Category Archives: ASIA

ASIA, S. KOREA, WORLD

Dark secrets of Korea’s famous Wolseong palace complex are unearthed

Dark secrets of Korea’s famous Wolseong palace complex are unearthed

Korea JoongAng Daily reports that a young woman’s remains have been unearthed at the site of Wolseong, a Silla Dynasty (57 B.C.–A.D. 935) palace complex in eastern South Korea.

Remains of an adult female from 1,500 years ago were found in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang, at the site of a palace complex known as Wolseong. Intact pottery was found next to the head.

Until 2017, the legend of Koreans’ practice of human sacrifice during large-scale construction to pray for the building to stand firm for a long time, remained a horrific myth. However, the archaeological discovery of human remains in Wolseong, a palace complex of the Silla Dynasty (57 B.C.-A.D. 935) located in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang, turned this myth into fact.  
 
Remains from two people from the fifth century were discovered near the west entrance of Wolseong, throwing the nation into a state of shock. One was of a male and the other was a female. It was the country’s first archaeological evidence that proved that human sacrifice may have been a common practice for Silla people.  
 
Remains of another female adult have been discovered, just 50 centimetres (1.64 feet) above the area where the couple was found in 2017, the Gyeongju National Institute of Cultural Heritage announced on Tuesday.   
 
“Like the remains discovered in 2017, the recently discovered remains of a female adult showed no sign of struggle,” said Jang Ki-myeong, a researcher at Gyeongju National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage.
 
The woman, like the other two bodies, was laid to face the sky and is believed to have been in her 20s when she was sacrificed. The couple found in 2017 were in their 50s.  

An x-ray of the discovered pottery shows a smaller pot inside the larger one

“The first thing we do when we find human remains is figuring out the gender and age,” said Kim Heon-Seok, another researcher from the institute. “Though her remains were also in good condition, her pelvis, which we use to find out the gender, was damaged, so we had to look at other things like her physique and height to figure it out.”
 
Like the two Silla people discovered in 2017, researchers believe the sacrificed humans are probably from lower-ranking class as they were “all quite undersized and had nutrition imbalances as seen from their teeth.”  
 
Intact pottery was also discovered next to her head. Back in 2017, four pieces of pottery were found next to the feet of the sacrifices.  
 
“When we did an x-ray of the pottery, we found a smaller bowl inside the jar. It looks like the larger pottery carried alcohol or some kind of liquid. It was buried together with the body,” said Jang. “This is not a common feature you witness in ancient tombs, but something similar was found at the 2017 site.”  
 
When the remains of the two bodies were discovered, some raised the possibility that their deaths could have been accidental. But, the Cultural Heritage Administration concluded that the evidence — the remains showing no signs of struggle and the discoveries of animal bones and objects used for ancestral rites in the same area — clearly points that the pair died as part of a sacrificial ceremony.
 
“Now with the additional discovery, there’s no denying Silla’s practice of human sacrifice,” said Choi Byung-Heon, professor emeritus of archaeology at Soongsil University, adding that the specific location of where the remains were discovered is also important.  According to Choi, the remains of three Silla people were laid on top of the bottommost layer of the fortress’s west wall, right in front of where the west gate would have been located.  
 
“After finishing off the foundation and moving onto the next step of building the fortress, I guess it was necessary to really harden the ground for the fortress to stand strong. In that process, I think the Silla people held sacrificial rites, giving not only animals but also humans as sacrifices,” said Choi.  
 
Geology Professor Lee Seong-Joo of Kyungpook National University also said there are records of human sacrifices in neighbouring China, by people of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 B.C.) when constructing large buildings and these sacrifices were commonly found near entrances.  
 
“Historical records say such rituals were carried out before making the gates or just before engaging in the most important part of the construction process,” Lee said.  
 
“Samguksagi,” or “The Chronicles of the Three States” states that Wolseong was built in year 101 and was used for 800 years as the residence of Silla kings until Silla gave way to the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392). But by studying the pieces of pottery unearthed from the fortress, researchers predicted the date of its construction to be somewhere between the fourth and fifth centuries.

The remains of adult females were discovered just 50 centimetres (1.64 feet) above the remains found in 2017.

There’s been a clear gap between the two, and debates among researchers. The Gyeongju National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage said it has managed to settle the debate by scientifically proving that the construction period began in the early fourth century and it took about 50 years to complete. 
 
