Preserved in poop: 1,000-year-old chicken egg found in Israel
It’s been said that the elegant egg is the perfect food, and that just might be true as eggs have been a staple of human diets for millions of years before chickens were domesticated for both eggs and meat some 8,000 years ago.
Israel Antiquities Authority discovered a fully intact 1,000-year-old chicken egg
In a remarkably rare discovery involving one of these ovoid essentials, scientists in Israel have cracked the archaeological case on a 1,000-year-old petrified egg that remained intact for centuries without breaking. This is an extraordinary event in that only a handful of ancient chicken eggs have ever been located undamaged.
During a recent excavation at an ancient Islamic cesspit dating back roughly 1,000 years ago, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists in Yavne unearthed a single unbroken chicken’s egg.
This expansive dig site, directed by Dr. Elie Haddad, Liat Nadav-Ziv, and Dr. Jon Seligman, had been the location of a diverse industrial settlement dating from the Byzantine period.
Intact chicken egg dating from roughly 1,000 years ago was revealed during archaeological excavations in Israel
“Eggshell fragments are known from earlier periods, for example in the City of David and at Caesarea and Apollonia, but due to the eggs’ fragile shells, hardly any whole chicken eggs have been preserved.
Even at the global level, this is an extremely rare find,” says Dr. Lee Perry Gal of the Israel Antiquities Authority in an official press statement provided to SYFY WIRE. “In archaeological digs, we occasionally find ancient ostrich eggs, whose thicker shells preserve them intact.”
Domesticated poultry farming first emerged in Israel 2,300 years ago, during the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods.
“Even today, eggs rarely survive for long in supermarket cartons. It’s amazing to think this is a 1,000-year-old find!” notes Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Alla Nagorsky in the same press release.
“The egg’s unique preservation is evidently due to the conditions in which it lay for centuries, nestled in a cesspit containing soft human waste that preserved it.”
Unfortunately, even with careful handling, researchers found that the shell of the egg had been slightly cracked. Back in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s organics lab, conservationist Ilan Naor was able to restore the egg for further study.
“Families needed a ready protein substitute that does not require cooling and preservation, and they found it in eggs and chicken meat,” adds Dr. Gal in the statement.
“Unfortunately, the egg had a small crack in the bottom so most of the contents had leaked out of it. Only some of the yolk remained, which was preserved for future DNA analysis.”
Ancient coins dating to 1,700 years ago were discovered by a family during a camping trip on an Israeli beach near Atlit on Tuesday. Yotam Dahan, a tour guide from Klil in northern Israel, found a bundle of antique coins during a family camping trip in Habonim beach.
The ancient bundle of coins was found on Habonim beach in Israel.
The bundle of coins, weighing a total of 6 kg., agglutinated after years of lying underwater. They were determined to have been used in the fourth century CE, following an inspection by expert Dr Donald Tzvi-Ariel.
After posting photos of the coins to Facebook, Dahan was contacted by Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Haifa District director Karem Said to identify the exact location of the discovery on the beach.
IAA marine archaeology department head Yaakov Sharvit noted the coins might have belonged to an ancient ship sailing the Mediterranean Sea.
“Archaeological sites are prevalent all along the Habonim beach strip,” Sharvit said. “Archaeological records show vessels were often washed ashore along with all their cargo,” he added.
“The bundle of coins found shows they were packed together and agglutinated due to oxidation of the metals,” Sharvit noted.
Dahan generously handed the coins to IAA’s Treasures of the State Department and was subsequently given a certificate of appreciation by the IAA.
The Taliban destroyed Afghanistan’s ancient treasures.
First, they destroyed television sets. Then they destroyed heritage sites. Since 1992, the Taliban’s war on art is the most revolting and senseless crusade anyone has ever accomplished. That feat is only rivalled by the destruction of ancient relics and artefacts by Alexander the Great more than 2,300 years ago.
The purge of thousand-year-old artefacts is the result of the Taliban’s mission of eliminating all that is “un-Islamic” from the world.
Afghanistan lies on the edge of what is known as the Fertile Crescent, an area in the Middle East that birthed the earliest civilizations. It is also called the “Cradle of Civilization.”
