Old Football Found On Beach Turns Out To Be An Iron Age Skull
Image kicking what you thought was part of an old football during a stroll on the beach – only to discover it was actually part of a human skull. That’s what happened to Anthony Plowright.
He was walking his two dogs on the beach near Binstead on the Isle of Wight when he discovered what turned out to be the upper part of a human skull, called the cranium.
The Isle of Wight coroners office sent the dark brown remains for carbon dating and discovered it was about 2,800 years old.
The skull, pictured here, belonged to someone who would have lived in the Iron Age, or about 2,800 years ago according to the Isle of Wight coroners office.
All that remained of the person was the upper part of the skull called the cranium – seen in this photo from the Isle of Wight coroner.
The skull was discovered on the 4th of June 2018 but the Isle of Wight Coroner, Caroline Sumeray has only just released her findings.
The carbon dating puts the cranium as belonging to someone who would have lived in the early Iron Age – between about 800BC and 540BC.
Mr Plowright said: ‘I thought it was part of an old football when I first saw it and so I booted it down the beach. I soon realised it wasn’t a ball.
‘I put it in a bag and took it home and emailed the police to tell them I had found it.’
‘I had absolutely no idea it was that old.’
The skull has been donated to the Isle of Wight Museum Service who say they are looking forward to studying it.
During the Iron Age, the people of the Isle of Wight were already trading with nearby communities through maritime links.
‘Recent discoveries suggest that the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight engaged in wider maritime activity within the Solent from prehistoric times, according to Stephanie Smith from the British Museum.
‘By the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Island was part of a vast maritime network of interaction between coastal southern Britain and the Continent, extending as far as the Mediterranean.’
The skull – pictured – has been donated to the Isle of Wight Museum Service who say they are looking forward to studying it
Archaeologists unearth a unique artifact at Fort Michilimackinac: a pocket knife
MLive reports that Lynn Evans of Mackinac State Historic Parks and her colleagues discovered a 3.5-inch-long pocketknife, or clasp knife, in a root cellar of the Southeast Rowhouse at Colonial Michilimackinac.
A long-running archaeological dig at a historic Michigan fort turned up a new treasure over the holiday weekend.
While digging near a post in a root cellar at Colonial Michilimackinac on July 4, archaeologists unearthed a 3 1/2-inch pocketknife, also known as a clasp knife.
A pocketknife, also known as a “clasp knife,” was discovered in an archaeological dig at Mackinaw City.
Dr. Lynn Evans, the curator of archaeology for Mackinac State Historic Parks, said the knife is about 1 inch high at the tip of the blade’s peak. According to Evans, the knife may be of French or British origin. Its exact age is currently unknown.
The knife’s discovery is the latest in a string of finds at Colonial Michilimackinaw, a reconstructed 18th-century fort and fur trading village now home to one of the nation’s longest-running archaeology programs.
Over the course of more than 60 years, annual seasonal digs have unearthed more than 1,000,000 artefacts.
The program’s current excavation site is located at what’s known as House E of the fort’s Southeast Rowhouse.
In recent years, other found artefacts have included a lead seal dating between 1717 and 1769, a brass sleeve button with an intaglio bust on it, a potential structural post dating to the original 1715 fort, an engraved “Jesuit” trade ring, a brass serpentine side plate for a British trade gun, complete remnants from a creamware plate, and other items.
Archaeologists are on site every day at the fort, weather permitting, throughout the summer.
Visitors can witness the archaeologists continuing their excavations at the site from early June until mid-August.
The best artefacts are on display at the fort’s “Treasures from the Sand” exhibit, as well as in the book Keys to the Past, written by Evans.
An overview of House E, the current dig site at Colonial Michilimackinac.
Hurriyet Daily News reports that 11 sets of human remains dated to some 8,500 years ago have been unearthed in northwestern Turkey by archaeologists who were called to the site when residents found pieces of ancient ceramics in the yard of their apartment building.
The site, likely to be one of the first spots of human settlements in western Anatolia, was first discovered after a Bilecik resident reported some ceramic fragments found there to the Archaeology Museum.
