A coffin that was found in a golf course pond contains a 4,000-year-old man buried with an axe
Archaeologists in England have analyzed a half-ton coffin dating to the early Bronze Age that was found under a golf course in Lincolnshire county. The coffin, cut from a single oak tree and thought to be about 4,000 years old, contained human remains, a hafted axe, and a bed of plant material meant to cushion the body in its eternal slumber.
Ian Panter, the head of conservation at the York Archaeological Trust, with the coffin.
Maintenance workers discovered the burial in July 2019 while tending to a water hazard at the Tetney Golf Club in Grimsby. The coffin was under a gravel mound, a special situation that indicates a certain amount of community involvement in the burial.
As is standard for objects of historical significance found in England and Wales, the find was reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which processes such reports and ensures that the objects are properly handed.
Objects made of old wood (think shipwrecks, coffins, and even ship burials) are prone to disintegration when they are removed from water or soil after millennia and exposed to sunlight and air.
To prevent that from happening to the find, the excavated objects were immediately put in bags filled with groundwater, and the coffin was put in cold storage for a year. Afterwards, the coffin was moved to the York Archaeological Trust, where conservators have been working on it and the associated artefacts, including an axe.
Ian Panter works on the 4,000-year-old oak coffin.
“The man buried at Tetney lived in a very different world to ours but like ours, it was a changing environment, rising sea levels and coastal flooding ultimately covered his grave and burial mound in a deep layer of silt that aided its preservation,” said Tim Allen, a Sheffield-based archaeologist for Historic England, in a York Archaeological Trust press release.
An interesting component of the work was the environmental analysis of the plant bedding. Hugh Willmott, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield who participated in the excavations, said on Twitter that moss, yew or juniper, hazelnuts, and leaf buds were found in the coffin.
The types of floral remains indicated that the burial likely took place toward the end of spring some four millennia ago when a few woolly mammoths still survived. Willmott said in an email to Gizmodo that the hazelnuts may have been a food offering, while the moss could have been a sort of bed for the deceased.
Not much is currently known about the human remains, though the archaeological team suspects it was an individual of some social importance. Willmott said that initial attempts to extract DNA have been unsuccessful.
Dating the coffin is still ongoing—the archaeologists need to do a combination of dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating, which they can cross-reference to find out the year the tree was felled, give or take a couple of years.
The long-shafted axe found in the coffin has a small head.
A shockingly well-preserved axe was found with the person; the handle looks like it could have been varnished yesterday. The axe head is a combination of stone and fossilized coral.
Based on the object’s shape and size—the axe head is less than 4 inches across—the team believes it was a symbol of authority rather than a practical tool. There are very few of such axes known in Britain, perhaps only 12, according to York Archaeological Trust, making this one of the most eye-catching elements of the discovery.
The wooden coffin joins some 65-odd objects as it found around England. Preservationists said in the same release that the axe should be fully preserved within the year, but the coffin will take at least two years to fully treat, due to the object’s size.
This research comes on the heels of the University of Sheffield’s decision to close its archaeology department, as reported by the BBC in July, and the University of Worcester announcing the closure of its archaeology department, also reported by the BBC.
The Campaign to Save British Archaeology was launched in response to the closures. This trend is a troubling one. Had the Sheffield archaeological team not been close by when the Bronze Age coffin was unearthed, the cultural heritage could’ve quickly deteriorated.
Thanks to the quick thinking of the nearby archaeologists, the objects are being preserved and will be displayed at The Collection Museum in Lincolnshire.
Discovery of “unique” burial containing 140 pieces of amber jewellery
A team of archaeologists from Petrozavodsk State University in Russia have unearthed the burial site of a Copper Age “amber man” who was painted with ocher upon his death and laid to rest with more than 100 pieces of jewellery.
An archaeologist at the burial site.
The expedition took place on the western shore of Lake Onega, the second-largest lake in Europe, where archaeologist Alexander Zhulnikov led a team of students on the dig, according to a press release issued by the university.
The students discovered what a research paper describes as a “unique burial” surrounded by amber jewellery and flint objects.
Amber buttons were discovered at the burial site.
