Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, IRAN, WORLD

3,000-year-old skeletons of nine children were discovered in Qazvin province, Iran

3,000-year-old skeletons of nine children were discovered in Qazvin province, Iran

3,000-year-old skeletons of nine children were discovered in Qazvin province, Iran

Archaeologists from the University of Tehran have discovered the remains of children dating back 3,000 years during excavations in an ancient cemetery in the Segzabad region of Qazvin province in central-west Iran.

The excavations, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Mustafa Deh Pahlavan found the remains of some children along with babies and fetuses, also found the remains of two horses, two goats, and a sheep.

The discovery made by Iranian archaeologists was made in an area of five square meters.

“This complex with an area of five square meters and a height of 120 cm, weighing about 10 tons, includes the remains of nine children, a baby, and a fetus, the remains of two adult horses, two goats, and a sheep,” Dr. Mostafa Dehpahlavan said.

Dehpahlavan, who presides over the Institute of Archeology of the University of Tehran, stated that the foundation work has three parts, adding the first part contains the burial remains of a child along with the remains of an immature goat.

Dehpahlavan said: In the eastern cemetery of Qara Tepe, important evidence of five layers of burials and graves on top of each other was obtained on a wide scale.

In this cemetery, the graves do not have a specific direction. Their borders are surrounded by several clay ridges. Aborted fetuses and babies were buried in clay cooking pots. Without exception, the remains of animals such as goats, immature sheep, cows, camels, and horses were found in all the graves, which indicates that animals were buried next to the dead.

The discovered collection has been moved to Segzabad municipality for display and preservation in accordance with conservation and restoration standards due to the unfavorable conditions in the Qara Tepe cemetery.

Based on criteria such as the growth of teeth and the length of long bones, the child’s skeleton is estimated to be less than six years old.

In describing the second part, the archaeology said: “In this part, the burial remains of two adult horses of different breeds can be seen. First, the remains of an adult horse lying on its left side without a skull.

Another smaller adult horse (probably of the Caspian breed) was buried in a huddled form on its right side. Its skull is above the surface of the body in a semi-raised form. This horse has a necklace with bronze beads and a part of the iron bridle of this horse can be seen in the mouth area.”

In his explanation about the third part of this collection, Dehpahlavan stated: This part contains human and animal remains that are in a very chaotic state. Based on the number of visible skulls, a total of eight people were buried in this section. Next to a gray clay cave, the remains of a human fetus can be seen.

In addition, an adult sheep skull can be identified next to the skulls of human fetuses. Also, a container with a vertical handle and a small jug along with a part of the body of a pot with pea color and rope decoration constitute the pottery findings of this section.

The cemetery also found a child’s skeleton next to clay dishes, which can attest to his special social status, as well as burial ornaments like bronze bracelets, a ring, and the remnants of a necklace made of stone, bronze, and ivory beads.

The discovered collection has been moved to Segzabad municipality for display and preservation in accordance with conservation and restoration standards due to the unfavorable conditions in the Qara Tepe cemetery.

ASIA, OMAN, WORLD

“Arabian Stonehenge” Uncovered in Oman Desert

“Arabian Stonehenge” Uncovered in Oman Desert

Handaxes from the period of the first human migration out of Africa, circular burial chambers, a collection of rock engravings, and the Arabian Stonehenge. Unique findings are being reported by an international team led by the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS in Prague, which has successfully completed its third excavation season in Oman. The collected samples are now being analyzed by experts and will contribute to the reconstruction of the earliest history of the world’s largest sand desert.

Czech archaeologists have been focusing on the still underexplored desert areas of the Sultanate of Oman for a long time. Their last year’s expedition was the third in a row and several more are in the pipeline. More than twenty archaeologists and geologists from ten countries were involved in the excavations at two different sites in Oman.

The first expedition team was situated in the Dhofar Governorate in the south of the country, while the second group operated in the Duqm province of central Oman. The researchers shared their observations directly from the field on Twitter via @Arduq_Arabia.

The expedition camp in the Rub’ al-Khali desert, southern Oman.

