All posts by Archaeology World Team

ARMENIA, ASIA, WORLD

This 5,500-Year-Old Leather Shoe is the Oldest Ever Discovered

This 5,500-Year-Old Leather Shoe is the Oldest Ever Discovered

The oldest leather shoe known to archeologists was discovered lodged in a sheep dung pit in a cave in Armenia, and is about 5,500 years old, according to a BBC article. The so-called Areni-1 shoe is an example of early, simplistic footwear which may have influenced the creation of other types of shoe design in the ancient world.

Anthropologists believe that humans started wearing shoes around 40,000 years ago contributing to anatomical changes in human feet and limbs. However, we have very little idea of what these prehistoric shoes might have looked like.

Entrance to the Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia near the town of Areni. The cave is the location of the world’s oldest known winery and where the world’s oldest known leather shoe has been found.

Entrance to the Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia near the town of Areni. The cave is the location of the world’s oldest known winery and where the world’s oldest known leather shoe has been found.

Several pairs of rope sandals discovered by archaeologists in a cave in Oregon are thought to be the oldest footwear ever discovered, dating to approximately 8,000 BC. However, the oldest shoe, made from leather and featuring a closed toe, was found in a remote cave in Armenia in 2008.

The shoe was excavated as part of a project led by archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

The team was exploring a cave known as Areni-1, in the Vayots Dzor region. Areni-1 contained a number of Neolithic and Copper Age remains, including food containers holding barley, wheat and apricots.

The shoe itself was found inside a pit, perfectly preserved in the cool, dry conditions of the cave. It was cemented in with several layers of sheep dung, which acted as a seal, protecting the contents of the pit from the air and water.

The Areni-1 shoe was made from a single piece of tanned leather from the hide of a cow. It was seamed at the front and the back and tied together with leather cords, and appears to have been made to measure.

According to National Geographic, the leather was probably wrapped around the foot before stitching to ensure a tight fit. It corresponds to a size 7 (US) in modern footwear, and so could have conceivably been worn by either a man or a woman.

The archaeological site of Areni-1 in 2012.

The shoe was also found stuffed full of grass. The archaeologists could not determine whether this was intended as a way to ensure that it held its shape while not being worn, or whether it was insulation designed to keep the wearer’s feet warm.

The Areni-1 shoe was carbon-dated to around 3,500 BC, making it the oldest footwear of its kind ever to be discovered. Shoes would have been particularly important to the Copper Age inhabitants of the cave, as the area around the site is well known for its rocky terrain, with sharp, pointed rocks and thorny plants.

The shoe itself showed considerable signs of wear and tear, particularly at the heel and ball of the foot, suggesting that the wearer habitually walked very long distances. This assumption is further supported by the other items discovered in the cave including obsidian, thought to have been brought from a site over 75 miles away.

According to National Geographic, the Areni-1 shoe appears to be an example of the earliest leather footwear designs, creating a basic prototype that would be exported throughout the region.

Replica of the footwear worn by Ötzi The Iceman (about 5000-years-old) found in Alps.

The shoe closely resembles other ancient shoes discovered in the Middle East and North Africa and even draws a comparison with traditional clothing from the Balkans and North Africa, which are still worn in festivals today. In particular, it bears close similarities to the opanke, a form of traditional Balkan footwear.

The second oldest leather shoe discovered by archaeologists was found on Ötzi “the Iceman”, a mummified corpse uncovered in the Austrian Alps and dating from between 3,400 and 3,100 BC.

Reconstruction of Otzi the Iceman.

Ötzi’s shoe was significantly more sophisticated, comprising a bearskin base and deerskin side panels, pulled tight with a bark-string net. Dating just a few hundred years after the Areni-1 shoe, Ötzi’s shoe represents a significant leap forward in footwear design and technology.

Nevertheless, the Areni-1 shoe provides an important and extremely rare insight into the clothing and footwear worn by the Copper Age inhabitants of Armenia. Today it is on display in the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

A gigantic natural quartz crystal cluster was mined from the Colemans quartz mine near Jessieville

A gigantic natural quartz crystal cluster was mined from the Colemans quartz mine near Jessieville

On a Reddit site on Sunday, almost two years after it was found in the Arkansas mine, a picture of 3.5 million dollars chunk of quartz was taken.

