Rare 6-Million-Year-Old Skull of Juvenile Ape Discovered
A new cranium of a fossil ape from Shuitangba, a Miocene site in Yunnan province, China has been confirmed by a team of scientists. Dr Denise Su, curator of palaeobotany and paleoecology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, co-authored research describing the new skull published online in the Chinese Science Bulletin.
A significant discovery is the new juvenile cranium of the fossil ape Lufengpithecus, since juvenile crania of apes and hominins are extremely rare in fossil records, particularly those of infants and young juveniles.
The latest find cranium is just the second relatively complete cranium of a young juvenile in the entire Miocene (23 to 5 million years ago) record of fossil apes all over the Old World, and both were discovered from the late Miocene of Yunnan Province.
An extremely rare juvenile skull of an extinct ape that lived some 6 million years ago has now been revealed from China.
The new cranium is also noteworthy for its age. Shuitangba, the site from which it was recovered, at just over 6 million years, dates to near the end of the Miocene, a time when apes had become extinct in most of Eurasia.
Shuitangba has also produced remains of the fossil monkey, Mesopithecus, which represents the earliest occurrence of monkeys in East Asia.
The Shuitangba site in China, where an extremely rare juvenile skull of an extinct ape has now been revealed.
The preservation of the new cranium is excellent, which is important because all previously discovered adult crania of the species to which it is assigned, Lufengpithecus lufengensis, were badly crushed and distorted during the fossilization process.
In living ape species, cranial anatomy in individuals at the same stage of development as the new fossil cranium already show a close resemblance to those of adults. Therefore, this fossil gives researchers the best look at the cranial anatomy of the species.
The team notes that the new cranium shows little resemblance to those of living orangutans, and in particular, shows none of what are considered to be key diagnostic features of orangutan crania.
Lufengpithecus, therefore, appears to represent a late surviving lineage of Eurasian apes, but with no certain affinities yet clear.
The survival of this lineage is not entirely surprising since southern China was less affected by the climatic deterioration during the later Miocene that resulted in the extinction of many ape species throughout the rest of Eurasia.
The researchers are hopeful that renewed excavations will produce the remains of adult individuals, which will allow them to better assess both the relationships among members of this lineage as well as the relationships of this lineage to other fossil and living apes.
“In addition to the ape, we have recovered hundreds of specimens of other animals and plants,” said Su.
“We are looking forward to going back to Shuitangba next year to continue fieldwork and, hopefully, find more specimens of not only the ape but other animals and plants that will tell us more about the environment.
Given what we have recovered so far, Shuitangba has great potential to help us learn more about the environment in the latest part of the Miocene in southern China and the evolution of the plants and animals found there.”
5,500-Year-Old Sumerian Star Map Recorded the Impact of a Massive Asteroid
For more than 150 years scientists have tried to solve the mystery of a notorious cuneiform clay tablet that reveals that in the past the impact case of so-called Köfel was detected. The circular stone-cast tablet was discovered in the late 1800s from the 650 BC King Ashurbanipal‘s underground library in Nineveh, Iraq.
Data processing, which was long believed to be an Assyrian tablet, mirrored the sky over Mesopotamia in 3,300 BC and proved to be much more ancient Sumerian origin. The tablet is the first astronomical instrument, the “Astrolabe.” It consists of a segmented, disk-shaped star chart with marked units of angle measure inscribed upon the rim.
Unfortunately, considerable parts of the planisphere on this tablet are missing (approximately 40%), damage which dates to the sacking of Nineveh. The reverse of the tablet is not inscribed.
Still, under study by modern scholars, the cuneiform tablet in the British Museum collection No K8538 (known as “the Planisphere”) provides extraordinary proof for the existence of sophisticated Sumerian astronomy. In 2008 two authors, Alan Bond and Mark Hempsell published a book about the tablet called “A Sumerian Observation of the Kofels’ Impact Event”.
Raising a storm in archaeological circles, they re-translated the cuneiform text and assert the tablet records an ancient asteroid strike, the Köfels’ Impact, which struck Austria sometime around 3,100 BC. The giant landslide centered at Köfels in Austria is 500m thick and five kilometers in diameter and has long been a mystery since geologists first looked at it in the 19th century.
The conclusion drawn by research in the middle 20th century was that it must be due to a very large meteor impact because of the evidence of crushing pressures and explosions. But this view lost favor as a much better understanding of impact sites developed in the late 20th century.