“By analyzing the data collected through a newly adopted technology known as AMS [Accelerator Mass Spectrometer] and cross-checking with the existing data we have, we were able to provide a more reliable construction period,” said Jang from the institute.  
 
Does that mean there are factual errors in Korea’s historical documents?
 
Jang says it’s better to approach the issue as, “Why is it recorded as 101?”  
 
“We should further the research on Wolseong and try to find out what may have resulted in making such a record,” Jang added. “Wolseong is a vast research area not only in terms of its literal size but also academically and historically.”

Wolseong, Korea’s Historic Site No. 16 and a Unesco World Heritage Site, can be literally translated as “moon castle” in English.

The official excavation research of Wolseong began in December 2014. 
 
Literally translated as “moon castle” in English, Wolseong, which is also listed at Unesco World Heritage, measures more than 200,000 square meters and is considered one of the most important historical sites in Korea as it was the seat of the Silla Dynasty. Compared to its historical weight, the Wolseong area had been left largely unexplored.
 
The government previously conducted several different inspections and excavations, which resulted in the discovery of the remains of 20 Silla people, just 10 meters away from the site where the recent remains were discovered, during two separate inspections in 1985 and 1990. Researchers at the Gyeongju National Institute of Cultural Heritage believe the discoveries are of great significance but have yet to conclude if the remains were part of sacrificial rites. 
 
“As for the remains of the 20 people, only three people’s remains were in good condition while the rest were just scattered across a vast area with animal bones,” said Jang. “It is certain that they are related to Wolseong but we need to conduct more research to find out if they were human sacrifices.”
 
Researchers believe they may discover more human remains in Wolseong, but more importantly, “so much more about the unknown 1,000 years of Silla,” said Jang.  
 
“We’ve discovered the method of building Wolseong, which mainly used soil,” said Ahn So-Yeon, a researcher from the institute. “We’ve discovered how Silla people mixed stones, pieces of wood, seeds of fruits and grains with soil to make the fortress stronger.”  
 
Professor Lee from Kyungpook National University said Silla had built the strongest and highest fortress compared to Goguryeo and Baekje.  
 
“The fundamental power of unification can also be found in the fortress. A more specific time period and the revealed methodology are significant to the researchers of this field,” Lee said.  

ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

Periodic Prehistoric Rainfall Made Northern Arabia Navigable

Periodic Prehistoric Rainfall Made Northern Arabia Navigable

Excavations at the Jubbah oasis (shown) in northern Saudi Arabia produced stone tools that, along with nearby lake bed finds, indicate that hominids periodically trekked through the region starting around 400,000 years ago.

Arabia, known today for its desert landscape, served as a “green turnstile” for migrating Stone Age members of the human genus starting around 400,000 years ago, a new study finds.

Monsoon rains periodically turned northern Arabia into a well-watered oasis, creating windows of opportunity for long-ago humans or their relatives to trek through that crossroads region from starting points in northern Africa and southwest Asia.

That’s the implication of a series of five ancient lake beds of varying ages, each accompanied by distinctive stone tools, unearthed at a northern Saudi Arabian site called Khall Amayshan 4, or KAM 4. Sediments from the lake beds, which were linked to periods when the climate was wetter than today, also yielded fossils of hippos, wild cattle and other animals. Like hominids, those creatures must have migrated into the region along rain-fed lakes, wetlands and rivers, an international team reports online September 1 in Nature.

Until now, the oldest stone tools in Arabia dated to at least 300,000 years ago. Previous finds only hinted that Stone Age Homo sapiens or other Homo species temporarily inhabited green, wetter parts of Arabia, a conclusion largely resting on discoveries at two other Saudi sites, each preserving stone tools from a single point in time.

Aside from providing the earliest known evidence of hominids in Arabia, the new finds demonstrate for the first time that ancient Homo groups travelled there when conditions turned wet, say archaeologist Huw Groucutt of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and colleagues.

Evidence of hominid occupations at five ancient lake sites, each dated to a different Stone Age time, was found at northern Saudi Arabia’s Khall Amayshan 4 site (shown).

As a result, northern Arabia could have served as a key, if intermittent, passageway out of Africa for humans or close evolutionary relatives who reached South Asia by around 385,000 years ago, southern China between 120,000 and 80,000 years ago and the Indonesian island of Sumatra between 73,000 and 63,000 years ago.

