In a burial ground full of Stone Age men, one grave holds a ‘warrior’ woman

The mysterious 6,500-year-old burial of a woman and several arrowheads in northern France may reveal details of how women were regarded in that society during the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, a new study finds.

The researchers investigated giant graves known as “long barrows” — large earthen mounds, often hundreds of feet long and sometimes retained by wooden palisades that have since rotted away. Of the 19 human burials in the Neolithic cemetery at Fleury-sur-Orne in Normandy, the team analyzed the DNA of 14 individuals; but only one was female.

The woman was buried with “symbolically male” arrows in her grave, and the researchers argue that she may have had to be regarded as “symbolically male” to be buried there.

“We believe that these male-gendered artefacts place her beyond her biological sexual identity,” said study lead author Maïté Rivollat, an archaeologist and geneticist at the University of Bordeaux. “This implies that the embodiment of the male sex in death was necessary for her to gain access to burial in these gigantic structures.”

Archaeologists attribute the barrows at Fleury-sur-Orne to the Neolithic Cerny culture. Several other Cerny cemeteries have been found hundreds of miles away in the Paris Basin region to the southeast, but Fleury-sur-Orne is the largest yet found in Normandy.

But while the two regions shared the common Cerny culture, there seem to have been local differences about who could be buried in high-status graves. While both men and women were buried in almost equal numbers in the Paris Basin, the cemetery at Fleury-sur-Orne was almost exclusively male, so it was surprising to find a woman in one of the barrows, Rivollat told Live Science in an email.

However, it’s challenging to know what kind of life the woman led. “I don’t think we can speculate anyhow about her status — we don’t have enough elements for that,” she said.

More might be revealed about the mysterious Neolithic woman by ongoing scientific work, such as isotopic analysis — an examination of elemental variants in her remains — that could reveal details about her diet and geographical origins, Rivollat said. 

Neolithic cemetery

The Neolithic cemetery at Fleury-sur-Orne near Caen was discovered in aerial photographs taken in the 1960s, and the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) has led a major “rescue excavation” there since 2014.

The latest excavations have been huge, covering more than 60 acres (24 hectares) and have revealed several Neolithic barrow graves and other monuments, including the longest barrow ever discovered in Europe, measuring 1,220 feet (372 meters) long. 

Rivollat’s team had access to samples of the human remains in the Fleury-sur-Orne barrows; the new studies of their ancient DNA revealed which remains were male — with an X and a Y sex chromosome — and which were female, with two X chromosomes.

The team also used the samples of ancient DNA to determine any family links between the people buried there, and the scientists found that almost all the barrow occupants were unrelated, except for a father and a son who had been buried in the same barrow.

This clue, as well as other aspects of the DNA analysis, suggested the barrow burials at Fleury-sur-Orne were from a patrilineal community — in which social authority was inherited along the male lineage — while the daughters of a family left to live with the families of their mates, the researchers suggested. 

However, the woman buried alongside arrows at the site “questions a strictly biological sex bias in the burial rites of this otherwise ‘masculine’ monumental cemetery,” the researchers wrote in the study. It’s not known if only the flint arrowheads were placed in the woman’s grave, or if they were originally attached to wooden shafts that have since rotted away. 

Individuals of power

Earlier studies of Cerny cemeteries in the Paris Basin distinguish one particular category of “individuals of power” by burying them with arrows, quivers and possibly bows — perhaps thereby identifying them as “hunters.”

Those studies showed that such hunters were always men, with stress markers on their bones that were consistent with drawing bows, the researchers of the new study noted, writing that. “Together, the recognition is given to the masculine, to archery or to hunting, or even more broadly, to the wild world, characterizes the Cerny ideology in the Paris Basin.” 

It’s not known whether the woman buried at the Cerny cemetery at Fleury-sur-Orne was formally regarded as a “hunter” by her community, but “she was buried with four arrowheads, a type of artefact that is considered to be exclusively male in its associations in the Cerny culture,” the researchers wrote in the study.