The Arabian Peninsula as a migration corridor

In the dunes of the Rub’ al Khali desert in the Dhofar province, researchers unearthed stone handaxes that date back to the first human migration out of Africa some 300,000 to 1.3 million years ago. Due to its geographical location, Arabia served as a natural migration route from the African cradle of humankind into Eurasia.

Among dunes up to 300 meters high, they managed to find eggshells of extinct ostriches, a fossil dune, and an old riverbed from a period when the climate in Arabia was significantly wetter. “Our findings, supported by four different dating methods, will provide valuable data for reconstructing the climate and history of the world’s largest sand desert. Natural conditions also shaped prehistoric settlements, and what we are trying to do is study human adaptability to climate change,” said expedition leader and coordinator Roman Garba from the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS in Prague.

Nuclear physics is helping history research

Archaeologists use special dating methods to determine the age of the finds. “We carry out radiocarbon dating and cosmogenic radionuclide dating in cooperation with the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS, which has newly commissioned the first accelerator mass spectrometer in the Czech Republic,” Garba explained.

Radiocarbon dating and spatio-temporal analysis can also help researchers find out more about the roughly two-thousand-year-old ritual stone monuments – known as triliths. In layman’s terms, they can be likened to England’s better-known Stonehenge. They appear in what is now southern Arabia, and it is not clear exactly what they were used for or who built them.

What is hidden beneath the circular burial chambers?

The second expedition team operated in the Duqm province of central Oman, focusing in particular on a Neolithic tomb dating back to 5,000–4,600 BCE at the Nafūn site.

Excavation of a Neolithic tomb at the Nafūn site, central Oman.

“What we find here is unique in the context of the whole of southern Arabia. A megalithic structure concealing two circular burial chambers revealed the skeletal remains of at least several dozen individuals. Isotopic analyses of bones, teeth, and shells will help us to learn more about the diet, natural environment, and migrations of the buried population,” explains Alžběta Danielisová from the Institute of Archaeology, Prague.

“What we find here is unique in the context of the whole of southern Arabia. A megalithic structure concealing two circular burial chambers revealed the skeletal remains of at least several dozen individuals.

Isotopic analyses of bones, teeth, and shells will help us learn more about the diet, natural environment, and migrations of the buried population,” explained Alžběta Danielisová from the Institute of Archaeology of the CAS in Prague.

Not far from the tomb, there is a unique collection of rock engravings spread out over a total of 49 rock blocs, whose different styles and varying degrees of weathering provide a pictorial record of settlements from 5,000 BCE to 1,000 CE. Researchers also investigated stone tool production sites from the Late Stone Age.

Following the traces of ancient settlements in southern Arabia
The research in Oman is part of a wider project by evolutionary anthropologist Viktor Černý from the Institute of Archaeology in Prague. His research focuses on the biocultural interactions of populations and their adaptation to climate change.

“The detected interactions of African and Arab archaeological cultures characterize the mobility of populations of anatomically modern humans.

It will be interesting to confront these findings also with the genetic diversity of the two regions and create a more comprehensive view of the formation of contemporary society in Southern Arabia,” explained Černý, who received the prestigious Academic Award of the Czech Academy of Sciences for the project last year.

The ARDUQ (Archaeological Landscape and environmental dynamics of Duqm and Nejd) expedition was carried out under the auspices of the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Tourism. Researchers from the Czech Republic, USA, Great Britain, Ukraine, Iran, Italy, Slovakia, Austria, France, and Oman took part in the project.

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

1,800-year-old wooden mask likely used in farm festivals found in Japan

Archaeologists have unearthed an almost perfectly preserved wooden mask from the early third century at the Nishi-Iwata ruins in Osaka Prefecture, Japan.

The discovery was announced by the Osaka Cultural for Heritage Center on April 24.

The discovery is the third example of a wooden mask from this period. Experts believe the artifact was important in influential agricultural festivals organized by powerful people at the time.

The wooden mask, hewn from a cedar tree, measures around 30cm in height by 18cm wide and features two eye holes, a mouth, and a perforated hole surviving on one side that probably held string for holding the mask on the wearers face.

