Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

Polish archaeologists co-discover ‘unique’ Roman military tower

Polish archaeologists co-discover ‘unique’ Roman military tower

Polish archaeologists co-discover ‘unique’ Roman military tower
El Mellali site with visible remains of the tower.

A Polish-Maroconian team of archaeologists have discovered a Roman military observation tower in Volubilis, Morocco. ‘This is important for research on the system of Roman fortifications built on the outskirts of the empire’, says Maciej Czapski, an archaeologist from the University of Warsaw.

Similar military observation towers had been previously discovered during excavations in Scotland, Germany, and Romania, but never in Morocco.

From the 5th decade CE, Morocco was part of the Roman Empire, but since it was geographically isolated, from a scientific point of view little is known about this region and archaeologists treat it as a niche.

‘Based on satellite images, we have selected several sites that have a common feature: an oval plan with an inscribed rectangle or square. We have chosen this particular site because it is located farthest to the south. There are a few brief descriptions of this site in French publications indicating that the place could have been associated with the Roman army’, says Czapski.

The researcher adds that preparations for excavations included dozens of hours spent in libraries in Rimini and London but this and the analysis of satellite images did not guarantee success.

“We were lucky to have started digging in the right place. Just a 500-600 m shift of the starting point would have resulted in finding nothing. Our discovery is a significant contribution to the general state of research on the Roman limes – the system of Roman border fortifications, erected on the outskirts of the empire, especially vulnerable to raids’, says Czapski.

Excavation work at the eastern wall of the observation tower.

Included amongst the find were the foundations and fragments of walls preserved up to a height of approx. 80 cm. A fragment of the internal staircase and a fragment of cobblestones surrounding the building on the south side have also been preserved. The outer wall has not survived. Tile fragments are in very bad condition.

The researchers also found fragments of weapons and accessories of Roman legionnaires.

“We found fragments of javelins, nails from sandals of Roman legionnaires, fragments of ornaments typical for Roman military belts,” says Czapski.

“Until now, we had a very broad dating – we knew that there was a defence system of the Roman province between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. We want to narrow down the chronology and explain whether it was a single system or different systems at different times. We have a hypothesis that the system we discovered existed during the reign of Antoninus Pius. We have some military finds dating back to this period, around the 2nd century CE,” says Czapski.

He adds that “a lot is known about the military and political situation of this region. We know that battles were fought, but we do not know the details – what their course was, whether they were very heavy, and to what extent. We know that in some cases it ended with signing treaties as a result of diplomatic activities, but we do not know the details.”

The main focus of the Polish-Moroccan team is determining how the Romans maintained the acquired territories and what were their contacts with the local population.

“We are dealing with the relations between the administration and the local population. We know that these relations were quite turbulent because epigraphic evidence confirms it. We want to find out how the Romans controlled the flow of people and goods, that is, how they controlled the border zone’, says Czapski.

The head of the Polish part of the research team Dr. Radosław Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski from the University of Warsaw, and the Moroccan team leader is Professor Aomar Akerraz from the National Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (INSAP) in Rabat. The team consists of 10 people.

In the near future, the researchers plan to complete the documentation and publish a report. Next year, after the end of Ramadan, they will begin field work at a different site. They hope to discover more towers, which would help to “complete the concept of the Roman defence system.

“Next year, at the turn of May, we will dig at a different site. The discovery of another tower should be easier. We now know where to dig and what to expect,” says Czapski.

EUROPE, FINLAND, WORLD

Scientists Investigate Fibers in 6,000-Year-Old Finnish Burial

Scientists Investigate Fibers in 6,000-Year-Old Finnish Burial

The exceptional excavation of a Stone Age burial site was carried out in Majoonsuo, situated in the municipality of Outokumpu in Eastern Finland. The excavation produced microscopically small fragments of bird feathers, canine and small mammalian hairs, and plant fibres.