This, in turn, implied that her burial at the site was an absolute necessity; and that her gender was “presented as masculine, which has granted her access, through the funerary rites, to this monumental cemetery,” they wrote. 

Chris Fowler, a senior lecturer in later prehistoric archaeology at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom, who wasn’t involved in the latest study but who’s led investigations of Neolithic tombs in the UK, noted the woman buried at Fleury-sur-Orne seemed to have been held in the same regard as the men buried there.

He added that the individuals buried in different barrows were unrelated and that not all members of the much larger community were buried in the barrows.

“It is fascinating that so many lineages shared the same burial ground while selecting if you like, just one or two representatives from their lineage to be buried at the cemetery marked by these extensive mounds,” he told Live Science in an email. “This raises further questions about the social and political dynamics among these lineages.”

The study was published on April 21 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

First Modern Humans Arrived in Europe Earlier Than Previously Known

Some 30 years of archaeological and other types of scientific research around the ancient artefacts and human remains in the Grotte Mandarin, located in the Rhone River Valley in southern France, has revealed that humans may have arrived in Europe about 10,000 years earlier than originally thought.

This conclusion, drawn by an international team of researchers including Jason Lewis, PhD, of Stony Brook University, will help scientists rethink the arrival of humans into Europe and their replacement of and interactions with Neanderthals who also lived in the cave.

The research is detailed in a paper published in Science Advances.

Previous studies have suggested that the first modern humans reached the European continent – originally from Africa and via the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean crossroads – between 43,000 and 48,000 years ago.

But this discovery of modern human presence in the heart of the Rhone River Valley at Grotte Mandrin points to about 54,000 years ago.

The area of the cave excavated and analyzed that proved the evidence of modern human presence is Mandrin’s Layer E. It is sandwiched between 10 other layers of artefacts and fossils that contain evidence of Neanderthal life.

“The first curious signal to emerge during the initial decade of excavations were thousands of tiny triangular stone points, resembling arrowheads, some less than a centimetre in length,” explains Lewis.

“These had no technical precursors or successors in the surrounding Neanderthal layers.”

Lewis explained that the well-preserved cave, discovered in the 1960s, includes uppermost layers that contain materials from the Bronze Age and Neolithic periods. But over the past quarter-century, the international scientific team has analyzed three meters of sediment and evidence from the Paleolithic – a period when Neanderthals and their ancestors occupied Europe and periodically had contact with evolving modern humans.

The consensus theory until now was that these modern humans expanded into the southeastern European region about 50,000 years ago and the Neanderthals progressively disappeared.

The research involved analyses of various types of hundreds of fossils, stone tools, and ancient human teeth.

The team used radiocarbon and luminescence dating, DNA and another molecular testing, and lithic technological analysis.

Co-author Marine Frouin, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, completed luminescence dating work at Mandarin that helped estimate dates when humans occupied the cave.

“I joined the team in 2014 to obtain the first luminescence dates at the site,” explains Frouin.

“Due to advances in our dating methods and new collaborations that developed a few years later, we were able to put together a precise and robust timeline for when modern humans and Neanderthals were there.”

Intriguingly, the international scientific team also determined that the evidence of humans at and around the ancient cave showed they occupied the territory for only one or two generations. Then, they disappeared just as mysteriously and quickly as they had arrived and Neanderthals reoccupied the region and site.

“Our overall discovery changes the landscape regarding the time humans arrived in Europe and raises other questions, some of which we think we can answer and others that require more investigation,” adds Lewis

Such questions are: How did modern humans know about the stone resources around the cave in France around the varied landscape in such a short time? Did they have relationships with Neanderthals, such as exchanging of information, and goods and acting as guides? Did these two hominin groups interbreed more frequently than science has previously suggested? Additional discoveries from Mandarin will soon be announced that will shed light on these and other questions about our ancient ancestors.

Prehistoric Artworks May Have Been Carved by Firelight

Our early ancestors probably created intricate artwork by firelight, an examination of 50 engraved stones unearthed in France has revealed. The stones were incised with artistic designs around 15,000 years ago and have patterns of heat damage which suggests they were carved close to the flickering light of a fire, the new study has found.  

