Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Foraging badger uncovers a hoard of more than 200 Roman coins dating back to the THIRD century in a Spanish cave

Foraging badger uncovers a hoard of more than 200 Roman coins dating back to the THIRD century in a Spanish cave

Archaeologists are thanking a hungry badger for the discovery of a stash of 209 ancient Roman coins, found in a cave in the Asturias region of northern Spain.

Foraging badger uncovers a hoard of more than 200 Roman coins dating back to the THIRD century in a Spanish cave
A European badger foraging in grassland with wildflowers at the forest edge in spring.

The find came a few months after Storm Filomena, a historic blizzard that hit the Iberian peninsula in January 2021, blanketing Madrid in several feet of snow.

The unusual precipitation would have made it hard for animals to find food, reports the Guardian.

Experts believe that a badger rooting around for something to eat in the snow happened upon the crack in La Cuesta cave, where the coins were hidden, unearthing the treasure.

The disappointed badger left about 90 coins littering the ground in front of his den, where Roberto Garcia, a local resident found them. He called in the archaeology experts and in April the Asturias department of culture began conducting excavations in the cave.

A badger helped dig up 209 ancient Roman coins in a Spanish cave.

The copper and bronze coins dating from the third to fifth centuries A.D. Some were minted in far-off cities, including Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Arles, Lyon, Rome, London, and Antioch.

Experts believe ancient Spaniards might have hidden the treasure during the invasion of the Suevi, a Germanic people, in the year 409 A.D.

“We think it’s a reflection of the social and political instability which came along with the fall of Rome and the arrival of groups of barbarians to northern Spain,” Alfonso Fanjul Peraza, an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Madrid who led the dig, told CNN.

The team’s studies to date have been published in the Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. It’s the largest find of its kind in a Spanish cave.

La Cuesta cave, where a badger helped dig up 209 ancient Roman coins, is in the Asturias region of northwestern Spain.

The coins are undergoing cleaning and conservation ahead of going on view at the Archaeological Museum of Asturias, and further excavations are planned for the site, as experts believe they may be part of a larger hoard.

“We want to know,” Fanjul Peraza told El Pais, “if it was a one-off hiding place, or if there was a group of humans living there,”

EUROPE, SWITZERLAND, WORLD

Roman Coin Cache Discovered in Switzerland

Roman Coin Cache Discovered in Switzerland

An amateur treasure hunter in Switzerland has discovered a buried clay pot filled to the brim with 1,290 Roman coins that date to the fourth century A.D. However, an odd divider found within the pot — a piece of cowhide — has stumped archaeologists. 

Archaeologists excavate a pot of Roman coins in Switzerland dating to the period of Roman emperor Constantine the Great.

“It was clearly used as a separation,” said Reto Marti, head of the archaeological department of the canton of Basel-Landschaft (informally called Baselland) in northern Switzerland, and who helped to excavate and examine the coin pot. “But why the coins are separated in two parts we cannot tell for the moment.”

Daniel Lüdin, an amateur archaeologist with a metal detector, discovered the coin pot on Sept. 6, 2021, not too far from the 13th-century Wildenstein Castle in Bubendorf, a municipality in Baselland, according to a translated statement released on April 13.

When the metal detector began beeping, Lüdin started to dig and soon discovered several Roman coins and pottery fragments.

Realizing he had unearthed a Roman coin hoard, Lüdin carefully reburied the find and told Archäologie Baselland of his discovery. This decision saved valuable clues about the stash, as the archaeologists were later able to excavate the pot in a large earthen block and then CT scan its contents without disturbing them.

During a CT scan, an object is bombarded with powerful X-rays that software can transform into a virtual 3D image of the specimen. It was during this scan that the scientists discovered the cowhide dividing the coins into two separate piles.

The 9-inch-tall (23 centimetres) pot is filled with “a large amount of small change” — coins made of a copper alloy and a small percentage of silver, according to the statement. In total, all of the coins are worth about as much as a solidus, a pure-gold coin introduced by Emperor Constantine during the late Roman Empire that weighed about 0.15 ounces (4.5 grams). A solidus was worth about two months’ salary for a soldier at the time.