Inside the narrow chamber, the man was painted with ocher, a red pigment often used to mark a grave so it wouldn’t be disturbed, and surrounded by about 140 pieces of amber jewellery from the Baltic region.
The man buried in the chamber was almost certainly of high social standing and may have been a trader himself from the Eastern Baltic States.
The objects included pendants, discs, and amber buttons “arranged in rows face down” and sewn onto a covering made of leather and placed over the body. Another two tiers of amber buttons were found along the edges of the small grave.
Amber buttons were discovered at the burial site.
The flint chips found are likely from tools placed over the body and “are clearly so-called votive items—offerings apparently symbolizing whole knives and arrowheads,” researchers said in their paper.
The unique aspect of this particular burial, they said, is that it is an individual grave. Other burials dating to the Mesolithic era and found in the forest belt of Europe are large cemeteries.
Burials with such a large number of jewels were previously unheard of in this area of Karelia, nor have they been uncovered in nearby northwestern regions.
The burial site.
Flint deposits are also unknown in the region, indicating that ancient people must have obtained them through the exchange.
In a statement, Zhulnikov said the discovery “testifies to the strong ties of the ancient population of Karelia with the tribes that lived on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea” and to the “formation of the so-called ‘prestigious’ primitive economy” among those living in Northern Europe, where high-value objects like jewellery and tools helped create and maintain social hierarchies.
‘Anglo-Saxon church’ in Stoke Mandeville discovered by HS2 archaeologists
Archaeologists working on the HS2 project has discovered evidence of an Anglo-Saxon church, located at St Mary’s Old Church in Stoke Mandeville, England.
Excavations were conducted by LP-Archaeology in conjunction with Fusion-JV, to examine a Norman church that was built in AD 1080 and an associated churchyard.
Beneath the Norman levels, the team discovered flint walls forming a square structure, enclosed by a circular boundary and burials. The foundations of the structure are around 1 metre in width and have similarities to the Saxon Church in Barton-upon-Humber, St Peter’s.
Beneath the Norman levels, the team discovered flint walls forming a square structure, enclosed by a circular boundary and burials.
Within the foundations is evidence of Roman roof tiles, suggesting that the Saxons constructed the early church using recycled Roman material from a nearby Roman settlement.
Dr Rachel Wood from Fusion JV said: “The work undertaken at Old St Mary’s is a unique archaeological opportunity to excavate a medieval parish church with over 900 years of meaning to the local community.
It also gives us the opportunity to learn more about the community that used the church and to understand the lives they lived.
Woods added: “To have so much of it remaining, including the walls and even some flooring, will provide a great deal of information about the site prior to the construction of the Norman church in AD 1080.
The discovery of this pre-Norman, possible Saxon Church is a once career opportunity for archaeologists and will provide a much greater understanding of the history of Stoke Mandeville.
Helen Wass, HS2’s Head of Heritage, said: “Once again, our vast archaeology programme has given us the ability to reveal more about the history of Britain.
The discovery of a pre-Norman church in Stoke Mandeville allows us to build a clearer picture of what the landscape of Buckinghamshire would have been like over 1000 years ago.
Study Estimates Life Expectancy in Bronze Age Turkey is 35 to 40 Years
Analysis of the remains of more than 40 people suggests that 35 to 40 years of age was the average life span in central Anatolia some 5,000 years ago, according to a Hurriyet Daily News report.
Archaeological excavations at the Küllüoba Mound, which dates back to the first Bronze Age in the Seyitgazi district of the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir, have unearthed more than 40 burial sites, including women and children, and research has found that people lived there an average life of 40 years 5,000 years ago.
The mound is believed to be the first urbanization structure of 5,000 years ago in Anatolia.
Hacettepe University Anthropology Department lecturer Professor Yılmaz Selim Erdal said the examinations on the skeletons revealed that people lived to 40 years of age 5,000 years ago.
“The life expectancy of the Early Bronze Age and its contemporaries is around 35-40 years. Infant and child mortality is very high. The limited food sources and the infectious diseases were important factors,” he added.