Scientists Investigate Fibers in 6,000-Year-Old Finnish Burial
An artist’s impression of the child buried in Majoonsuo during their life

The findings gained through soil analysis are unique, as organic matter is poorly preserved in Finland’s acidic soil. The study, led by Archaeologist Tuija Kirkinen, was aimed at investigating how these highly degraded plant- and animal-based materials could be traced through soil analysis.

During the Stone Age in Finland, the deceased were interred mainly in pits in the ground. Little of the organic matter from human-made objects has been preserved in Stone Age graves in Finland, but it is known, on the basis of burial sites in the surrounding regions, that objects made of bones, teeth and horns as well as furs and feathers were placed in the graves.

Teeth and arrowheads were found in the red-ochre grave

The Trial Excavation Team of the Finnish Heritage Agency examined the site in 2018, as it was considered to be at risk of destruction. The burial place was located under a gravelly sand road in a forest, with the top of the grave partially exposed.

The site was originally given away by the intense colour of its red ochre. Red ochre, or iron-rich clay soil, has been used not only in burials but also in rock art around the world.

In the archaeological dig at the burial site, only a few teeth were found of the deceased, on the basis of which they are known to have been a child between 3 and 10 years of age. In addition, two transverse arrowheads made of quartz and two other possible quartz objects were found in the grave. Based on the shape of the arrowheads and shore-level dating, the burial can be estimated to have taken place in the Mesolithic period of the Stone Age, roughly 6,000 years before the Common Era.

What made the excavation exceptionally was the near-complete preservation of the soil originating in the grave. A total of 65 soil sample bags weighing between 0.6 and 3.4 kilograms were collected, also comparison samples were taken from outside the grave.

The soil was analyzed in the archaeology laboratory of the University of Helsinki. Organic matter was separated from the samples using water. This way, the exposed fibres and hairs were identified with the help of transmitted-light and electron microscopy.

Oldest feather fragments found in Finland

From the soil samples, a total of 24 microscopic (0.2–1.4 mm) fragments of bird feathers were identified, most of which originated in down. Seven feather fragments were identified as coming from the down of a waterfowl (Anseriformes). These are the oldest feather fragments ever found in Finland.

Although the origin of the down is impossible to state with certainty, it may come from clothing made of waterfowl skins, such as a parka or an anorak. It is also possible that the child was laid on a down bed.

In addition to the waterfowl down, one falcon (Falconidae) feather fragment was identified. It may have originally been part of the fletching of the arrows attached to the arrowheads, or, for example, from feathers used to decorate the garment.

Dog or wolf hairs?

Besides the feathers, 24 fragments of mammalian hair were identified, ranging from 0.5 to 9.5 mm in length. Most of the hairs were badly degraded, making identification no longer possible.

The finest discoveries were the three hairs of a canine, possibly a predator, found at the bottom of the grave. The hairs may also originate, for example, in footwear made of wolf or dog skin. It is also possible a dog was laid at the child’s feet.

“Dogs buried with the deceased have been found in, for example, Skateholm, a famous burial site in southern Sweden dating back some 7,000 years,” says Professor Kristiina Mannermaa, University of Helsinki.

“The discovery in Majoonsuo is sensational, even though there is nothing but hairs left of the animal or animals – not even teeth. We don’t even know whether it’s a dog or a wolf,” she says, adding: “The method used, demonstrates that traces of fur and feathers can be found even in graves several thousands of years old, including in Finland.”

“This all gives us a very valuable insight about burial habits in the Stone Age, indicating how people had prepared the child for the journey after death”, says Kirkinen.

The soil is full of information

Also found were three fragments of plant fibres, which are preserved particularly poorly in the acidic Finnish soil. The fibres were what are known as bast fibres, meaning that they come from, for example, willows or nettles. At the time, the object they were part of may have been a net used for fishing, a cord used to attach clothes, or a bundle of strings. For the time being, only one other bast fibre discovery dating back to the Mesolithic Stone Age is known in Finland: the famed Antrea Net on display in the National Museum of Finland, laced with willow bast fibres.

