Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert
A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.
This photo shows two carved standing stones at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert. A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure and are found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.
“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”
Within the shrine were two carved standing stones bearing anthropomorphic figures, one accompanied by a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells and miniature model of the gazelle trap.
The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entirely new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as the spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations.”
The proximity of the site to the traps suggests the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the centre of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this marginal zone,” the statement said.
The team included archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East. The site was excavated during the most recent digging season in 2021.
Taiwan finds 4,800-year-old fossil of mother cradling baby
The 48 sets of remains unearthed in graves in the Taichung area are the earliest trace of human activity found in central Taiwan. The most striking discovery among them was the skeleton of a young mother looking down at a child cradled in her arms.
Archaeologists in Taiwan have found a 4,800-year-old human fossil of a mother holding an infant child in her arms, museum officials said on Tuesday.
The 48 sets of remains unearthed in graves in the Taichung area are the earliest trace of human activity found in central Taiwan. The most striking discovery among them was the skeleton of a young mother looking down at a child cradled in her arms.
“When it was unearthed, all of the archaeologists and staff members were shocked. Why? Because the mother was looking down at the baby in her hands,” said Chu Whei-lee, a curator in the Anthropology Department at Taiwan’s National Museum of Natural Science.
The excavation of the site began in May 2014 and took a year to complete. Carbon dating was used to determine the ages of the fossils, which included five children.
The Origins of the Mummified Mother and Baby
The scientific excavation began in 2014 and took about a year to complete.
A team of archaeologists led by Chu Whei-Lee of Taiwan’s National Museum of Science was working on a Neolithic site 6.2 miles (10 kilometres) inland from Taiwan’s western coast.
Today, that area is called Taichung City but the site itself has been dubbed An-ho. Experts believe shorelines have shifted over the years and that An-ho was once a coastal village.
Indeed, over 200 shark teeth have been found in the site’s dwellings, however, whether these teeth were practical, decorative, or spiritual is not known. The inhabitants of An-ho were most likely Dabenkeng people.
“The Dabenkeng people were the first farmers in Taiwan, who may have come from the south and southeast coasts of China about 5,000 years ago,” says Chengwha Tsang of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica. “This culture is the earliest Neolithic culture so far found in Taiwan.” Taiwanese Dabenkeng culture featured corded ware pottery and stone adzes.
While the Dabenkeng lasted until the 3rd millennium BC in Mainland China, Taiwanese Dabenkeng lasted only until around 4,500 BC.
Yet from Taiwan, the Dabenkeng spread across Southeast Asia and Oceania, bringing their culture and language with them.
“They were probably the earliest ancestors of the Austronesian language-speaking people living nowadays in Taiwan and on the islands of the Pacific,” said Tsang.
Part donkey, part wild ass, the kunga is the oldest known hybrid bred by humans
The kungas of Syro-Mesopotamia were ancient equines that roamed the region 4,500 years ago. Arriving long before domesticated horses did, the stocky horse-like animals were highly valued and used for pulling four-wheeled wagons into battle, reports James Gorman for the New York Times.
The elite used the highly-prized, donkey-like creatures for travel and warfare.
Having been depicted in mosaics and their value recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets, researchers suspected the prestigious kunga was a type of hybrid donkey. Still, their proper classification in the animal kingdom remained unknown until now.
A genetic analysis using ancient skeletal remains, genetic material from the last surviving Syrian wild ass, and an investigation of the evolutionary history of the genus Equus revealed that the kunga was the cross of a female donkey (Equus Africanus asinus) and a male Syrian wild ass (Equus hemionus hemippus), reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.
The find is the earliest human-made hybrid documented in the archaeological record and suggests that kungas were bred to be faster and more robust than donkeys and more manageable than wild asses, which are also called onagers or hemiones, per a French National Centre for Scientific Research statement. Scientists published details of the genetic analysis this month in Science Advances.
In the early 2000s, archaeologists first uncovered the kunga remains in a 4,500-year-old royal burial site, Umm el-Marra, located in Aleppo, Syria, reports Science’s Tess Joosse.
Dozens of equine skeletons that did not match the features of any known equine species were found buried next to royals. Study co-author Jill Weber, an archeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, suspected that the skeletons may have been kungas because marks on the teeth and patterns of wear suggested the animals were purposely fed instead of being left to graze and wore bit harnesses in their mouths, Tom Metcalfe reports for Live Science’s.
