Category Archives: ASIA

5000-year-old ‘graveyard of giants’ found in a Chinese village

5000-year-old ‘graveyard of giants’ found in a Chinese village

Archaeologists in China have discovered a 5000-year-old graveyard of abnormally tall people who used to live in the country’s Shandong province. The skeletal remains measured over six feet in height.

An archaeological excavation at Jiaojia village in Jinan City’s Zhangqiu District has uncovered 104 houses, 205 graves, and 20 sacrificial pits, according to Xinhua.

Pottery and various objects made with jade were also unearthed during the dig.

The Late Neolithic site uncovered in China dates back to a time when the Yellow River Valley was inhabited by the Longshan Culture, also known as the Black Pottery Culture, which was popular in the region from 3000 to 1900 BC.

The archaeological dig, initiated last year, was led by the University of Shandong.

Grave of giants unearthed in ChinaUNIVERSITY OF SHANDONG
Grave of giants unearthed in ChinaUNIVERSITY OF SHANDONG

An analysis of the skeletal remains suggests the ancient people living in the region were unusually tall, Xinhua reported.

The findings said the tallest individual found in the grave was a male who measured 6’3″.

According to prior studies, the Neolithic males typically measure around 5’5″ and the females around 5’1″. 

The researchers attributed the unusual height to genetics and environment. 

Lead archaeologist Fang Hui, while speaking to Xinhua, said the Late Neolithic civilisation engaged in agriculture, therefore the villagers in the region had access to a variety of nutritious food which could have added to their overall physical growth.

Pottery unearthed in the archaeological dig

“I suspect that this big game specialisation associated with a surplus of high-quality proteins and low population density created environmental conditions leading to the selection of exceptionally tall males,” said the study’s lead author Pavel Grasgruber in an interview with Seeker.

The tallest of the Longshan men were found in tombs, which the Shandong archaeologists said was because of their higher social status and access to better food.

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say
Australian and Indonesian archaeologists stumbled upon the skeletal remains of a young hunter-gatherer whose lower leg was amputated by a skilled surgeon 31,000 years ago.

A 31,000-year-old skeleton missing its lower left leg and found in a remote Indonesian cave is believed to be the earliest known evidence of surgery, according to a peer-reviewed study that experts say rewrites understanding of human history.

An expedition team led by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists stumbled upon the skeletal remains while excavating a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Borneo looking for ancient rock art in 2020.

The finding turned out to be evidence of the earliest known surgical amputation, pre-dating other discoveries of complex medical procedures across Eurasia by tens of thousands of years.

By measuring the ages of a tooth and burial sediment using radioisotope dating, the scientists estimated the remains to be about 31,000 years old.

Palaeopathological analysis of the remains revealed bony growths on the lower left leg indicative of healing and suggesting the leg was surgically amputated several years before burial.

Dr Tim Maloney, a research fellow at Australia’s Griffith University who oversaw the excavation, said the discovery was an “absolute dream for an archaeologist”.

View of the archaeological excavation at Liang Tebo cave which unearthed the 31,000-year-old skeletal remains.

He said the research team, which included scientists from the Indonesian Institution for Archaeology and Conservation, was examining ancient cultural deposits when they crossed stone markers in the ground revealing a burial site.

After 11 days of excavation, they found the skeleton of a young hunter-gatherer with a healed stump where its lower left leg and foot had been severed. Maloney said the nature of the healing, including the clean stump, showed it was caused by amputation and not an accident or animal attack.

“[The hunter] survived not just as a child, but as an adult amputee in this rainforest environment,” Maloney said. “Importantly, not only does [the stump] lack infection, but it also lacks distinctive crushing.”

Archaeologists at work in Liang Tebo cave in the remote Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat region of East Kalimantan.

Prior to this discovery, Maloney said it had been widely accepted that amputation was a guaranteed death sentence until about 10,000 years ago, when surgical procedures advanced with the development of large settled agricultural societies.

The previous oldest evidence of a successful amputation was a 7,000-year-old skeleton of an elderly farmer from stone age France. His left arm was amputated above the elbow.

The skeletal remains showing the amputated lower left leg.

“This finding very much changes the known history of medical intervention and knowledge of humanity,” Maloney said.

“It implies that early people … had mastered complex surgical procedures allowing this person to survive after the removal of a foot and leg.”