The coins found in the pot have inscriptions and designs on each side.
CT images revealed a divider made of cowhide in the pot.

“There are two types of coins in the pot, but the exact denomination of these late antique bronze coins is not known,” Marti told Live Science in an email. All of the coins were minted, with inscriptions and designs on each side, during the reign of Emperor Constantine (A.D. 306 to 337).

It’s not too surprising to find Roman coins in this region, which was part of a Roman Empire province, Marti said. “There are even some coin hoards with much more coins than the Bubendorf finds,” he noted. But something big sets these other coin hoards apart from the new finding: The past findings were buried in times of crisis.

There were several wars during the late third and the middle of the fourth century A.D., which prompted many people to bury their Roman money for safekeeping. In contrast, the Bubendorf hoard dates to a time of relative peace and some economic recovery, about A.D. 330 to 340.

“Because of this, the new find will be very important,” Marti said. “It will give a very detailed insight into the use of money and the circulation of coins in the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great.”

So, this coin pot has two mysteries: Why was it buried during a time of political stability, and why does it have a cowhide divider in it?

“Maybe it was an offering to the gods,” Marti said. Another idea is that this area once bordered three Roman estates, so perhaps this burial location had something to do with that boundary, he added.

It’s rare to find such a large hoard from the last years of Constantine the Great’s life, said Marjanko Pilekić, a numismatist and research assistant at the Coin Cabinet of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation in Germany, who was not involved with the new find. 

“A stroke of luck is certainly also the survival of the storage vessel, which contained not only coins but also a piece of leather, organic material that rarely survives,” Pilekić told Live Science in an email. Perhaps, the detailed excavation will reveal “which coins belonged to which side [of each Roman estate], which may help in the interpretation.”

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Child mummies in Sicily’s Capuchin Catacombs to be X-rayed

Child mummies in Sicily’s Capuchin Catacombs to be X-rayed

The mummified and skeletal remains of more than 160 children lie preserved in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo in northern Sicily, and soon, scientists hope to uncover some of the mysteries surrounding their lives and deaths using X-ray technology.

Child mummies in Sicily's Capuchin Catacombs to be X-rayed
The Capuchin Catacombs are located in Palermo, Sicily.

The catacombs contain at least 1,284 mummified and skeletonized corpses of varying ages, according to the new research project’s website.

The catacombs were in use from the late 1590s to 1880, although two additional bodies were buried there in the early 20th century, according to the Palermo Catacombs website. 

The upcoming investigation, funded by the U.K.’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, will be the first to exclusively focus on children housed in the underground crypts and corridors.

Specifically, the investigators will examine child mummies that were buried in the catacombs between 1787 and 1880, and they’ll begin by X-raying the 41 mummies housed in the crypts’ “children’s room,” or “child chapel,” The Guardian reported.

“We will take a portable X-ray unit and take hundreds of images of the children from different angles,” Kirsty Squires, the project’s principal investigator and an associate professor of bioarchaeology at Staffordshire University in the U.K., told The Guardian.

The team hopes to better understand the children’s identities and health statuses, as well as examine cultural artefacts such as the garb they were buried in, she said.

The researchers will use X-rays to determine each child’s sex and age, as well as reveal any signs of developmental defects or disease.

These findings will be compared with each child’s clothing, associated funerary artefacts and their placement within the chapel, as well as the method of mummification that was used to preserve them, according to the project website.

The team will also utilize death records they have from the time, although these contain limited information, such as the deceased’s names and dates of death.

Together, these clues should provide an insight into the identities, health and lifestyles of children who were mummified in 18th- and 19th-century Palermo. At the time, being turned into a mummy was a “status symbol” and “a way to preserve status and dignity even in death,” according to the Palermo Catacombs website.

When first built in the late 1590s, the Capuchin Catacombs were used as a private burial site for friars. But in 1783, the Capuchin order began allowing laypeople in the region to be buried there as well, the catacombs website said. And by making a donation to the order, families could pay to have their deceased relatives mummified and put on display in the catacombs.