“From the skeletons, we knew they were equids [horse-like animals], but they did not fit the measurements of donkeys, and they did not fit the measurements of Syrian wild asses,” says study author Eva-Maria Geigl, a genomicist at the Institut Jacques Monod, to Live Science. “So they were somehow different, but it was not clear what the difference was.”
The Nineveh panel, Hunting Wild Asses (645-635 B.C.E.) from the British Museum in London. The art depicts ancient Mesopotamians capturing wild hemiones for breeding.
Harsh desert conditions poorly preserved DNA from the 25 skeletons obtained from the Umm el-Marra site, so researchers use advanced sequencing methods to compare the bits and pieces of DNA, Science reports.
Researchers then compared the results to an 11,000-year-old equid sample taken from the Göbekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey and genetic material taken from a preserved museum specimen of the last surviving wild Syrian ass that went extinct in 1929, per Gizmodo.
Using Y-chromosome fragments, the team found that the kunga’s paternal lineage belonged to the Syrian wild ass and matched the species of the sample from Turkey. They also confirmed donkeys were the maternal lineage, Gizmodo reports.
According to a statement, the elite used the highly-prized, donkey-like creatures for travel and warfare. They may have been considered status symbols or exchanged as royal gifts. Ancient texts from the kingdom of Ebla and the Diyala region in Mesopotamia detail the prices of obtaining the hybrid animal, which cost six times the amount for a donkey, according to the study.
Other cuneiform texts also describe animal husbandry programs used to breed the kunga, Science reports.
Like other hybrids in the animal kingdom, such as the mule or the liger, the kunga was sterile. They had to be intentionally bred by mating a female donkey with a male wild ass, per Gizmodo. Because the strong-yet-stubborn male wild asses could run faster than donkeys, capturing these animals alone highlights the technical capabilities of the ancient Mesopotamian societies.
The breeder’s clear choice to use a female donkey also revealed the sophistication of the mating plan for combining different characteristics that these ancient societies found desirable. Since the mother was domesticated, it also would have been easier to keep her in captivity as the offspring were raised, Science reports.
“This is a great example that shows the level of organization and management techniques needed to keep these animals alive,” says zooarchaeologist Benjamin Arbuckle of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved with the study, to Science. “It’s very much like modern zoo management.”
World’s Oldest Pants, Turfan Man’s Trousers, was Made through Three Weaving Techniques
What little rain that falls on a gravelly desert located in western China’s Tarim Basin evaporates as it hits the blistering turf. Here, in this parched wasteland, lie the ancient remains of people who made one of the biggest fashion splashes of all time. Herders and horse riders who buried their dead in the Tarim Basin’s Yanghai graveyard pioneered pants making between roughly 3,200 and 3,000 years ago. Their deft combination of weaving techniques and decorative patterns — displaying influences from societies across Eurasia — yielded a pair of stylish yet durable trousers now recognized as the oldest such garment known in the world (SN: 5/30/14).
This pair of approximately 3,000-year-old pants, the oldest ever found, displays weaving techniques and decorative patterns that were influenced by cultures across Asia, researchers say.
Now, an international team of archaeologists, fashion designers, geoscientists, chemists and conservators has untangled how those trousers were made and painstakingly created a modern replica. The vintage slacks weave a tale not only of textile innovation but also of how cultural practices fanned out across Asia, the researchers report in the March Archaeological Research in Asia.
“A diversity of textile techniques and patterns of different local origins, traditions and times merged into something new in this garment,” says archaeologist and project director Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. “Eastern Central Asia was a laboratory where people, plants, animals, knowledge and experiences from different directions and sources came … and were transformed.”
Fashion icon
One man brought the pants to scientists’ attention without uttering a word. His naturally mummified body, as well as the preserved bodies of more than 500 others, was uncovered during excavations conducted by Chinese archaeologists since the early 1970s at the Yanghai cemetery.
He sported an outfit that consisted of the trousers, a poncho belted at the waist, one pair of braided bands to fasten the trouser legs below the knees, another pair to fasten soft leather boots at the ankles and a wool headband with four bronze disks and two seashells sewn on it. A leather bridle, wooden horse bit and battle-axe that had been placed in his grave indicated he had been a horse-riding warrior. Researchers now call him Turfan Man because the Yanghai site lies about 43 kilometres southeast of the Chinese city of Turfan.
A woven reproduction of Turfan Man’s outfit, worn here by a model, includes a belted poncho, pants with braided leg fasteners and boots.