In the case of Köfels there is no crater, so to modern eyes it does not look as an impact site should look. However, the evidence that puzzled the earlier researchers remains unexplained by the view that it is just another landslide.
So what is the connection between the sophisticated Sumerian star chart discovered in the underground library in Nineveh and mysterious impact that took place in Austria?
Examination of the clay tablet reveals that it is an astronomical work as it has drawings of constellations on it and the text has known constellation names. It has attracted a lot of attention but in over a hundred years nobody has come up with a convincing explanation as to what it is.
With modern computer programs that can simulate trajectories and reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago, the researchers have established what the Planisphere tablet refers to. It is a copy of the night notebook of a Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the sky before dawn on the 29 June 3,123 BC (Julian calendar).
Half the tablet records planet positions and cloud cover, the same as any other night, but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough for its shape to be noted even though it is still in space.
The astronomers made an accurate note of its trajectory relative to the stars, which to an error better than one degree is consistent with an impact at Köfels.
The observation suggests the asteroid is over a kilometer in diameter and the original orbit about the Sun was an Aten type, a class of asteroid that orbit close to the earth, that is resonant with the Earth’s orbit.
This trajectory explains why there is no crater at Köfels. The in coming angle was very low (six degrees) and means the asteroid clipped a mountain called Gamskogel above the town of Längenfeld, 11 kilometers from Köfels, and this caused the asteroid to explode before it reached its final impact point. As it traveled down the valley it became a fireball, around five kilometers in diameter (the size of the landslide).
Around 700 BC an Assyrian scribe in the Royal Place at Nineveh made a copy of one of the most important documents in the royal collection. Two and a half thousand years later it was found by Henry Layard in the remains of the palace library. It ended up in the British Museum’s cuneiform clay tablet collection as catalogue No. K8538 (also called “the Planisphere”), where it has puzzled scholars for over a hundred and fifty years.
In this monograph, Bond and Hempsell provide the first comprehensive translation of the tablet, showing it to be a contemporary Sumerian observation of an Aten asteroid over a kilometer in diameter that impacted Köfels in Austria in the early morning of 29th June 3123 BC.
When it hit Köfels it created enormous pressures that pulverized the rock and caused the landslide but because it was no longer a solid object it did not create a classic impact crater.
Mark Hempsell, discussing the Köfels event, said: “Another conclusion can be made from the trajectory. The back plume from the explosion (the mushroom cloud) would be bent over the Mediterranean Sea re-entering the atmosphere over the Levant, Sinai, and Northern Egypt.
“The ground heating though very short would be enough to ignite any flammable material – including human hair and clothes. It is probable more people died under the plume than in the Alps due to the impact blast.”
In other words, the remarkable ancient star map shows that the Sumerians made an observation of an Aten asteroid over a kilometer in diameter that impacted Köfels in Austria in the early morning of 29th June 3123 BC.
The Yakhchāl: 2,400-Year-old Persian “refrigerator” that stored food in the desert
Looking up inside a Yakhchal
The refrigerator is one of the most indispensable appliances of modern life. it’s almost unthinkable that a person can live with one or least have other means to keep their food refrigerated. so, imagine what if life was like during ancient times when electricity was still unheard of.
Ancients were wiser than some today belief. They had no rockets or electronics, no indisputable proof of such inventions was discovered, but they developed the technology that we don’t usually associate with the ancient world.
The yakhchal (meaning ice pit) was a type of ancient refrigerator built in the deserts of Persia (now Iran), which was made without electricity, modern coolants, or most elements of modern refrigerators. It demonstrates the ability of humans to find solutions to problems with any materials or technology they have available.
This approach to making refrigerators was mastered by Persian engineers around 400 B.C., though it is possible that people were making them before that.
Yakhchals are fairly simple to make so that even those who were relatively poor could afford them. Most yakhchals were domed structures with an underground square-shaped containment area.
Yakhchal in Yazd, Iran
After the containment area was dug and the dome was erected, a type of mortar made from clay, sand, ash, goat hair, and lime called sarooj was used to make it waterproof.
The collection area for the water needed to be deep enough to keep cool and the material out of which the yakhchal was made needed to be enough of an insulator to keep out heat.
Water was brought to the yakhchal either by directly transporting ice from nearby mountains or diverting water from an aqueduct into the yakhchal using underground water channels called qanats.