As a result of the field works that started after the discovery and continued for two years, 11 human skeletons, which are estimated to be 8,500 years old, and musical instruments with three holes from the same period were found in the yard of an apartment building.
Archaeologists also found wheat varieties used in making bread and pasta, as well as grains such as lentils, barley and vetch.
Associate Professor Erkan Fidan, the head of the excavation, said that the human skeletons found in the excavation area belonged to the oldest adolescent humans ever in the Neolithic era in western Anatolia.
“We have uncovered the first villages of human communities that came here 9,000 years ago and remained here for nearly 1,000 years,” Fidan said, adding that the people living in the region who know how to do agriculture also domesticated animals.
Fidan noted that they also found skeletons of other humans in the excavation field and that the skeletons would be examined in detail at Hacettepe University’s Anthropology Department Laboratory.
“In the very near future, we aim to learn many things about ages, genders, diseases these people had as well as the kind of food they ate,” he added.
The finds discovered during the excavation will be exhibited at the Bilecik Archaeology Museum after the completion of the restoration process and research works.
A 51,000-year-old engraved bone reveals Neanderthals’ capacity for symbolic behaviour
The toe bone of a prehistoric deer carved with lines by Neanderthals 51,000 years ago is one of the oldest works of art ever found, according to a study released Monday.
Micro-CT scans of the engraved bone and interpretation of the six lines in red that shape the chevron symbol. Highlighted in blue is a set of sub-parallel lines
The engraved deer bone from Einhorn-höhle.
The discovery is further evidence that Neanderthals — Homo neanderthalensis — were able to express symbolism through art — which was once attributed only to our own species, Homo sapiens.
“This is clearly not a pendant or something like that,” said Thomas Terberger, a professor and prehistoric archaeologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany, who co-authored a study of the object in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. “It’s clearly a decoration with a kind of symbolic character. … You might even call it the initial start of art, something which was not done by accident, but with a clear plan in mind.”
The bone was unearthed in a cave in the Harz Mountains of central Germany, about 150 miles southwest of Berlin. The front is carved with overlapping chevrons — lines in the shape of inverted V’s — that appear to point upward, and archaeologists have also discerned a line of smaller incisions on its lower edge, which seems to have served as its base.
“We were trying it out, and this object can stand alone on its base. It doesn’t shake or tip over or anything,” said archaeologist Dirk Leder of the Lower Saxony state office for Cultural Heritage, who led the excavations that discovered the bone. “It was probably left standing upright in a corner of the cave.”
The carved bone was unearthed alongside the shoulder blade bones of deer and the intact skull of a cave bear — rare objects that may have indicated that the assemblage had ritual meaning, he said.
Radiocarbon dating has established that the bone is 51,000 years old — older than any comparable works of art attributed to Neanderthals.
Archaeologists have also found ancient eagle talons used as pendants by Neanderthals, as well as cave paintings in Spain that may be older — their date is disputed. Terberger said, “In this case, for the first time, we have a reliably dated object.”
The Einhornhöhle — or “Unicorn Cave” — where the carved bone was unearthed has been famous since at least the 16th century; it is now a tourist attraction. It got its name from the fossilized bones found there, supposedly from unicorns, that were once ground up to make medicines.
The deer toe bone was found in Die Einhornhöhle, or Unicorn Cave, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Excavations since the 1980s have established that the cave was inhabited by successive generations of Neanderthals, from at least 130,000 years ago until about 47,000 years ago.
Later groups of Homo sapiens also inhabited the cave, but only much later, after about 12,000 years ago, Leder said. The earliest evidence for Homo sapiens in the southeast of Europe is from about 45,000 years ago, and it’s not thought that they arrived in central Europe until at least 10,000 years after that, he said.
The archaeologists can only guess at the meanings of the carvings — if they have any meaning at all. “This is quite unique,” Leder said. “We don’t see it anywhere in the Paleolithic literature.
“We were discussing different interpretations. … The shape could be like a female figurine with the head and the chest part, but then the chevron pattern to some of us looked like three mountains in a row — a landscape view,” he said.
Microscopic analysis of the bone shows that the carvings are very deep, which suggests that it was boiled to soften it before carving began. The species of prehistoric deer that the bone was from was also rare in the region at the time and extremely large, which could suggest that the artwork had special importance, he said.
