Museum.

Those burying him then wrapped his body in sheepskin, a material the ancient Egyptians considered to be ritually impure.

Eventually, someone placed Pentawere’s mummy in a cache of other mummies in a tomb at Deir el-Bahari.

The prince can take solace in the fact that his assassination attempt appears to have been successful. In 2012, a team of scientists studying the mummy of Ramesses III (reign 1184-1155 B.C.) found that Ramesses III died after his throat was slashed, likely in the assassination attempt that Pentawere helped to orchestrate.

The scientists also performed genetic analysis, which confirmed that the “screaming mummy” was a son of Ramesses III. And, based on the mummy’s unusual burial treatment, the researchers confirmed that it is likely Pentawere’s mummy. 

To kill a pharaoh

The Judicial Papyrus of Turin, as modern-day scholars call it, is a manuscript that documents the trials that occurred after Pentawere’s apparently successful attempt at killing his father in 1155 B.C.

A group of butlers who remained loyal to Ramesses III — and his successor, Ramesses IV — oversaw the trial of a vast number of people who had allegedly aided Pentawere, condemning them to death or mutilation.

These conspirators included military and civil officials, women in the royal harem (where the murder of Ramesses III may have happened), and a number of men who were in charge of the royal harem.

Prince Pentawere was allegedly assisted by his mother, a woman named Tiye (no relation to King Tutankhamun), who was one of Ramesses III’s wives.

The judicial papyrus says that Prince Pentawere “was brought in because he had been in collusion with Tiye, his mother, when she had plotted the matters with the women of the harem” (translation by A. de Buck).

Pentawere “was placed before the butlers in order to be examined; they found him guilty; they left him where he was; he took his own life,” the papyrus says.

How exactly Pentawere killed himself is a matter of debate among scholars, with poisoning and hanging (or a combination of the two) generally regarded as being the most likely methods.

While the dead Pharaoh Ramesses III was initially buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, his mummy was moved after the robbery of his tomb. Interestingly, his mummy was dumped in the same mummy cache at Deir el-Bahari as Pentawere’s.

The mummies of the murdered father and his killer son rested together until the family of a man named Abd el-Rassul found the cache in the 19th century.

The screaming mummy is only being displayed temporarily. The display of the mummy has received widespread media attention and it is not clear how long it will be displayed.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

2,000-Year-Old Roman-era Chandelier is One-of-a-Kind!

2,000-Year-Old Roman-Era Chandelier is One-of-a-Kind!

A Roman chandelier, which is believed to be the last one remaining, has been reconstructed by Spanish archaeologists after they discovered it among the ruins of a workshop.

The round lamp which was used during the Roman Empire to light up large spaces has a diameter of half a metre and has spots for 32 candles or fuses. 

The rare artefact, which has been lovingly restored by local art teacher Eva Maria Mendiola, is on display at the Elda Museum in Alicante, Spain.

It is believed the light, from the 1st Century AD, was made by a potter named Lucius Eros, The Times reports. 

According to El Pais, Augustus and Tiberius were ruling while Eros was alive and he used to engrave his name on the moulds he made. 

The round lamp which was used during the Roman Empire to light up large spaces has a diameter of half a metre and has spots for 32 candles or fuses
It is believed the light, from the 1st Century AD, was made by a potter named Lucius Eros.

His branding made it possible to identify the craftsman that had originally made the precious item which was found during an archaeological dig.

Another four lamp moulds were found at the archaeological site Elo-Monastil, which is where Eros is believed to have had his workshop and several kilns. 

His workshop was first discovered in 1989 before further kilns were found in 2009 and 2010.

2,000-Year-Old Roman-Era Chandelier is One-of-a-Kind!
The rare artefact, which has been lovingly restored by local art teacher Eva Maria Mendiola, is on display at the Elda Museum in Alicante, Spain.