Of all of Turfan Man’s garments, his trousers stood out as truly special. Not only were they older by at least several centuries than any other examples of such gear, but the Yanghai pants also boasted a sophisticated, modern look. The pants feature two leg pieces that gradually widen at the top, connected by a crotch piece that widens and bunches in the middle to increase leg mobility.
Within a few hundred years, mobile groups across Eurasia began wearing pants like those at Yanghai, other archaeological finds have shown. Woven leg covers connected by a flexible crotch piece eased the strain of riding horses bareback over long distances. Not surprisingly, mounted armies debuted around that time.
Today, people everywhere don denim jeans and dress slacks that incorporate the design and production principles of the ancient Yanghai trousers.
In short, Turfan Man was the ultimate trendsetter.
Fancy pants
Despite being so fashion-forward, the ancient Yanghai horseman left researchers wondering how his remarkable pants had been made. No traces of cutting appeared on the fabric, so Wagner’s team suspected that the garment had been woven to fit its wearer. A close examination of Turfan Man’s trousers revealed a combination of three weaving techniques, the scientists report in the new study. A re-created version of the find — fashioned by an expert weaver from the yarn of coarse-wooled sheep similar to those whose wool was used by ancient Yanghai weavers — confirmed that observation.
Much of the garment consists of twill weave, a major innovation in the history of textiles.
Twill changes the character of woven wool from firm to elastic, providing enough “give” to let a person move freely in a pair of tight-fitting pants. The fabric is created by using rods on a loom to weave a pattern of parallel, diagonal lines. Lengthwise warp threads are held in place so that a row of weft threads can be passed over and under them at regular intervals. The starting point of this weaving pattern shifts slightly to the right or left for each ensuing row so that a diagonal line forms.
A twill weave like that used to make the oldest known pants in the world is illustrated here. Horizontal weft threads pass over one and under two or more vertical warp threads, shifting slightly on each row to produce a diagonal pattern (dark gray).
Variations in the number and colour of weft threads in the twill weave on Turfan Man’s trousers were used to create pairs of brown stripes running up the off-white crotch piece, the researchers found.
Textile archaeologist Karina Grömer of the Natural History Museum Vienna says she recognized twill weave on Turfan Man’s trousers when she examined them around five years ago. Grömer had previously reported that pieces of woven fabric found in Austria’s Hallstatt salt mine, where such delicate textiles preserve well, displayed the oldest known twill weave. Radiocarbon dating places the Hallstatt textiles between around 3,500 and 3,200 years old — roughly 200 years before Turfan man sported his britches.
People in Europe and Central Asia may have independently invented twill weaving, says Grömer, who did not participate in the new study. But at the Yanghai site, weavers combined twill with other weaving techniques and innovative designs to create high-quality riding pants.
“This is not a beginner’s item,” Grömer says. “It’s like the Rolls-Royce of trousers.”
Consider the ancient trousers’ knee sections. A technique now known as tapestry weaving produced a thicker, more protective fabric at these joints, the researchers found. A third weaving method was used on the upper border of the pants to create a thick waistband.
Other features of the trousers involved an unusual twining method, in which two differently colored weft threads were twisted around each other by hand and laced through warp threads, creating a decorative, geometric pattern across the knees that resembles interlocking T’s leaning to the side. The same twining method produced zigzag stripes at the trousers’ ankles and calves.
Wagner’s team could find only a few historical examples of such twining, including borders on cloaks of the Maori people, an Indigenous group in New Zealand.
Yanghai artisans also showed their ingenuity in designing a formfitting crotch piece that was wider at its centre than at its ends, Grömer says. Trousers dating to a few hundred years later than the Yanghai find, found in several parts of Asia, often consist of woven legs connected by square fabric crotch pieces that resulted in a less comfortable and flexible fit. In tests with a man riding a horse bareback while wearing a re-created version of Turfan Man’s entire outfit, the trousers fit snugly yet allowed the legs to clamp firmly around the horse.
Today’s denim jeans are made from one piece of twill material following some of the same design principles as those favoured by Yanghai pants makers three millennia ago.
Ancient trousers (partly shown at bottom) from China’s Tarim Basin display twill weaving that was used to produce alternating brown and off-white diagonal lines at the tops of the legs (far left) and dark brown stripes on the crotch piece (second from left). Another technique for manipulating threads enabled artisans to create a geometric pattern at the knees (second from right) and zigzag stripes at the ankles (far right).