Adjacent to some yakhchals, an east-west oriented wall would be built on the south side of the refrigerator and water would be brought into the yakhchal from the north side of the wall. The reason for this was to keep the water cool during the middle of the day as it entered the yakhchal.
Another device used to keep the yakhchal cool is a badgir, a type of wind-catching mechanism which would catch the breeze and divert it down into the yakhchal.
As the air descended, it would be cooled by the ice as well as the cool air accompanying the water in the qanat. Alternatively, the badgir could be used to cause warm air to rise and cool air to replace it. This mechanism is still used in many desert towns in modern Iran.
A diagram showing how the yakhchal kept the inside refrigerated
Once in the yakhchal, the water would freeze overnight. This process could be expedited through having ice, transported from the mountains, already present in the yakhchal to act as a seed.
Once the water was frozen, it would be cut up into blocks so that the water could be easily transported out of the yakhchal for drinking and other purposes. In addition to storing drinking water, the yakhchal was also used to keep food such as fruit, dairy products, and probably meat cool so that it would last longer.
Many Yakhchals in Iran, Afghanistan, and other parts of west and central Asia are still standing even after thousands of years. They represent the remnants of ancient Persia and are a part of the cultural heritage of Iran.
A yakhchal in the Dasht-e-Kavir desert, Iran
In addition to being historically interesting, yakhchals have also been suggested as an inexpensive and sustainable way for modern Iranians and other central Asian communities to have refrigeration without requiring the use of electricity.
Theoretically, the process used to make yakhchals could also be replicated and used in other regions with climates similar to desert areas in Iran and Central Asia such as the American Southwest or parts of northwestern China. In this way, the revival of ancient technology could help modern people around the world live more sustainably and still have modern conveniences, specifically refrigeration.
Modern westerners tend to assume that conveniences like refrigeration require advanced technologies such as electricity and the ability to produce powerful coolant chemicals, but it turns out that refrigeration can be produced using surprisingly simple methods.
Ancient mammoth ivory carving technology reconstructed by archaeologists
A team of archaeologists from Siberian Federal University and Novosibirsk State University provided a detailed reconstruction of a technology that was used to carve ornaments and sculptures from mammoth ivory.
The team studied a string of beads and an ancient animal figurine found at the Paleolithic site of Ust-Kova in Krasnoyarsk Territory. Over 20 thousand years ago its residents used drills, cutters, and even levelling blades.
The unusual features of some of the items showcased the mastery of the craftsmen. The new data obtained by the scientists will help study the relations between the residents of different Siberian sites.
The article about the study was published in the highly respected journal Archaeological Research in Asia.
The Ust-Kova site is located in Kezhemsky District of Krasnoyarsk Territory at the mouth of the Kova river.
Archaeologists from Krasnoyarsk have been working there since the middle of the 20th century, but the major part of the excavation work took place between 1980 and 2000.
Based on the results of radiocarbon dating, the site is considered to be over 20 thousand years old. Of all findings from Ust-Kova, scientists consider animal figurines the most interesting. They also found various ornaments and tools made from mammoth ivory. However, until recently the technology of their manufacture has been unknown.
“We studied several mammoth ivory items found at Ust-Kova: a mammoth figurine, a seal sculpture, and bracelets and beads of different sizes that were created around 24 thousand years ago.
Our group was supervised by Prof. L.V. Lbova, a PhD in History, from the Department of Archeology and Ethnography of Novosibirsk State University.
We conducted a detailed microscopic analysis of each object to identify the tools used in their manufacture by the markings they left,” said Prof. Nikolay Drozdov, a PhD in History, representing Siberian Federal University.
After processing the microscopic images of the mammoth figurine with DStretch, the team was able to reconstruct the ancient technology in every detail. The image showed markings that were left by different tools.
According to the scientists, at first, a craftsman had to break a mammoth tusk down into segments. After that smaller plates were turned into beads: the master cut them into rectangles and made a hole in the centre of each piece using a stone drill. Bigger parts were used to create animal sculptures.
To depict a mammoth, the craftsman outlined a head and legs with a levelling blade and then removed the excess of the bone with a cutter. After the figurine was finished, it was decorated with a pattern to imitate eyes and hair.
The team also analyzed the chemical composition of the findings. The scientists were especially interested in the traces of dark-red pigment on the surface of the sculpture. It turned out that ancient craftsmen used to paint many of their items with manganese and magnesium (presumably, they were extracted from salt rocks situated not far from the site).