Speaking in 1989, professor of Ancient History at the University of Alcalá de Henares Antonio M. Poveda explained the chandeliers of this style would have taken a lot of expertise to make. 

As a result, they were quite rare and were only made to order for wealthier people in other cities, including what is now known as Elche and Alicante, with large rooms to light up. 

This latest discovery is the first of its kind to have been preserved. 

The lights worked by poking fuse through holes in the multiple tubes and oil was piped in to keep it alight. 

They were soon replaced by lamps made of metal materials. 

EUROPE, UKRAINE, WORLD

Oldest Circular Structure Discovered – and It’s Made of Mammoth Bones

Oldest Circular Structure Discovered – and It’s Made of Mammoth Bones

Huts built from mammoth bones found along the Dniepr river valley of Ukraine (and also at locations in Moravia, Czech Republic, and in southern Poland) may be the earliest structures built by prehistoric man, and thus the earliest examples of architecture.

Perhaps the earliest example of domed architecture, the mammoth huts found in Mezhyrich, Ukraine, could be up to 25,000 years old. “Mammoth House” as shown at the “Frozen Woolly Mammoth Yuka Exhibit” in Yokoyama, Japan in Summer 2013.
Perhaps the earliest example of domed architecture, the mammoth huts found in Mezhyrich, Ukraine, could be up to 25,000 years old. “Mammoth House” is shown at the “Frozen Woolly Mammoth Yuka Exhibit” in Yokoyama, Japan in Summer 2013.

Some of the most notable of these mammoth bone huts were found in Mezhyrich, a village in central Ukraine, where in 1965, a farmer dug up the lower jawbone of a mammoth while in the process of expanding his cellar.

Further excavations revealed the presence of 4 prehistoric huts, made up of a total of 149 mammoth bones.

These shelters date between 23,000 BCE and 12,000 BCE, and are thought to be some of the oldest dwellings known to have been constructed by prehistoric man, usually attributed to Cro-Magnons.

“They are composed of several hundred bones and tusks arranged in a rough circle, between 6 and 10 m (20 and 33 ft) in diameter.

A hearth typically lies near the centre of the former dwelling, and stone tools and other debris are scattered within and outside the structure. Large pits filled with stone tools, bone fragments and ash have been found near the houses.

Artist rendition of dwelling in Mezhirich, Ukraine, made of mammoth bones. Source: Dolní Věstonice Museum

“Considerable effort must have been required to assemble these structures. Even in a dry state, large mammoth bones weigh hundreds of pounds. It has been suggested that the bones and tusks were recovered from hunting episodes in which entire herds of adult mammoths and their young were slaughtered.

A more likely explanation is that they were gathered from natural accumulations of bones perhaps at the mouths of streams and gullies near the sites.

The primary purpose of the mammoth-bone dwellings which were presumably covered with animal skins was probably sheltered from extreme cold and high winds.

Some archaeologists, impressed with the size and appearance of the structures, have argued that they also possess religious or social significance.

They have been described as the earliest examples of ‘monumental architecture as evidence of increased social complexity and status differentiation during the final phase of the Ice Age.” (Paul G. Bahn (ed) 100 Great Archaeological Discoveries [1995] 54-55)

Mammoth bone dwelling. Reconstruction is based on the example of Mezhirich. Exhibit in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan.

Other interesting objects have also been found on the site, including a map inscribed onto a bone, presumably showing the area around the settlement.

The remains of a “drum”, made of a mammoth skull painted with a pattern of red ochre dots and lines, were also discovered, along with amber ornaments and fossil shells.

GREENLAND, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Massive Greenland shark believed to be up to 512 years old has been found

Massive Greenland shark believed to be up to 512 years old has been found

Greenland sharks are now the longest-living vertebrates known on Earth, scientists say. Researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 of the animals and estimated that one female was about 512 years old. The team found that the sharks grow at just 1cm a year, and reach sexual maturity at about the age of 150.