This region boasts some of the world’s oldest artefacts and heritage sites dating back to at least 5,000 years ago.
Afghanistan was a crossroad that connected Central Asia to East Asia, which is why the country shares some of the most prized and outstanding evidence of high culture and civilization from thousands of years ago.
Many of these treasures were destroyed by the Taliban, including 2,750 ancient works of art found nowhere else in the world.
The twin Colossi dated back to the 7th century B.C. The Taliban fired grenade launchers into the statues and bombed the top of the mountain to erase the images from the mountainside.
Before and After Destruction: Giant Buddha of Bamiyan
In 1998, they razed the Puli Khumri Library, which housed some of the oldest books in the world. At least 55,000 old manuscripts, scrolls, and books burned.
New clue to human evolution’s biggest mystery emerges in Philippines
Denisovans are an elusive bunch, known mainly from ancient DNA samples and traces of that DNA that the ancient hominids shared when they interbred with Homo sapiens. They left their biggest genetic imprint on people who now live in Southeast Asian islands, nearby Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Ayta people in the Philippines, shown here, belong to a group of ethnic communities that includes one with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, a new study finds.
Genetic evidence now shows that a Philippine Negrito ethnic group has inherited the most Denisovan ancestry of all. Indigenous people known as the Ayta Magbukon get around 5 per cent of their DNA from Denisovans, a new study finds.
This finding fits an evolutionary scenario in which two or more Stone Age Denisovan populations independently reached various Southeast Asian islands, including the Philippines and a landmass that consisted of what’s now Papua New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania.
Evolutionary geneticists Maximilian Larena and Mattias Jakobsson, both at Uppsala University in Sweden, and their team describe the new evidence on August 12 in Current Biology.
Even as the complexities of ancient interbreeding in Southeast Asia become clearer, Denisovans remain a mysterious crowd. “It’s unclear how the different Denisovan groups on the mainland and on Southeast Asian islands were related [to each other] and how genetically diverse they were,” Jakobsson says.
Papua New Guinea highlanders — estimated to carry close to 4 per cent Denisovan DNA in the new study — were previously thought to be the modern record-holders for Denisovan ancestry. But the Ayta Magbukon display roughly 30 per cent to 40 per cent more Denisovan ancestry than Papua New Guinea highlanders and Indigenous Australians, Jakobsson says.
That calculation accounts for the recent mating of East Asians with Philippine Negrito groups, including the Ayta Magbukon, that diluted Denisovan inheritance to varying degrees.
Genetic analyses suggest that Ayta Magbukon people retain slightly more Denisovan ancestry than other Philippine Negrito groups due to having mated less often with East Asian migrants to the island around 2,281 years ago, the scientists say.
Their genetic analyses compared ancient DNA from Denisovans and Neandertals with that of 1,107 individuals from 118 ethnic groups in the Philippines, including 25 Negrito populations. Comparisons were then made to previously collected DNA from present-day Papua New Guinea highlanders and Indigenous Australians.
The new report underscores that “still today there are populations that have not been fully genetically described and that Denisovans were geographically widespread,” says paleogeneticist Cosimo Posth of the University of Tübingen in Germany, who was not part of the new research.
But it’s too early to say whether Stone Age Homo fossils found on Southeast Asian islands come from Denisovans, populations that interbred with Denisovans or other Homo lineages, Posth says. Only DNA extracted from those fossils can resolve that issue, he adds. Unfortunately, ancient DNA preserves poorly in fossils from tropical climates.
Fossils from the Philippines initially classed as H. luzonensis, dating to 50,000 years ago or more (SN: 4/10/19), might actually represent Denisovans. But a lack of consensus on what Denisovans looked like leaves the evolutionary identity of those fossils uncertain.
Larena and Jakobsson’s findings “further increase my suspicions that Denisovan fossils are hiding in plain sight” among previously excavated discoveries on Southeast Asian islands, says population geneticist João Teixeira of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who did not participate in the new study.