The discovery is more evidence that Neanderthals weren’t just dumb cavemen, as scientists once believed, but that they were capable of artistic or symbolic expression — which was once thought to be unique to Homo sapiens, said Bruce Hardy, a professor of anthropology at Kenyon College in Ohio, who wasn’t involved in the latest study.
It’s likely that a lot of Neanderthal artistic objects were carved from wood — a much easier medium to work with than stone or bone — that has perished after many thousands of years, he said.
The increasing evidence of symbolic artistic expression by Neanderthals, as well as by later Homo sapiens, suggests that the hominin species that were the ancestors of both were also artistic, he said.
“If those two different groups also share a common ancestor, chances are that common ancestor also has some degree of symbolic ability, as well, which means it goes much further back,” he said.
Hardy’s own research has included the discovery of what seems to be a piece of Neanderthal string — a Stone Age technology not seen before. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen of Leiden University in the Netherlands said that the analysis of the marks on the bone shows that they can’t have been the result of random gnawing by carnivores.
“The relatively regular angles of the intersecting lines is particularly convincing that these marks were created intentionally by Neanderthals,” he wrote in an email.
The possibility that the bone had been boiled to make it easier to work with was especially interesting, he said. His own research focuses on the use of fire by Neanderthals, which is also seen as evidence of their ability to use relatively advanced technologies.
Viking twin babies are found in Christian burial in Sweden
Live Science reports that seven Viking tombs were excavated in east-central Sweden ahead of a construction project. inside the tombs; they were likely Vikings who had converted to Christianity.
The eight people – four adults and four infants – were laid flat on their backs to rest in the Swedish town of Sigtuna. Pictured, one of the adults.
“The Christian character of the now-excavated graves is obvious because of how the tombs were laid out,” said Johan Runer, a project manager with Uppdrag arkeologi, a cultural resource management company, which led excavations of the site.
Most of the people had been buried flat on their back in an east-west position, whereas people who followed traditional Viking beliefs in this area of Sweden at this time tended to be cremated, Runer said.
Results of the Sigtuna dig are set to be presented in full in a report, according to Uppdrag Arkeologi. Pictured, the burial of a male adult surrounded by a stone cist – stones positioned in a box shape
The excavation site in the town of Sitguna, north of Sweden’s capital city Stockholm, from above
They also found deposits of charcoal and in some cases partially burnt caskets, suggesting fire rituals were involved in at least four burials.
“Such phenomena are rather common in Christian Viking period graves, but previously rather rare in Sigtuna,” Runer told Live Science in an email.
Stone cairns were also found on top of four of the tombs, one of which also was surrounded by a stone cist (stones positioned in a box shape) surrounding it.
“These features are previously not known from the town of Sigtuna,” said Runer, who noted that they are common among early Christian graves in this area of Sweden, which is located about 23 miles (37 kilometres) northwest of Stockholm.
Viking tragedy
The archaeologists say one of the tombs could contain the bodies of twins. “In one tomb, there were two very small infants of seemingly the exact same age,” Runer said. The team’s preliminary interpretation is that “this grave contains the tragic result of a late miscarriage of a couple of twins.”
The tombs also contained several interesting artefacts. One individual was buried with a “leather belt containing fittings of iron and silver-gilt copper alloy,” and silver coins were found in his mouth, Runer said.
Placing coins in a person’s mouth “is a rather common practice for Viking period Christian burials in middle Sweden,” he added. Another tomb contains “a beautifully ornated bone comb” found in a case, Runer said.
Archaeologists discovered the tombs in late April during a survey of an area where a house was going to be built.
The archaeologists excavated the site in May and are continuing to analyze the skeletons and artefacts. An osteologist is expected to examine the well-preserved skeletons in the fall.
Possible Image of Roman God Unearthed at Vindolanda
BBC News reports that two volunteers discovered a piece of sandstone carved with an image of a donkey or horse and a naked man holding a spear at Vindolanda, a Roman fort along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.
It was found intact near a 4th Century cavalry barrack and it is believed to depict either the Gods Mars or Mercury, although there is no inscription.