The number, completeness and time frames of KAM 4’s ancient lake deposits make this site “one of a kind … that will continue to produce remarkable results,” says archaeologist Donald Henry of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, who did not participate in the new study.

Across five occupation phases covering hundreds of thousands of years, different Homo species or closely related populations at KAM 4 “were doing broadly the same things,” Groucutt says. Small groups camped by lakes where individuals made stone tools for food preparation, hunting and woodworking.

But each phase, dated mainly by a technique that estimated the amount of time since grains of lake sediment had last been exposed to sunlight, had its own evolutionary character.

For example, the identity of the KAM 4 crowd 400,000 years ago, who left behind large hand axes, is unclear, but the researchers know it couldn’t have been H. sapiens. Our species didn’t originate until roughly 300,000 years ago in Africa. One possibility is that those ancient Arabians represented a now-extinct Homo population from southwest Asia that later migrated into Africa, possibly contributing to H. sapiens evolution, Groucutt speculates.

Members of an unidentified Homo group left behind stone hand axes such as this one (shown from different angles) along the shore of a northern Arabian lake about 400,000 years ago.

Similar but slightly smaller, more finely worked hand axes turned up along the shore of a roughly 300,000-year-old KAM 4 lake bed, indicating the second phase of occupation. Groucutt and colleagues doubt that early H. sapiens from Africa scurried over to KAM 4 in time to make those tools. Whichever Homo group did could have come either from northern Africa or southwest Asia, the researchers say.

The third round of KAM 4 occupants, probably H. sapiens, fashioned artefacts excavated at an approximately 200,000-year-old lake bed, Groucutt says. These finds consist of rock chunks shaped so that sharp flakes, also unearthed there, could be pounded off. Humans based in northeastern Africa around that time made similar tools. Some of those people may have reached Arabia before eventually journeying to southwest Asia, Groucutt suggests.

Groucutt’s group excavated comparable tools at a site called Jubbah about 150 kilometres east of KAM 4 that date to around 210,000 years ago.

Those finds are another sign of human migrations into Arabia at a time when the corresponding KAM 4 lakebed shows that wet conditions reigned. Additional stone tools unearthed at Jubbah date to around 75,000 years ago.

Stone implements resembling the Jubbah finds were also excavated at the youngest two KAM 4 sites, one dating to between about 125,000 and 75,000 years ago and the other to roughly 55,000 years ago. The older site likely hosted H. sapiens, possibly a group that left Africa, Groucutt suggests.

The youngest KAM 4 artefacts could represent either H. sapiens or Neandertals, he says. Neandertals reached the Middle East about 70,000 years ago and could have reached a green Arabia by 55,000 years ago. If so, Neandertals may have interbred with H. sapiens in Arabia, a possibility not raised before.

Despite uncertainties about which hominids reached KAM 4 during its green phases, KAM 4 tools generally look more like similarly aged African tools than artefacts previously found in southern Arabia or at eastern Mediterranean sites, says Henry, the University of Tulsa archaeologist.

Migrations out of Africa, he says, now appear more likely to have wended through northern Arabia rather than across the narrow Red Sea crossing to southern Arabia, often regarded as a major dispersal route for ancient humans.

ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

A cache of Medieval Jewelry Unearthed in Russia

Cache of Medieval Jewelry Unearthed in Russia

Archaeologists in southwest Russia have unearthed a trove of medieval silver at a site where the treasure was often hidden from an invading Mongol army in the 13th century — but oddly it seems to have been buried there at least 100 years before the Mongols swept through.

Among the treasure are several “seven ray rings” that are thought to represent the rays of the sun.

The trove of silver pendants, bracelets, rings, and ingots was found during excavations earlier this year near the site of Old Ryazan, the fortified capital of a Rus principate that was besieged and sacked by Mongols in 1237. 

The Mongol attack was particularly bloodthirsty; historical accounts report that the invaders left no one alive in Old Ryazan and archaeologists have discovered nearly 100 severed heads and several mass graves there from the time. 

The hidden treasure was found in the forested bank of a ravine several hundred yards away from two small medieval settlements that had existed there; archaeologists also found remains of a cylindrical container probably made from birch bark that had once held the trove, according to a translated statement from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The treasure includes 14 ornate bracelets, seven rings and eight “neck hryvnias” — a type of pendant worn around the neck that gave its name to the modern Ukrainian currency — and weighs 4.6 pounds (2.1 kilograms).