The mask was found in flood sediment 2.9 meters below the surface of the ground. It was discovered next to a piece of a wooden water bucket and a wooden object in the shape of a hoe that had been burned. Experts believe the three items may well have featured in agricultural festivals.

Photo: Osaka Centre for Cultural Heritage

According to the researchers, the mask may have been used in ceremonial rituals during significant agricultural festivals around 1800 years ago, during the Yayoi era.

During this time, Japan transitioned to a settled agricultural society, employing agricultural methods introduced from Korea in the Kyushu region.

The mask was probably displayed at festivals because it is too heavy to wear, according to Kaoru Terasawa, director of the Research Center for Makimukugaku, Sakurai City, in Nara Prefecture.

Kaoru Terasawa, said: “I believe the mask represented a ‘spirit of a head,’ which was believed to be a god in the shape of a human and represented the authority of Okimi.”

Okimi is the title given to the ruler of the Yamato Kingship, a political alliance of powerful families centered in modern-day Nara Prefecture that ruled from the third to the seventh centuries.

The mask will be on display at the Museum of Yayoi Culture in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, from April 29 to May 7.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

The newly discovered fossils are 200,000 years old in Denisova Cave

The newly discovered fossils are 200,000 years old in Denisova Cave

The newly discovered fossils are 200,000 years old in Denisova Cave

Scientists have discovered the earliest remains of a human lineage known as the Denisovans. Researchers have identified stone artifacts connected to these ancient ancestors of contemporary humans using these 200,000-year-old bones for the first time, according to a new study.

The DNA study of a tooth and a little finger bone discovered in a cave named Denisova in Siberia’s Altai highlands provided our first tantalizing sight of the Denisovans in 2010.

The fossil record of these mysterious individuals is extremely limited, with only four bits of bone and teeth and a jawbone discovered in Tibet.

Their DNA, however, has indicated that they had a common ancestor with the Neanderthals and our species, Homo sapiens, some 765,000 years ago.

After this ancestor population split, our branch of the human family tree remained in Africa, while the Neanderthal/Denisovan branch moved into Eurasia.

By 430,000 years ago, the Eurasian branch had split, giving rise to the Neanderthals in western Eurasia and the Denisovans in the east. It’s unclear why the Denisovans and Neanderthals split, but a recent theory argues that when the Arctic ice sheet moved southwards to the Black Sea, cutting Europe off from Asia, it split the early humans into the east and west groups indicated above.

We now know that Denisovans are bred with modern humans in at least two places: in East Asia and further south-east in Indonesia or Australasia.

Denisovan cave.

Three more Denisovan fossils have been unearthed in Denisova Cave by experts. Scientists believe they are roughly 200,000 years old, making them the oldest Denisovans yet discovered. Previously, the oldest known Denisovan specimens ranged in age from 122,000 to 194,000 years.

In the new study, researchers analyzed 3,800 bone fragments from Denisova Cave. They searched for proteins they knew were Denisovan based on previous DNA research.

The experts discovered five human bones among the remains. Four of them had enough DNA to be identified: one was Neanderthal, and the other three were Denisovan. Two of these fossils may have come from the same person or from related people, based on genetic similarities.

“We were extremely excited to identify three new Denisovan bones amongst the oldest layers of Denisova Cave,” study author Katerina Douka, an archaeological scientist at the University of Vienna in Austria, told Live Science. “We specifically targeted these layers where no other human fossils were found before, and our strategy worked.”

One of the Denisovan bones was found in Denisova Cave in Siberia.

The age of these Denisovan fossils was calculated by the researchers based on the stratum of soil in which they were discovered. This stratum also contains a plethora of stone objects and animal bones, which might provide important archaeological insights about Denisovan life and behavior. Previously, Denisovan fossils were only discovered in levels devoid of such archaeological material, or in layers that may have also held Neanderthal material.