The Greenland shark spends most of its time deep underwater but comes to the surface to feed on large mammals
The Greenland shark spends most of its time deep underwater but comes to the surface to feed on large mammals

The research is published in the journal Science. Lead author Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist from the University of Copenhagen, said: “We had our expectations that we were dealing with an unusual animal, but I think everyone doing this research was very surprised to learn the sharks were as old as they were.”

The former vertebrate record-holder was a bowhead whale estimated to be 211 years old. But if invertebrates are brought into the longevity competition, a 507-year-old clam called Ming holds the title of the most aged animal.

Slow swimmers

Greenland sharks are huge beasts, that can grow up to 5m in length. They can be found, swimming slowly, throughout the cold, deep waters of the North Atlantic.

With this leisurely pace of life and sluggish growth rate, the sharks were thought to live for a long time. But until now, determining any ages was difficult. For some fish, scientists are able to examine ear bones called otoliths, which when sectioned, show a pattern of concentric rings that scientists can count as they would the rings in a tree.

Sharks are harder, but some species, such as the Great White, have calcified tissue that grows in layers on their backbones, which can also be used to age the animals.

“But the Greenland shark is a very, very soft shark – it has no hard body parts where growth layers are deposited. So it was believed that the age could not be investigated,” Mr Nielsen told the BBC. However, the team found a clever way of working out the age.

“The Greenland shark’s eye lens is composed of a specialised material – and it contains proteins that are metabolically inert,” explained Mr Neilson.

“Which means after the proteins have been synthesised in the body, they have not renewed anymore. So we can isolate the tissue that formed when the shark was a pup, and do radiocarbon dating.”

The team looked at 28 sharks, most of which had died after being caught in fishing nets as by-catch. Using this technique, they established that the largest shark – a 5m-long female – was extremely ancient. Because radiocarbon dating does not produce exact dates, they believe that she could have been as “young” as 272 or as old as 512. But she was most likely somewhere in the middle, so about Greenland sharks are now the longest-living vertebrates known on Earth, scientists say. Researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 of the animals and estimated that one female was about 512 years old. years old. It means she was born between the years 1501 and 1744, but her most likely date of birth was in the 17th century.

The scientists studied 28 Greenland sharks. mysterious Picture

“Even with the lowest part of this uncertainty, 272 years, even if that is the maximum age, it should still be considered the longest-living vertebrate,” said Mr Nielsen.

Conversely, if her age is at the upper end of the scale, she will have out-lived Ming the clam – although her age has a greater probability of lying in the middle.

Conservation lessons

The team believes the animals only reach sexual maturity when they are 4m-long. And this new, very lengthy age range, suggests this does not occur until the animals are about 150 years old. The researchers say this has consequences for the future conservation of the animals. Because of their extreme longevity, Greenland sharks may still be recovering from being over-fished before WW2. The sharks’ livers were once used for machine oil, and they were killed in great numbers before a synthetic alternative was found and the demand fell.

“When you evaluate the size distribution all over the North Atlantic, it is quite rare that you see sexually mature females, and quite rare that you find newborn pups or juveniles,” Mr Nielsen explained.

“It seems most are sub-adults. That makes sense: if you have had this very high fishing pressure, all the old animals – they are not there anymore. And there are not that many to give birth to new ones.

“There is, though, still a very large amount of ‘teenagers’, but it will take another 100 years for them to become sexually active.” Another author of the study, Prof Christopher Ramsey, director of Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, said that radiocarbon dating could be used to determine the ages of other animals, but was not likely to be chosen as the primary method.

“For many animals, we have other methods to determine age,” he said.

“Also, the radiocarbon method is not very precise, and so is only really relevant for very long-lived species.” He added that the statistical method used to determine the sharks’ ages was Bayesian statistics.

“Bayesian statistics were first worked out by the Rev Bayes in the 18th Century. This means he will have been working on this when some of these oldest sharks were young.”