Maloney said the stone age surgeon must have had detailed knowledge of anatomy, including veins, vessels and nerves, to avoid causing fatal blood loss and infection.

He said the successful operation suggested some form of intensive care, including regular disinfection post-operation.

Emeritus Prof Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University School of Archaeology and Anthropology, who was not involved in the study, said the discovery was “an important rewrite of our species history” that “underlines yet again that our ancestors were as smart as we are, with or without the technologies we take for granted today”.

Spriggs said it should not be surprising that stone age people could have developed an understanding of the internal workings of mammals through hunting, and had treatments for infection and injury.

“We tend to forget that modern humans like us 30,000 years ago … would have had their intellectuals, their doctors, their inventors,” he said.

He said they would have had to experiment with plant medicines and other treatments to stay alive.

“Any inhabitants of tropical rainforests today, usually now mixing hunting and gathering with forms of agriculture, have a large pharmacopoeia that would have to have been developed over millennia.”

The study was published in the journal Nature.

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant

Israeli archaeologists dig up the large tusk of an ancient elephant
A fossilized tusk from a giant prehistoric elephant emerged from an excavation site near Kibbutz Revadim in southern Israel

Israeli archaeologists have unearthed the complete tusk of a giant prehistoric elephant that once roamed around the Mediterranean. The 2.6-meter (8.5-foot) remnant, weighing approximately 150 kilograms (330 pounds), is estimated to be around half a million years old.

“This is the largest complete fossil tusk ever found at a prehistoric site in Israel or the Near East,” Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) prehistorian Avi Levy, who headed the dig, said on Wednesday. 

It belonged to a Palaeoloxodon antiquus, or straight-tusked elephant, that would have stood up to 5 meters tall, significantly larger than today’s African elephants.

Levy said the tusk would be preserved and transferred to a lab for further analysis to “try to define the age, where he lived, where he walked.”

The tusk will be displayed at National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem once the conservation process is complete

Mystery over who hunted the behemoth

What makes the find even more exciting is that it was found in an area where stone and flint tools and other animal remains have been recovered.

It is “very puzzling, very enigmatic,” said Omry Barzilai, an IAA archaeologist, explaining that the dig team did not know whether ancient people hunted the behemoth on the spot or whether they brought the felled animal’s tusk from further away.

The site in modern-day Revadim, Israel, was dated to the late lower palaeolithic period, around 500,000 years ago, based on stone tools found in the vicinity, the antiquities authority said.

But half a million years ago, when the ancient elephant died, the now-arid terrain was likely a swamp or shallow lake, an ideal habitat for ancient hominids.

The identity of the prehistoric humans who inhabited the region — a land bridge from Africa to Asia and Europe — was “a mystery,” said Levy.

“We haven’t found remains of people here, we only find their material culture the trash they discarded after use, whether animal bones or flint tools,” the historian added.

DNA reveals surprise ancestry of mysterious Chinese mummies

DNA reveals surprise ancestry of mysterious Chinese mummies

Cemeteries in the Taklamakan Desert, China, hold human remains up to 4,000 years old.

Since their discovery a century ago, hundreds of naturally preserved mummies found in China’s Tarim Basin have been a mystery to archaeologists. Some thought the Bronze Age remains were from migrants from thousands of kilometres to the west, who had brought farming practices to the area. But now, a genomic analysis suggests they were indigenous people who may have adopted agricultural methods from neighbouring groups.

As they report today in Nature1, researchers have traced the ancestry of these early Chinese farmers to Stone Age hunter-gatherers who lived in Asia some 9,000 years ago. They seem to have been genetically isolated, but despite this had learnt to raise livestock and grow grains in the same way as other groups.

The study hints at “the really diverse ways in which populations move and don’t move, and how ideas can spread with, but also through, populations”, says co-author Christina Warinner, a molecular archaeologist at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.

The finding demonstrates that cultural exchange doesn’t always go hand in hand with genetic ties, says Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Just because those people are trading, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are marrying one another or having children,” he says.

Perfect preservation environment

Starting in the early twentieth century, the mummies were found in cemeteries belonging to the so-called Xiaohe culture, which are scattered across the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region of China.

The desert “is one of the most hostile places on Earth”, says Alison Betts, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Here, bodies had been buried in boat-shaped coffins wrapped in cattle hide. The hot, arid and salty environment of the desert naturally preserved them, keeping everything from hair to clothing perfectly intact. Before the latest study, “we knew an awful lot about these people, physically, but we knew nothing about who they were and why they were there”, says Betts.