Denisovans may have genetically encompassed H. luzonensis and two other fossil hominids found on different Southeast Asian islands, H. floresiensis on Flores and H. erectus on Java, Teixeira suspects. H. floresiensis, or hobbits, survived from at least 100,000 years ago to around 60,000 years ago (SN: 6/8/16). H. Erectus arrived on Java about 1.6 million years ago and died out between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago (SN: 12/18/19).
Geographic ancestry patterns on Southeastern Asian islands and in Australia suggest that this region was settled by a genetically distinct Denisovan population from southern parts of mainland East Asia, Teixeira and his colleagues reported in the May Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Is This a Huge Million-Year-Old, Man-Made Underground Complex?
A new discovery can change everything we know about the age of human civilization, advanced civilizations were present a million years ago and created the largest of all buildings ever seen.
Herbert Midras, in Adullam Grove Nature Reserve in Israel, is part of what geologist Dr. Alexander Koltypin hypothesizes to be a massive complex of prehistoric underground structures stretching across the Mediterranean.
While most researchers and scholars around the world agree that human civilization emerged some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, there are numerous discoveries that point to a very different past. However, many of these incredible findings have been considered impossible due to the fact that they alter our written history.
In recent years, many researchers have begun to look at the history of civilization on Earth with an open mind. One of these researchers is undoubtedly Dr. Alexander Koltypin, a geologist and director of the Natural Science Research Center at Moscow’s International Independent University of Ecology and Politology.
During his long career, Dr. Koltypin studied numerous ancient underground structures, mainly in the Mediterranean, and identified numerous similarities between them, which led him to believe that they were connected in some way.
But the most amazing thing about this place is that the extreme geological characteristics made him believe that these mega-structures were built by advanced civilizations that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago.
The Caves of Maresha And Bet-Guvrin
Archaeologists working in the region usually date the sites by looking at the settlements located on them or nearby. But these settlements were simply built upon existing prehistoric structures, Koltypin said.
Writing on his website Koltypin says:
“When we examined the buildings … none of us even for a moment had any doubt that these structures are much older than the ruins of the Canaanite, Philistine, Hebrew, Roman, Byzantine and Roman cities and colonies. other cities and settlements that are on approximate dates.”
During his trip to the Mediterranean, Koltypin was able to accurately record the characteristics present in different ancient sites, something that allowed him to compare their similarities and details that tell an incredible alternative story; one that has been firmly rejected by traditional scholars.
While travelling near the Hurvat Burgin ruins in the Adullam Grove Nature Reserve in central Israel, Koltypin remembered a similar feeling when he climbed to the top of the rocky city of Cavusin in Turkey. Almost a Deja vu feeling, Koltypin said:
“I was personally convinced once again that all of these rectangular cutouts, artificial underground structures and megalithic debris scattered everywhere were – or were part of – an underground megalithic complex that collapsed due to erosion,” he said.
Erosion And Mountain Formation:
In his work, Dr. Koltypin argues that not all parts of the giant complex are located underground. Some are high above the ground as the ancient stone city of Cappadocia in Turkey, which Koltypin includes in the complex.
Koltypin estimates that the deposits in northern Israel and central Turkey appeared after erosion of about a few hundred meters.
Cavusin village in the Cappadocia region of Turkey
“According to my estimates, such a depth of erosion could hardly be formed in less than 500,000 to 1 million years,” Koltypin wrote on his website.
He hypothesizes that part of the complex was brought to the surface as a result of alpine orogeny (mountain-formation).
According to his estimates, there is evidence to support that the construction material found in Antalya, Turkey, which Koltypin calls the “Jernokleev site,” is up to a million years old, although traditional scholars refuse to accept age, proposing that the place dates back to the Middle Ages.
An ancient stone structure in Antalya, Turkey.
Koltypin adds that, as a result of the earth’s crust moving over the centuries, parts of the underground complex were plunged into the sea. He suggests that the similarity seen in countless megalithic ruins is evidence of a deep connection present in ancient sites that were connected like a giant prehistoric complex.
According to Koltypin, numerous megalithic blocks weighing tens of tons could have been directly linked to underground complexes in the distant past.
“This circumstance gave me a reason to call underground structures and geographically related ruins from cyclopean walls and buildings, as a single underground-terrestrial megalithic complex,” writes Koltypin on his website.