Ron Coleman left, and his son Josh Coleman, right, found an 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal while digging at a mine in Jessieville

This mine was and is the most productive quartz mine in Arkansas. It has been producing quartz crystals in large quantities since 1943. When it is operating it has produced about 60,000 pounds of quartz crystals during a good month.

The image shows a man posing with an 8-foot block of crystals found in the Ron Coleman Mine in Jessieville, about 30 minutes north of Hot Springs.

The man pictured was not a visitor to the mine, which is open year-around for public digging, but an employee who worked on a team to extract the mineral over a four-day excavation said Joel Ledbetter, an online marketer for Ron Coleman Mining.

A $3.5 million chunk of quartz found in Arkansas was featured on the Reddit home page Sunday.

A $3.5 million chunk of quartz found in Arkansas was featured on the Reddit home page Sunday.

“We had a good guess it was there because there’s a 170-mile quartz vein that runs through Arkansas, so we started digging,” Ledbetter said.

Crews blasted the area until they found the vein and then used hand tools to dig out the 2,000-pound chunk that machines lifted out of the mine.

The crystal cluster is one of the most impressive pieces to come out of the quarry since people started digging before World War II — in part to retrieve crystals used in early radios, Ledbetter said.

The 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal cluster found at the Ron Coleman mine is being kept at the quarry until a buyer is found.

The 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal cluster found at the Ron Coleman mine is being kept at the quarry until a buyer is found.

The latest find is second in size to only a 9-foot, a 3,000-pound circular formation that was found in the mine just a year or two before.

While the larger piece is on display at various trade shows in Arizona, the other remains in Jessieville until it can be sold.

Ledbetter said several people have inquired about the $3.5 million crystal cluster, but the company has not yet found the right buyer.

That may change as the photo gains popularity as it spreads among various social media platforms.

“Someone really big into crystals probably shared it, and other people who hadn’t seen it saw it and got excited about it,” Ledbetter said. “Anytime people talk about mine, it’s good publicity. People get into crystals but don’t necessarily get to see all that comes out of here.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Israel Archaeologists unearth 1,200-year-old mosque

Israel Archaeologists unearth 1,200-year-old mosque

In an archeological dig in the mainly Bedouin town of Rahat, north of Beersheba remains of a 1200-year-old rural mosque, one of the oldest in the world was discovered.

“The Middle East and the world in general and, above all, in the northern part of Beersheba, where a similar building has not been found so far, it is a rare find since this time,” says Shahar Zur, and Dr. Jon Seligman, the Directors of the dig, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority.

“There have been great well-known mosques in Jerusalem and Mecca since this period, but here is evidence of an ancient house of worship, that seems to have been used by farmers living in the area,” they added.

“We found the ruins of the open-air mosque, a rectangular building with a “Mihrab” (a prayer niche) facing south, to the direction of Mecca.

These features are evidence for the purpose for which this building was used, many hundred years ago.”

Muslims pray at the newly discovered remains

A farm from the end of the Byzantine period (500-600 C.E.) was also uncovered in the excavations, as well as a small settlement from the beginning of the Islamic period (600-700 C.E.) with remains of buildings that were split into living spaces, open courtyards, storage space and places used for food preparation, including “tabbuns” (open-air fireplaces used for baking).

“These sites were part of the agricultural system that existed in the northern Negev in early times,” explained Zur and Seligman.

“The soil was suitable for growing grains and the groundwater in perennial streams attracted settlers here who wanted to cultivate the land.”

“This is one of the earliest mosques known of from the time of the first arrival of Islam in Israel, after the Arab conquest in 636 C.E.,” said Professor Gideon Avni, an expert in the period at the Antiquities Authority.

“The discovery of the mosque next to an agricultural town between Beersheba and Ashkelon indicates the processes of cultural and religious change which the country underwent during the transition from the Byzantine period to the early Islamic period.”

“The uncovering of the town and the mosque next to it, significantly contribute to studies on the history of the land in this stormy period,” he added.

“According to historical Islamic sources, the new Muslim government distributed plots of land to its senior officials, including Omar ibn al-Etz, an Arab military commander who took over the land of Israel and Syria.