Corpses could be mummified in one of three ways: through natural mummification, where the bodies were allowed to completely dehydrate in a special room called the “colatoio;” through a process that involved bathing the bodies in arsenic; or by the chemical embalming of the bodies, when a trained person injects the corpse with preservatives. 

These processes could create astonishingly well-preserved mummies. Regarding the soon-to-be-scanned child mummies, “Some of them are superbly preserved,” Dario Piombino-Mascali, co-investigator for the project and scientific curator of the Capuchin Catacombs, told The Guardian. “Some really look like sleeping children. They are darkened by the time but some of them have got even fake eyes so they seem to be looking at you. They look like tiny little dolls.”

Read more about the Palermo juvenile mummy project in The Guardian. 

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

Hoard of 5,500 Roman-era Silver Coins Unearthed in Germany

Hoard of 5,500 Roman-era Silver Coins Unearthed in Germany

Archaeologists in Augsburg, Germany, revealed unearthed a historical hoard including 15 kg of silver coins from the Roman Empire’s era. In a historic Roman camp in Augsburg, more than 5,500 coins from the first and second century AD were uncovered.

According to the local newspaper emphasis, it comprises swords, tools, jewellery, and tableware and is the greatest Roman treasure of silver in Germany thus far.

Archaeologists in Augsburg made a Roman-era find for the second time in a few months, and experts said the more than 5,500 silver coins discovered at a disused manufacturing site were among the most important findings of this type in Germany.

Hoard of 5,500 Roman-era Silver Coins Unearthed in Germany
Coins from Roman times: The silver treasure of Augsburg

The coins were found individually distributed in a construction pit in the Oberhausen district.

Rare silver coins discovered in Germany

The coins were discovered separately scattered in a construction trench near Oberhausen, the city’s core. Around 15 BC, Emperor Augustus’ stepsons built the city.

A military camp that eventually became a supply depot. That is why, behind Trier, Augsburg is Germany’s second-oldest city. Later, Emperor Hadrian awarded city powers to the “Augusta Vindelicum” town that had grown up around the military camp.

A period in Augsburg’s history about which virtually little is known.

The oldest coins date back to the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero, making them more than 1950 years old, and the wealth is worth 11 times the yearly income of a Roman soldier during this time period.

For his part, German archaeologist Sebastian Gerhaus said: “What makes this treasure particularly important is that it is dinars dating back to the first and second centuries AD, and they still contain a very large amount of silver, and weapons, tools, jewellery.”

Stefan Krmnicek from the Institute for Classical Archeology at the University of Tübingen, “This amount of money must have been enormous by ancient standards. It is certainly not owned by someone who belonged to the lower social pyramid. This is most likely to think of people who were active in the military or in trade,” he said.

Augsburg, is a city that is richer in Roman history than almost any other in Germany. For this reason, where the found coins will be exhibited will be determined after the research.

EUROPE, PORTUGAL, WORLD

350-year-old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal

350-year-old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal

A team of researchers have found an African man buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. The man lived just 350 years ago. 

350-year-old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal

A team of researchers have found an African man buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. The man lived just 350 years ago. A shell midden is an archaeological feature consisting mainly of mollusc shells.

The discovery is very surprising because Amoreira and other midden sites in the Muge region in Portugal are well known by archaeologists for the cemeteries of the last hunter-gatherers living in the area 8,000 years back, a statement issued by Uppsala University in Sweden said. 

Researchers from Uppsala University and the University of Lisbon, Portugal recently investigated this burial by combining biomolecular archaeology, ancient DNA, and historical records. The study was recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences. 

Where Was The First-Generation African From?

The scientists determined that these were the bone remains of a first-generation African, probably from Senegambia, which is a historical name for a geographical region in West Africa. The man arrived in Portugal via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and died around 1630 and 1760 AD, the study said. 

What Did The Man’s Diet Consist Of?