Excavations in Küllüoba were initiated in 1996. In the past, objects revealing the cultural characteristics of the Early Bronze Age, as well as animal bones and settlements, were found in the excavation area. During the excavations, sarcophaguses and potteries dating back to 3,000 B.C. were found.
A team of 35 faculty members and students from Batman and Hacettepe universities, led by Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University, that have been carrying out works at the Küllüoba Mound have discovered a new cemetery area.
Believed to date back 5,000 years, some 40 tombs were unearthed in the area. Inside the tombs were the skeletons of children with their knees pulled to the abdomen, which is often referred to as the position in the mother’s womb. Seals, hair rings and jewelry, known as gifts to the dead, were also found in the tombs.
Erdal said that they saw the traces of the transition from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age in great detail during the excavations in Küllüoba, which means a historical transition.
Stating that different types of tombs were found in the mound, Erdal said, “The most important element we see here is an area where human communities from different regions coexist and there is a variety of burial traditions due to the coexistence of different cultures, perhaps different ethnic groups. We can say that it is the only settlement where different burials are seen all together.”
People died at 40
Stating that the skeletons provided important data on the historical transition, Erdal explained that the skeletons dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C. showed that people lived only 40 years of age at that time, and then lost their lives.
Explaining that the significant part of the skeletons were children and women, Erdal said, “Most of the skeletons are of infants, children and young individuals. Of course, if we consider that the life expectancy of the people of this period was extremely limited, that is, they lived an average of 35-40 years, we can actually say how painful this transformation was. Wars and fights were also effective in this.
The life expectancy of the Early Bronze Age and its contemporaries is around 35-40 years. People died at a very young age. Infant and child mortality was very high. The limited food resources and infectious diseases were also factors, too.”
A Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University academic and the head of the excavations, Murat Türkteki said that during the Küllüoba excavations, the first urbanization structure in Anatolia 5,000 years ago was unearthed.
Stating that this year’s works, mostly structures and tombs dating back to 3,000 B.C. were unearthed, he said, “We work in two areas. There was an important breaking point in Anatolia 5,000 years ago, especially in terms of the beginning of urbanization. Küllüoba also gives us important information on this subject.
The excavations this year help us to understand the changes at this stage; we see that the boundaries are wider and larger. We started working in the cemetery area in previous years.
We reached more than 40 graves. Especially the fact that different types of tombs are seen together makes Küllüoba different and special in this sense.
The skeletons were sent to Hacettepe University Ancient DNA Laboratory for examination. It will provide data such as diseases, causes of death and living conditions. Ancient DNA studies will reveal kinship relationships more clearly.”
A tall story! Famous artist Michelangelo was surprisingly SHORT, measuring just 5ft 3in
As an artist, the legendary Michelangelo Buonarroti left behind some big shoes to fill. But in real life, the great painter’s shoes weren’t big at all — and neither was Michelangelo.
Italian researchers recently examined three shoes that were found in Michelangelo’s home after his death and are thought to have belonged to the Renaissance artist: a pair of leather shoes and a single leather slipper (the companion was stolen in 1873), in the collection of the Casa Buonarroti Museum in Florence, Italy.
The researchers’ analysis is the first to estimate the physical characteristics of the artist based on measurements of personal objects such as footwear, and they found that Michelangelo, while still an artistic giant, stood no more than 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 meters) tall.
While this is relatively short for a European adult man by today’s standards, at the time Michelangelo was alive (1475 to 1564) that height would not have been unusual, said scientists with the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Avola, Italy.
FAPAB researchers Francesco Galassi, a paleopathologist, and Elena Varotto, a forensic anthropologist, measured the shoes and then calculated the wearer’s foot dimensions and height, and their results aligned with a description of Michelangelo by the 16th-century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari.
Vasari wrote that Michelangelo was “broad in the shoulders” but the rest of his body was “somewhat slender in proportion” and his stature was average, according to the study.
The shoes were all similar in size, suggesting that both pairs (when the slipper pair was complete) were worn by the same person.
However, even though the shoes have long been attributed to Michelangelo, it’s also possible that they belonged to another man in the artist’s household, such as a family member or one of Michelangelo’s descendants, the scientists wrote.