The continuation of excavations on the site will perhaps provide answers to the questions regarding the foundation of the settlement and the nearby mosque and its connection to the Arab conquerors of the land of Israel.”

Yaser Alamor of Israel’s Antiquities Authority displays a stone retrieved from the mosque

The dig was headed by the Israel Antiquities Authority alongside Bedouin residents and youth from towns in the area as a new neighborhood was established in the city.

An initiative by the antiquities authority engages organized groups of youth during the summer vacation in archaeological digs, allowing them to earn a fair wage, engage with the past and also collect experiences for their whole lives.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

Archaeologists Reveal the Hidden Horrors of Only Nazi SS Camp on British Soil

Archaeologists Reveal the Hidden Horrors of Only Nazi SS Camp on British Soil

One of the British Channel Islands has a German concentration camp which has been a location for terrible atrocities, which have been downplayed in official reports after the end of World War II. Now, a new investigation reveals details that were kept hidden from the public for decades. 

Photograph of the Sylt concentration camp taken in 1945.

The only German concentration camps on British soil existed during WWII on the island of Alderney — part of an archipelago in channel waters between France and the United Kingdom

There, inmates endured brutal treatment, including hard labor, beatings, and starvation; but the full extent of what they suffered was not widely known even after the war ended. 

Recently, archaeologists pieced together the story of Alderney’s Sylt camp by examining declassified satellite images and exploring ruined buildings at the site.

They created the first map of the camp, which was built by the Nazis in 1942 and used first as a forced labor camp for political prisoners and then as a concentration camp, researchers reported.

The northernmost of the British Channel Islands, Alderney measures about 3 miles (5 kilometers) long and1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide. Sylt was originally constructed there to house 100 to 200 prisoners, about 20% of which died of poor treatment during the first year, according to a study published online on (March 30) in the journal Antiquity. 

Approximately 1,000 more people were transferred to the camp in 1943 — far more than Sylt was built to accommodate. 

Around that time, prisoner supervision was handed over to a Nazi paramilitary group called “Totenkopfverband” (Death’s Head Unit). Testimonies from Sylt survivors described 12-hour days of heavy construction work and little food, and guards who would beat the prisoners “with everything they could lay their hands on,” according to the study. 

But as Germany’s hold on Europe weakened, the Nazis began systematically destroying their own records regarding Sylt and other concentration camps, to hide the evidence of their crimes.

Sylt closed in 1944, and after the war’s end, British authorities on Alderney and the mainland conducted approximately 3,000 interviews with camp survivors, witnesses, and German officers. Their official report wasn’t released publicly until 1981, and it softened the worst of the details to quell rumors about the “death camp” in the British Channel, the scientists wrote in the study.

Aerial view of the site of the former labor and concentration camp of Sylt, and the memorial plaque installed on the camp gateposts in 2008, by a survivor.

Experts returned to Sylt in 2010 to evaluate the site and create the first reconstructions of the camp using archaeological methods, to better understand the inmates’ living and work conditions.

They visited the island, clearing vegetation and examining the camp’s few remaining structures; they also used a remote-sensing method known as light detection and ranging, or lidar, to survey the former camp from above and map differences in elevation that would indicate where buildings once stood and how they were constructed.

Their maps and 3D digital models showed that the prisoners’ barracks were poorly built and unable to keep out the wind and cold. The buildings would also have provided only about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of living space per person, resulting in severe overcrowding.

These findings corroborate witness testimony about outbreaks of lice and typhus, which would have spread quickly among people who were living in uncomfortably close quarters under unhygienic conditions, the authors said.

By comparison, according to the research, the Nazi guards lived comfortably, in buildings made of reinforced concrete surrounded by stone walls “to protect them from the weather and air raids,” the study authors wrote. 

Images from Sylt: A) The toilet block; B) prisoner kitchen cellar; C) stable block; D) the SS orderly room.

According to Nazi records, only 103 people died at Sylt of “faulty circulation” or “heart failure,” according to preprinted death certificates that the camp provided to Alderney doctors. But the recent discovery of mass graves on the island suggests that at least 700 people perished at Sylt; these new findings will help to ensure that their stories won’t be forgotten, the study authors wrote.