A fibre separation technique was developed in the study, and is already being applied in subsequent studies. The project has demonstrated the great information value of soil extracted from archaeological sites.

The study is part of the ERC-funded project entitled Animals Make Identities (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/animals-make-identities) headed by Kristiina Mannermaa.

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

Rare medieval script discovered on stone carved by Scotland’s ‘Painted People’

Rare medieval script discovered on stone carved by Scotland’s ‘Painted People’

Rare medieval script discovered on stone carved by Scotland's 'Painted People'
This image shows a close-up of an ogham alphabet inscription on a Pictish cross slab.

Archaeologists and volunteers have discovered a stone bearing a mysterious inscription and carved birds that the Picts of Scotland crafted more than a millennium ago. The cross slab, found in a small cemetery last month, dates to between A.D. 500 and 700, and sheds new light on the historic interaction between heritage and faith in the northern U.K.

The Picts, or “Painted People,” were so-named by Roman historians because of their supposed war paint and tattoos (“picti,” is the Latin word for “paint”). They lived in northern and eastern Scotland in the early medieval period. Likely descended from Celtic tribes, the Picts are famous for successfully resisting Roman conquest. While the Romans painted the Picts as barbarous and backward, they were largely subsistence farmers, growing grain and herding domesticated animals.

After the Roman Empire withdrew from the British Isles in the fifth century A.D., Pictish society grew to form a permanent but unstable monarchy intent on protecting its territorial boundaries. Early missionaries from Ireland converted many kings of Pictland to Christianity in the mid-sixth century A.D. Then, at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in A.D. 685, the Picts pushed the Britons out of Scotland and created a mini-empire that would last until around A.D. 900 and the arrival of the Vikings.

But the newly uncovered cross slab, found in the Old Kilmadock cemetery near Doune, Scotland, a region that was historically a buffer zone between the Picts and the Romans, and later the Britons, complicates that tidy history. “The cross slab is the first one in this region, and may mean that the residents started to think of themselves as Picts,” Stirling Council archaeologist Murray Cook, who led the recent excavation, told Live Science in an email.

Carved stones from early medieval Scotland are relatively common, but the newly discovered one from the Old Kilmadock cemetery, which has yet to be fully excavated, has three intriguing features: a rounded top, animal figural decorations and an inscription written in a medieval alphabet called ogham.

At 47 inches (119 centimeters) high and 32 inches (82 cm) wide, the Old Kilmadock stone is similar in size and shape to a large grave marker. Experts, however, think that they may have served multiple functions. 

Kelly Kilpatrick, a historian and Celticist at the University of Glasgow, told Live Science in an email that cross slabs “could be grave markers, and used to communicate Christian messages to a lay audience through imagery. Sometimes you find iconography from native Pictish religion intermixed with Christian iconography on these types of monuments.” But its rounded top and circular, knotted cross make the Old Kilmadock stone a rare type of Pictish cross slab.

“The tips of the scrolls end with bird heads; they might be pelicans, as there is a tradition of the pelican biting its own flesh to feed to its young, echoing Christ and the Last Supper, which becomes the Eucharist,” Cook explained. Below that, there is a Pictish style carved four-legged animal that looks like a bull. “The bull might be a symbol of a family, a region, or a god,” Cook said.

A look at the Ogham alphabet, which was formed by creating parallel strokes and slashes along a central line.

An ogham inscription running around the side of the stone has astounded researchers. Ogham was used to write an early version of the Irish language, and it was formed by making parallel strokes and slashes along a central line. About 400 of these inscriptions have survived to the present day, mostly in Ireland, but the one from Old Kilmadock is the first to be found in central Scotland. 

Kelly Kilpatrick, who will be translating the inscription, said that “it is not possible to read the ogham inscription until the stone is lifted, because ogham is written on the edge of the stone and the letters can extend to either side of this.” Ogham inscriptions in general tend to spell out names of wealthy or powerful people, however.