Michelangelo may have been in poor health toward the end of his life, and likely had gout and lead poisoning as well as severe arthritis in his hands, according to clues found in Michelangelo’s own writings and in painted portraits of the artist, Live Science previously reported.
A circa 1540 portrait of Michelangelo by Italian painter Jacopino del Conte (1513–1598). Not surprisingly, the portrait doesn’t focus on Michelangelo’s height but on his face and hand instead.
As Michelangelo’s remains have never been exhumed and analyzed, it’s difficult for scientists to be certain about the artist’s condition when he died at the age of 88.
However, studies such as this can help to fill in some of the physical details about Michelangelo toward the end of his lifetime, the authors reported.
The findings were published in the September 2021 issue of the journal Anthropologie.
Huge and exquisite gold hoard from Iron Age discovered in Denmark
The treasure consisted of a special type of medallion called bracteate and heavy Roman gold coins that had been turned into jewellery.
A huge gold treasure of almost 1 kilogram consisting of medallions the size of small saucers and Roman coins made into jewellery, has now seen the light of day. Amateur archaeologist Ole Ginnerup Schytz had just acquired a metal detector and was allowed to walk in the field with his old classmate. After a few hours, the detector buzzed, and then Danish history was a marked gold find richer.
“It really is a unique find. It’s something you don’t see very often, maybe every 50 years, “exclaims Mads Ravn, head of research at the Vejlemuseerne. Two days before Christmas Eve, Mads Ravn received an SMS from Ole Ginnerup Schytz, who sent a picture of the unique gold find, and asked if it was anything special?
“I replied immediately that: ‘I probably think it is,’ remembers Mads Ravn. The find was made on a field 8 kilometres from Jelling. So far, the exact location of the find is kept secret so that it is not run over by amateur archaeologists looking for gold.
“There is no more gold,” emphasizes Mads Ravn.
Since it was found in the winter of 2020, the gold treasure has been studied by researchers at the Vejlemuseerne and the Nationalmuseet
Large medallions are completely unique
The treasure has since been examined and is dated to have been buried in the 500s. Especially the medallions as large as small saucers stand out in the eyes. These are some of the largest found in Denmark.
“The size is spectacular because they are usually the size of a 5 kroner,” says Mads Kähler Holst, who is an adjunct professor of archaeology at Aarhus University and who has not been involved in the gold discovery.
“But the pictorial world and the inscription on them are also really interesting,” he adds.
The medallions are decorated and are known as a special type of medallions called bracteate. It was a kind of medallion that was given away to alliance partners, explains Lisbeth Imer, museum inspector and senior researcher at the National Museum:
“It was a kind of piece of jewellery that you wore around your neck, and in that way, you could show who you were in alliance with,” explains Lisbeth Imer, who researches runes.
The so-called bracteates are some of the largest that have been found in Denmark.
Early signs of Norse mythology
The medallions are just decorated with runic inscriptions and motifs that possibly refer to the rulers and nobles of the time, which is very common. One of the finds stands out, however, as it brings to mind Nordic mythology. On the medallion is printed a man’s head with a braid and some runes. Under the head is seen a horse and in front of a bird with which the man communicates. There is a runic inscription between the horse’s muzzle and forelegs, which according to the preliminary interpretations says ‘houaʀ’; ‘the tall’.
‘The High’ may refer to the ruler who abolished the find but is also in later mythological contexts associated with the god Odin. The high is one of the names by which Odin is later known. But typically we only see it many hundreds of years later. We know it, among other things, from the Icelandic Edda poems, which perhaps in oral form date back to the 9th century, “says Lisbeth Imer.
“It may be a sign that Nordic mythology and the way of thinking in the later Viking Age was more widespread than we already thought around the year 500, which is 300 years before the Viking Age,” adds Mads Ravn from Vejlemuseerne.
The man with the beautiful braids here is believed to be an Odin. If this is true, it is one of the earliest signs of Norse mythology in Denmark.