“This work has shed new light on the German occupation of Alderney and, crucially, the experiences of the thousands of forced and slave laborers who were sent there,” said lead study author Caroline Sturdy Colls, a professor of conflict archaeology and genocide investigation at Staffordshire University in the United Kingdom. 

“Historical, forensic and archaeological approaches have finally offered the possibility to uncover new evidence and give a voice to those who suffered and died on Alderney so many years ago,” Colls said in a statement. 

AUSTRALIA, WORLD

Amber Fossil Shows Two Trapped Flies that Died while Mating 41 Million Years Ago

Amber Fossil Shows Two Trapped Flies that Died while Mating 41 Million Years Ago

One of the earliest, fossilized animals ever found are a pair of fornicating flies that were preserved in amber 41 million years ago. The frisky insects appear to have been in the very throes of passion when they got trapped in gluey tree resin and preserved — unparted, even in death.

A pair of fornicating flies that became frozen in amber 41 million years ago are among the oldest fossilized mating animals ever to be discovered. The frisky insects appear to have been in the very throes of passion when they got trapped in gluey tree resin and preserved

With time, the resin has transformed into amber and still has a twisted leg in the amorous couple. The fact that flies typically only take a few seconds to copulate makes the fossil find from Victoria, Australia even more rare and remarkable.

‘ You might conclude that the fly of these long legs was ‘ messed up ‘ 41 million years ago, ” said paper author and paleontologist Jeffrey Stilwell of the University of Monash at Melbourne, He was certain this was the scenario when the specimen was first analyzed — a fact which co-author Dan Bickel, a fly expert from the Australian Museum, then confirmed.

‘The flies could have accidentally landed on the tree resin to mate, and then got stuck forever together, literally,’ Professor Stilwell said.

‘You can imagine all of the statements by my amber student volunteers, one being “Doin’ it Gondwana style”, etc.’ Gondwana was an ancient supercontinent that eventually split into separate landmasses — including Australia.

Mating has been captured in amber unearthed from other parts of the world, but is nevertheless ‘very rare’, Professor Stilwell said. In Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park, dinosaurs are reintroduced to the world by extracting their DNA from a mosquito that had been preserved in amber. Most biologists agree that such a scenario would not be possible. But many experts do believe that DNA can be preserved in amber for millions of years.

‘This is one of the greatest discoveries in paleontology for Australia,’ Professor Stilwell said. ‘Amber is considered to be the “Holy Grail” in the discipline, as organisms are preserved in a state of suspended animation in perfect 3D space, looking just like they died yesterday’

‘But, in fact, [they] are many millions of years old, providing us with an enormous amount of information on ancient terrestrial ecosystems.’

Professor Stilwell and colleagues stumbled upon the flies while trawling through almost 6,000 pieces of fossilized amber. The material was unearthed from rocks dating back from 54–40 million years ago found at two sites — one in Western Tasmania and the other in Victoria.

Among them were the two mating specimens of long-legged flies, known to the scientific community as ‘Dolichopodidae’. These bugs are commonly found across Britain and the rest of the world today.

‘This may be the first example of “frozen behaviour” in the fossil record of Australia,’ said Professor Stilwell.

‘Frozen behaviours are rarely recorded in the fossil record, but can be quite diverse, including defence, parasitism, feeding, swarms, and so on.’

Dolichopodidae comprises mainly small metallic flies. The adult males wave their legs when courting potential suitors. Other finds from the amber collection included a flake of amber containing a beautifully preserved biting midge and a larger piece with a long-legged fly and another biting midge.

Both specimens are about 41 million years old and were found in Anglesea, Victoria. The team also analyzed amber deposits unearthed by the team at other spots in southeastern Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand that dates back 230 million years. There were fossilized ants, the first Australian fossils of ‘slender springtails’, a tiny, wingless arthropod and an insect called a felt scale (Eriococcidae) — all-around 53 million years old.

There was also a cluster of juvenile spiders, biting midges (Ceratopogonidae), two liverwort and two moss species. They are the oldest known animals and plants preserved in amber from Southern Gondwana. Finding Triassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene fossils from an ancient tree resin in Australia and eastern New Zealand is a dream come true,’ said Professor Stilwell.