Referring to the technological capabilities of the ancients, Koltypin says the stones fit perfectly in some parts without cement, and the ceilings, columns, arches, doors and other elements seem to be beyond the work of men with chisels.
Adding to the mystery of these incredible sites, Koltypin notes that the structures built in other places like the Romans or other civilizations are completely primitive compared to this one.
Amazing 1,600-year-old biblical mosaics reveal a new perspective on Galilean life
In its eighth dig season, the vibrant mosaic flooring of a fifth-century synagogue excavated in the small ancient Galilee village of Huqoq continues to surprise. The 2018 Huqoq dig has uncovered unprecedented depictions of biblical stories, including the Israelite spies in Canaan. With its rich finds, the Byzantine-period synagogue busts scholars’ preconceived notions of a Jewish settlement in decline.
“What we found this year is extremely exciting,” the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Prof. Jodi Magness told The Times of Israel, saying the biblically-based depictions are “unparalleled” and not found in any other ancient synagogue.
“The synagogue just keeps producing mosaics that there’s just nothing like and is enriching our understanding of the Judaism of the period,” said Magness. A recently unearthed mosaic shows two men carrying between them a pole on their shoulders from which is hung a massive cluster of grapes (the same as the easily recognizable symbol of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism). With a clear Hebrew inscription stating, “a pole between two,” it illustrates Numbers 13:23, in which Moses sends two scouts to explore Canaan.
A mosaic found in the 2018 Huqoq excavation is labelled ‘a pole between two,’ depicting a biblical scene from Numbers 13:23. The images show two spies sent by Moses to explore Canaan carrying a pole with a cluster of grapes.
Before wrapping up the dig season last week, the team of 20 excavators uncovered a further biblical mosaic panel, which shows a youth leading an animal on a rope and includes the inscription, “a small child shall lead them.” It is a reference to Isaiah 11:6, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”
According to a 2013 Biblical Archaeology Review article by Magness, “Huqoq was a prosperous village about 3 miles west of Magdala (home of Mary Magdalene) and Capernaum (where Jesus taught in the synagogue),” located next to a fresh spring. It appears twice in the Hebrew Bible, in Joshua 19:32–34 and 1 Chronicles 6:74–75. “Our excavations have not reached these early occupation levels, however,” she writes.
These two newly published mosaics join a pantheon of others — from 2012 and 2013, two Samson depictions, to fantastical elephants and mythical creatures from 2013-2015, Noah’s Ark in 2016, and colourful and as yet unpublished Jonah and the whale in 2017. During this year’s dig, the team also continued to expose and study rare 1,600-year-old columns, first uncovered in previous seasons, which are covered in painted plaster with red, orange, and yellow vegetal motifs. Other discovered columns, said Magness, were painted to imitate marble.
However, despite these “imitation marble” columns, this was no poor man’s synagogue. Much in the manner of King Herod decorating his palaces with painted faux-marble frescos, the columns and gorgeous mosaics point to a wealthy, flourishing fifth-century Jewish settlement, said, Magness.
“In general, unless you’re in a really important church in the Byzantine period, you won’t find marble, rather this common local alternative,” she said. She laughed, saying there is a feeling of “one-ups-manship” in the construction of the Huqoq synagogue.
A fish swallows an Egyptian soldier in a mosaic scene depicting the splitting of the Red Sea from the Exodus story, from the fifth-century synagogue at Huqoq, in northern Israel.
“Every village has its own synagogue,” Magness said. “In Huqoq there’s a feeling that the villagers said, ‘We’re going to build the biggest and best.’ It’s as if they decided to throw everything into it.”
The obvious wealth and disposable income displayed in the synagogue is “contradicting a widespread view — not my view — that the Jewish community was in decline,” she said.
However, not only the synagogue was rich and diverse, but also the Judaism it housed.
“The mosaics decorating the floor of the Huqoq synagogue revolutionizes our understanding of Judaism in this period,” said Magness in a press release. “Ancient Jewish art is often thought to be aniconic, or lacking images. But these mosaics, colourful and filled with figured scenes, attest to a rich visual culture as well as to the dynamism and diversity of Judaism in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods.”