The study, by researchers at the Universities of York and Durham, looked at the collection of engraved stones, known as plaquettes, which are now held in the British Museum.

They are likely to have been made using stone tools by Magdalenian people, an early hunter-gatherer culture dating from between 23,000 and 14,000 years ago.

The researchers identified patterns of pink heat damage around the edges of some of the stones, providing evidence that they had been placed in close proximity to a fire. 

Recreate

Following their discovery, the researchers have experimented with replicating the stones themselves and used 3D models and virtual reality software to recreate the plaquettes as prehistoric artists would have seen them: under fireside light conditions and with the fresh white lines engravers would have made as they first cut into the rock thousands of years ago.

Lead author of the study, Dr Andy Needham from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Co-Director of the York Experimental Archaeology Research Centre said: “It has previously been assumed that the heat damage visible on some plaquettes was likely to have been caused by accident, but experiments with replica plaquettes showed the damage was more consistent with being purposefully positioned close to a fire.

“In the modern-day, we might think of art as being created on a blank canvas in daylight or with a fixed light source; but we now know that people 15,000 years ago were creating art around a fire at night, with flickering shapes and shadows.”

Dramatic

Working under these conditions would have had a dramatic effect on the way prehistoric people experienced the creation of art, the researchers say. It may have activated an evolutionary capacity designed to protect us from predators called “Pareidolia”, where perception imposes a meaningful interpretation such as the form of an animal, a face or a pattern where there is none.    

Dr Needham added: “Creating art by firelight would have been a very visceral experience, activating different parts of the human brain.

We know that flickering shadows and light enhance our evolutionary capacity to see forms and faces in inanimate objects and this might help explain why it’s common to see plaquette designs that have used or integrated natural features in the rock to draw animals or artistic forms.”  

Flourishing

The Magdalenian era saw a flourishing of early art, from cave art and the decoration of tools and weapons to the engraving of stones and bones.

Co-author of the study, PhD student Izzy Wisher from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Durham, said: “During the Magdalenian period conditions were very cold and the landscape was more exposed.

While people were well-adapted to the cold, wearing warm clothing made from animal hides and fur, the fire was still really important for keeping warm. Our findings reinforce the theory that the warm glow of the fire would have made it the hub of the community for social gatherings, telling stories and making art.

“At a time when huge amounts of time and effort would have gone into finding food, water and shelter, it’s fascinating to think that people still found the time and capacity to create art. It shows how these activities have formed part of what makes us human for thousands of years and demonstrate the cognitive complexity of prehistoric people.”

French farmer finds rare coin featuring Charlemagne just before his death

A rare 1,200-year-old silver coin featuring Charlemagne — one of the only known portraits made of the emperor during his lifetime — was recently rediscovered and promptly taken on a wild journey from a farm in France, to the bidding grounds of eBay and, finally, to a museum in Germany.

The coin’s modern travels began when a man in France wanted to build a house but was short on cash. He remembered that he had inherited a coin collection from his grandfather, a farmer in the Paris region. After going through his grandfather’s collection, the man discovered the Charlemagne coin, known as a denarius, and he put it up for auction on eBay.

“We have here some experts that regularly check what is on eBay concerning archaeology,” said Frank Pohle, director of the Route Charlemagne, a group of municipal museums in Aachen, Germany, that focus on cultural history. “One of them told me ‘Hey, there is a piece of money in eBay France that could be a real denarius of Charlemagne.”

The museum decided to enter a bid. To their relief, they got the coin depicting Charlemagne and his imperial title: IMP(erator) AVG(ustus), a reference to Emperor Augustus, the first Roman emperor and a title used by the many emperors of the Roman Empire, whom Charlemagne was trying to emulate. (Pohle wouldn’t reveal the coin’s price, but said, “It was not that expensive. We are very content.”)

Charlemagne (ruled A.D. 768 to 814), also known as Charles the Great, was king of the Franks and became the first ruler to unite Western and Central Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. Due to his political power, military might and close relationship with the Vatican, Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans on Christmas day in A.D. 800.