The mammoth figurine was painted with red pigment on one side and with a black one on the other. In the mythology of the Ust-Kuva people, red was a symbol of life and black meant death.
The researchers also found several layers of pigment on the beads. They assumed that the ornaments had been in use for many years and had to be regularly repaired.
The study can help better understand the relationships between different tribes and territories. Now scientists will be able to compare tools from different sites by various parameters. This will show whether distant tribes were in contact with each other and also help identify individual styles of ancient master carvers.
India: Archaeologists found 9,000 years old city beneath the surface of modern-day Dwarka.
The discovery of the legendary city of Dvaraka which is said to have been founded by Sri Krishna is an important landmark in the validation of historical relevance of Mahabharata. It has set at rest the doubts expressed by historians about the historicity of Mahabharata and the very existence of Dvaraka city.
It has greatly narrowed the gap of Indian history by establishing the continuity of the Indian civilization from the Vedic age to the present day. The discovery has also shed welcome light on second urbanization in the so-called ‘Dark age’, on the resuscitation of dharma, on the resumption of maritime trade, and use of Sanskrit language and modified Indus script.
Incidentally, scientific data useful for a study of sea-level changes and effects of the marine environment on metals and wood over long periods has also been generated by underwater exploration. All this was possible because of the dedicated and daring efforts of marine archaeologists, scientists and technicians of the Marine Archaeology Centre of the National Institute of Oceanography
Dwarka Exploration
Dwaraka is a coastal town in Jamnagar district of Gujarat. Traditionally, modern Dwaraka is identified with Dvaraka, mentioned in the Mahabharata as Krishna’s city. Dwaraka was a port, and some scholars have identified it with the island of Barka mentioned in the Periplus of Erythrean Sea.
Ancient Dwaraka sank in the sea and hence is an important archaeological site. The first clear historical record of the lost city is dated 574 A.D. and occurs in the Palitana Plates of Samanta Simhaditya. This inscription refers to Dwaraka as the capital of the western coast of Saurashtra and still more important, states that Sri Krishna lived here.
The first archaeological excavations at Dwaraka were done by the Deccan College, Pune and the Department of Archaeology, Government of Gujarat, in 1963 under the direction of H.D. Sankalia. It revealed artefacts many centuries old.
The Marine Archaeological Unit (MAU) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) conducted a second round of excavations in 1979 under the supervision of Dr S. R. Rao (one of the most respected archaeologists of India). An emeritus scientist at the marine archaeology unit of the National Institute of Oceanography, Rao has excavated a large number of Harappan sites including the port city of Lothal in Gujarat. He found distinct pottery known as lustrous red ware, which could be more than 3,000 years old. Based on the results of these excavations, the search for the sunken city in the Arabian Sea began in 1981. Scientists and archaeologists have continually worked on the site for 20 years.
The project for underwater exploration was sanctioned in 1984, directly by the then Prime Minister for three years. Excavation under the sea is a hard and strenuous task. The sea offers too much resistance. Excavation is possible only between November and February, during low tide. The sea has to be smooth and there should be bright sunshine. All these requirements effectively reduce the number of diving days to 40 to 45 in one season. In order to make the maximum use of the time available, divers use echo sounder to get a fairly accurate idea of the location and the depth of the object underwater.
The side-scan sonar offers a view of the seafloor. The sonar signals sent inside the water return the signals. Reading of the signals reveals the broad nature of the object underwater. Underwater scooters, besides the usual diving equipment like scuba, were also pressed into service. Between 1983 and 1990, S.R.Rao’s team came across discoveries that cemented the existence of a submerged city.
In January 2007, the Underwater Archaeology Wing (UAW) of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) began excavations at Dwaraka again. Alok Tripathi, Superintending Archaeologist, UAW, said the ancient underwater structures found in the Arabian Sea were yet to be identified. “We have to find out what they are. They are fragments. I would not like to call them a wall or a temple. They are part of some structure,” said Dr Tripathi, himself a trained diver. Dr Tripathi had said: “To study the antiquity of the site in a holistic manner, excavations are being conducted simultaneously both on land [close to the Dwarakadhish temple] and undersea so that finds from both the places can be co-related and analysed scientifically.”
The objective of the excavation was to know the antiquity of the site, based on material evidence. In the offshore excavation, the ASI’s trained underwater archaeologists and the divers of the Navy searched the sunken structural remains. The finds were studied, dated and documented. On land, the excavation was done in the forecourt of the Dwarakadhish temple. Students from Gwalior, Lucknow, Pune, Vadodara, Varanasi and Bikaner joined in to help the ASI archaeologists.