The Huqoq synagogue’s fifth-century mosaic, with the upper register showing a war elephant.
According to Magness, “Rabbinic sources indicate that Huqoq flourished during the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (fourth–sixth centuries CE). The village is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud in connection with the cultivation of the mustard plant.”
Aside from the outstanding mosaics and colourfully painted columns, there are other features of note in this synagogue: Discovered in 2012, an inscription flanked by the faces of two women and a man (a fourth face, presumably of a man, is not preserved) might be the first donor portraits found in a Jewish house of prayer. The practice, said Magness, was “not uncommon in Byzantine churches,” but has no parallel example found in a synagogue of the era. Although there are aspects of the synagogue that may point to a Christian influence, for example, the possible donor portraits, Magness does not believe the Huqoq community was more impacted than other neighbouring congregations.
Detail from the Huqoq synagogue’s 5th-century mosaic showing Samson carrying the gate of Gaza, from Judges 16.
“In general there was some interaction between Jews and Christians, as well as Judaism and Christianity, in the sense that both religions laid claim to the same tradition and called themselves the ‘true Israel,’” said Magness. It is not coincidental that the same biblical themes appear in both forums.
“They are clearly some sort of dialogue, broadly speaking… A lot of what we see at Huqoq can be understood on the background of the rise of Christianity,” she said.
“There is evidence of occupation at the site during the Persian, Hellenistic, Early Roman, Abbasid, Fatimid and Crusader-Mamluke periods. The modern village was abandoned in 1948 during the fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. In the 1960s, the site was bulldozed,” writes Magness in BAR. It appears that the Huqoq synagogue is the ancestor of what seems to be a later, 12-13th century Jewish house of prayer. Faint, broken remnants of that incarnation’s mosaic flooring have also been discovered a meter above the dynamic mosaics of the Byzantine era.
2018 Huqoq excavation with students from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, surrounding dig director Dr Jodi Magness.
It is possible, said Magness, that this is a synagogue mentioned by French 14th century Jewish physician-turned-traveller Isaac HaKohen Ben Moses, aka Ishtori Haparchi, mentioned in his 1322 geography of the Holy Land, “Sefer Kaftor Vaferach.”
Regardless, there are no extant medieval synagogues in Israel today, making this find potentially no less important than the more attention-grabbing images in the fifth-century mosaic floors, said Magness.
Pair of donkeys in Noah’s Ark scene at the Huqoq excavation.
Both of these finds — the medieval synagogue and beautiful Byzantine mosaics — are all the more remarkable in that they are a by-product of a different scholarly quest: Magness decided to excavate at Huqoq to test a wide-spread Galilean synagogue dating system, which dated the buildings based on their architectural structures.
“Since the early 20th century, when these synagogues began coming to light, scholars developed a tripartite chronology: The earliest, these so-called ‘Galilean-type synagogues,’ were dated to the second and third centuries CE, followed by ‘transitional synagogues’ in the fourth century, and then by ‘Byzantine synagogues’ in the fifth and sixth centuries,” writes Magness in the BAR article. Although housed in a fifth-century village, based on its architectural features, according to previous scholarly consensus, the Huqoq synagogue should have been classified a “Galilean-type synagogue” and dated to the second or third centuries. This is, Magness has proven, clearly not the case.
Pictured is the Huqoq synagogue mosaic depicting the month of Teveth (December-January) with the sign of Capricorn.
What was originally to have been a brief excavation has turned into eight seasons. And although Magness is assisted by Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University, the excavation is funded independently of the IAA, by sponsors including UNC-Chapel Hill, Baylor University, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto, the Friends of Heritage Preservation, the National Geographic Society, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. There will be a 2019 dig season, said Magness, who estimated she needs at least another four years to complete the ever-evolving project.
“Every year, there is another mind-blowing, weird discovery,” said Magness.
28,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave lion cub found frozen in Siberia, whiskers still intact
A nearly 28,000-year-old cave lion cub discovered frozen in the Siberian permafrost, is so well preserved, you can still make out each and every one of her whiskers.