“The cross from Old Kilmadock is a huge new find,” Adrián Maldonado, a research fellow at National Museums Scotland who was not involved in the discovery, told Live Science. “The most important part of the discovery is the ogham inscription; when it is fully revealed, it can tell us more about the language spoken by those in power in this area, and potentially add a new, unrecorded name in a time with very few historical sources.”

Cook suggests that the cross slab was originally used as “a public statue erected by a wealthy patron to celebrate both their Pictish heritage and their Christian faith. The ogham reflects the influence of Irish Christians.” Findings in other parts of the Old Kilmadock cemetery support that interpretation: Three additional inscribed stones have been found in two different alphabets. “I think this means they were a literate and intelligent religious community,” Cook said; there was “probably a monastery.”

The Pictish cross slab likely survived because it was reused in much later times as a grave covering in the Old Kilmadock cemetery. Cook and Kilpatrick plan to further study the cross slab once it is fully excavated and its pieces put back together. In collaboration with the local Rescuers of Old Kilmadock group, they are currently raising funds for this analysis, which will cost thousands of dollars. 

“This discovery shows the value of archaeological investigation of early church sites in Scotland,” Maldonado concluded, “too few of which have been excavated. It is a huge win for community-led research, providing value both for local heritage and internationally.”

EUROPE, SWEDEN, WORLD

Thor’s Hammer Amulet Found in Sweden

Thor’s Hammer Amulet Found in Sweden

A 1,000-year-old amulet of Thor’s Hammer discovered in Sweden shows the lasting popularity of the ancient Norse deity, who has now won a new audience with Chris Hemsworth’s portrayal of the Viking god of war in Marvel movies.

Thor's Hammer Amulet Found in Sweden
Archaeologists think the amulet was worn around the neck, perhaps as spiritual protection. It’s thought the design of Thor’s Hammer could signify an adherence to the old religion of Norse gods, rather than to the “new” Christian religion.

Thor had always been a popular figure, perhaps because he was concerned about humans, Carolyne Larrington, a professor of medieval European literature at the University of Oxford, told Live Science.

“Of all the Norse gods, Thor is the one most interested in the fate of humanity,” said Larrington, author of the upcoming book “The Norse Myths that Shape the Way We Think,” (Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2023) who wasn’t involved in the recent discovery. “His main job was patrolling the east and keeping the giants [the Jötnar] out of the lands of humans and the gods with his hammer.”

Archaeologists unearthed the amulet over the summer during excavations near the southwestern town of Ysby, Per Wranning, the head of archaeology at the Cultural History Museum in Halland County, told Live Science in an email. 

The region faces Denmark across the strait between the North Sea and the Baltic, which for centuries has been called the Kattegat — “cat’s passage” — because it is dangerously shallow.

The archaeological investigations of the site, which has been earmarked for new houses, have also revealed several firepits, post holes and pieces of pottery and metal that may date to before the end of the late Viking Age in the mid-11th century A.D, he said. 

The Thor’s Hammer amulet was found in the southwestern Swedish town of Ysby this summer. It is thought to be made of lead and is dated to around the 10th or 11th centuries A.D.

Viking Age

Similar Thor’s hammer amulets have been found previously in Scandinavia, but this is the first uncovered in Halland, said Wranning, who led the dig.

It’s cast in metal and has intricate embossed designs on its upper face, and it may have been gilded (decorated with gold) or silvered, but the archaeologists won’t be sure until it’s been properly cleaned and preserved, he said.

A hole in the shaft — the bottom of the “handle” of the hammer — indicates the amulet was hung on a ring or thong and suggests it was worn around the neck, but it might have formed some other type of jewellery, he added.  “The find probably dates to the 900s or 1000s — that is, the late Viking Age — and appears to be made of lead,” Wranning wrote in a translated blog post. 