Explorations yielded structures such as bastions, walls, pillars and triangular and rectangular stone anchors.
In 2001, the students of National Institute of Oceanography were commissioned by the Indian Government to do a survey on pollution in Gulf of Khambat, seven miles from the shore. During the survey, they found buildings made of stones covered in mud and sand covering five square miles. Divers have collected blocks, samples, artefacts, and coppers coins, which scientists believe is the evidence from an age that is about 3,600 years old. Some of the samples were sent to Manipur and oxford university for carbon dating, and the results created more suspicion since some of the objects were found to be 9,000 years old.
It is indeed overwhelming to find that what had been discovered underwater at the bay of Combat is an archaeological site, dating back to 7,500 BC and older than any previously claimed oldest sites of civilization.
Findings at the Dwarka excavation site
Marine archaeological explorations off Dwarka have brought to light a large number of stone structures. They are semicircular, rectangular and square in shape and are in water depth ranging from the intertidal zone to 6 m. They are randomly scattered over a vast area. Besides these structures, a large number of varieties of stone anchors have been noticed along with the structures as well as beyond 6 m water depth.
These findings suggest that Dwarka was one of the busiest port centres during the past on the west coast of India. The comparative study of surrounding sites indicates that the date of the structures of Dwarka may be between the Historical period and late medieval period. The ruins have been proclaimed the remains of the legendary lost city of Dwarka which, according to ancient Hindu texts, was the dwelling place of Krishna.
The underwater excavations revealed structures and ridge-like features. Other antiquities were also found. All the objects were photographed and documented with drawings – both underwater. While underwater cameras are used for photography, drawings are done on boards – a transparent polyester film of 75 microns fixed with a graph sheet below. The graph sheet acts as a scale.
One or two divers take the dimensions and the third draws the pictures. The Public Works Department routinely conducts dredging in these waters to keep the Gomati channel open. This throws up a lot of sediments, which settle on underwater structures. Brushes are used to clear these sediments to expose the structures.
Until recently the very existence of the city of Dwarka was a matter of legends. Now, that the remains have been discovered underwater, and with many clues seeming to suggest that this, indeed, is the legendary Dwarka, the dwelling place of Lord Krishna.
Rare trove of 1,100-year-old gold coins discovered in Israel
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday that a rare hoard of 425 gold coins from the Abbasid Caliphate, dating back around 1,100 years ago, was discovered by teenage volunteers at an archaeological excavation in the centre of the country.
The IAA may not have defined the exact location of the place where gold was discovered for obvious reasons.
A group of young people carrying out volunteer work ahead of their mandatory army service found the trove.
Workers excavate a site where a hoard of gold coins dating to the Abbasid Caliphate was unearthed, at an archaeological site near Tel Aviv in central Israel
“It was amazing. I dug in the ground and when I excavated the soil, saw what looked like very thin leaves,” said teen Oz Cohen. “When I looked again I saw these were gold coins. It was really exciting to find such a special and ancient treasure.”
Old coins found at central Israel archaeological dig
Excavation directors Liat Nadav-Ziv and Dr Elie Haddad said that it was assumed that whoever buried the coins would have expected they would be able to retrieve the hoard and that the find could point to international trade carried out by the area’s residents.
“Finding gold coins, certainly in such a considerable quantity, is extremely rare.
We almost never find them in archaeological excavations, given that gold has always been extremely valuable, melted down and reused from generation to generation,” the directors said in a statement.
“The coins, made of pure gold that does not oxidize in air, were found in excellent condition as if buried the day before. Their finding may indicate that international trade took place between the area’s residents and remote areas,” the statement read.
Gold coins found at central Israel archaeological dig
Dr Robert Kool, a coin expert at the IAA, said that the total weight of the hoard — around 845 grams of pure gold — would have been a significant amount of money at the end of the 9th century.
“For example, with such a sum, a person could buy a luxurious house in one of the best neighbourhoods in Fustat, the enormous wealthy capital of Egypt in those days,” Kool said, noting that at the time, the region was part of the Abbasid Caliphate, which stretched from Persia to North Africa, with a central seat of government in Baghdad.
“The hoard consists of full gold dinars, but also — what is unusual — contains about 270 small gold cuttings, pieces of gold dinars cut to serve as small change,” Kool said.