The researchers analysed his genetic signature and dietary isotope. The genetic signature indicated African ancestry, the study said. The man’s diet consisted of plant foods commonly found in Senegambia, the dietary isotope analysis showed. At that time, Senegambia was not in Portugal. 

According to the study, the African man’s diet also consisted of minor consumption of low trophic level marine foods, such as bivalve molluscs. 

How Did The Researchers Determine The Place Of Origin?

The researchers determined that the place of origin could be narrowed to the coastal areas of western Africa, in present-day Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. 

The study said that the oxygen isotopic signal in the bone bioapatite reflected the ingested water at the place of origin. Bioapatite is a form of calcium phosphate that is the major component in the mineralised part of vertebrate bone teeth. 

Africans were brutally dislocated from their homeland for more than three centuries. They were forced to adopt a new religion, a new name, and a new language. 

In order to preserve their socio-cultural identity, African communities in Portugal developed certain strategies, the study said. This was similar to what was documented in the Americas. The researchers used their results to search for other clues that could help them understand the motivations behind the unusual burial, the study said. 

What Does The Unusual Burial Indicate?

According to the study, the burial of the man in an 8000-years-old site could be an example of the maintenance of African cultural beliefs and practices by African people who translocated to Europe. However, this practice is not documented in historical records. 

Amoreira, like many other archaeological sites, was probably known by the local populations as an ancient burial ground, the study said. This is because animal and human bones are abundant at the site. 

The grave was arranged with a layer of sand. Hence, it suggested a level of preparation for burial in a seemingly deviant place, the study said.

In Portugal, the dead were generally buried on religious grounds, from the Middle Ages up to the mid-nineteenth centuries. But this African man was not buried in a religious ground, the study said.

The researchers found that interestingly, up to the present day, shell middens are actively used in western Africa. The usage of shell middens, particularly in Senegambia, includes ancient and modern cemeteries, the study said.

The burial of the African man in a Portuguese shell midden could indicate the recognition of the site as a meaningful place by the African community of Amoreira, the study said. This was probably according to West African socio-cultural traditions. 

In a cemetery of enslaved people in the Canary Islands, other examples of non-Christian funerary practices have been identified. The researchers noted in the study that future investigations may clarify if this was an isolated event or part of a broader movement.

Was The African Man Murdered?

The researchers attempted to identify this individual and found a document from the local church dated November 1, 1976, the statement said. The document mentions the murder of a young man named João at Arneiro de Amoreira. This is precisely the region where the bone remains were found. 

According to the statement, the church registers state that the victim was buried in the churchyard. However, the bones were unearthed at Amoreira. The researchers’ findings indicate that the person’s parents were of African ancestry, the study said.

The authors noted in the study that the intersection of several lines of investigation enabled them to reconstruct specific aspects of the life and death of a first-generation African individual in Portugal during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade period.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Ancient skeletons reveal the history of worm parasites in Britain

Ancient skeletons reveal the history of worm parasites in Britain

Britons have suffered from worms since the Bronze Age, new research shows, with parasite infections peaking during the Roman and Late Medieval periods.

Things began to get better during the Industrial period, in part thanks to improvements in hygiene in parts of the UK, before the Victorian ‘Sanitary Revolution’ ushered in a nationwide reduction in infections.

Oxford researchers analysed ancient skeletons in an effort to establish the size and scale of parasitic worm infections in the UK over the course of history.

They hope that understanding how parasitic worm infections changed in the past, it could help public health measures in regions of the world still experiencing problems today. 

Infections with parasitic worms are a big problem in some tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. 

Ancient skeletons reveal the history of worm parasites in Britain
Britons have suffered from worms since the Bronze Age, new research shows. Pictured, fish tapeworm eggs unearthed in a previous study into Bronze Age Britons in The Fens in Cambridgeshire
The Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire consisted of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. They believe the parasites were caught because the villagers foraged for food in the stagnant lakes and waterways around their homes

But in the past, they were much more widespread and were common throughout Europe.

The research team looked for worm eggs in the soil from the region where the infected intestines of 464 human skeletons would have been, at 17 sites dating from the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution.