Cache of Medieval Jewelry Unearthed in Russia

The jewelry is finely made, and archaeologists think its mixed composition shows it was a trove of accumulated wealth rather than a set of jewellery for a particular costume.

Golden Horde

Ryazan was one of several medieval principalities of the Rus people in the 11th century. It was centered on the city now known as Old Ryazan — about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of the modern city of Ryazan and about 140 miles (225 km) southeast of Moscow — and grew powerful enough to occasionally go to war with its neighbours.

But Ryazan was east of the other Rus principalities, and so it was the first to fall to an invading Mongol army from the far east, led by a grandson of Genghis Khan called Batu Khan.

The Mongols first defeated the Ryazan army in battle and then besieged the capital city, using catapults to destroy its fortifications.

The inhabitants of the city repelled the besiegers for almost a week — but in the end, the Mongols plundered the city, killed its prince, his family, and its inhabitants, and burned all that remained to the ground. A Rus chronicler noted “there was none left to groan and cry.”

Batu Khan’s armies went on to conquer and subjugate other Rus principalities until the Mongol leader’s death in 1255; his successors ruled much of southern and central Russia as the Golden Horde — from the Turkic phrase “Altan Orda,” which means “golden headquarters,” possibly from the golden colour of Batu Khan’s tent.

The hidden hoard of medieval silver, including several finely-made bracelets, was found at the site of Old Ryazan which was destroyed by an invading Mongol army in the 13th century. Archaeologists say the silver bracelets and other items of jewellery in the medieval hoard are especially well-made.

Among the treasure are several “seven ray rings” that are thought to represent the rays of the sun. Seven-ray rings became a distinctive feature of early medieval Russian jewellery; it’s thought their design was introduced from the far east.

Some of the bracelets, including this one of braided silver wire, are thought by their style to date from the 10th and 11th centuries. The ends of some of the bracelets are hollow and delicately embossed with intricate ornamental designs, including stylized palm trees that suggest an eastern and southern influence. Some of the bracelets are embossed at the ends with crosses that presumably portray Christian crucifixes.

Several buried treasures found at Old Ryazan date from the siege of the city in 1237, but archaeologists think this hoard of silver was buried about 100 years before that.

Hidden treasure

The practice of hiding treasure to prevent the invading Mongols from finding it seems to have been relatively common during the siege — more than a dozen hidden troves have now been found nearby, including the famous Old Ryazan Treasure, a collection of bejewelled royal regalia which was discovered by chance in the 19th century and is now on display in a nearby cathedral.

Somewhat surprisingly, however, the newly-discovered trove seems to have been hidden away between the end of the 11 century and the beginning of the 12th century —  a century before the Mongol invasion, based on analysis of the style of the jewelry and ceramics found nearby, the RAS archaeologists said.

“The… treasure is clearly older than the Old Ryazan Treasure and includes jewellery made with simpler techniques and a more archaic manner,” the statement read.

The trove includes several six-sided “grivna,” a relatively small type of standardized silver ingot that could be used as jewellery, a measure of weight, or currency during the medieval Rus period.  The bracelets are especially well made. The most complex has three silver braids and are ornamented at the ends with embossed crosses and palm leaves, the archaeologists said.

“Further studies of the treasure items, the technique of their manufacture, the composition of the metal will complement our knowledge of the early history of Old Ryazan,” they wrote; “possibly it will reveal the historical context of the concealment of the treasure.”

ASIA, IRAN, WORLD

Neanderthal Tooth from Iran Dated to Middle Paleolithic Period

Neanderthal Tooth from Iran Dated to Middle Paleolithic Period

A new study conducted by a team of archaeologists and paleoanthropologists from Germany, Italy, Iran, and Britain delves into the discovery of an in-situ Neanderthal tooth, which was discovered in 2017 in a rock shelter, western Iran.

The research is described in a paper in the online journal PLOS ONE that was published last Thursday.

The tooth, which is a deciduous canine that belongs to a 6 years old child, was found at a depth of 2.5 m of the Baba Yawan shelter in association with animal bones and stone tools near Kermanshah.