He added that one of those cuttings was exceptionally rare and never before found in excavations in Israel — a fragment of a gold solidus of the Byzantine emperor Theophilos (829 – 842 CE), minted in the empire’s capital of Constantinople.
According to the IAA, the existence of the fragment in a trove of Islamic coins serves as evidence of the connections between the two rival empires.
“This rare treasure will certainly be a major contribution to research, as finds from the Abbasid period in Israel are relatively few. Hopefully, the study of the hoard will tell us more about a period of which we still know very little,” Kool said.
A 14,000-year-old puppy, whose perfectly preserved body was found in Russia, munched on a woolly rhino for its last meal
Russian scientists in 2011 found a perfectly preserved Frozen Aged puppy in Siberia. Recently, while examining the 14,000-year-old wolf-dog’s stomach contents, researchers were stunned to find evidence of what could be one of the last woolly rhinos on Earth still in its prehistoric bowels.
The gritted teeth of a 14,000-year-old dog discovered in Tumut, Siberia in 2011.
“It’s completely unheard of,” professor of evolutionary genetics Love Dalen said. “I’m not aware of any frozen Ice Age carnivore where they have found pieces of tissue inside.”
Scientists originally found the furry canine at a dig site in Tumat, Siberia, and shortly afterward found a piece of yellow-haired tissue inside its stomach.
Experts initially believed that the tissue belonged to a cave lion, but after sharing the evidence with a resourceful team in Sweden, learned otherwise.
“We have a reference database and mitochondrial DNA from all mammals, so we checked the sequence data against that and the results that came back — it was an almost perfect match for woolly rhinoceros,” Dalen explained.
The 14,000-year-old wolf-dog is just one of a few perfectly preserved canine specimens found in the Siberian permafrost over the last decade.
Dalen works at the Centre for Paleogenetics, which is a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, so his team had access to both highly-detailed DNA databases and radiocarbon dating.
After Dalen and his colleagues were able to assess with the overwhelming likelihood that this half-digested tissue belonged to a woolly rhinoceros, they then radiocarbon dated it at around 14,400 years old.
“This puppy, we know already, has been dated to roughly 14,000 years ago,” said Dalen. “We also know that the woolly rhinoceros goes extinct 14,000 years ago. So, potentially, this puppy has eaten one of the last remaining woolly rhinos.”
The tissue of the woolly rhino.
Modern research has shown that the woolly mammoth’s extinction was partly due to severe climate change. As for how this lucky puppy got its paws on such a specimen, which is the same size as a modern-day white rhino that weighs nearly 8,000 pounds and stands six feet tall, remains largely unclear.
Indeed, Edana Lord, a Ph.D. student who co-authored a research paper studying the woolly rhino’s road to extinction, asserted that due to the rhino’s size it is impossible that the puppy killed the animal itself.
Additionally, experts were surprised to see that the rhino was left mostly undigested in the puppy’s stomach, leading Dalen to conclude that “this puppy must have died very shortly after eating the rhino.”
“We don’t know if it was a wolf, but if it was a wolf cub, maybe it came across a baby rhino that was dead,” Dalen hypothesized. “Or the (adult) wolf ate the baby rhino. Maybe as they were eating it, the mother rhino had her revenge.”
A reconstruction of a woolly rhino using the remains of one found in the Siberian permafrost.
This wolf-pup is just one of a few amazing prehistoric canines specimens to be found in the last decade. In 2016, a miner in the Yukon region of Canada found a mummified 50,000-year-old wolf pup alongside a prehistoric caribou.
Then, in 2019, researchers found an 18,000-year-old wolf-dog hybrid perfectly preserved in the Siberian permafrost. They have since named that specimen “Dogor.”
Ultimately, researchers hope that this latest find can shed some more light on the last days of the woolly rhino — which are still being debated millennia later.
1,300-year-old colorful mosaics Discovered by Archaeologists in Israel
The remains of a 1,300-year-old church in the Circassian village of Kfar Kama in Israel were discovered by archeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Kinneret Academic University.
“The church measures 12 by 36 m (39.4 by 118 feet) and includes a large courtyard, a narthex foyer, and a central hall,” said Dr. Nurit Feig, an archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Actually, the excavators suspect the villagers carried out their devotions at a smaller local church with two chapels in the village dating to about the same time, which had been discovered half a century ago. The newly discovered, rather bigger edifice may have been a monastery, the archaeologists think, based on adjacent rooms that remain underground after being discovered by Shani Libbi using ground-penetrating radar.