So, perhaps it’s no surprise that, in this coin portrait, Charlemagne “presents himself really as Roman emperor,” Pohle told Live Science. “He has the laurel on his hat, which is quite unusual for Frankish kings. He is wearing a dress like a Roman general.”

The portrait also reveals that Charlemagne had a round face, a moustache and a short neck, the latter a detail noted by Charlemagne’s biographer Einhard, Pohle said. 

Putting his portrait on the 0.7-inch-diameter (1.9 centimetres) coin “has something to do with his ambitions,” Pohle told Live Science. “That type of coin is quite a good copy of what the Roman emperors did in their times … to use money as a piece of their own marketing purposes.”

There are only about 50 individual denarii coins bearing a portrait of Charlemagne created in his lifetime. “Most [denarii] only have his name on it, no portrait,” Marjanko Pilekić, a numismatist and research assistant at the Coin Cabinet of the Schloss Friedenstein Gotha Foundation in Germany, who is not involved with the newfound coin, told Live Science. 

The back of the coin features a building, which has a Christian cross on it and looks like a mix between a Roman temple and a church, Pohle said. 

When was it minted?

Museum experts have determined that the 0.5-ounce (1.5 grams) coin was likely minted in Aachen due to the city’s importance, as that’s where Charlemagne was born and later died. But the date of its minting is unclear.

After being crowned Roman emperor, he didn’t immediately use the title “Emperor Augustus” found on the coin. 

“Although he was already crowned in 800, he didn’t use that title [until] 812,” Pohle said. “It had something to do with his diplomatic connections with Byzantium,” also known as the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. Instead, Charlemagne used the title “Emperor Governing the Roman Empire,” according to Britannica.

Finally, in 812, the Byzantine Empire recognized Charlemagne’s emperorship, so he started using the title found on the coin, making this a possible date for the coin’s minting, Pilekić said.

The coin also could have been minted in the year 813, when Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious, was appointed as co-emperor and had similar coinage made. 

“Charlemagne was ill during the last three to four years of his life, i.e. around 810-814, and was particularly concerned about the future of the empire,” Pilekić said. “He had only one son left, whom he appointed co-emperor in 813. One theory is that the portrait coinage was created in the last year of his life. That is, at a time when he was probably striving for an orderly succession.”

Another idea is that “these coins were specifically intended to commemorate the occasion of the emperor’s coronation and therefore did not really serve as money like the other denarii of Charlemagne, which do exist in significantly larger numbers without a portrait and imperial title,” Pilekić added.

It’s hard to say how much this coin was worth at the time. “The amount of silver is quite low,” but if you had 12 to 20 denarii, you could probably buy a cow, Pohle said.

14th-century sarcophagus found at fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral

The discovery was made as maintenance crews were preparing to install scaffolding before restoring the spire of the 800-year-old cathedral, which survived a huge fire in the spring of 2019.

French archaeologists conducting excavations in Notre Dame Cathedral found several burials made no later than the 18th century. Among them stands out the discovered anthropomorphic lead sarcophagus, which probably belonged to a high-ranking dignitary who died no later than the 14th century. 

Notre Dame: History and recent fire

The Notre Dame Cathedral is located in the centre of the French capital, on the Ile de la Cité island, built-in 1163-1345 on the site of the Gallo-Roman temple of Jupiter and the Christian Basilica of Saint Stephen.

The temple is a Gothic five-nave basilica with a short transept, a choir, and a crown of chapels. The facades of this building are decorated with sculptures, including scenes from the life of the Mother of God and the Last Judgment.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries, the interior and facade of the cathedral were significantly rebuilt. During the restoration, which took place in the middle of the 19th century, a 96-meter oak spire was built, which was decorated with bronze statues of the apostles and evangelists.

On April 15, 2019, a fire broke out in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the fight against which took about 14 hours. Most of the structure that caught fire was wooden frame built in the 12th-13th centuries from 1300 oaks.

The source of the fire was located at the base of the spire, where restoration work was underway at that time, which began in 2018. Through the scaffolding, the fire quickly spread to the entire roof of the cathedral. As a result, the spire collapsed, damaging the vaults of the building.