These newly discovered Denisovans lived in a time when, according to a prior study, the temperature was warm and similar to today’s, and they lived in a habitat that featured broad-leaved woods and open grassland. The Denisovans may have eaten deer, gazelles, horses, bison, and woolly rhinoceroses, according to butchered and burned animal remains discovered in the cave.

“This is the first time we can be sure that Denisovans were the makers of the archaeological remains we found associated with their bone fragments,” Katerina Douka said.

The stone artifacts discovered in the same strata as these Denisovan fossils are largely scraping implements that may be employed to deal with animal skins. The raw materials for these things most likely originated from river silt right outside the cave’s entrance, and the river most likely aided the Denisovans in their hunting efforts, according to the experts.

There are no direct analogs to the stone tools associated with these new fossils in North or Central Asia. They do, however, bore some similarities to artifacts discovered in Israel between 250,000 and 400,000 years ago – a time period associated with key advances in human technology, such as the widespread use of fire, according to the researchers.

The researchers published their findings online in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

Rock Ship of Masuda, Japan’s mysterious monolith

Rock Ship of Masuda, Japan’s mysterious monolith

Rock Ship of Masuda, Japan’s mysterious monolith

Located in the Takaichi District of Nara Prefecture, Japan, the village of Asuka is famous for its mysterious stones. The ancient origins of the village date back to the Tumulus period, also known as Kofun Jidai (c. 3rd century–538 C.E.).

Kofun Jidai period (AD 250–552) is characterized by a specific type of earth mound in the shape of a key and surrounded by moats. However, the area is known for its many Buddhist temples, shrines, and statues.

Stone monuments that do not match Buddhist-style sculptures or construction on the hills surrounding Asuka attract curious visitors and explorers.

Masuda-no-iwafune (literally “Rock Ship of Masuda”, 益 田 岩 船 in Japanese), or Rock Ship of Masuda, is the name of the largest of these monuments.  Its function is still unknown and it is located atop a hill close to Okadera Station. 

The largest of the mysterious rock mounds, the rock ship is made of solid granite and measures 11 meters (36 feet) by 8 meters (26 feet), 4.5 meters high (15 feet), and weighs approximately 800 tons as it stands. 

It’s a carved mound, with two holes each about a meter square in the center, going through to the ground.

The “rock ship” moniker is most likely due to its canoe-like appearance or location near Lake Masuda. However, as part of regional development, the nearby body of water has been drained.

The side of the slope facing the top has been smoothed at a 45-degree angle to the ground. Close to the ground, trellis-shaped chisel marks can be seen on the other three sides.

These marks are most likely related to how the builders smoothed the surface of the rock. Because granite is notoriously difficult to carve (even with modern tools), this sculpture captivates experts and scientists who regard it as a technical marvel.

Masuda-no-iwafoune’s construction is said to be strikingly similar to that of another Japanese stone enigma, Ishi-no-Hden. Though it is now a shrine dedicated to the Shinto god shiko Jinja, no one knows who carved it or why, though it is thought to have two holes in the center, similar to Masuda-no-iwafune, though they aren’t visible.

The most popular theory about the stone’s construction is that it was used as an astronomical observation point. Its orientation alignment with the slope suggests that the monolith may be linked with the Japanese lunar calendar (important for early agriculture) and to the first astronomical observations. However, some experts disagree with this.

Other historians contend that the rock designates a royal burial ground, of which only the entrance would have been finished at the time. This still doesn’t explain the unusual features of the structure.

With no conclusive information regarding the significance of this enigmatic stone spaceship, the whys, and wherefores of its existence remain a mystery to this day.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Arrowhead from the Biblical Battle Discovered in the Hometown of the Giant Goliath’s

Arrowhead from the Biblical Battle Discovered in the Hometown of the Giant Goliath’s

Arrowhead from the Biblical Battle Discovered in the Hometown of the Giant Goliath’s

A bone arrowhead discovered in the ancient Philistine city of Gath might have been used and fired off by the city’s defenders as part of the last stand described in the Bible.

According to the Hebrew Bible, a king named Hazael), who ruled the kingdom of Aram from around 842 B.C. to 800 B.C., conquered Gath (also known as Tell es-Safi) before marching on Jerusalem. “Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem,” the Book of Kings says (2 Kings 12:17). 