Neanderthal Tooth from Iran Dated to Middle Paleolithic Period

The analysis that was performed by Stefano Benazzi, a physical anthropologist at the University of Bologna, Italy shows that the tooth has Neanderthal affinities. Stone tools discovered close to the teeth belong to the Middle Paleolithic period and a series of c14 dating suggests the tooth is between 41,000-43,000 years in an age which is close to the end of the Middle Paleolithic period when Neanderthal disappeared in the Zagros.

Fereidoun Biglari, a Paleolithic archaeologist at Iran National Museum, says “this recent discovery, along with other Neanderthal remains previously found in other parts of Zagros, including Shanidar Cave, Bisotun Cave, and Wezmeh Cave, indicate that Neanderthals were present in a wide geographical range of Zagros from northwest to west of this mountain range since at least 80,000 until about 40,000-45,000 years ago when they disappeared and Homo Sapiens populations spread into the region”.

He added that “Association of Yawan Neanderthal tooth with Middle Palaeolithic stone tools known as Zagros Mousterian is a further confirmation of association of this stone tool industry with Neanderthals.

Such associations have been observed in Wezmeh where a Neanderthal premolar tooth and Zagros Mousterian tools were found in the same cave, and also in the Bisotun cave that was excavated in 1949 by C. Coon.

Bisotun produced a human partial radius that most likely belongs to a Neanderthal along with Zagros Mousterian lithics in Middle Paleolithic layers of the site”.

Huw Groucutt, a Paleolithic archaeologist at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, commented on the datings provided for the Yawan tooth in his Twitter post “Dating sites like this, with small fragments of charcoal which are highly susceptible to movement and contamination, using the only radiocarbon is challenging”. He added “Nearly half of the radiocarbon dates from the site failed. I am rather dubious about the available dates for ‘Zagros Mousterian’ sites based only on C14. But he added “this is a great work, thousands of lithics found and a nice Neanderthal tooth. It is crucial though to use other dating techniques where possible.

The frequent ca. 45 ka ages in many parts of the world may reflect samples beyond the range of C14 with a bit of contamination.”

According to the researchers, Neanderthal extinction has been a matter of debate for many years.

New discoveries, better chronologies, and genomic evidence have done much to clarify some of the issues. This evidence suggests that Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000–37,000 years before the present (BP), after a period of coexistence with Homo sapiens of several millennia, involving biological and cultural interactions between the two groups.

However, the bulk of this evidence relates to Western Eurasia, and recent work in Central Asia and Siberia has shown that there is considerable local variation. Southwestern Asia, despite having a number of significant Neanderthal remains, has not played a major part in the debate over extinction.

Yawan is the second Neanderthal tooth that has been discovered in Iran. The first Neanderthal tooth was discovered in the Wezmeh cave near Kermanshah in 2001.

This cave is well-known for the discovery of a large number of animal fossils. A recent re-excavation of the cave by Fereidoun Biglari revealed stone tools made by Neanderthals, which shows that the cave was not just a den used by carnivores such as hyenas, lions, wolves, and leopards.

Moreover, the discovery of the third tooth of a 5-7 years old Neanderthal child was announced by a joint Iranian-French team that was discovered in Qal-e Kord near Qazvin in 2019.

These discoveries show that Iran has a rich paleoanthropological record and the country can produce important data in the future.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Traces of Beer Detected in 9,000-Year-Old Vessels in China

Traces of Beer Detected in 9,000-Year-Old Vessels in China

Alcoholic beverages have long been known to serve an important socio-cultural function in ancient societies, including ritual feasts. A new study finds evidence of beer drinking 9,000 years ago in southern China, which was likely part of a ritual to honour the dead.

The findings are based on an analysis of ancient pots found at a burial site at Qiaotou, making the site among the oldest in the world for early beer drinking. The results are reported in PLOS ONE.

The ancient pots were discovered in a platform mound (80 m x 50 m wide, with an elevation of 3 m above ground level), which was surrounded by a human-made ditch (10-15 m wide and 1.5-2 m deep), based on ongoing excavations at Qiaotou. No residential structures were found at the site.

Painted pottery vessels for serving drinks and food.

The mound contained two human skeletons and multiple pottery pits with high-quality pottery vessels, many of which were complete vessels. The pottery was painted with white slip and some of the vessels were decorated with abstract designs. As the study reports, these artefacts are probably some of “the earliest known painted pottery in the world.” No pottery of this kind has been found at any other sites dating to this time period.

The research team analyzed different types of pottery found at Qiaotou, which were of varying sizes. Some of the pottery vessels were relatively small and similar in size to drinking vessels used today, and to those found in other parts of the world.