New excavations at Notre Dame found a human-shaped sarcophagus

Archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research of France from February 2 to March 25, 2022, are conducting excavations in Notre Dame Cathedral, which precede the installation of scaffolding necessary for the reconstruction of the spire.

The researchers focused their attention on the central part of the temple, where the transept crosses the main nave.

Although some work on this site was carried out in the 19th century, archaeologists managed to find valuable historical finds. Scientists have unearthed several burials that were made no later than the 18th century.

Among them, a well-preserved lead sarcophagus made in an anthropomorphic form stands out. Archaeologists believe that it belonged to a high-ranking dignitary who died no later than the 14th century.

The coffin rested in the middle of brick pipes (a 19th-century underground heating system) and was well preserved, but slightly deformed under the weight. Inside, there are still pieces of cloth, hair, and a pillow of leaves.

Below the level of the temple, the researchers found the remains of medieval pits, which contained fragments of polychrome sculptures.

According to the researchers, these artefacts are the remains of the original altar barrier of the 13th century, which separated the altar part of the temple from the nave. Some of these finds discovered earlier, are currently exhibited in the Louvre.

French cave tells a new story about Neanderthals, early humans

A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting both Neanderthals and modern humans long before the latter was thought to have reached that part of Europe, a new study suggests.

In a paper published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the United States described finding fossilized homo sapiens remains and tools sandwiched between those of Neanderthals in the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French folk hero.

“The findings provide archaeological evidence that these hominin cousins may have coexisted in the same region of Europe during the same time period,” the team said.

Using new techniques, the authors dated some of the human remains to about 54,000 years ago—almost 10,000 years earlier than previous finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.

“This significantly deepens the known age of the colonization of Europe by modern humans,” said Michael Petraglia, an expert on prehistory at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Petraglia, who was not involved in the study, said it had major implications for understanding the spread of modern humans and our interactions with the Neanderthals.

The researchers said they spent more than 30 years carefully sifting through layers of dirt inside the cave, which is 140 kilometres (87 miles) north of the French Mediterranean city of Marseille.

They discovered hundreds of thousands of artefacts that they were able to attribute to either Neanderthals or modern humans. These included advanced stone tools known as “points” that were used by homo sapiens—our closest ancestors—to cut or scrape and as spear tips.

Similar tools from almost the exact same period have been found some 3,000 kilometres (nearly 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that modern humans with a common culture may have travelled across the Mediterranean Sea, said Ludovic Slimak, one of the lead authors of the new study.

While the researchers found no evidence of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and modern humans who alternated in the cave, the rapid succession of occupants is in itself significant, they said. In one case, the cave changed hands in the space of about a year, said Slimak.

Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not involved in the study, said the findings upend the idea that most of the European continent was the exclusive domain of Neanderthals until 45,000 years ago.

However homo sapiens’ first venture into the region wasn’t particularly successful, she noted.

“Mandrin modern humans seem to have only survived for a very brief period of time and were replaced again by Neanderthals for several millennia,” she said.

Slimak, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the findings at Mandrin suggest the Rhone River may have been a key link between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.

“We are dealing with one of the most important natural migration corridors of all the ancient world,” he said.

He and his colleagues expect to publish several further significant findings based on the mountain of data collected from the cave. Slimak said a steady supply of sand carried in by the local Mistral winds has helped preserve a rich trove of treasures that rivals other famous archaeological sites.

“Mandrin is like a kind of Neanderthalian Pompeii,” he said.

Medieval Burials Uncovered at the Cathedral of Notre Dame

Several tombs and a leaden sarcophagus likely dating from the 14th century has been uncovered by archaeologists at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris following its devastating 2019 fire.

The burial sites “of remarkable scientific quality” were unearthed during preparatory work for rebuilding the ancient church’s spire at the central spot where the transept crosses the nave, the culture ministry announced late Monday.

Among the tombs was the “completely preserved, human-shaped sarcophagus made of lead”.