Archaeological investigations in Gath, in what is now Israel, have revealed that major damage occurred in the late ninth century B.C., when the Bible claims Hazael destroyed Gath, which was home to the Philistines (Israel’s foes). Goliath, the giant warrior killed by King David, was born in Gath, according to the Hebrew Bible.

Archaeologists found a bone arrowhead in the ruins of a street in the lower city in 2019 that may have been shot by the city’s defenders in a desperate attempt to halt Hazael’s army from conquering Gath, according to an article published recently in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology.

The army of King Hazael of Aram may have passed through the lower city (shown here) while conquering Gath.

The arrowhead has an impact fracture on its tip, and the arrowhead “had been broken close to the mid-shaft, perhaps as a result of this impact,” the archaeologists said The damage suggests the arrowhead hit a target, they added. 

Desperate manufacturing in Gath

This arrowhead might have been made in a Gath workshop that was feverishly trying to make as many bone arrowheads for the city’s defenses as possible.

The workshop, which was discovered in 2006, is located roughly 980 feet (300 meters) away from where the bone arrowhead was found.

Inside this workshop, archaeologists uncovered several bones from the lower forelimbs and hind limbs of domestic cattle, suggesting that people in the workshop were in the process of making bone arrowheads.

“The assemblage represents bones at different stages of working — from complete bones, waste, to almost finished products,” the researchers wrote in the article. 

The defenders may have chosen cattle bone because the material was readily available and crafting a good arrowhead from it didn’t take long. One of the researchers, Ron Kehati, a zooarchaeologist with the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project made a replica of the bone arrowhead in about an hour, study co-author Liora Kolska Horwitz, who is also a zooarchaeologist with the project, told Live Science. 

This workshop “may have functioned as an emergency, ad hoc production center to supply arrowheads to fight the forces of Hazael of Aram, who put the site under siege,” the researchers wrote in the article.

The team plans to resume excavations at the site this summer and future discoveries may provide more clues to the fall of Gath.  

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

1,000-year-old brick tomb discovered in China is decorated with lions, sea anemones and ‘guardian spirits’

1,000-year-old brick tomb discovered in China is decorated with lions, sea anemones and ‘guardian spirits’

1,000-year-old brick tomb discovered in China is decorated with lions, sea anemones and 'guardian spirits'
The inner chamber of the ornate tomb is made of bricks shaped to look like carved wood.

A stunning brick tomb thought to be more than 800 years old has been discovered in northern China by workers renovating stormwater drains.

The tomb contained three bodies — two adults and one child — as well as several pottery items. One of these, a “land coupon” inscribed with writing, indicates that the tomb was built between A.D. 1190 and 1196, when the region was ruled by the Jurchen Jin or “Great Jin” state.

According to the Shanxi Institute of Archaeology, the tomb was unearthed by the workers in mid-2019 near the village of Dongfengshan, in Yuanqu County, about 400 miles (650 kilometers) southwest of Beijing.

Archaeologists from the institute then carried out an excavation to document the tomb, and a full report on the work was released in February, according to a press release from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS.) The south-facing tomb has similarities to others found in the region from the time, such as a ceremonial “gatehouse” on its northern wall, but it is relatively simple, according to the report.

Archaeologists say the tomb is similar to others in the area from the same time, but is relatively simple.
The entire structure of the tomb includes a buried “road”, a staircase, and a door to the inner chamber.
The square inner chamber of the tomb is capped by an octagonal spire made of stepped bricks.

The buried structure consists of a “tomb road” to a staircase that leads down to a door in the inner chamber, which is a square about 6.5 feet (2 meters) long on each side, beneath an elaborate octagonal spire made of stepped bricks. 

The entire chamber is faced with bricks shaped to look like carved wood, which the archaeologists say were not painted. The tomb also features ornate decorations on the walls, including lions, sea anemones, flowers and two figures that are thought to represent guardian spirits.