Clothes connections
Perhaps most striking, Turfan Man’s trousers tell a story of how ancient herding groups carried their cultural practices and knowledge across Asia, spreading seeds of innovation. For instance, the interlocking T pattern decorating the ancient horseman’s pants at the knees appears on bronze vessels found in what’s now China from around the same time, roughly 3,300 years ago, Wagner’s team says. The nearly simultaneous adoption of this geometric form in Central and East Asia coincides with the arrival in those regions of herders from West Eurasian grasslands riding horses that they domesticated 4,200 years ago or more (SN: 10/20/21).
Pottery found at those horse riders’ home sites in western Siberia and Kazakhstan displays interlocking T’s as well. Any deeper meaning this pattern held aside from its artistic appeal remains unknown. But West Eurasian horse breeders probably spread the interlocking T design across much of ancient Asia, Wagner and her colleagues suspect.
Similarly, a stepped pyramid pattern woven into the Yanghai pants appears on pottery from Central Asia’s Petrovka culture, which dates to between around 3,900 and 3,750 years ago. The same pattern resembles architectural designs that are more than 4,000 years old from western and southwestern Asian and Middle Eastern societies, including Mesopotamian stepped pyramids, the researchers say. Tapestry weaving such as that observed on Turfan Man’s trousers also originated in those societies.
It’s no surprise that cultural influences from throughout Asia affected ancient people in the Tarim Basin, says anthropologist Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis. Yanghai people inhabited a region at a crossroads of seasonal migration routes followed by herding groups starting more than 4,000 years ago (SN: 3/8/17). Those routes ran from the Altai Mountains in Central and East Asia to Southwest Asia where Iran is located today. Excavations at sites along those routes indicate that herders spread crops across much of Asia too (SN: 4/2/14).
By around 2,000 years ago, herders’ migration paths formed part of a trade and travel network running from China to Europe that became known as the Silk Road. Cultural mixing and mingling intensified as thousands of local routes throughout Eurasia formed a massive network.
Turfan Man’s multicultural riding pants show that even in the Silk Road’s early stages, migrating herders carried new ideas and practices to distant communities. “The Yanghai pants are an entry point for examining how the Silk Road transformed the world,” Frachetti says.
Looming questions
A more basic question concerns how exactly Yanghai clothes makers transformed yarn spun from sheep’s wool into Turfan Man’s trousers. Even after making a replica of those pants on a modern loom, Wagner’s team is unsure what an ancient Yanghai loom looked like. No remnants of those devices have been found. The researchers suspect a loom constructed to be operated from a sitting position would have made it possible to create intricate, twined patterns. Experiments with different weaving devices are the next step in untangling how Turfan Man’s trousers were made, Wagner says.
It’s clear, though, that the makers of these ancient pants blended several complex techniques into a revolutionary piece of apparel, says archaeologist and linguist Elizabeth Barber of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Barber has studied the origins and development of cloth and clothing in West Asia.
“We truly know so little about how clever the ancient weavers were,” Barber says. Turfan Man may not have had time to ponder his clothes makers’ prowess. With a pair of pants like that, he was ready to ride.
The Israel Museum has acquired over 1,200 ancient silver Persian coins, among the earliest known currency from the area, including what the museum has identified as the world’s oldest Jewish coin.
A 5th-century silver drachm from Persian era Palestine with a gorgoneion on the obverse (left) and a lion and bovine on the reverse (right). Above the lion are the Aramaic letters yod, heh and dalet — Judea.
The coins, dated to the 5th and 4th centuries BCE when the region was controlled by the Persian Empire, constitute “the largest collection in the world of Persian-period coins.”
The collection includes a number of previously unknown varieties, the museum said. Chief among the rare artefacts is a silver drachm, an ancient coin based upon the Greek drachma, which, in clearly legible Aramaic script, bears the word yehud, or Judea.
“It’s the earliest coin from the province of Judea,” the museum’s chief curator of archaeology, Haim Gitler, said in an interview with The Times of Israel, calling the 5th-century silver drachm the “first Jewish coin.”
The coin collection dates to the period a century or more after the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Cyrus II (the Great) conquered and annexed the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. The Persians ruled the Levant for the next two centuries until Alexander of Macedon stormed through and toppled their empire. Roughly a century before Persia conquered the Middle East, the earliest known currency was minted from electrum — a silver-gold alloy — in Lydia, western Asia Minor.