It is thought the coffin was made for a senior dignitary in the 1300s—the century following the cathedral’s construction.

As well as the tombs, elements of painted sculptures were found just beneath the current floor level of the cathedral, identified as parts of the original 13th-century rood screen—an architectural element separating the altar area from the nave.

During a visit by AFP on Tuesday, archaeologists were delicately cleaning and excavating the sculptures emerging from the ground, including a pair of carved hands.

The bust of a bearded man and some sculpted vegetables, with traces of paint still visible, had been removed. The team has already used a mini endoscopic camera to peek inside the sarcophagus, which appeared to be warped by the weight of the earth and stones.

“You can glimpse pieces of fabric, hair and above all a pillow of leaves on top of the head, a well-known phenomenon when religious leaders were buried,” said Christophe Besnier, the lead archaeologist.

“The fact that these plant elements are still inside means the body is in a very good state of conservation,” he added.

Its discovery will help improve our understanding of funeral practices in the Middle Ages, added Dominique Garcia of the National Institute of Archaeological Research.

The discoveries were made as reconstruction teams prepared to install huge scaffolding to rebuild the spire, and needed to check the stability of the ground.

In the process, they discovered an underground heating system from the 19th century, with the sarcophagus lying among its brick pipes.

Despite the excitement of the find, the clock is ticking for the archaeologists.

They have been given until March 25 to finish their work before the reconstruction project resumes—in order to keep to a planned reopening of the cathedral in 2024.

Looted Artifacts Returned to France

The United States has returned a set of illegally obtained artefacts, including a skull from the Parisian catacombs and golden ingots from an Atlantic shipwreck, to their rightful owner: France. 

The prized objects, which also included an ancient Roman coin, were handed over on Wednesday during an official “restitution” ceremony at the French ambassador’s residence in Washington.

Steve Francis, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with French Ambassador Philippe Etienne, unveiled the pieces and detailed how American authorities had worked with their French counterparts to get them back into French hands.

“These objects tell the history of France, its commerce, and its people,” Francis said in a statement. “HSI is proud to have played a role in ensuring these artefacts continue to be part of France’s history for future generations to enjoy.”

The five golden ingots had originally been looted from the Prince de Conty, a ship that wrecked in December 1746 off the French island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, near mainland France, according to a handout provided by the French embassy.

The vessel, which was on a return trip from China, had long been forgotten until a teacher in 1975 came across archival documents mentioning its location. He received authorization to excavate the site, but it was quickly looted, with many of the ingots disappearing before arrests were made.

However, in December 2017, five ingots matching the description of the Prince de Conty gold appeared on a list of items up for auction in California.

A French agency dedicated to underwater archaeology notified American authorities, who stepped in to seize the objects.

“The evidence that was provided by the French government was overwhelming,” said David Keller, a U.S. agent who focuses on cultural property and antiquities.

“These marks on them identify the people that actually made the ingots in the Qing dynasty,” Keller told AFP, “so there’s a lot of history just wrapped up in it.”

The golden coin is much older, dating back to the third century AD.

It is part of a larger treasure trove of ancient Roman objects, known as the Treasure of Lava, which was found in 1985 on the French island of Corsica, and was sold without official permission.

According to the French Embassy, specialists in currency “consider it one of the most important monetary treasures in the world.”

The skull originated in the Parisian catacombs, extensive caverns created in the late 18th century to house relocated remains from local cemeteries.

The site, known as an ossuary, is the largest in the world, containing the bones of more than six million Parisians.

The skull was recovered from an antiquities dealer in Houston, Texas in 2015. It will be returned to the Catacombs Museum in Paris, to join the collections of the ossuary, DHS said.

Over the years, Homeland Security Investigations has returned many artifacts to France, including a painting by Picasso stolen from France’s National Museum of Modern Art; a manuscript stolen from the French Navy Archival Depository Fund; and a painting by Edgar Degas stolen from the Musée Malraux in Le Havre, France.

“It is unacceptable that cultural property can be stolen and trafficked, and this is one of the mutual priorities between the United States and France,” Ambassador Etienne told AFP Thursday.