They found that worm infections peaked in Britain during the Roman and Late Medieval periods when infection rates were similar to those seen in the most affected regions today.

Things changed in the Industrial period. Worm infection rates differed a lot between different sites – some sites had little evidence of infection, while in others there was a lot of infection.

The researchers think that local changes in sanitation and hygiene may have reduced infection in some areas before nationwide changes during the Victorian ‘Sanitary Revolution’.

The co-first authors, Hannah Ryan and Patrik Flammer said: ‘Defining the patterns of infection with intestinal worms can help us to understand the health, diet and habits of past populations. 

‘More than that, defining the factors that led to changes in infection levels (without modern drugs) can provide support for approaches to control these infections in modern populations.’

Britons have suffered from worms since the Bronze Age, new research shows. Pictured, a human whipworm

Humans are infected with roundworms and whipworms through contamination by faecal matter and catch some tapeworms by eating raw or undercooked meat or fish. 

The team will next use their array of parasite-based approaches to investigate other infections in the past. This includes more large-scale analyses of human burials, as well as continuing their ancient DNA work.

Their ambition is to employ a multidisciplinary approach, working closely with archaeologists, historians, parasitologists, biologists and other interested groups to use parasites to help understand the past.

The study has been published in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Study Investigates Anglo-Saxon Diets

Study Investigates Anglo-Saxon Diets

Very few people in England ate large amounts of meat before the Vikings settled, and there is no evidence that elites ate more meat than other people, a major new bioarchaeological study suggests. Its sister study also argues that peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers. The findings overturn major assumptions about early medieval English history.

Food list compiled during the reign of King Ine of Wessex (c. 688-726), part of the Textus Roffensis
  • ‘You are what you eat’ isotopic analysis of over 2,000 skeletons is by far the largest of its kind.
  • Early medieval diets were far more similar across social groups than previously thought.
  • Peasants didn’t give kings food as exploitative tax, they hosted feasts suggesting they were granted more respect than previously assumed.
  • Surviving food lists are supplies for special feasts not blueprints for everyday elite diets.
  • Some feasts served up an estimated 1kg of meat and 4,000 Calories in total, per person.

Picture medieval England and royal feasts involving copious amounts of meat immediately spring to mind. Historians have long assumed that royals and nobles ate far more meat than the rest of the population and that free peasants were forced to hand over food to sustain their rulers throughout the year in an exploitative system known as feorm or food-rent.

But a pair of Cambridge co-authored studies published today in the journal Anglo-Saxon England present a very different picture, one which could transform our understanding of early medieval kingship and society.

While completing a PhD at the University of Cambridge, bioarchaeologist Sam Leggett gave a presentation which intrigued historian Tom Lambert (Sidney Sussex College). Now at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Leggett had analysed chemical signatures of diets preserved in the bones of 2,023 people buried in England from the 5th – to 11th centuries. She then cross-referenced these isotopic findings with evidence for social status such as grave goods, body position and grave orientation. Leggett’s research revealed no correlation between social status and high protein diets.

That surprised Tom Lambert because so many medieval texts and historical studies suggest that Anglo-Saxon elites did eat large quantities of meat. The pair started to work together to find out what was really going on.

They began by deciphering a food list compiled during the reign of King Ine of Wessex (c. 688-726) to estimate how much food it records and what its calorie content might have been. They estimated that the supplies amounted to 1.24 million kcal, over half of which came from animal protein. The list included 300 bread rolls so the researchers worked on the basis that one bun was served to each diner to calculate overall portions. Each guest would have received 4,140 kcal from 500g of mutton; 500g of beef; another 500g of salmon, eel and poultry; plus cheese, honey and ale.

The researchers studied ten other comparable food lists from southern England and discovered a remarkably similar pattern: a modest amount of bread, a huge amount of meat, a decent but not excessive quantity of ale, and no mention of vegetables (although some probably were served).

Lambert says: “The scale and proportions of these food lists strongly suggest that they were provisions for occasional grand feasts, and not general food supplies sustaining royal households on a daily basis. These were not blueprints for everyday elite diets as historians have assumed.”