Archaeologists from the Shanxi Institute say the three bodies found there were those of two adults aged between 50 and 60 years old, and one child aged between 6 and 8 years old.

The tomb held the remains of three individuals – two adults, aged between 50 and 60 years, and one child, aged between 6 and 8 years.

Jurchen Jin

“Great Jin” was the second Chinese state of that name and it is often referred to as the Jurchen Jin state to distinguish it, said Julia Schneider, a professor of Chinese history at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the tomb’s discovery.

Jurchen Jin emerged in about A.D. 1115 amid rebellions against the region’s earlier Liao Dynasty, and fell to the invading Mongols in 1234. But for the intervening century, it was one of the major powers in China.

Although many of its subjects were ethnically Han Chinese, Jurchen Jin was ruled by an imperial family that was ethnically Jurchen, a semi-nomadic people from northeast China related to the Manchu people, Schneider told Live Science. (The Manchu were an ethnic  native to China’s northeast and surrounding regions — called Manchuria — who conquered China and Mongolia in the 17th century and ruled for about 250 years.)

Two figures portrayed on the panels are thought to be guardian spirits; one of the figures is thought to be male and the other is thought to be female.

A census in 1207 gave the population of the Jurchen Jin state as 53 million people, but “probably less than 10% were Jurchen,” Schneider said.

“What makes the Jurchen Jin so interesting was that this was a multi-ethnic empire,” she said.

While many of its subjects were oriented toward Confucianism and other ideologies it considered “Chinese,” the Jurchen Jin state developed a distinctive script for the Jurchen languages and established dual administrations to oversee its Chinese and Jurchen subjects, she said.

Chinese tomb

A pottery “land coupon” inscribed with writing found in the tomb firmly dates its construction to between 1190 and 1196 A.D.

In the case of the tomb at Dongfengshan: “I’m not an archaeologist, but my idea is that this is a Chinese tomb, based on its location in the very south of the Jurchen state,” Schneider said.

That region was mostly populated by Han Chinese, rather than ethnic Jurchen. It was possible that Jurchen dead had been entombed there in the Chinese style, but “I don’t see anything, particularly Jurchen,” she said.

The statement from CASS said the land coupon meant the structure could be firmly dated, which would provide a basis for dating other Jurchen Jin structures and artifacts found in the region.

ASIA, WORLD

Deer stone discovered in Kyrgyzstan

Deer stone discovered in Kyrgyzstan

Deer stone discovered in Kyrgyzstan

A deer stone was found in the Tarmal-Sai settlement in the Kochkor district of the Naryn region in eastern Kyrgyzstan. Deer stones, also known as reindeer stones, are ancient megaliths with symbols carved into them.

Mongolia is rich with stone sculptures such as deer stones and complex heritage sites that belong to Bronze Age culture.

Deer stones name comes from their carved depictions of flying deer. Deer stones are a distinctive feature of the Saka era. A few deer stones have been discovered in Chui valley and Issyk-Kul Lake.

Deer stones will usually be found together with extraordinary monuments called khirgisuur, with slab burials or in some cases with petroglyphs forming a complex site.

Joldoshbek Butoshev, a resident of Tarmal-Sai, noticed a round stone with drawings while doing irrigation work and brought it home, thinking it might have historical significance.

Butoshev showed the discovery to a team of archaeologists visiting the region in 2022 under the direction of Oroz Soltobaev for research. The archaeologists determined that the stone was around 2000-2500 years old and suggested handing it over to a historical museum.

The stone is 1 meter long and weighs approximately 40-50 kilograms. On both sides of the stone, there are ritual sun signs, which are associated with the Saka and Wusun, who worshipped the sun.

According to the historian and founder of the historical museum in Kara-Suu village Bolot Boobek, the find is a deer stone that dates to between 2000 and 2500 years ago.

Deer stones are unique Bronze Age and Early Iron Age monuments found primarily in Mongolia and some Central Asian countries.

Deer stones represent the Bronze Age funeral practice, sacrificial ritual and ideology, and animal-style art that spread among ancient nomads.

Researchers believe these statues were dedicated to leaders and great warriors of a tribe.