The mummies — which were buried over a period of 2,000 years or more — date to a significant time in Xinjiang’s history, when ancient communities were shifting from hunter-gatherers to farmers, she adds.

DNA reveals surprise ancestry of mysterious Chinese mummies
The harsh desert conditions preserved the bodies as natural mummies.

Some of the later mummies were buried with woollen fabrics and clothing similar to those of cultures found in the west. The graves also contained millet, wheat, animal bones and dairy products — evidence of agricultural and pastoral technologies characteristic of cultures in other regions of Eurasia, which led researchers to hypothesize that these people were originally migrants from the west, who had passed through Siberia, Afghanistan or Central Asia.

The researchers behind the latest study — based in China, South Korea, Germany and the United States — took DNA from the mummies to test these ideas, but found no evidence to support them.

They sequenced the genomes of 13 individuals who lived between 4,100 and 3,700 years ago and whose bodies were found in the lowest layers of the Tarim Basin cemeteries in southern Xinjiang, as well as another 5 mummies from hundreds of kilometres away in northern Xinjiang, who lived between 5,000 and 4,800 years ago.

They then compared the genetic profiles of these people with previously sequenced genomes from more than 100 ancient groups of people, and those of more than 200 modern populations, from around the world.

Two groups of people

They found that the northern Xinjiang individuals shared some parts of their genomes with Bronze Age migrants from the Altai Mountains of Central Asia who lived about 5,000 years ago — supporting an earlier hypothesis.

But the 13 people from the Tarim Basin did not share this ancestry. They seem to be solely related to hunter-gatherers who lived in southern Siberia and what is now northern Kazakhstan some 9,000 years ago, says co-author Choongwon Jeong, a population and evolutionary geneticist at Seoul National University. The northern Xinjiang individuals also shared some of this ancestry.

Evidence of dairy products was found alongside the youngest mummies from the upper layers of cemeteries in the Tarim Basin, so the researchers analysed calcified dental plaque on the teeth of some of the older mummies to see how far back dairy farming went. In the plaque, they found milk proteins from cattle, sheep and goats, suggesting that even the earliest settlers here consumed dairy products. “This founding population had already incorporated dairy pastoralism into their way of life,” says Warinner.

But the study raises many more questions about how the people of the Xiaohe culture got these technologies, from where and from whom, says Betts. “That’s the next thing we need to try and resolve.”

The Immortal Armour of China Jade burial suits

The Immortal Armour of China Jade burial suits

Threaded hand-crafted from thousands of precious stone slabs with silver and gold during the Han Dynasty about 2000 years ago, ancient China’s jade burial suits were built as armour for the afterlife to prevent mortal decay.

The Immortal Armour of China Jade burial suits

The Jude Burial Suits of China are maybe the most opulent type of burial in history. Ceremonial suits composed of jade and gold thread were the chosen way of afterlife immortality for Han Dynasty China’s royal members.

Small discs strung onto necklaces as emblems of political power and religious authority, or ceremonial instruments like axes, knives, and chisels, were fashioned from nephrite jade.

Jade became associated with Chinese conceptions of the soul, protective properties, and immortality in the ‘essence’ of stone over time due to its hardness, durability, and delicate transparent hues (yu Zhi, shi Zhi jing ye).

With the rise of the Han Dynasty (China’s second imperial dynasty) in 202 BC-AD, 9 AD and AD 25 AD–220 AD, the association with jade’s longevity is clear from the text by the Chinese historian Sima Qian (145 – 86 BC) about Emperor Wu of Han (157 BC–87 BC), who was described as having a jade cup inscribed with the words “Long Life to the Lord of Men,” and indulging with an elixir of jade powder mixed with sweet dew.

Jade articles were first documented in literature around 320 AD, although there is archaeological evidence that they existed earlier than half a century.

Jade burial suit at the Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, in Guangzhou

However, their existence was not verified until 1968, when the tomb of Han Dynasty ruler Liu Sheng and his wife Princess Dou Wan was found.

The undisturbed tomb, said to be one of the most important archaeological findings of the twentieth century, was discovered in Hebei Province behind an iron wall between two brick walls and a passageway packed with stone.