Kafr Kama’s proximity to the iconic site of Mount Tabor – where some believe Jesus underwent the Transfiguration and began to radiate light – piqued the interest of Archbishop Youssef Matta, the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Israel. He was invited by the Israel Antiquities Authority and came to see the site in person.
“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart; And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” – Matthew 17:1.
The main body of the newly discovered church is 12 by 36 meters (39 by 118 feet), which is medium-sized for the region, says Prof. Moti Aviam of the Kinneret Academic College, who is researching the Byzantine period in the Galilee and is collaborating with the Israel Antiquities Authority on this dig.
The discovery of the church was not expected, said Nurit Feig, the archaeologist leading the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “This was a small salvage excavation that we expanded,” she told Haaretz. Usually, a salvage excavation of this sort is defined in scope, but then she began to see the border of the nave wall and an apse – and realized they were on top of an ancient church. Now they know the area includes a courtyard, a narthex foyer, a central hall, and three apses. Churches in the Galilee normally have one or three apses, Feig and Aviam explained.
Wondrously, the archaeologists also found a reliquary: a stone box used to hold “sacred relics.” Sad to relate, it was empty. “The other ancient church found in Kafr Kama also had a reliquary, a closed one, that had bones inside,” Aviam said.
“In light of our many studies in Israel in general and the Galilee in particular, we know there were a lot of village rural monasteries. The monks weren’t hermits like in the desert monasteries. They lived alongside the villages, sometimes inside the villages, with villagers working at the monastery,” Aviam said. He added that they have no proof this new discovery is actually a monastery – no inscriptions have been found, for instance. But that’s his gut feeling.
Nor is there evidence for how the monks made their living if monks there were. It has been found that at other Galilean monasteries, the monks engaged mostly in agriculture, producing olive oil and wine, Aviam said.
Church or monastery, it had mosaics on the floor of the nave and apses, which is very much the norm for the Galilean churches. But they were badly damaged, Aviam said. All we can see are geometrical motifs and some flowers in blue, black, and red, but there may have been other images that are now gone.
Mosaic floor of the Byzantine-period church at Kfar Kama, Israel.
Faith in the Galilee
In fact, the two sixth-century churches of Kafr Kama fit the bigger picture that Aviam is discovering in his research of the Byzantine Galilee, conducted with Jacob Ashkenazi of the Kinneret Institute of Galilean Archaeology in the Kinneret Academic College. In Western Galilee alone, there are about 100 churches from the Byzantine time, very roughly speaking, Aviam told Haaretz.
The western side of the Upper Galilee was actually Christianized in the Byzantine period while the eastern side was Jewish, he explained. Down in the Lower Galilee, the towns were almost entirely Jewish, but Christianity gradually penetrated – resulting in villages like Kafr Kama, with its two churches. Or one church and one monastery.
The attraction for early Christians in the Galilee included the city of Nazareth: Jesus was reportedly born in Bethlehem, but grew up in the Galilee. Nazareth was actually mixed during the Byzantine period, Aviam said – Jewish with some churches. Like so many places in the region, occupation in the town now known as Kafr Kama goes back to the Bronze Age, and possibly earlier. But we may never know (much) more about the Christian era in this village.
This very week, the mosaics are going to be re-blanketed on earth for the sake of their conservation, Feig told Haaretz. That will protect them for the future masses that will probably never see them. The site is earmarked for a playground, and unless the local council and Jewish National Fund change their minds, a playground it will be.
“We can’t say at this stage how much may be covered and if anything will be preserved,” Feig said. The IAA may warmly recommend that the site be conserved, preserved, and opened for visitors; but the initiators of the real estate project in the village have the ultimate decision, she explained. And if they decide to preserve the ancient church or monastery, whichever it is, then the IAA experts can happily get to work.
The first church from early Christianity found in the Circassian village is also gone, partly covered, partly built over, the archaeologists say. Discovering the new one was an emotional moment for the excavators and villagers alike, who flocked to see it during the “open days” the archaeologists held – joined by the archbishop.
Asked why there was so much excitement if there are around 100 ancient churches in the Galilee, Feig said that this one is in a quite good state of preservation after all those 1,400 years: they know where all its parts are. But they may remain the only ones with that knowledge.