The idea of precious metal coinage spread across the empire. Judea, Samaria and Philistia, part of the satrapy of Syria and Jerusalem, began minting their own coins shortly thereafter. The 3.58 gram yehud coin — a hair or two lighter than today’s one shekel coin — was reportedly found in the hills southwest of Hebron and was bought at auction by New York antiquities collector Jonathan Rosen.
Rosen, “one of the world’s most important private collectors of Mesopotamian art” according to The New York Times, agreed to donate his entire collection of Persian-era coins to the museum in March 2013. The acquisition was completed in November. Apollo, an international art magazine, ranked the collection among the top museum acquisitions of 2013.
Although there are a handful of other examples of coins bearing the name Judea, Gitler said the silver drachm was a “unique coin” in its design, and was likely minted in Philistia, the coastal plain encompassing the modern cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza, for use in the province of Jerusalem. “Only later did Judea start to mint its own coins,” he said.
Then, as now, Judea, Samaria and Philistia sat at the crossroads of civilizations and at the far reaches of the Persian Empire, and local artisans would imitate styles from coins that arrived from abroad.
The coinage represented in the collection consequently exhibits a stunning array of artistic influences from Persia, Greece, Anatolia and Egypt. Many coins feature owls, a symbol closely associated with the goddess Athena, both of which appeared on Greek drachmas in antiquity. Other coins bear images of deities, heroes, mythical beasts and animals familiar to the Middle East — including camels, horses, cows, eagles, and lions.
The Judean drachm’s iconography is representative of the local fusion of artistic designs. Emblazoned on its obverse is a gorgoneion, a Greek icon of the head of a gorgon that serves as a talisman against evil, but its hair is stylized like the Egyptian goddess Hathor. On the reverse side is a lion astride a cow with the Aramaic letters yod, heh and dalet. The exact meaning of the coin’s iconography remains undetermined.
Based on the stylization of the gorgon head, which in earlier incarnations was demonic and bestial and over the centuries became more anthropomorphic, and the style of the Aramaic script, Gitler dated the coin to the early 4th century BCE.
“We barely have any information or texts describing the Persian period in Palestine, so almost all that we know comes from these coins,” he said. Gitler explained that the tiny images engraved in silver offer a glimpse into the appearance, manner of dress and language spoken by inhabitants of the region at the time.
It is clear from the collection that the die-engravers of Persian Palestine who designed the coins demonstrated a proclivity for creative expression unseen elsewhere in the empire, creating a “local flavour” of coinage, Gitler said. Coins from Tyre and Sidon, just up the coast, have a much smaller variety of styles.
A Philistian drachm from the late 5th century BCE in the collection employs a clever example of “optical trickery” in its design, he noted.
When turned 90˚ counterclockwise, the lion on the coin’s reverse becomes the helmet of the bearded man, and its paws become the man’s hair. Gitler said such illusions were fairly common, noting that a Samarian coin from the same period showed the head of a bearded man whose face is composed of two faces in profile. Hidden owls also roost within the designs of other creatures.
The obverse of a Samarian drachm with a lion (left) which, when turned 90˚ (right), becomes a bearded man.
“The coins really show us a variety of motifs which is unequaled” in the Persian Empire, Gitler said. “It shows that the people who were designing these coins weren’t just making the coins because they had to do them, but they enjoyed doing it.”
A selection of coins from the collection is now on display in the Israel Museum’s Archaeology Wing, including the lion optical illusion coin shown above.
“Of course in the future we’ll start incorporating more of the collection,” he said, voicing interest in holding an exhibition of a selection of the coins in the collection which he said would be “even more amazing” than the White Gold exhibit in 2012 that showcased the world’s earliest electrum currency.
Israeli study finds early humans knew to situate hearth in cave’s optimal spot
Reconstruction of ancient humans in the Lazaret Cave, France (Pay attention to the location of the hearth).
Spatial planning in caves 170,000 years ago.
Findings indicate that early humans knew a great deal about spatial planning: they controlled fire and used it for various needs and placed their hearth at the optimal location in the cave – to obtain maximum benefit while exposed to a minimum amount of unhealthy smoke.
A groundbreaking study in prehistoric archaeology at Tel Aviv University provides evidence for high cognitive abilities in early humans who lived 170,000 years ago. In a first-of-its-kind study, the researchers developed a software-based smoke dispersal simulation model and applied it to a known prehistoric site.