Insanely heavy Roman coins
In addition to the medallions, the treasure also consists of a handful of Roman coins that have been turned into jewellery. The coins are insanely valuable (expression of how large a part of a metal mixture is made up of a precious metal, ed.). They are wildly heavy and have almost 24 carats. These are some that you have picked up in Rome or served in the Roman army, “says Mads Ravn.
It is not uncommon for Roman gold at that time to end up in dark northern Europe. It is popularly said that the downfall of the Roman Empire began around the year 395. Since then, the city was plundered by Germans.
“We are back at the time of the migration. The Roman Empire has fallen and they are pumping huge amounts of gold into the rest of Europe. Much of that gold ends up in Scandinavia, “says Mads Kähler Holst and continues:
‘The great change of power in Europe between Romans and Germans took place at that time. As a result of these upheavals, a new elite emerges in the 5th century. That is the story that the find is based on, “he explains. The gold treasure is so valuable that it has no doubt been dug down by a powerful great man or warlord at that time. But scientists do not yet know who the powerful Iron Age persona was.
A Roman coin transformed into a jewel. The fascinating journey of gold tells us about a European continent that was already closely connected by trade and war in the Iron Age.
The find may be connected to the Jelling Kings
This week, however, they got a little wiser. Although the treasure was found last winter, archaeologists from the Vejlemuseerne have only had the opportunity to excavate the site this summer. In this connection, they have now found out that the treasure has been buried in a longhouse, located in a village consisting of 3-4 farms, as it looks so far.
That the treasure was found in a house is interesting for several reasons. This indicates that the rich and powerful lord has been established in the area and is not only driven past the area, which is only 8 kilometres from Jelling.
Jelling is known as a centre of power in the Viking Age, which broke through in the 10th century when first Gorm the Old ruled over Jutland, and Harald Bluetooth later raised the Jelling stones and ‘made the Danes Christian’.
However, we know very little about what the area looked like before that time. Large royal seats such as Lejre and Uppsala have roots from around the 5th century. But we do not know Jelling’s history from before the 10th century very well, «says Mads Kähler Holst.
Jelling was a definite centre of power in Viking-era Northern Europe. Today it is a station town in South Jutland with 3,607 inhabitants.
Thus, there is a significant part of the story of how Denmark came to be, which we do not quite understand yet. Here, the new gold treasure may play a role. It raises a discussion about whether the gold find here has a connection to the Jelling kings from the 10th century, points out Mads Kähler Holst. He emphasizes, however, that there is still a large black hole of 400 years from the year 500 to the 900s, but it is likely that there has already been a local power foundation for centuries before Jelling really became a central part of the map of Denmark.
We have enough knowledge to conclude that there has lived an important little king or warlord who has been involved in the struggle for a united Denmark, long before we thought. The discovery of the enormous amount of gold shows that the site has been a centre of power in the late Iron Age, “emphasizes Mads Ravn. Several other small villages have also been found in the area around Jelling from that time, says the head of research.
The gold treasure will be exhibited next year
Mads Ravn and his colleagues from the Vejlemuseerne obviously want to dig further in the secret place near Jelling, so they can find out more about who was behind the burial of such a precious treasure. The initial analyzes from the area show that the tax was buried, in roughly the same period as the houses were used. However, archaeologists have planned to make carbon-14 datings at the site so they can get even more accurate knowledge of when the houses are from.
However, the excavation work is over, as there is a lack of time and funds to continue digging in the area, Mads Ravn announces. If you have become curious about the new gold find, you can be happy that the Vejlemuseerne is exhibiting the treasure in a large Viking exhibition that opens on 3 February 2022.
The exhibition tells the story of Harald Blåtand’s eastern connections and of the early state formation that created the foundation for the Jelling dynasty. The Viking exhibition is made in collaboration with the Moesgaard Museum, which also has an exhibition that tells about other aspects of the Vikings’ travels to the east.
Archaeologists in southwest Russia have unearthed a trove of medieval silver at a site where the treasure was often hidden from an invading Mongol army in the 13th century — but oddly it seems to have been buried there at least 100 years before the Mongols swept through.
Among the treasure are several “seven ray rings” that are thought to represent the rays of the sun.