The researchers also analyzed amber deposits unearthed by the team at other spots in southeastern Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand – dating back 230 million years. There were fossilized ants, the first Australian fossils of ‘slender springtails’, a tiny, wingless arthropod and an insect called a felt scale. Pictured, an artist’s impression of ants getting stuck in resin

‘We now have our first definite glimpses of ancient subpolar greenhouse Earth ecosystems, when Australia and Antarctica were attached and situated much further south in higher latitudes.’

‘Many discoveries are the first-ever for their respective groups of animals and plants, including the first-ever ants, springtails and others, including the first recorded evidence for “frozen behaviour” in the fossil record of mating flies.’

‘There has never been a fossil ant recorded in Australia before, but we can now state for the first time that ants have been a significant part of the Australian ecosystem for over 40 million years.’ Most amber records are from the Northern Hemisphere. The study has confirmed it was abundant in the ancient supercontinents of Southern Pangea and Southern Gondwana.

‘The research furthers our understanding of prehistoric southern ecosystems in Australia and New Zealand during the Late Triassic to mid-Paleogene periods — 230 to 40 million years ago,’ added Professor Stilwell.

ANTARCTICA, WORLD

Evidence of 90-million-year-old rainforest uncovered beneath the Antarctic ice

Evidence of 90-million-year-old rainforest uncovered beneath the Antarctic ice

The well-preserved rainforest seeds, pollens and spores of 90 million year old (mid-cretaceous) rainforest plants in Western Antarctica have been discovered by an international team of paleontologists and geologists.

Reconstruction of the West Antarctic mid-Cretaceous temperate rainforest. The painting is based on paleofloral and environmental information inferred from palynological, geochemical, sedimentological and organic biomarker data obtained from cores at the site of PS104_20-2, Antarctica.

The mid-Cretaceous period (115 million to 80 million years ago) was the heyday of the dinosaurs but was also the warmest period in the past 140 million years, with temperatures in the tropics as high as 35 degrees Celsius and sea level 170 m higher than today.

However, little was known about the environment south of the Antarctic Circle at this time.

Professor Tina van of Flierdt, a professor at the Departments of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, said “The survival of this 90 million-year-old forest is remarkable but even more surprising is the world that it reveals.

“Even during months of darkness, swampy temperate rainforests were able to grow close to the South Pole, revealing an even warmer climate than we expected.”

The evidence for the Antarctic forest comes from a core of sediment drilled at the site of PS104_20-2 (73.57°S, 107.09°W; 946 m water depth) near the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in West Antarctica.

One section of the core, that would have originally been deposited on land, caught the scientists’ attention with its strange color.

“During the initial shipboard assessments, the unusual coloration of the sediment layer quickly caught our attention; it clearly differed from the layers above it,” said Dr. Johann Klages, a geologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research.

The team CT-scanned the section of the core and discovered an intact 3-m-long network of fossil roots, which was so well preserved that they could make out individual cell structures.

The 90-million-year-old sample also contained countless traces of pollen and spores from plants, including the first remnants of flowering plants ever found at these high Antarctic latitudes.

“The numerous plant remains indicate that 93 to 83 million years ago the coast of West Antarctica was a swampy landscape in which temperate rainforests grew — similar to the forests that can still be found, say, on New Zealand’s South Island,” said Professor Ulrich Salzmann, a paleoecologist at Northumbria University.

Example microscopic images from thin sections of 90-million-year-old fossil roots: (a) overview scan of root fragment with indicated locations of detailed microscopic images (b-e); white arrows indicate the locations of preserved parenchyma storage cells, including potential aerenchyma gas exchange cells (d). Scale bar in (d) applies to (b-e).

To reconstruct the environment of this preserved forest, the researchers assessed the climatic conditions under which the plants’ modern descendants live, as well as analyzing temperature and precipitation indicators within the sample.

They found that the annual mean air temperature was around 12 degrees Celsius. Average summer temperatures were around 19 degrees Celsius; water temperatures in the rivers and swamps reached up to 20 degrees.

They conclude that 90 million years ago the Antarctic continent was covered with dense vegetation, there were no land-ice masses on the scale of an ice sheet in the South Pole region, and the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was far higher than previously assumed for the mid-Cretaceous period.

“Before our study, the general assumption was that the global carbon dioxide concentration in the Cretaceous was roughly 1,000 ppm,” Dr. Klages said.

