Category Archives: NORTH AMERICA

Billionaire hands over $70 million of stolen artefacts

Billionaire hands over $70 million of stolen artefacts

Michael H. Steinhardt, the billionaire hedge fund pioneer and one of New York’s most prolific antiquities collectors, has surrendered 180 stolen objects valued at $70 million and been barred for life from acquiring any other relics, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement Monday.

The prosecutor’s office struck an agreement with Mr. Steinhardt after a four-year multinational investigation that determined that the seized pieces had been looted and smuggled from 11 countries, trafficked by 12 illicit networks and appeared on the international art market without lawful paperwork, the office said.

“For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said, adding: “This agreement establishes that Steinhardt will be subject to an unprecedented lifetime ban on acquiring antiquities.”

Mr. Steinhardt, a Brooklyn native who turns 81 on Tuesday, is a major contributor to New York University and to numerous Jewish philanthropies. There is a Steinhardt conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and a Steinhardt Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In a statement on Monday, his lawyer, Andrew J. Levander, said: “Mr. Steinhardt is pleased that the District Attorney’s yearslong investigation has concluded without any charges, and that items wrongfully taken by others will be returned to their native countries.

Many of the dealers from whom Mr. Steinhardt bought these items made specific representations as to the dealers’ lawful title to the items, and to their alleged provenance. To the extent these representations were false, Mr. Steinhardt has reserved his rights to seek recompense from the dealers involved.”

According to prosecutors, 171 of the 180 seized antiquities first surfaced in the possession of accused antiquities traffickers, including two who have been convicted in Italy — Giacomo Medici and Giovanni Becchina.

They said the investigation revealed that 101 of the items, all covered in dirt and encrustations, were visible and identifiable in photographs found in the possession of known traffickers.

Christos Tsirogiannis, an associate professor at the University of Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies in Denmark, who specializes in searching photographic archives seized from antiquities dealers, said traffickers use such photos to advertise their looted wares to small groups of wealthy collectors. Dr. Tsirogiannis is one of about 60 researchers, investigators and foreign law enforcement officials credited by the prosecutors’ office with assisting in the case.

As part of its inquiry, Mr. Vance’s office said, prosecutors executed 17 search warrants and worked with officials in 11 countries — Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and Turkey.

In explaining the agreement not to prosecute so long as Mr. Steinhardt abides by all its terms, Mr. Vance said the arrangement would allow for the items to be “returned expeditiously to their rightful owners” rather than being held as evidence. It would also help his office to “shield the identity of the many witnesses here and abroad whose names would be released at any trial.”

Nonetheless, the case and other recent seizures demonstrate that the office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit is ready to reach far back in time to confiscate objects based on a New York state statute that allows prosecutors to return stolen property to its “rightful owners” regardless of when a theft might have occurred.

Mr. Steinhardt’s dealings with prosecutors over suspect antiquities date back to the 1990s. In 1997, a federal judge ruled that Mr. Steinhardt had illegally imported a golden bowl, known as a phiale, from Italy in 1992.

The object, dating to 450 B.C. and costing $1 million, was seized from Mr. Steinhardt’s home in 1995. The judge rejected his contention at the time that he was an “innocent owner” with no knowledge of irregularities.

In 2018, investigators raided his office and Fifth Avenue home and took away several ancient works they said had been looted from Greece and Italy. That seizure came on the heels of a 2017 seizure of a marble statue stolen from a temple in Sidon, Lebanon, which Mr. Steinhardt relinquished and which has been returned.

The 2017 seizure led to the formation of the trafficking unit, which pressed the case that was resolved on Monday. Officials said the unit has recovered more than 3,000 items valued at $200 million, and that at least 1,500 have been returned to their owners and countries of origin. It said hundreds are ready to be repatriated “as soon as the relevant countries are able to receive them amid the pandemic,” and more than 1,000 objects are being held awaiting the outcome of criminal proceedings.

(Separately, in March 2019, Mr. Steinhardt was accused of a pattern of sexual harassment by several women who worked for the nonprofits he supported.)

The confiscated items, which decorated Mr. Steinhardt’s homes and offices, and which he often lent to major museums, came mostly from Italy, Greece and Israel, according to a list compiled by investigators.

Billionaire hands over $70 million of stolen artefacts
The Stag’s Head Rhyton dates back to 400 BC and was looted from Milas, Turkey.
The Larnax, a 1400-1200 BC chest for human remains taken from Crete.
The Ercolano Fresco, looted from a Roman villa in Herculaneum, near Naples.