The trove of silver pendants, bracelets, rings, and ingots was found during excavations earlier this year near the site of Old Ryazan, the fortified capital of a Rus principate that was besieged and sacked by Mongols in 1237.
The Mongol attack was particularly bloodthirsty; historical accounts report that the invaders left no one alive in Old Ryazan and archaeologists have discovered nearly 100 severed heads and several mass graves there from the time.
The hidden treasure was found in the forested bank of a ravine several hundred yards away from two small medieval settlements that had existed there; archaeologists also found remains of a cylindrical container probably made from birch bark that had once held the trove, according to a translated statement from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The treasure includes 14 ornate bracelets, seven rings and eight “neck hryvnias” — a type of pendant worn around the neck that gave its name to the modern Ukrainian currency — and weighs 4.6 pounds (2.1 kilograms).
The jewelry is finely made, and archaeologists think its mixed composition shows it was a trove of accumulated wealth rather than a set of jewellery for a particular costume.
Golden Horde
Ryazan was one of several medieval principalities of the Rus people in the 11th century. It was centered on the city now known as Old Ryazan — about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of the modern city of Ryazan and about 140 miles (225 km) southeast of Moscow — and grew powerful enough to occasionally go to war with its neighbours.
But Ryazan was east of the other Rus principalities, and so it was the first to fall to an invading Mongol army from the far east, led by a grandson of Genghis Khan called Batu Khan.
The Mongols first defeated the Ryazan army in battle and then besieged the capital city, using catapults to destroy its fortifications.
The inhabitants of the city repelled the besiegers for almost a week — but in the end, the Mongols plundered the city, killed its prince, his family, and its inhabitants, and burned all that remained to the ground. A Rus chronicler noted “there was none left to groan and cry.”
Batu Khan’s armies went on to conquer and subjugate other Rus principalities until the Mongol leader’s death in 1255; his successors ruled much of southern and central Russia as the Golden Horde — from the Turkic phrase “Altan Orda,” which means “golden headquarters,” possibly from the golden colour of Batu Khan’s tent.
The hidden hoard of medieval silver, including several finely-made bracelets, was found at the site of Old Ryazan which was destroyed by an invading Mongol army in the 13th century. Archaeologists say the silver bracelets and other items of jewellery in the medieval hoard are especially well-made.
Among the treasure are several “seven ray rings” that are thought to represent the rays of the sun. Seven-ray rings became a distinctive feature of early medieval Russian jewellery; it’s thought their design was introduced from the far east.
Some of the bracelets, including this one of braided silver wire, are thought by their style to date from the 10th and 11th centuries. The ends of some of the bracelets are hollow and delicately embossed with intricate ornamental designs, including stylized palm trees that suggest an eastern and southern influence. Some of the bracelets are embossed at the ends with crosses that presumably portray Christian crucifixes.
Several buried treasures found at Old Ryazan date from the siege of the city in 1237, but archaeologists think this hoard of silver was buried about 100 years before that.
Hidden treasure
The practice of hiding treasure to prevent the invading Mongols from finding it seems to have been relatively common during the siege — more than a dozen hidden troves have now been found nearby, including the famous Old Ryazan Treasure, a collection of bejewelled royal regalia which was discovered by chance in the 19th century and is now on display in a nearby cathedral.
Somewhat surprisingly, however, the newly-discovered trove seems to have been hidden away between the end of the 11 century and the beginning of the 12th century — a century before the Mongol invasion, based on analysis of the style of the jewelry and ceramics found nearby, the RAS archaeologists said.
“The… treasure is clearly older than the Old Ryazan Treasure and includes jewellery made with simpler techniques and a more archaic manner,” the statement read.
The trove includes several six-sided “grivna,” a relatively small type of standardized silver ingot that could be used as jewellery, a measure of weight, or currency during the medieval Rus period. The bracelets are especially well made. The most complex has three silver braids and are ornamented at the ends with embossed crosses and palm leaves, the archaeologists said.
“Further studies of the treasure items, the technique of their manufacture, the composition of the metal will complement our knowledge of the early history of Old Ryazan,” they wrote; “possibly it will reveal the historical context of the concealment of the treasure.”