“But in our model-based experiments, it took concentration levels of 1,120 to 1,680 ppm to reach the average temperatures back then in the Antarctic.”

ASIA, CAMBODIA, WORLD

Statue Fragments Found Near Cambodia’s Bayon Temple

Statue Fragments Found Near Cambodia’s Bayon Temple

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA— The large statue fragments have been recovered from a canal near the Gate of the Dead at Angkor Thom by members of Cambodia’s Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology, the heritage police, and agents from the Apsara Authority.

Two sandstone heads of tug-of-war statues have been spotted near the Gate of the Dead

“The god statue found by the working team has four pieces, while another giant statue has only the back part without a face,” said Chhouk Somala of the Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology.

Two sandstone heads of tug-of-war statues have been spotted and brought out from a canal near the Gate of the Dead. This was found today on the eastern side of Siem Reap province’s Bayon temple.

Chhouk Somala, an officer in charge of archaeological registration at the Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology said, two heads of statues including one god and a giant of the tug-of-war statue at the Gate of the Dead, have been found by the department’s working team, heritage police, and Apsara Authority’s travel agents.

He added, “The god statue found by the working team has four pieces, while another giant statue has only the back part without a face.”

The finding of the two statues was not accidental because the general structures of the tug-of-war statue have been damaged due to the age of the structure, natural forces, and war which made some of those statues fall into the water and get buried in the ground.

Long Kosal, Apsara Authority spokesman, said archaeologists in the past have also discovered the sandstone statues at some sites in the Angkor Archaeological Park, and have been brought to the Preah Norodom Sihanouk-Angkor Museum for study and preservation.

“After taking these two statues out of the water, our working team has brought it to the Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology to register them as art objects, repair and conduct further studies before handing them over to be artifacts in the museum,” he said.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Underwater Artifacts Returned to Mexico’s Lake of the Moon

Underwater Artifacts Returned to Mexico’s Lake of the Moon

A collection of objects preserved in a special container at the bottom of Lake of The Moon at high altitudes in the Nevado de Toluca Volcano in Central Mexico was deposited by Mexico’s National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH).

Underwater archaeologist Roberto Junco deposits the archive on the bottom of the Lake of the Moon.

The artifacts were found in the lake in 2007 and kept in the last 13 years during the research under similar underwater environments.

52 pre-Hispanic ritual items returned to their site by underwater archaeologists where they were found, the bed of one of the two crater lakes of the Nevado de Toluca volcano.

Members of the underwater archaeology team at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) deposited the mostly spherical and conical resin objects on the bed of the Lake of the Moon earlier this month.

The objects, believed to have been made by the Matlatzinca people between the 13th and 15th centuries and placed in the lake by pre-Hispanic priests, are stored in a specially-made container that allows water and sediment to flow over them. As a result, they are protected from deterioration.

The trove of objects is the first in situ underwater archaeological archive in Mexico, according to an INAH statement.

The decision to preserve the objects in their place of origin complies with recommendations in the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

The objects were found at the Nevado de Toluca crater lake in 2007 and have been studied and analyzed for the past 13 years.

Enna Llabrés and Roberto Junco prepare the collection of artifacts for a deposit on the lake bottom.

Enna Llabrés Torres, a researcher with the INAH underwater archaeology department who made the container in which the resin relics are stored, said that the objects could be removed for further study in the future as new technologies and methods of analysis emerge.

She explained that while the objects were studied over the past 13 years, they were stored underwater in conditions similar to those found at the Lake of the Moon, which is located more than 4,000 meters above sea level and has an average temperature of 3 C.

The conical objects measure 20-30 centimeters while the spherical ones are roughly the size of a baseball. INAH archaeologist Iris Hernández said that the Nevado de Toluca volcano has been considered a sacred site since pre-Hispanic times and for that reason, relics used in rituals and ceremonies have been found there.

She said that the conical objects – made out of resin of the copal tree – may have been specifically made to resemble the form of the volcano, located in modern-day México state.

According to carbon dating tests conducted by experts at the National Autonomous University Institute of Physics, the ritual objects date back to between 1216 and 1445 AD.

The time period corresponds to the rule of the Matlatzinca people in the Valley of Toluca prior to their domination by the Mexicas.