They discovered that the early humans who occupied the cave had placed their hearth at the optimal location – enabling maximum utilization of the fire for their activities and needs while exposing them to a minimal amount of smoke.
The study was led by PhD student Yafit Kedar, and Prof. Ran Barkai from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at TAU, together with Dr Gil Kedar. The paper was published in Scientific Reports.
Reconstruction of meat roasting on the campfire at the Lazaret Cave, France.
Yafit Kedar explains that the use of fire by early humans has been widely debated by researchers for many years, regarding questions such as: At what point in their evolution did humans learn how to control fire and ignite it at will? When did they begin to use it on a daily basis? Did they use the inner space of the cave efficiently in relation to the fire? While all researchers agree that modern humans were capable of all these things, the dispute continues about the skills and abilities of earlier types of humans.
Yafit Kedar: “One focal issue in the debate is the location of hearths in caves occupied by early humans for long periods of time.
Multilayered hearths have been found in many caves, indicating that fires had been lit at the same spot over many years. In previous studies, using a software-based model of air circulation in caves, along with a simulator of smoke dispersal in a closed space, we found that the optimal location for minimal smoke exposure in the winter was at the back of the cave. The least favourable location was the cave’s entrance.”
Excavations at the Lazaret Cave, France.
In the current study, the researchers applied their smoke dispersal model to an extensively studied prehistoric site – the Lazaret Cave in southeastern France, inhabited by early humans around 170-150 thousand years ago.
Yafit Kedar: “According to our model, based on previous studies, placing the hearth at the back of the cave would have reduced smoke density to a minimum, allowing the smoke to circulate out of the cave right next to the ceiling.
But in the archaeological layers we examined, the hearth was located at the centre of the cave. We tried to understand why the occupants had chosen this spot, and whether smoke dispersal had been a significant consideration in the cave’s spatial division into activity areas.”
To answer these questions, the researchers performed a range of smoke dispersal simulations for 16 hypothetical hearth locations inside the 290sqm cave. For each hypothetical hearth, they analyzed smoke density throughout the cave using thousands of simulated sensors placed 50cm apart from the floor to the height of 1.5m.
To understand the health implications of smoke exposure, measurements were compared with the average smoke exposure recommendations of the World Health Organization.
In this way four activity zones were mapped in the cave for each hearth: a red zone which is essentially out of bounds due to high smoke density; a yellow area suitable for the short-term occupation of several minutes; a green area suitable for long-term occupation of several hours or days; and a blue area which is essentially smoke-free.
Yafit and Gil Kedar: “We found that the average smoke density, based on measuring the number of particles per spatial unit, is in fact minimal when the hearth is located at the back of the cave – just as our model had predicted. But we also discovered that in this situation, the area with low smoke density, most suitable for the prolonged activity, is relatively distant from the hearth itself.
Early humans needed a balance – a hearth close to which they could work, cook, eat, sleep, get together, warm themselves, etc. while exposed to a minimum amount of smoke. Ultimately, when all needs are taken into consideration – daily activities vs. the damages of smoke exposure – the occupants placed their hearth at the optimal spot in the cave.”
The study identified a 25sqm area in the cave which would be optimal for locating the hearth in order to enjoy its benefits while avoiding too much exposure to smoke. Astonishingly, in the several layers examined by in this study, the early humans actually did place their hearth within this area.
Prof. Barkai concludes: “Our study shows that early humans were able, with no sensors or simulators, to choose the perfect location for their hearth and manage the cave’s space as early as 170,000 years ago – long before the advent of modern humans in Europe. This ability reflects ingenuity, experience, and planned activities, as well as awareness of the health damage caused by smoke exposure. In addition, the simulation model we developed can assist archaeologists excavating new sites, enabling them to look for hearths and activity areas at their optimal locations.”
In further studies the researchers intend to use their model to investigate the influence of different fuels on smoke dispersal, use of the cave with an active hearth at different times of the year, use of several hearths simultaneously, and other relevant issues.
Terracotta Warriors Discovered in China Near Emperor’s Tomb
Archaeologists have uncovered more than 20 new Terracotta Warriors, life-size figures built to protect the first emperor of China in the afterlife.
Archaeologists found more than 20 Terracotta Warriors in one of the pits around the tomb of the 1st emperor of China. One of those pits is shown here.