They were composed of hundreds of tiny jade plates stitched together with gold thread. There were also jade pieces designed to conceal the eyes and plugs to fit into the eyes, ears, and other orifices.

All in the sake of keeping the bad at bay. Each suite is divided into twelve sections: the face, head, front and rear portions, arms, gloves, leggings, and feet. Liu Sheng’s outfit was very opulent. It was composed of 2498 pieces of jade that were stitched together with 1.1kg of gold thread and took an estimated 10 years to complete. On occasion, the remains were also placed in elaborate jade-covered coffins, which were equally spectacular, having been constructed with hundreds of solid gold nails.

Detail of the hand section of the jade burial suit of Liu Sui, Prince of Liang, of Western Han

Sets of instructions and standards for how the outfits should be made were also discovered. These rules are detailed in “The Book of Later Han.”

However, a study of the suits reveals that they were not always designed to meet the stated standards. The quality of the 15 outfits revealed varies.

The type of thread used was determined by the deceased’s status, according to Hu Hànsh (The Book of the Later Han). An emperor’s jade suit was threaded with gold, lessor royals and high-ranking nobles wore silver threaded jade suits, sons and daughters of the lessor wore copper threaded jade suits, and lower-ranked aristocrats wore silk threaded jade suits.

Close-up detail of a jade burial suit with replaced copper wire in the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum.

Emperor Wen of Wei ordered that the production of jade suits be stopped, as they encouraged tomb looters who would burn the suits to retrieve the gold thread in AD 223.

Jade failed to prevent soft tissue deterioration. Nonetheless, because jade is permeable, DNA from the royal pair may be entrenched in the stones for 2,000 years after their deaths, granting them a kind of immortality.

The largest animal-shaped bronze mythical beast unearthed at Sanxingdui

The largest animal-shaped bronze mythical beast unearthed at Sanxingdui

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed a big bronze beast – one of the most highly anticipated treasures of the Sanxingdui ruins – a year after spotting it in a pit at the mysterious site in Sichuan province.

Archaeologists first spotted the animal figure more than a year ago but had to remove other artefacts before they could dig it out of the pit.

The bronze was discovered in July last year, but archaeologists were not able to lift it out of the pit until Wednesday, when other bronze objects piled on top of the statue were removed.

The bronze animal is the biggest ever found in decades of digging at the site. It weighs around 150kg (330lbs) and has a large mouth, small waist, huge ears and four embellished hooves.

According to Zhao Hao, a Peking University archaeologist in charge of the pit that contained the object, all other bronze animals uncovered at the site since digging began in the 1980s measured around 20 to 30cm (7.9 to 11.8 inches).

“But this one is very large in size, with height and width both measuring about one metre (3.3 feet). It’s the only one at the whole site,” Zhao was quoted by state broadcaster CCTV as saying.

A human figurine was attached to what looks like a horn on the creature’s head. The figure was dressed in a long gown and appeared to be riding or controlling the animal.

Another human-shaped artefact was found lying by the animal’s side with its head missing. Human statuettes in different postures were also found nearby, which Zhao speculated could originally have been attached to the bronze beast’s body.

Excavation at Sanxingdui will continue until September, after which archaeologists will begin restoring, categorising and researching the newly uncovered treasures.

“A holy tree was cast on the chest of the animal, showing people in Sanxingdui worshipped the holy tree or treated it as a god,” Zhao was quoted as saying. “Such a configuration has not been found among any previously excavated artefacts. It’s extremely interesting.”

His team also speculated there could be a larger object that was attached to the beast’s back and has yet to be unearthed.

The Sanxingdui ruins, considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, are believed to be at the heart of the mysterious Shu kingdom, which dates back some 4,500 years. But researchers have yet to find written records of the kingdom.

The ruins were discovered in the southwestern city of Guanghan in the late 1920s, but excavation work did not start until the 1980s, when archaeologists made a breakthrough and discovered two sacrificial pits containing more than 1,700 artefacts.

More than 400 class A artefacts – the most historically and culturally valuable, according to China’s classification system – were unearthed at the ruins during the first two decades of digging.

The excavation was paused in 2002, resuming only in 2020, after six more pits were identified. More than 13,000 artefacts have been uncovered since then, including a bronze sacrificial altar with human figures, a bronze sculpture with a human head and snake body and a dragon-shaped bronze statue with a pig’s nose.