Such amulets might have been worn during the religious transition of the region at the end of the Viking Age as a symbol of adhering to the old Norse gods, rather than to the “new” religion of Christianity.

“One theory is that these large, ornamented Thor’s hammers were a clear marker for those who still worshipped the [Norse] gods when Christianity began to take root in Scandinavia,” he said.

Preliminary dating of the latest finds at Ysby suggests they are from the Viking Age, which traditionally starts in 793 — the date of the first Viking raid in England, on a monastery on the holy island of Lindisfarne on the coast of Northumberland — and ends with the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066, where an English army led by King Harold Godwinson defeated an invading Norwegian army near York.

Thor’s Hammer

The divine hammer represented by the amulet is the war hammer Mjölnir , which according to legend was crafted by dwarves for the gods of Valhalla in a competition to create the most wondrous treasure, Larrington said.

Although the other treasures included a ship that could fold up and be placed in a pocket and the gold-bristled, glow-in-the-dark boar called Gullinbursti that could be ridden into battle, Mjölnir was judged the most marvellous and was given to Thor for his wars against the giants, she said.

“It has both a destructive power and a sacred power,” she said. “It seems to have been used to hallow things, to make them sacred.”

When worn as an amulet, representations of Mjölnir might have been thought of as a form of spiritual defense: “It’s protecting you, in a very positive way,” she said.

Thor was also a god of the weather, and through that association, he was a god of seafaring. “If you’re sailing from Norway to Iceland, you want decent weather, you don’t want a storm — and Thor is very much connected with that,” Larrington said.

She noted that Ysby, where the amulet was found, is only a few miles from the coast. “So I would imagine it is about travelling,” she said.

According to the blog post by Wranning, the remains of two “longhouses” from the late Iron Age have been found at Ysby, and walls from a Christian church built in the 1100s or 1200s.

Early maps also show a ford across the nearby Lagan River: “this could have contributed to the fact that the site has been of interest to control in ancient times,” he wrote.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

Sensational find in Ephesus: more than 1,400-year-old district discovered

Sensational find in Ephesus: more than 1,400-year-old district discovered

During this year’s excavations at Ephesus in Turkey, archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AW) discovered an incredibly well-preserved early Byzantine business and dining space that had apparently been destroyed suddenly in AD 614/615.

The discovery, according to the head of the excavation Sabine Ladstätter, is the most significant one to have occurred in the ancient city since the discovery of its renowned hill houses.

Ephesus is one of the world’s largest and most impressive ancient cities, as well as one of Turkey’s most important ancient cities.

Its cultural and historical significance was highlighted in its addition to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 2015.

The remains of the city lie just 80 km inland from the popular seaside city of İzmir and close to the charming towns of Selcuk and Sirince.

Numerous oil lamps were unearthed in one of the shop rooms.

The newly discovered neighbourhood is on Domitian Square, a prominent square directly adjacent to the Roman city’s political centre, the Upper Agora.

The excavations this year are part of a large research project on Ephesus’ changes between the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity.

Byzantine shops and workshops were built over a large Roman square complex, with the team focusing excavations on a structure consisting of several business premises that covers an area of around 170 square meters.

A storage room was also discovered, which was full of vessels that could still be found with their original contents.

The researchers dug up filling material meters high and eventually arrived at a fire layer about half a meter thick. Sealed by this, a unique snapshot of life at the time was preserved at a depth of about 3.5 meters.

Individual rooms are preserved, containing thousands of pieces of ceramics, including whole bowls with the remains of seafood such as cockles or oysters, as well as amphorae filled with salted mackerel.

Also found were thousands of barrels, including whole bowls of seafood remnants such as cockles or oysters, amphoras filled with salted mackerel, peach, almond, and olive kernels, charred pulses, with more than 700 copper coins and four matching gold coins and gold jewellery.

In the storage room, there were numerous small jugs and cups, which can be assumed to have formed a set. Filled with wine, they were served to the clientele in adjacent rooms (tabernas).