They include:

A ceremonial libations vessel, or rhyton, that depicts a stag’s head, purchased from the Merrin Gallery of Manhattan for $2.6 million in November 1991. Officials said the item, which dates to 400 B.C., first appeared on the international art market without provenance after rampant looting in Milas, Turkey. In March 1993, prosecutors said, Mr. Steinhardt lent it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was when law enforcement officials seized it. It has since been repatriated.

A larnax, or small chest for human remains, from Crete, that dates between 1400-1200 B.C. Officials said the item, valued at $1 million, was purchased from a known antiquities trafficker and traced to Mr. Steinhardt through a financial institution based in Malta.

The “Ercolano Fresco,” purchased from Robert Hecht, who had faced accusations of trafficking in antiquities, “with no prior provenance” for $650,000 in November 1995. Dating to 50 B.C. and valued at $1 million, it depicts an infant Hercules strangling a snake sent by Hera to slay him. The fresco was looted in 1995 from a Roman villa in the ruins of Herculaneum, near Naples, officials said.

A gold bowl looted from Nimrud, Iraq, and purchased without provenance papers, officials said, for $150,000 in July 2020, at a time when objects from Nimrud were being trafficked by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Made of gold with a scalloped-flower design, the object surfaced in October 2019 when a Customs and Border Protection officer notified Mr. Vance’s office that someone on a flight from Hong Kong to Newark was hand-carrying the bowl for Mr. Steinhardt.

Three stone death masks that appeared to be encrusted with soil in photographs recovered by the Israeli authorities. They date to 6000 B.C. and were purchased by Mr. Steinhardt for $400,000 in October 2007.

Prosecutors said Mr. Steinhardt had owned and traded more than 1,000 antiquities since 1987, and his art collection was valued at about $200 million.

Another “Erased” Black Cemetery Identified in Florida

Another “Erased” Black Cemetery Identified in Florida

An unmarked African American cemetery with hundreds of graves has been found at the site of a downtown office building in Clearwater, Fla. It’s at least the fourth abandoned African American cemetery rediscovered in recent years in Florida. The finds are forcing communities to come to terms with their history and racist policies that targeted Black neighbourhoods.

Barbara Sorey-Love has experienced some of that history firsthand. She was born in the basement of Clearwater’s hospital 69 years ago and grew up in Clearwater Heights, a neighbourhood that no longer exists.

“Back then we were called coloured,” she says. “That’s where the coloured mothers and children were housed.”

Another “Erased” Black Cemetery Identified in Florida
Archaeologists work to uncover graves at the former site of the Zion cemetery found underneath the Robles Park Village housing complex in Tampa, Fla. Another unmarked African-American cemetery with hundreds of graves has been found at the site of a downtown office building in Clearwater, Fla.

Several years ago, Sorey-Love helped form the Clearwater Heights Reunion Committee, a group of people who grew up in the neighbourhood before it became a victim of urban renewal. The group began asking questions about the old St. Matthews cemetery. It was closed in the mid-1950s and sold to developers who were supposed to move the graves to a new location.

Using ground-penetrating radar and later by excavating, archaeologists found something many residents had suspected — most of the graves had never been moved. Sorey-Love recently visited the excavation site, now an office building’s parking lot.

“I went over and looked in the burial site,” she says. “And it was like the skeleton was looking up at me saying, ‘Thank God you found me.'”

Archaeologists believe several hundred people may be buried under the parking lot and a building that now stands on the site. It’s not the only African American cemetery recently rediscovered in Clearwater. A little over a mile away, an investigation has found dozens of graves at the site of a now shuttered public school. In both cases, community members are working with local officials to decide what to do next.

And it’s not just happening in Clearwater. Just across the bay in Tampa, investigations conducted by the Tampa Bay Times helped uncover at least two more African American cemeteries that were abandoned and built over. Some of the graves are under the parking lot at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. Hundreds more were found at the site of a public housing complex.

In all these cases, Black residents were told the graves had been relocated.

“There were bodies still there and a large number of them,” says Antoinette Jackson, chair of the anthropology department at the University of South Florida says. “That caught everybody’s attention.”

The cemeteries were all closed in the 1950s, as cities around Florida’s Tampa Bay began to grow rapidly in the post-war era. Property that had been developed and used by the Black community was taken for other uses and neighbourhoods were wiped out by interstate exchanges. Jackson says the cemeteries were deliberately forgotten.

“Oftentimes,” she says, “we don’t use the word lost or abandoned. We are really saying erased, physically erased from the landscape for other purposes.”