Scientists Reconstruct First-evolved Plant Roots Using 400-million-year-old Fossil
A plant fossil from a geological formation in Scotland sheds light on the development of the earliest known form of roots. A team led by researchers at GMI – the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Oxford realize the first 3D reconstruction of a Devonian plant-based exclusively on fossil evidence.
Artist’s reconstruction of what Asteroxylon mackiei would have looked like in life. Each leafy shoot is roughly 1 cm in diameter.
The findings demonstrate that the appearance of different axis types at branching points resulted in the evolution complexity soon after land plants evolved sometime before 400 million years ago. The results are published in eLife.
New research demonstrates how the oldest known root axed developed more than 400 million years ago. The evolution of roots at this time was a dramatic event that impacted our planet and atmosphere and resulted in transformative ecological and climate change.
3D reconstruction of Asteroxylon mackiei made from digitally re-assembling thin slices of rock. The reconstruction shows the highly branched leafy shoot in green and the rooting system in blue and purple. 3D scale bar 1 x 0.1 x 0.1 cm
The first evidence-based 3D reconstruction of the fossil Asteroxylon mackiei, the most structurally complex plant from the Rhynie chert has shown how roots and other types of axes developed in this ancient plant. The fossil is preserved in chert (a type of flint) found near the village of Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
The specimens are exceptionally well-preserved in the 407-million-year-old rocks from the Early Devonian period.
The extinct genus Asteroxylon belongs to the group of plants called the lycophytes, a class that also comprises living representatives such as isoetes and selaginella.
The reconstruction has allowed researchers, for the first time, to glean both anatomical and developmental information of this mysterious fossil. This is of particular significance because previous interpretations of the structure of this fossil plant were based to a large extent on comparisons of fragmentary images with extant plants.
A thin slice of the 407 million-year-old Rhynie chert mounted on a glass slide showing the amazing preservation of fossil plants preserved within. Specimen number 4178 in the paleobotanical collection at the University of Münster, Germany. Each interval on the scale bar is 1 mm.
The reconstruction demonstrates that these plants developed roots in an entirely different way than extant plants develop roots today. The rooting axes of A. mackiei are the earliest known types of plant roots.
“These are the oldest known structures that resemble modern roots and now we know how they formed. They developed when a shoot-like axis formed a fork where one prong maintained its shoot identity and the second developed root identity,” says Dolan.
This mechanism of branching, called “dichotomous branching,” is known in living plants within tissues that share structural identity. However, as Dolan stresses: “No roots develop in this way in living plants, demonstrating that this mechanism of root formation is now extinct.” Their findings demonstrate how a now extinct rooting system developed during the evolution of the first complex land plant.
View over the village of Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The fossil deposit known as the Rhynie chert is named after the village of Rhynie where it was first discovered just over a century ago
“100 Years after the discovery of the fossils in Rhynie, our reconstruction demonstrates what these enigmatic plants really looked like! The reconstruction also demonstrates how the roots formed” exclaims GMI group leader Liam Dolan, co-corresponding author on the work.
Understanding the structure and evolution of these plants from the Early Devonian period provides us with an insight into events at a key time in Earth history just after plants colonized the dry surfaces of the continents as they began to spread – radiate – across the land.
“Their evolution, radiation, and spread across all continents had a dramatic impact on the Earth system. Plant roots reduced atmospheric CO2 levels, stabilized the soil and revolutionized water circulation across the surfaces of continents,” states first author and co-corresponding author Alexander (Sandy) J. Hetherington, group leader at the University of Edinburgh. At the root of the environmental and ecological impact of the plant, evolution are the plant roots themselves!
Hetherington highlighted how his research was enabled by fossils that were collected by generations of palaeontologists that are housed in many different museums and universities.
“The answers to so many of the key questions of evolution are lying in shelves in these institutions,” said the scientist who is now based at the University of Edinburgh. “Using digital 3D techniques it is possible for the first time to visualize the complex body plan of A. mackiei allowing us to discover how these enigmatic plants developed. It was brilliant to finally see details that had previously been hidden.”