“I’ve been to plenty of barbecues where friends have cooked ludicrous amounts of meat so we shouldn’t be too surprised. The guests probably ate the best bits and then leftovers might have been stewed up for later.”

Leggett says: “I’ve found no evidence of people eating anything like this much animal protein on a regular basis. If they were, we would find isotopic evidence of excess protein and signs of diseases like gout from the bones. But we’re just not finding that.”

“The isotopic evidence suggests that diets in this period were much more similar across social groups than we’ve been led to believe. We should imagine a wide range of people livening up bread with small quantities of meat and cheese, or eating pottages of leeks and whole grains with a little meat thrown in.”

The researchers believe that even royals would have eaten a cereal-based diet and that these occasional feasts would have been a treat for them too.

Peasants feeding kings

These feasts would have been lavish outdoor events at which whole oxen were roasted in huge pits, examples of which have been excavated in East Anglia.

Lambert says: “Historians generally assume that medieval feasts were exclusively for elites. But these food lists show that even if you allow for huge appetites, 300 or more people must have attended. That means that a lot of ordinary farmers must have been there, and this has big political implications.”

Kings in this period – including Rædwald, the early seventh-century East Anglian king perhaps buried at Sutton Hoo – are thought to have received renders of food, known in Old English as feorm or food-rent, from the free peasants of their kingdoms. It is often assumed that these were the primary source of food for royal households and that kings’ own lands played a minor supporting role at best. As kingdoms expanded, it has also been assumed that food-rent was redirected by royal grants to sustain a broader elite, making them even more influential over time.

But Lambert studied the use of the word feorm in different contexts, including aristocratic wills, and concludes that the term referred to a single feast and not this primitive form of tax. This is significant because food-rent required no personal involvement from a king or lord, and no show of respect to the peasants who were duty-bound to provide it. When kings and lords attended communal feasts in person, however, the dynamics would have been very different.

Lambert says: “We’re looking at kings travelling to massive barbecues hosted by free peasants, people who owned their own farms and sometimes slaves to work on them. You could compare it to a modern presidential campaign dinner in the US. This was a crucial form of political engagement.”

This rethinking could have far-reaching implications for medieval studies and English political history more generally. Food renders have informed theories about the beginnings of English kingship and land-based patronage politics, and are central to ongoing debates about what led to the subjection of England’s once-free peasantry.

Leggett and Lambert are now eagerly awaiting the publication of isotopic data from the Winchester Mortuary Chests which are thought to contain the remains of Egbert, Canute and other Anglo-Saxon royals. These results should provide unprecedented insights into the period’s most elite eating habits.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

During the demolition work, a 2,500-year-old bull heads alto relievo was discovered in Sinop

During the demolition work, a 2,500-year-old bull heads alto relievo was discovered in Sinop

During the demolition work of the buildings in front of the historical city walls for the City Square National Garden project in the province of Sinop on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, 2,500-year-old bull heads shaped alto-relievo were found.

During the demolition work, a 2,500-year-old bull heads alto relievo was discovered in Sinop

According to the news of Gökhan Güçlüoğlu from Anadolu Agency, the demolition of the buildings in front of the historical city walls continues within the scope of the City Square Nation Garden Project implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in the Sinop.

Within the framework of the demolitions that started on December 16, 2021, the demolition of five buildings, including the service building of Sinop Municipality, has been completed so far.

With the demolition of the structures within the scope of the project, which aims to bring the historical castle walls to tourism, a 2,500-year-old bullhead alto-relievo embroidered on the castle wall was also unearthed.

It is estimated that the relief carved on the castle wall consisting of four bullheads was designed as a symbol of power in ancient times.

What is the alto-relievo?

Relief, also called relievo, in sculpture, is any work in which the figures project from a supporting background, usually a plane surface.

Reliefs are classified according to the height of the figures’ projection or detachment from the background.

In a high relief, or alto-relievo, the forms project at least half or more of their natural circumference from the background and may in parts be completely disengaged from the ground, thus approximating sculpture in the round.