Based on the finds, it was also possible to reconstruct the earlier use of the rooms. So it is a cooking shop, a storage room, a tavern, a workshop with an adjoining sales room, and a shop for lamps and Christian pilgrim souvenirs (indicated by the discovery of around 600 small pilgrim bottles that were sold to Christian pilgrims).

However, coin dating indicates that the bustling trade and craft industry abruptly ended in the year 614/15 beneath the half-meter thick layer of fire.

The scientists surmise a military conflict because there are no signs of an earthquake, such as shifted walls or vaulted floors. The numerous spearheads and arrowheads discovered also attest to this. The causes of this were unknown prior to this.

The Christian pilgrim ampoules were only a few centimetres in size and could be worn around the neck. They contained sacred substances, such as holy dust, which could thus be taken away from Christian pilgrimage sites.

Based on the new finds, “this turning point in the history of the city of Ephesus will probably have to be associated with the Byzantine–Sasanian War”.

EUROPE, SWEDEN, WORLD

Viking Age Silver Hoard Discovered in Sweden

Viking Age Silver Hoard Discovered in Sweden

A 1000-year-old silver hoard containing several beautiful torque-style neck rings, arm rings and coins has been discovered in Viggbyholm, Täby, outside Stockholm. “This is something you probably only experience once in a lifetime”, says Maria Lingström at The Archaeologists, National Historical Museums in Sweden.

Viking Age Silver Hoard
A unique treasure hoard dating from the Viking Age has been uncovered in Täby, Stockholm. Consisting of arms rings, coins and eight torque-style neck rings.

The treasure was found during an archaeological excavation of a Viking Age settlement in Täby outside Stockholm, an area thought to have been inhabited for several hundred years.

The archaeologists have found more than 20 houses and buildings, the earliest dating from around 400 AD, continuing into the Viking Age (800–1050 AD) and early Middle Ages.

The treasure was buried under what was once a wooden floor in a building. The coins were deposited in a pouch made of linen, which together with the jewellery had been put into a small ceramic pot.

– When I started to carefully remove the neck rings one by one, I had this extraordinary feeling of “they just keep coming and coming”. In total there were eight high-quality torque-style neck rings, extraordinarily well preserved despite having been made and deposited almost a thousand years ago. They looked almost completely new, Maria Lingström says.

In addition to the neck rings, two arm rings, one ring, two pearls and 12 coin pendants (coins used as jewellery), were found in the ceramic pot.

Why the inhabitants chose to hide some of their most valuable objects and bury them in the ground, is at the moment unclear, but several theories exist.

– One common interpretation is that people hid and buried their treasures in difficult and tumultuous times. We have yet to see if that was the case here, archaeologist John Hamilton says.

The coins are a perfect example of the far-reaching connections and blossoming trade, which flourished in Viking Age Scandinavia. Several coins are of European origin, representing countries such as England, Bohemia and Bavaria. In addition, the treasure consisted of five Arabic coins, so-called dirhams.

One of the European coins is extremely rare and was minted in the city of Rouen, in Normandy, France. It dates to approximately the 10th Century AD.

According to Professor Jens Christian Moesgaard at Stockholm University, this type of coin has previously ever been identified from drawings in an 18th-century book.

The Archaeologists also found other objects, such as arrows, quernstones, and beautiful amulet rings, within the area. But the discovery of a silver treasure was somewhat unexpected.

– This is something you probably only experience once in a lifetime, says Maria Lingström.

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

Crypts, Tunnel Discovered Beneath Knights Templar Chapel in Poland

Crypts, Tunnel Discovered Beneath Knights Templar Chapel in Poland

Crypts, Tunnel Discovered Beneath Knights Templar Chapel in Poland
The Knights Templar constructed the Saint Stanislaus chapel in the Polish village of Chwarszczany during the 13th century.