The Terracotta Army is thought to consist of 8,000 sculpted “warriors” located in three pits about a mile northeast of the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259 B.C. to 210 B.C.), who unified China in 221 B.C. Archaeologists have excavated about 2,000 of these lifelike soldiers, which were buried with weapons such as crossbows, spears and swords, some of which are still intact.
Qin Shi Huang became king of Qin in 247 B.C., one of several states jockeying for land and power in China. For decades Qin had been growing larger, gradually seizing territory ruled by other states; and in 221 B.C., Qin’s rivals were defeated and Qin Shi Huang became emperor of China.
The Terracotta Warriors were created with life-like detail.
Chinese historical texts say nothing about the Terracotta army or why it was built.
The army could have been a way to elevate the emperor’s status, particularly because after Qin Shi Huang’s death in 210 B.C., his family was overthrown by a rebellion led by what would become the Han Dynasty; that dynasty likely did not want to highlight the first emperor’s achievements.
In addition, modern-day archaeologists often interpret the army as being created to serve Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife.
The newly discovered warriors were unearthed in “pit one,” China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported.
This pit contains mainly infantry and chariots; a few of the warriors are generals and can be identified from their more elaborate headgear.
A picture of the newly excavated warriors published on the television network website appears to show only infantry, but at least one of the newfound warriors is a general, CGTN reported.
The archaeological team did not return requests for comment at the time of publication.
Although the website of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Site Museum didn’t have any information on the newly found warriors, it did say it is common for the warriors to be found in pieces and put back together.
These warriors will now be placed back together. It remains to be seen if any colour survived on the newly found warriors or what new information they will reveal about the Terracotta Army.
Lebanese museum returns millennia-old antiquities to Iraq
A trove of archaeological objects, including more than 300 cuneiform tablets, were returned to Iraq from Lebanon over the weekend. Allegedly looted from several Iraqi archaeological sites, the artefacts had been exhibited in the Nabu Museum, a private institution in northern Lebanon founded by the businessman Jawad Adra.
Adra and his wife, former Lebanese defence minister Zeina Akar, have repeatedly denied any involvement in the international trafficking of cultural property, according to the Lebanese French-language newspaper L’Orient Le Jour.
The handover took place at a ceremony at the National Museum of Beirut, attended by the Lebanese Minister of Culture Abbas Mortada, the Iraqi Ambassador to Lebanon Haydar Chayyah Barrak, and Adra.
Iraqi antiquities were displayed during a ceremony held at the National Museum of Beirut.
A total of 337 artefacts were returned. Speaking at the ceremony, Mortada stressed the “common destiny of Lebanon and Iraq,” saying that “Beirut is in the hearts of the Iraqis, just as Baghdad is in the hearts of the Lebanese.” Barrak thanked the Lebanese people and government “for the continued cooperation that made this happy ending possible.”
The Nabu Museum opened in Heri, on the Lebanese coast, in 2018.
Named after the Mesopotamian god of literacy and wisdom, it houses a selection of the couple’s collection of 2,000 artefacts dating from prehistory to the Byzantine era.
According to Adra, the aim of the museum is to “preserve and protect the regional ancient history, which would otherwise be scattered across the world.”
The museum has been under scrutiny for several months by international authorities for housing antiquities that were believed to have been illegally smuggled out of Iraq.
Earlier this year, Iraq asked Interpol to issue a red notice against the museum and demand the restitution of hundreds of Sumerian tablets.
The couple cooperated voluntarily with the investigation, with Akar travelling to Baghdad to negotiate the repartition of the artefacts.
Local news outlets report that the artefacts likely originated from the ancient Sumerian city, Irisagrig, which was a frequent target of smugglers after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In 2017, the U.S. craft store chain Hobby Lobby was fined $3 million and forced to surrender thousands of objects that had been smuggled from the area.
In recent years Iraq has increased efforts to recover cultural property looted during periods of political turmoil. Last year, the United States returned more than 17,000 smuggled artefacts to Iraq, including statues and Mesopotamian carvings dating back to 4,000 years.
The handover included the Gilgamesh tablet, a 3,500-year-old cuneiform object thought to be one of the world’s oldest religious texts. It is believed to have been stolen from an Iraqi museum in 1990 and to have entered the U.S. in 2007. (It had been sold several times before being acquired by Hobby Lobby for $1.67 million at a 2014 auction.)
At the time of that return, the Iraqi foreign minister Faud Hussein said that his government would “spare no effort to recover the rest of our cultural heritage throughout the world.”
