Well-preserved 7,300-Year-Old Wooden Cabins Discovered In La Draga

Archaeologists excavating at La Draga de Banyoles, an early Neolithic lakeshore site in Spain, have uncovered well-preserved 7,300-year-old wooden cabins. The ancient structures are in excellent condition and make it possible to gain knowledge about farming communities that settled in L’Estany at the beginning of the Neolithic, about 7,200 years ago.

Archaeological discoveries in other parts show wood can survive much longer than most think. For example, the world’s oldest wooden structure discovered recently in Zambia is worth mentioning.

Excavation of well-preserved wood at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls dating back at least 476,000 years and predates the evolution of our species, Homo sapiens.

Looking in another direction, we learn that the Boxford Timber discovered in Berkshire is Britain’s oldest carved wood.

Wood has archaeological value and has been a vital resource to past human societies.

At La Draga, scientists from several universities have worked together and focused on the northernmost area of the site, the so-called sector B, which has the particularity of having better conditions for the conservation of organic matter.

So far, it is in this sector where the most apparent architectural evidence of the wooden cabins of the ancient settlers of La Draga has appeared and where a more significant number of tools and utensils made of wood and plant fibers have also been found.

“The work at the La Draga site has made it possible to document structural elements of wooden constructions in a very good state of conservation. They are mainly large wooden planks over three meters long that occupy practically the entire surface of the excavated area.

The excavation process should allow us to make very precise interpretations of the shape of these huts, the construction techniques and the time of their construction, and their relationship with areas excavated in previous campaigns,” the co-directors of the research project Toni Palomo and Raquel Piqué (UAB) and Xavier Terradas (CSIC-IMF Barcelona) said in a press release.

At the same time, the campaign has carried out two archaeological and paleological prospecting actions on the western shore of the Lake, both terrestrial and underwater.

On the one hand, soundings have been made on the west shore of Banyoles Lake, within the municipality of Porqueres.

In this case, the objective is to obtain new sedimentological and paleoenvironmental data that should allow the La Draga team of researchers to reconstruct the environmental dynamics of Banyoles Lake during the Holocene and verify the possible presence of other prehistoric occupations in this place.

“The soundings carried out have allowed us to document signs of great interest to reconstruct what the environment was like in prehistoric times,” comments Dr. Jordi Revelles, Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher at IPHES-CERCA.

The current study also helped to “contextualize findings made in previous surveys when signs of use of the space were documented around 5,000 years ago, more than 2,000 years later than the town of La Draga”, he adds.

Scientists emphasize underwater surveys have also been carried out on the lake’s western shore, in the area between Punta Freixenet and Punta Cuaranya.

The work has made it possible to document large areas of peaty sediment with a significant presence of preserved organic matter such as, for example, wood remains. The analysis of the samples carried out allows us to understand better the dynamics of the prehistoric and historical settlement of the Lake.

Unique 2,000-Year-Old Decorated Roman Sandal Lost By Well-Cleaner Found In Spain

About 2,000 years ago, a Roman man tried to clean a well and lost a sandal.

The well-preserved ancient shoe was discovered during archaeological excavations at Lucus Asturum (modern-day Lugo de Llanera in Asturias, northern Spain).

Mentioned by astronomer, mathematician, and geographer Ptolemy in his work Geography Lucus Asturum was a Roman settlement that served as an administrative center and communications hub in the north of the Iberian Peninsula between the first and fourth centuries A.D. between the first and fourth centuries A.D.

Over the years, archaeologists have unearthed Roman thermal baths, buildings, and intriguing artifacts at the site.

Two years ago, in 2021, “a team led by archaeologist Esperanza Martín located a large house with a central courtyard and a well. This summer, excavations at the site were resumed and the archaeologists decided to descend, using a system of pulleys to avoid damaging the remains, to the bottom of the well.

Inside, among many other Roman pieces, they found a sandal lost by a man who tried to clean the well 2,000 years ago. Despite the humbleness of the object, it is a unicum — an archaeological object without equal — because it is decorated with circles, ovals, and falciform figures.