Around 1119, in the midst of Christian Crusades to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control, a French knight named Hugues de Payens formed a small military order dedicated to defending pilgrims as they travelled from West to East.

Known today as the Knights Templar, the group (and various legends surrounding its history) has captured the public imagination for centuries.

As Patrick Masters, a film studies scholar at the University of Portsmouth, wrote for the Conversation in 2019, 13th-century epics and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code alike link the order to the mythical Holy Grail—albeit with little supporting evidence.

Over the years, physical traces of the organization’s existence have yielded insights into its actual role in medieval society. In villages across the West Pomeranian region of Poland, for instance, 13th-century Gothic buildings created by the knights upon their return from the Holy Land testify to the order’s lasting influence.

Now, reports Małgosia Krakowska for CNN, an ongoing archaeological dig at a Knights Templar chapel in a remote Polish village of about 100 residents is offering up an array of exciting new discoveries.

Last fall, a research team using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) uncovered a number of crypts, as well as the possible remains of an underground passageway or tunnel, while conducting excavations at the chapel of Saint Stanislaus in Chwarszczany.

“According to legends and medieval documents, there was a well in the vicinity of the chapel,” Przemysław Kołosowski, the lead archaeologist working on the site, tells CNN. “Rumor has it that the well served as an entrance to a secret tunnel. This still requires an exhaustive archaeological investigation.”

Interior of the chapel of St. Stanislaus.

As Jakub Pikulik reported for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Lubuska last year, renovations and archaeological work at the site have been ongoing since 2004. Kołosowski’s team commenced work in July 2019, scanning the chapel and surrounding fields with the help of a hundred or so volunteers.

An excavation expected to unearth a medieval fortress yielded no substantial findings from the period. But archaeologists did discover centuries-old cobblestones, the walls of an 18th-century distillery, Bronze Age pottery and iron nails, and a 1757 coin likely left behind by Russian troops stationed nearby during the Seven Years’ War.

Inside the chapel, archaeologists investigating a small depression beneath the stone floors found seven vaulted crypts.

As Per a statement from OKM, the German manufacturer of the GPR technology used by the researchers, these underground crypts “cannot be dated back to Templar times.” Instead, Gazeta Lubuska notes, the crypts were likely constructed later, only to be emptied during renovations in the second half of the 19th century.

Built on the site of an older Romanesque temple in the second half of the 13th century, the red-brick Chwarszczany chapel was “both a place of worship and a defensive fortification,” according to Sarah Cascone of artnet News.

At the time, the Knights Templar wielded significant power in western Poland, local historian Marek Karolczak tells CNN.

“Back in those days, the appearance of Knights Templar on this soil was a popular trend,” Karolczak explains. “This is the time of the Crusades. Local rulers wanted to strengthen their power by inviting military orders to settle on their land and build commanderies.”

Because the Knights Templar were protected by the pope, they “enjoy[ed] papal privileges, tax breaks and lavish donations while also accruing legendary status,” reports CNN. But the group’s luck changed in the early 14th century, when Philip IV of France ordered members’ arrest, perhaps out of a desire to seize their vast wealth or assert his political dominance over the papacy, writes Mark Cartwright for Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Those arrested were tortured into giving false confessions of homosexuality and sacrilege, and in 1312, Pope Clement V officially disbanded the religious order.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Large-Scale Trade in Herring Dates to the Viking Age

Large-Scale Trade in Herring Dates to the Viking Age

Large-Scale Trade in Herring Dates to the Viking Age
Lane Atmore has spent weeks and months in the lab extracting DNA from tiny herring bones like this.

Historians have believed extensive herring trade started around the year 1200 AD, later controlled by the Hanseatic League. Now, a new study shows that it was already established in the Viking Age.

“We found that this trade existed already around 800 AD, 400 years earlier, which really pushes back this extensive fishing,” says Doctoral Research Fellow Lane Atmore at the University of Oslo.