A closeup of the head of the female Siberian cave lion cub mummy now known as Sparta.
Researchers in Sweden claim the cub, nicknamed Sparta, is probably the best-preserved Ice Age animal ever uncovered and describe Sparta in Quaternary. Her teeth, skin, and soft tissue have all been mummified by the ice. Even her organs remain intact.
To date, Sparta is the fourth cave lion cub (Panthera spelaea) found buried in the permafrost of Yakutia, which lies in the northeast corner of Russia. She was discovered in 2018 by local resident Boris Berezhnev who was looking for ancient mammoth tusks among the tundra.
As wildlife hunting and trade have become more restricted, ‘tusk hunters’ like Berezhnev have begun to search for ancient ivory in the icy north. With climate change weakening the permafrost and extending the tusk hunting season, we’re finding more ancient remains – and not just from woolly mammoths. In the past few years, residents in Siberia have pulled woolly rhinos, wolves, brown bears, horses, reindeer, and bison out of the permafrost, and some of these carcasses date as far back as 40,000 years.
Clearly, these icy steppes were once home to numerous large mammals. In fact, a year before finding Sparta near the Semyuelyakh River, Berezhnev found another cave lion carcass just 15 meters (49 feet) away. This one, named Boris, showed slightly more damage, possibly from its permafrost cave collapsing, but it was still remarkably intact.
Researchers in Sweden, who have since helped analyze the carcasses, claim both Boris and Sparta are about one to two months old. Yet despite their physical proximity and similar appearances, Boris is thought to be roughly 15,000 years older, give or take a few centuries.
Today, the little we know about cave lions mostly comes from fossils, tracks, and ancient cave art.
Mummified bodies found in permafrost are some of the best evidence we have of their existence. Their frozen carcasses look remarkably similar to modern lions in many ways, just on a much larger scale and with a much warmer coat. But one of the most iconic features of African lions, their mane, seems to be missing on cave lions.
Figure 6 from the Quaternary study: The appearance of the frozen cave lion cub mummies: (a) female Sparta; (b) male Boris. Photos of lion cubs’ heads from the side: (c) Sparta; (d) Boris; (e) Sparta mummy as seen from above; (f) dark brown ‘brush’ of Sparta’s tail.
In fact, early human artwork from the time suggests cave lions rarely sported manes, or if they did, they were extremely discrete. Some Ice Age paintings, for instance, show dark patterns of colouring on the cave lion’s face, but it’s unclear what that represents.
Boris and Sparta are both juvenile cave lions, which means it’s hard to say how their coats would have developed as they aged. Apart from some dark colouring on the backs of their ears, researchers say they are mostly covered in yellowish-brown fur.
If the cubs had a chance to grow up, experts think their fur would probably have turned more of a light grey to help them camouflage in the cold Siberian Arctic.
The presence of a mane is important because it could tell us about the social structures of cave lions. For example, whether they live by themselves or in groups with clear hierarchies.
At the moment, scientists are still debating whether cave lions during the Ice Age roamed the steppes of Siberia on their own or in pride like modern African lions.
There’s one particular painting in France’s Chauvet cave from the Ice Age that depicts nearly a dozen cave lions, both male and female, in the act of hunting bison.
“Hunting in groups can be more effective than solitary hunting when the prey is large, and cave lions would have had many such prey species available in their ecosystem, for example, mammoths and rhinoceros, when there were no other options available to them,” the authors of the recent analysis write.
“In addition, large pride would have helped to protect their kill from the competition and also to protect the cubs and young from predators.”
For now, this is all just guesswork. Even though we have found some astonishingly intact cave lions in recent years, we still don’t have enough information about these extinct predators to reach any conclusions about their social structures.
Perhaps one day, that could change. Maybe we will unearth another cave lion with some hint about their long-lost lives. Or maybe one day, we will successfully bring cave lions back to life.
“There is a very realistic chance to recreate cave lions, and it would be a lot easier than to clone a woolly mammoth,” palaeontologist and one of the study’s authors Albert Protopopov told the Siberian Times.