The artefact will be on display at the fort’s museum from Thursday.
It was unearthed by volunteers Richie Milor and David Goldwater who have taken part in annual digs at the fort for the past 15 years
Site archaeologist Marta Alberti is now piecing together clues to try to establish who the carving represents.
Ms Alberti said: “We are looking at something we have never seen at Vindolanda before and we might not see again.
“The nakedness of the man means he is probably a god, rather than a mere cavalryman, he is also carrying a spear in his left arm, a common attribute of the God of War Mars.
“However, when you look at his head, the two almost circular features could be identified as wings, a common attribute of Mercury – god of travel.
“Horses and donkeys are also often associated with Mercury as a protector of travellers.”
The Vindolanda Survival Appeal has so far raised £130,000 of a £200,000 target
The carving – which measures 6.2in (160mm) wide and 12.4in (315mm) tall – is very well preserved, Ms Alberti said.
It was unearthed by volunteers Richie Milor and David Goldwater who have taken part in annual digs at the fort for the past 15 years.
Mr Milor said: “We are just absolutely elated, very proud to be part of this discovery, it was actually very emotional.
“Whether you find something or not we love coming to this site, playing our small part in the research that takes place, but finding this made it a very special day indeed.”
Due to the pandemic, Vindolanda had to close for many months and furlough staff.
It has is so far raised more than £130,000 of a target of £200,000 as part of its Survival Appeal.
The excavations at Vindolanda will continue until 24 September.
Huge Objects Could Have Been Moved by a Lifting Machine at Stonehenge and Egypt!
A history-loving carpet fitter has recreated an ancient machine to solve the mystery of how Stonehenge was built. Steven Tasker, 66, believes the long-forgotten machinery would have been used to transport the huge stones 180 miles.
Steven Tasker on a day trip to Stonehenge, when he was likely thinking about his lifting machine and how it was used first in the UK and how it was likely the Egyptians visited Britain in search of scientific solutions for moving huge statues and building the pyramids.
He came up with the theory on a visit to Egypt as he wanted to explain how the Pyramids were built. Steven decided to build the rocking structure with his grandson to see if they could lift heavy stones.
The mechanism features a circular board in the middle of wooden planks that sit on top of rockers and wooden feet. Steven, of Llanrhaeadr, Mid Wales, says it could ‘move any weight’ and may solve the Stonehenge mystery.
He said: ‘It may look like something out of Last of the Summer Wine, but we’ve lifted a third of a tonne with it and theoretically it could move any weight.
‘I tied rockers below a plank of wood to try and work out how they could have been used.
‘By using pivot points, I could counterbalance a 60kg roll of carpet on top and by using the rockers, walk it across the road.’
Steven’s theory could explain how stone circles from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire were moved to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
He explained his ideas to Dr Campbell Price – curator of one of the UK’s largest Egyptology collections at Manchester Museum. Dr Price was impressed with his theory and said the ‘efficient movement of large numbers of ancient monuments’ has never been fully explained.
He said: ‘Steve’s experiments give a different perspective into how ancient people were able to plan paths of least resistance and to manipulate natural forces.’
Steven also believes the machine is referenced in the Old Testament when Ezekiel describes a ‘vision of God being transported on cherubim.’
Steven tested the prototype with his grandson: An important element where the ball bearings – such as those found at ancient sites – stop the statue from sliding off.
How Steven believes the machine could have looked – with the stone held over a circular board in the middle and wooden planks pulled sideways to propel the feet forward.
How Steven believes the machine would have looked – he believes the Egyptians could have kept animal fat in head cones to be used as a lubricant on the stone rollers
The cherubim include four wings and ‘feet shaped like the sole of a calf’s foot.
Steven said: ‘The feet are an important part of the machine because the load’s centre of mass is retained over them.
‘It gives the impression the machine is defying gravity, but like any trick of the eye, a clown leaning forward with his big shoes, it looks like magic.’
Steven estimates the machine would be able to travel 1.5 miles a day – meaning the Stonehenge stones would have taken months to transport.
Engineer Shaun Whitehead, who led the Djedi robotic exploration of the Great Pyramid, said: ‘I’m often approached by people who have their own ideas about why and how these great structures were built.