Each of the pots could basically be held in one hand like a cup unlike storage vessels, which are much larger in size. Seven of the 20 vessels, which were part of their analysis, appeared to be long-necked Hu pots, which were used to drink alcohol in the later historical periods.

To confirm that the vessels were used for drinking alcohol, the research team analyzed microfossil residues— starch, phytolith (fossilized plant residue), and fungi, extracted from the interior surfaces of the pots. The residues were compared with control samples obtained from the soil surrounding the vessels.

The team identified micro botanical (starch granules and phytoliths) and microbial (mould and yeast) residues in the pots that were consistent with residues from beer fermentation and are not found naturally in soil or in other artefacts unless they had contained alcohol.

“Through a residue analysis of pots from Qiaotou, our results revealed that the pottery vessels were used to hold beer, in its most general sense— a fermented beverage made of rice (Oryza sp.), a grain called Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), and unidentified tubers,” says co-author Jiajing Wang, an assistant professor of anthropology at Dartmouth.

“This ancient beer though would not have been like the IPA that we have today. Instead, it was likely a slightly fermented and sweet beverage, which was probably cloudy in colour.”

The results also showed that phytoliths of rice husks and other plants were also present in the residue from the pots. They may have been added to the beer as a fermentation agent.

Although the Yangtze River Valley of southern China is known today as the country’s rice heartland, the domestication of rice occurred gradually between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, so 9,000 years ago, rice was still in the early stage of domestication.

At that time, most communities were hunter-gatherers who relied primarily on foraging. As the researchers explain in the study, given that rice harvesting and processing was labour-intensive, the beer at Qiaotou was probably a ritually significant drink/beverage.

The residue analysis of the pots also showed traces of mould, which was used in the beermaking process. The mould found in the pots at Qiaotou was very similar to the mould present in koji, which is used to make sake and other fermented rice beverages in East Asia. The results predate earlier research, which found that mould had been used in fermentation processes 8,000 years ago in China.

Beer is technically any fermented beverage made from crops through a two-stage transformation process. In the first phase, enzymes transform starch into sugar (saccharification). In the second phase, the yeasts convert the sugar into alcohol and other states like carbon dioxide (fermentation).

As the researchers explain in the study, mould acts kind of like an agent for both processes, by serving as a saccharification-fermentation starter.

“We don’t know how people made the mould 9,000 years ago, as fermentation can happen naturally,” says Wang. “If people had some leftover rice and the grains became mouldy, they may have noticed that the grains became sweeter and alcoholic with age. While people may not have known the biochemistry associated with grains that became mouldy, they probably observed the fermentation process and leveraged it through trial and error.”

Given that the pottery at Qiaotou was found near the burials in a non-residential area, the researchers conclude that the pots of beer were likely used in ritualistic ceremonies relating to the burial of the dead.

They speculate that ritualized drinking may have been integral to forging social relationships and cooperation, which served as a precursor to complex rice farming societies that emerged 4,000 years later.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David

Archaeologists have found evidence of an earthquake that hit the City of David in Jerusalem about 2,800 years ago and that could be a major event described in the Hebrew Bible.

Possible evidence for biblical earthquake found in City of David
The 2,800-year-old earthquake was so severe that it was mentioned in the bible, archaeologists say.

During their excavations, the archaeological team, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, discovered a layer of destruction dating to that time in the City of David National Park. Inside the layer was “a row of shattered vessels, including bowls, lamps, cooking utensils, storage and storage jars, which were smashed as [a] building’s walls collapsed,” the archaeological team said in a statement from the IAA.

Archaeologists also found no signs of a fire, and they are doubtful that the city was attacked by an invading force. 

Other sites in the region had similar destruction around 2,800 years ago, the researchers found, adding that the signs of destruction from several sites in the southern Levant could be evidence for a biblical earthquake.

The books of Amos and Zechariah both mention an earthquake that happened around this time when Jerusalem was the capital of the kingdom of Judah and was ruled by a king called Uzziah. “You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah,” Zechariah 14:5 reads. 

Shown here, part of the area in Jerusalem that the team is excavating. Their finds reveal that the area was hit by an earthquake 2,800 years ago.

“It seems likely that although Jerusalem was not the epicentre [of the earthquake], it was significantly affected,” Joe Uziel, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who is one of the team leaders, told Live Science.