Some scientists have suggested we do this with woolly mammoths as well, but cave lions are a much younger species. Protopopov suggests that we could supplement their clones with some of the genes from modern African lions, making the work a bit easier. That’s obviously a controversial idea, and the reality of it is probably still a ways off.
For now, the next step is to sequence the entire genome of both Sparta and Boris. Then, we can figure out what to do with the information we collect.
Thousands of human and animal bones hoarded by hyenas in lava tube system, Saudi Arabia
Although hyenas look and hunt like canines, they’re members of the mongoose family and therefore more closely related to a cat. However, just like dogs, hyenas have an affinity for hiding bones — it’s just that they can tend to go a bit overboard.
The Umm Jirsan lava tube in Saudi Arabia.
Case in point, archaeologists were left speechless after they stumbled across a lava tube cavern in northwestern Saudi Arabia that is packed with hundreds of thousands of bones gathered by striped hyenas over the course of 7,000 years.
The ultimate hoarders
The gruesome floor filled with ancient animal bones was found deep in a lava tube system — a network of caverns carved by lava flow. The site, known as Umm Jirsan, was discovered in 2007, but it was only recently that researchers ventured deep into the dark caverns.
Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, led a team of researchers who catalogued nearly 2,000 bones and teeth belonging to at least 14 different species, including cattle, horses, camels, rodents, and even humans.
Hundreds of thousands of other bones that are yet to be analyzed still lie on the cavernous floor.
Radiocarbon dating of the samples suggests the animal remains range from 439 to 6,839 years ago, which can only mean these lava tubes had been used as dens for at least 6,000 years.
Images of Saudi Arabia’s Umm Jirsan “hyena cave”: A: Entrance to the western passage and surrounding area. B: Entrance to the western passage. Note the team members on the right-hand wall for scale. C: The back chamber in which the excavation was carried out. D: Plotted sampling square before surface collection and excavation. Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is a bit smaller than spotted and brown hyenas. They have a broad head with dark eyes, a thick muzzle, and large, pointed ears, with a mane of long hair growing along the back.
Their most striking feature is the legs: the front legs are much longer than the hind legs. This gives hyenas their distinctive walk, making them seem like they’re always limping uphill.
Hyenas are nocturnal or crepuscular predators that stay out of sight during the day, preferably in a natural cave or a burrow dug into the hillside. Sometimes they may take over the dens of other creatures where they transport bones to be eaten, fed to the young, or cached for later use.
It’s a well-established fact that hyena dens aren’t tidy at all, being normal to find leftover bones scattered across the floor. However, the lava tube horde stunned even the researchers who were most familiar with the hyenas.
Hyenas will eat an entire human body — except for the skull cap
Although they didn’t find hyenas at the site, the researchers are certain this was one of their dens judging from the cuts, bites, and digestion marks left on the bones.
The presence of human skull fragments was also telling of hyena presence since the animals are known to scavenge through burial grounds in search of food. They normally will consume everything except for the top of the skull.
“The size and composition of the bone accumulation, as well as the presence of hyena skeletal remains and coprolites, suggest that the assemblage was primarily accumulated by striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena),” the authors wrote in a study published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
Molars and mandibles belonging to wild cows, rabbits, wild goats, camels, and wolves.
It’s highly unlikely that the six skullcaps with gnaw marks on them found at the site belong to humans who were killed by a hyena hunting party.
The mammals are mostly scavengers but when they do hunt they prefer to target hares, birds, and antelopes. However, the possibility that some hunter-gatherers were killed by hyena packs cannot be entirely ruled out.
Today, striped hyenas are a threatened species in Saudia Arabia but thousands of years ago they were common across the Arabian Peninsula.
The current investigation at Umm Jirsan was undertaken as part of the Paleo deserts Project, a large-scale research initiative aimed at tracking environmental and climate change in the Arabian Desert region over the past one million years.
Of particular interest is how human and animal migration in the region waxed and waned with the changing climate. This is a challenging goal since the unforgiving desert climate in the region tends to destroy any exposed organic matter. Luckily, the Umm Jirsan lava tubes create a perfect time capsule that will give scientists material to work with for years to come.