‘I’m careful not to dismiss any of these without a little thought, but most can be shown to be unworkable or impractical.
‘However, Steven’s theories on how massive objects could have been moved demonstrate a very creative and practical engineering mind.’
Cache of 80-million-year-old shark teeth found in Solomon-era site in Jerusalem
Scientists have found an unexplained cache of fossilized shark teeth in an area where there should be none—in a 2,900-year-old site in the City of David in Jerusalem. This is at least 80 km from where these fossils would be expected to be found.
Fossilised Squalicorax tooth Nr. #07815 from the Jerusalem site.
There is no conclusive proof of why the cache was assembled, but it may be that the 80 million-year-old teeth were part of a collection, dating from just after the death of King Solomon. The same team has now unearthed similar unexplained finds in other parts of ancient Judea.
Presenting the work at the Goldschmidt Conference, lead researcher, Dr. Thomas Tuetken (the University of Mainz, Institute of Geosciences) said:
“These fossils are not in their original setting, so they have been moved. They were probably valuable to someone; we just don’t know why, or why similar items have been found in more than one place in Israel”.
The teeth were found buried in the material used to fill in a basement before conversion to a large Iron-Age house. The house itself was situated in the City of David, one of the oldest parts of Jerusalem, found nowadays in the largely Palestinian village of Silwan.
They were found together with fish bones thrown away as food waste 2,900 years ago, and other infill material such as pottery. Intriguingly, they were found together with hundreds of bullae—items used to seal confidential letters and packages—implying a possible connection with the administrative or governing class at some point.
Normally archaeological material is dated according to the circumstances where it is found, and so at first, it was assumed that the teeth were contemporary with the rest of the finds. Dr Tuetken said:
“We had at first assumed that the shark teeth were remains of the food dumped nearly 3,000 years ago, but when we submitted a paper for publication, one of the reviewers pointed out that one of the teeth could only have come from a Late Cretaceous shark that had been extinct for at least 66 million years. That sent us back to the samples, where measuring organic matter, elemental composition, and the crystallinity of the teeth confirmed that indeed all shark teeth were fossils. Their strontium isotope composition indicates an age of about 80 million years.
This confirmed that all 29 shark teeth found in the City of David were Late Cretaceous fossils—contemporary with dinosaurs. More than that, they were not simply weathered out of the bedrock beneath the site, but were probably transported from afar, possibly from the Negev, at least 80 km away, where similar fossils are found”.
Artist’s impression of a Squalicorax shark.
Since the first finds, the team have found other shark teeth fossils elsewhere in Israel, at the Maresha and Miqne sites. These teeth are also likely to have been unearthed and moved from their original sites.
Dr. Tuetken said:
“Our working hypothesis is that the teeth were brought together by collectors, but we don’t have anything to confirm that. There are no wear marks that might show that they were used as tools, and no drill holes to indicate that they may have been jewellery. We know that there is a market for shark’s teeth even today, so it may be that there was an Iron Age trend for collecting such items. This was a period of riches in the Judean Court. However, it’s too easy to put 2 and 2 together to make 5. We’ll probably never really be sure”.
The shark teeth which have been identified come from several species, including from the extinct Late Cretaceous groupSqualicorax. Squalicorax, which grew to between 2 and 5 meters long, lived only during the Late Cretaceous period (which was the same period as the late dinosaurs), so acts as a reference point in dating these fossils.
Commenting, Dr. Brooke Crowley (University of Cincinnati) said:
“This research by Dr. Tuetken and colleagues is an excellent example of why it is so important to approach a research question with as few assumptions as possible, and how sometimes we have to revisit our initial assumptions.
It also highlights how beneficial it can be to apply multiple tools to answer a research question. In this case, the authors used both strontium and oxygen isotopes, as well as X-ray diffraction and trace element analysis to establish most likely age and origin of the fossil teeth.
It was a monumental of work but these efforts have revealed a much more interesting story about the people who lived in this region in the past. I am very excited by this work and hope that one day, we might be able to unravel the mystery of why these fossil teeth are being recovered from cultural deposits”.