The observation that Jerusalem was likely not the epicentre of the earthquake is based on the damage found in Jerusalem and other sites in the region. 

Excavations reveal that after the destruction, people rebuilt the destroyed buildings and walls, Uziel said. The fact that the earthquake is mentioned in the bible is “a sign that [the earthquake] was likely quite traumatic,” Uziel said.

Did it really happen?

Scholars not involved with the team’s research were cautiously supportive of the team’s conclusions. “The interpretation of the archaeologists sounds possible,” said Israel Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

The team’s study, including the interpretation of the pottery, has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, Finkelstein cautioned; the team used that pottery to help date the earthquake.

Finkelstein also said that the area in Jerusalem that was excavated needs to be studied by seismologists to firm up the case for a past earthquake. 

Finkelstein noted that evidence for a large eighth-century B.C. earthquake can also be found at other sites in the region, including at Megiddo — a spot investigated by Finkelstein.

About 15 years ago, a team of seismologists and archaeologists documented evidence for the earthquake at Megiddo, which “included tilted and fractured walls,” said Finkelstein. 

“I haven’t seen the excavations, but it was quite expected that some damage triggered by the mid-eighth century [B.C.] earthquake would be found in Jerusalem,” said Shmuel Marco, a professor of geophysics at Tel Aviv University who took part in the Megiddo earthquake study 15 years ago.

“We found it in the ruins of the same age at Megiddo, and others reported it in other excavations and in the deep Dead Sea drilling.” which suggests that the earthquake impacted a wide area.

The Jerusalem team’s “interpretation seems reasonable to me,” said Jason Radine, who is chair of the Department of Global Religions at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

He noted that the Hebrew Bible mentions that Jerusalem was attacked around the 790s or 780s B.C. by Israel (which at the time was a separate kingdom from Judah). However, “such an attack might leave a burn layer, which the excavators point out is not present in their find,” suggesting that an earthquake is the more likely cause of the destruction, Radine said. 

Thomas Levy, who is a distinguished professor of Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, also thought the damage was likely caused by an earthquake and that a strong case can be made that this earthquake is the same one mentioned in the bible.

“When the biblical data is coupled with the archaeological and paleo-seismic data from the southern Levant, a strong correlation is clearly seen between the Book of Amos, a prophet in the Hebrew Bible, and the archaeological record,” Levy told Live Science. 

The team’s research will be presented in September at the “City of David Research” conference. 

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover 1,500-year-old Skeletons Of Couple Buried Together In China

Archaeologists Discover 1,500-year-old Skeletons Of Couple Buried Together In China

Archaeologists in China have discovered a rare double burial, or “lovers’ tomb,” featuring the skeletons of a man and woman locked in an eternal embrace.

This ancient Chinese couple buried embracing, dates to the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534).

Though the grave is 1,500 years old, she still wears a plain silver band on her ring finger.

“The message was clear—husband and wife lay together, embracing each other for eternal love during the afterlife,” a group of ten scholars wrote in a study published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

“This joint burial could be direct evidence of a full display of love and the ­importance of the rings in love.”

The tomb was one of 600 found in an ancient cemetery unearthed at a construction site in Datong, in Shanxi province. The excavation was carried out in 2020.

An illustration of the ancient Chinese couple buried embracing during ​the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534).

The couple likely lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534), a politically turbulent time. Buddhism was spreading rapidly, with cultural diffusion helping shape ideas about death and the afterlife.

“This discovery is a unique display of the human emotion of love in a burial,” Qun Zhang, an associate professor at the Institute of Anthropology at Xiamen University, told the South China Morning Post.

“[It] offer[s] a rare glimpse of concepts of love, life, death, and the afterlife in northern China during a time of intense cultural and ethnic exchange.”

Pathological and trauma signs on the lovers’ skeletons: (a) An unhealed ulnar fracture and missing part of the fourth digit on the right hand of the male individual. Slight development of the marginal osteophytes on the lumbar vertebrae could be detected in the female skeleton; (b) Osteophytosis on the distal end of the lower limbs of the male individual; (c) Antemortem tooth loss in the female individual.

Researchers believe it is likely that the man—whose body showed signs of an unhealed traumatic injury on his right arm—died, and that the woman died by suicide to be buried with him.

Other possibilities include a double death by suicide, or that they both died of illness at the same time.