There are no more than 20 Roman sandals preserved in Hispania and this is the only one that is decorated. It is in a good state of preservation, as the silt at the bottom of the well generated an anaerobic system that prevented the reproduction of microorganisms,” El Pais reports.

“The remains we found, due to the anoxia generated by the high water table in the area, are in an exceptional state,” says Martín.

“The silts have created an anaerobic environment thanks to the plasticity of the clays that compose them, so the organic materials have been perfectly preserved.”

At a depth of about three meters, the specialists extracted part of the wooden cover of the well, a tiled floor for the decantation of silts, several jars, seeds, chestnuts, pine nuts, mollusks, the remains of domestic and wild fauna, an acetre, or bronze, cauldron, a small metal ring and the sandal, among other objects.

“It is almost complete and retains the cutting notches to hold it in the upper leg area. It is more than likely that it was lost by someone who came in to clean [the well] when it got caught in the silt. It is a unique object as it is decorated.”

The ancient sandal lost by the Roman well-cleaner “is currently refrigerated to avoid degradation until it can be restored and exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Asturias,” El Pais reports.

Romans produced excellent shoes that were meant to last. A similar find was made in the small village of Thérouanne, France, where archaeologists discovered 1,700-year-old Roman shoes and an exceptional glass workshop.

66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Skin Impression Discovered In Spain

In Spain, detailed skin impressions of a giant dinosaur discovered 66 million years ago in a muddy riverbank have been discovered. The fossil was created over centuries by sand petrifying into sedimentary rock, and it clearly shows the pattern of massive scales that once lined the creature’s hide.

The prints are thought to have been left by a titanosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, just before dinosaurs went extinct.

‘This is the only registry of dinosaur skin from this period in all of Europe, and it corresponds to one of the most recent specimens, closer to the extinction event, in all of the world,’ said lead researcher Victor Fodevilla, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

‘There are very few samples of fossilized skin registered, and the only sites with similar characteristics can be found in the United States and Asia.’

Instead, the team envisions the creature that made the impressions with a huge four-footed sauropod, possibly a titanosaurus – one of the biggest animals ever to walk the Earth.

And researchers found footprints near the site that support the titanosaur theory.

‘The fossil probably belongs to a large herbivore sauropod, maybe a titanosaur, since we discovered footprints from the same species very close to the rock with the skin fossil,’ said Fodevilla.

The discovery was made in the village of Vallcebre, near Barcelona, in an area that was once the bank of an ancient river. It is thought the dinosaur left an imprint of its scales when it laid down in the mud to rest. Over time, the region where the animal left its prints was eventually covered with sand.

And over the course of thousands of years, the area petrified to form sandstone, preserving the astonishing impressions recently discovered by the researchers. 

Since the sand acted as a mold, what is seen on the rock is a relief of the animal’s original skin. 

How the process happened is unique, as the Late Cretaceous period corresponds to the moment shortly before dinosaurs became extinct, there are few places on Earth containing sandstone from this period.

Characterizing these dinosaurs is very important in order to understand how and why they disappeared. 

Two skin impressions were found, one about 20 centimeters across and the other five centimeters, separated by a distance of 1.5 meters.

And experts believe they were made by the same animal.

The ‘rose’ pattern of the scales is characteristic of certain dinosaurs, said the researchers, who describe their find in the journal Geological Magazine.  

‘The fact that they are impression fossils is evidence that the animal is from the sedimentary rock period, one of the last dinosaurs to live on the planet,’ said Fondevilla.

‘When bones are discovered, dating is more complicated because they could have moved from the original sediment during all these millions of years.’ 

This discovery also verifies the excellent fossil registry of the Pyrenees in terms of dinosaurs living in Europe shortly before they became extinct. 

‘The sites in Berguedà, Pallars Jussà, Alt Urgell and La Noguera, in Catalonia, have provided proof of five different groups of: titanosaurs, ankylosaurids, theropods, hadrosaurs and rhabdodontids,’ said Àngel Galobart, head of the Mesozoic research group at the ICP and director of the Museum of Conca Dellà in Isona. 

‘The sites in the Pyrenees are very relevant from a scientific point of view, since they allow us to study the cause of their extinction in a geographic point far away from the impact of the meteorite.’