She is the first author of the study, published today in PNAS, which shows that herring bones from western populations around Sweden and Denmark were found as far east in the Baltic as Truso in today´s Poland. Truso is known as an important Viking Age trade port.

“In the genetic signature from these bones, we found that the fishes were adapted to higher salinity than you find in the central Baltic. This means they were coming from around Kattegat, and then they were being shipped into the eastern Baltic,” Atmore says.

The lower salinity of The Baltic Sea means that herring from the population in Kattegat will have a hard time adapting to the waters further east.

“That high salinity adapted fish are never found that far in,” Atmore says.

More difficult to trade

Her co-author, Associate Professor Bastiaan Star, has previously studied cod trade in the same area.

“Earlier we have seen that cod from the trading place Hedeby in what is now Germany had travelled all the way from northern Norway. Our new study shows that it was not just cod. It was also herring, a fish that technologically is much more difficult to trade,” Star says.

Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is a much fattier fish than cod and not easy to store, let alone trade if you don’t have the right technology.

“If you don’t cure it with salt or smoke, it will go bad very quickly. You need access to salt and wood so that you can cure it and then ship it. You need to have extensive trade networks and to catch enough fish if it´s going to be worth the investment,” Atmore says.

“I think that fish was traded over greater distances than previously anticipated. We can now pin down this date because these bones are absolutely dated between 800 and 850,” Star says.

“We can´t prove that it was the Vikings who brought the herring from one place to the next, but we know that we have herring bone from a site where Vikings were trading,” Atmore says.

Biology and archaeology

Atmore and Star are both biologists. In this study, they have worked closely with archaeologists. One of them is Professor James H. Barrett at NTNU University Museum.

“The herring industry of the Baltic Sea supported one of the most important trades in medieval Europe,” Barrett says.

“By combining the genetic study of archaeological and modern samples of herring bone, one can discover the earliest known evidence for the growth of long-range trade in herring, from comparatively saline waters of the western Baltic to the Viking Age trading site of Truso in north-east Poland,” Barrett says.

The study also reveals what has happened to the herring populations in more recent times.

“The economic and political ramifications of the herring industry are well-charted, but its ecological impacts have been much debated,” Barrett says.

Spring spawners and autumn spawners

The different populations of herring have their own spawning grounds, hence their adaptation to different levels of salinity. Populations also differ in spawning season.

“There are two major populations that spread across all Atlantic herring. One spawns in the springtime, and one spawns in the autumn. These populations spawn in unique locations and in different seasons, so they don’t interbreed much. This means they are genetically different from each other,” Atmore explains.

She is now able to identify where these fish are coming from to see how populations grow and decline, and how this is impacted by the fishing industry.

“We found that earlier in the historical record, starting around 800, you get more fish in these archaeological sites that come from the autumn spawning population in the western Baltic. This is a population that was targeted by a famous fishery around 1200,” Atmore says.

Collapsed 100 years ago

In more recent times it was the opposite.

“They were then targeting the autumn spawners and this population collapsed in the 1920s. In the Baltic now commercial catches are 90% spring spawners,” Atmore says.

“It´s not that the autumn spawners entirely disappear in the Baltic. It is more that they are not commercially interesting anymore. They are still there, but not in the numbers we were used to,” Star says.

He is not in doubt that the fishing industry had a major impact on the herring populations.

“There is a consistent pattern with over exploitation that takes place over centuries,” Star says.

“Our results provide a new and persuasive way to test the archaeological hypothesis that human impacts on super-abundant European marine fish started already in the Middle Ages, and that different herring stocks were targeted sequentially through time,” Barrett says.

This also means that the ecology of the Baltic Sea has shifted. Autumn spawners spawn in a different place at a different season.

“They are also bigger than the spring spawners and they eat slightly different food. When the population of autumn spawners goes far down in size, the ecology is going to change,” Atmore says.

“The Baltic Sea is much more confined compared to the North Sea. Some of the impacts that humans or climate may have, is amplified in such a small system,” says Star.