This is the first known double burial from Chinese antiquity.

Another famous dual grave, Italy’s Lovers of Modena of two skeletons holding hands, was discovered to be two men, rather than a man and a woman, as previously believed.

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

Extensive Hyper-Violence in Japan’s Ancient Yayoi Period Revealed by Researcher

Extensive Hyper-Violence in Japan’s Ancient Yayoi Period Revealed by Researcher

The human capacity for warfare and whether it is an inescapable part of human nature is a hot button issue at the heart of various disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, and so on.

Researchers have posited a range of ideas about why humans engage in war, and the running list of various triggers for inter-group violence is long, be it the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, the development of weapons, ecological constraints, or population pressures.

Among these, the population pressure hypothesis has become more prominent recently as people globally experience climatic changes and environmental breakdown.

The hypothesis states that population increase can result in resource scarcity, leading to competition and conflict over resources. While there is wide acceptance of this claim, there are very few studies that have quantitatively backed up the origin of inter-group violence due to population pressure based on actual archaeological data.

To correct this gap, Professor Naoko Matsumoto from Okayama University and her team surveyed the skeletal remains and jar coffins, called kamekan, from the Middle Yayoi period (350 BC to AD 25 CE) in northern Kyushu, Japan.

These images from the recent study show evidence of violence in the cut mark on this Yayoi period man just above his right eye socket.

This region has been the focus of inter-group violence investigations because the skeletal remains in the Yayoi period indicate a significant increase in the frequency of violence compared to those living in the preceding Jomon period.

“The inhabitants of the Yayoi period practised subsistence agriculture, in particular wet rice cultivation,” says Professor Matsumoto. “This was introduced by immigrants from the Korean peninsula along with weapons such as stone arrowheads and daggers, resulting in enclosed settlements accompanied by warfare or large-scale inter-group violence. However, those living during the Jomon period were primarily pottery-makers who followed a complex hunter-gatherer lifestyle and had low mortality rates caused by conflict.”

Professor Matsumoto and her team inferred demographic changes using the numbers of well-dated burial jars as a proxy for population size and estimated population pressure from the ratio of population to arable land.

The team calculated the frequency of violence by using percentages of injured individuals identified within the skeletal population, followed by a statistical analysis between population pressure and the frequency of violence.

Analyses of the human skeletal remains excavated at the Middle Yayoi period Doigahama site (near Shimonoseki, Japan; the closest point on Honshu island to Kyushu island) showed that Yayoi people skulls (upper two) were relatively longer and flatter than those of the earlier Jomon people (lower two).

The results of the investigation were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The researchers uncovered 47 skeletal remains with trauma, in addition to 51 sites containing burial jars in the Itoshima Plain, 46 in the Sawara Plain, 72 in the Fukuoka Plain, 42 in the Mikuni Hills, 37 in the east Tsukushi Plain, and 50 in the central Tsukushi Plain, encompassing all six study sites.

They found that the highest number of injured individuals and the highest frequency-of-violence levels occurred in the Mikuni Hills, the east Tsukushi Plain, and the Sawara Plain. Interestingly, the Mikuni Hills and the central Tsukushi Plain also showed the highest overall values for population pressure. Overall, statistical analyses supported that population pressure affected the frequency of violence.

However, the peak population did not correlate with the frequency of violence. High levels of population pressure in the Mikuni Hills and the central Tsukushi Plain showed low frequency-of-violence values, while the relatively low population pressures of the east Tsukushi Plain and Sawara Plain were linked to higher frequency-of-violence levels.

Professor Matsumoto reasons there may be other factors that could have indirectly influenced such high levels of violence in the Middle Yayoi period. “I think that the development of a social hierarchy or political organization might also have affected the level of violence.

We have seen stratified burial systems in which certain members of the ruling elite, referred to as ‘kings’ in Japanese archaeology, have tombs with large quantities of prestige goods such as weapons and mirrors,” she says.

“It is worth noting that the frequency of violence tends to be lower in the subregions with such kingly tombs. This suggests that powerful elites might have a role in repressing the frequency of violence.”

The evidence collected by Professor Matsumoto and her team undeniably confirms a positive correlation between population pressure and higher levels of violence and may help devise mechanisms to avoid seemingly never-ending conflicts in motion today.

Further research based on these insights could identify other variables at play in determining the root causes of inter-group violence and actively prevent them.