This round of field excavation work will be completed in September, after which archaeologists will begin restoring, categorising and researching the newly uncovered artefacts.

Burials in Indonesia Offer Clues to Migration

Burials in Indonesia Offer Clues to Migration

Scientists have discovered three bodies on an Indonesian island which provide an insight into the movements of early humans, thousands of years ago.

Dr Samper Carro from ANU with bones found at Alor Island, Indonesia.

The bodies, found across three burial sites, form part of the excavation and analysis of 50,000 bones unearthed along the south coast of Indonesia’s Alor Island, which is north of Timor Leste.

The various remains found beneath rock shelters in an area named Tron Bon Lei near Lerabain are between 7,500 and 13,000 years old.

But it’s the way they were buried which provides unique insights into how early humans moved across Southeast Asia during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods.

Studies are beginning to understand the genetic diversity of peoples within the region, which lead researcher Dr Samper Carro says can be further informed by the discovery of these bodies.

“The three quite unusual and interesting burials show different mortuary practices,” Carro says.

“They might relate to recent discoveries of multiple migratory routes through the islands of Wallacea from thousands of years ago.

“It shows how burial practices can complement data on genetic diversity from one of the current research hotspots in Southeast Asia.”

Burial practices and the talking dead

The discovery of human remains in the region began in 2014, when teams from ANU and Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University, found a 12,000-year-old human skull buried along with several fish hooks.

More bodies were found when the team returned to the site four years later. Carro then spent several COVID-interrupted years studying the remains, with the results now published in PLOS One.

It’s the positioning of the bodies beneath the surface which provides archaeologists with insights into the different cultures that migrate through the region.

One of the bodies had its extremities intentionally removed before being buried.

Another was placed in a ‘seated’ position, while the third was lying on its side.

“Burials are a unique cultural manifestation to investigate waves of migration,” Carro explains.

Burial practices can provide scientists with insights into migratory patterns carried out by ancient cultures.

Equally, these practices may have developed locally, which is why Carro says further research to characterise mortuary practices in the region will help provide greater accuracy to her findings.

“Further research in aspects such as biomolecular anthropology, diet practices, or the types of tools used in burial rites will allow us to gather more data,” she says.

“These future efforts will provide us deeper insights to interpret the lifeways of these communities.”

Hell’s Shells: 90 Million-Year-Old Egg From Turtle Bigger Than Humans

Hell’s Shells: 90 Million-Year-Old Egg From Turtle Bigger Than Humans

Nanhsiungchelyid turtle egg-containing a turtle embryo, China.

A giant fossilized turtle egg — believed to have been laid by a turtle the length of a fully grown human 90 million years ago — has been found with the embryo inside.

The tennis ball-sized egg, which is protected by an unusually thick outer shell, was found in 2018 by a farmer in China’s Henan Province, who sent it to a university for analysis.

The research team, which included scientists from the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, the Henan Geological Museum and Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum, carried out CT scans on the egg.

The scans revealed that within the thick fossilized shell, a turtle embryo that was 85 per cent developed had been preserved.

Further examination revealed that the embryo was probably a member of the Yuchelys nanyangensis species, which went extinct during the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago. The fossilized find is also believed to be part of the Nanhsiungchelyidae, an extinct family of land turtles from the Cretaceous period that were native to Asia and North America.

Such turtles were flat-shelled and lived on dry land, which was unusual at the time, said Darla Zelenitsky, a researcher from the Canada’s University of Calgary.

The fossilized remains of a Nanhsiungchelyid turtle in China.

While thousands of dinosaur eggs have been found in Henan Province over the past 30 years, Zelenitsky said they are rarely found in good condition.

“In comparison with dinosaur eggs, turtle eggs — especially those with preserved embryos — rarely fossilize because they’re so small and fragile,” she said.

Zelenitskythey said that this egg likely survived because of its unusually thick shell, which the research team measured at 0.07 inches, several times thicker than the eggs of Galapagos turtles at 0.01 inches.

Judging by the size of the shell, the team estimated that it was laid by a turtle with a 5.3-foot-long carapace, meaning that from its neck to its tail, it would have been longer than some humans are tall.

Zelenitsky said that part of the shell was broken from the inside, so it’s possible that the embryo tried to hatch but has been trapped in its shell for 90 million years.

The study was published online on Aug. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

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