In Clearwater, city council records from the mid-1950s show officials discussed using road improvements as an “inducement to confine Negro home building and purchasing to the existing area.”

Jeff Moates, with the Florida Public Archaeology Network, worked on the cemetery investigation in Clearwater. He says assessments levied by the city were “used as a tactic to kind of isolate the African American community. There were certain policies that further marginalized an already marginalized group of people.”

The land was used for a new shopping centre. The city paid the developers to move the graves to a new location. But, with the discovery of hundreds of graves still on the site, Clearwater officials are facing tough decisions. The company that now owns the property says it received assurances that the graves had been moved.

At a recent meeting, city councilman Mark Bunker said he was struck by what he saw in the archaeological report.

“We weren’t on the commission at that time,” he says, “but, the city does have some responsibility in dealing with this.”

Another councilman said he wasn’t sure the city should be held responsible for something done nearly 70 years ago. Meanwhile, investigations will continue on the site. The rediscovery of lost or erased Black cemeteries raises many issues, including who’s liable for righting past wrongs. A task force created by the state legislature will soon issue a report with recommendations for local and state officials.

University of South Florida anthropologist Antoinette Jackson recently helped create the Black cemetery network, a website and organization linking African American cemeteries that are being rediscovered and investigated around the country. The idea, she says is “to put a face and stories and people and communities on the map and in the public domain.”

A bill is also in the works in Congress that would create an African American Burial Grounds Network under the direction of the National Park Service.

Researchers confirm: The Largest Pyramid in Mexico has been found

Researchers confirm: The Largest Pyramid in Mexico has been found

Researchers in Mexico have discovered an immense pyramid, even larger than Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Sun. It’s 75 meters in height and was explored by specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. It is located in the acropolis of Tonina, Chiapas and is likely around 1,700 years old.

Researchers confirm: The Largest Pyramid in Mexico has been found

The director of the archaeological zone, Emiliano Gallaga, says that the work, done over the course of two years, verified that the northeastern portion of the site was, indeed, the largest pyramid in Mexico. It is comparable to pyramids found in Tikal and El Mirador of the Mayan civilization.

One unique feature is the seven platforms that serve as palaces, temples, housing, and what were essentially administrating offices. This unique structure functioned within the social, religious, and political-cultural structure.

“It’s a big surprise to see that the pyramid was done almost entirely by pre-Hispanic architects and therefore is more artificial than natural,” says Gallagas. “This is because it was believed that the entire structure was a natural hill, but recent evidence has revealed that the structure was almost entirely built by ancient inhabitants.”  Archaeologists noted that the pyramid was much larger than they expected it to be. The structure has roads running through it as well.

The temple-pyramid complex was built in four stages, starting from the 3rd century BC through the 9th century AD, and was dedicated to the deity Quetzalcoatl. It has a base of 450 by 450 metres (1,480 by 1,480 ft) and a height of 66 m (217 ft).

According to the Guinness Book of Records, it is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, with a total volume estimated at over 4.45 million cubic metres, even larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which is about 2.5 million cubic metres.

However the Great Pyramid of Giza is higher at 138.8 metres (455 ft). The ceramics of Cholula were closely linked to those of Teotihuacan, and both sites appeared to decline simultaneously. The Postclassic Aztecs believed that Xelhua built the Great Pyramid of Cholula.

At its peak, Cholula had the second largest population in Mexico of an estimated 100,000 people living at this site. Although the prehispanic city of Cholula continued to be inhabited, the Great Pyramid was abandoned in the 8th century at a time when the city suffered a drastic drop in population.

Even after this drop-off in population, the Great Pyramid retained its religious importance. The site was once called Acholollan (in Nahuatl) meaning place of flight.

This meaning has led some to believe that this site was founded after its original inhabitants fled (from?) elsewhere. According to myth, the pyramid was built by a giant named Xelhua of adobe bricks, after he escaped a flood in the neighboring Valley of Mexico. 

The pyramid consists of six superimposed structures, one for each ethnic group that dominated it. However, only three have been studied in any depth.

The pyramid itself is just a small part of the greater archaeological zone of Cholula, which is estimated at 154 hectares (0.59 sq mi).

The building of the pyramid began in the Preclassic Period and overtime was built over six times to its final dimensions of 450 metres on each side at the base and 66 metres tall. This base is four times the size of that of Pharaoh Khufu’s Great Pyramid of Gizaand is the largest pyramid base in the Americas.

The earliest construction phase features talud-tablero architecture that is characteristic of the region, and that became strongly associated with the great metropolis of Teotihuacan. Some of the pyramid constructions have had burials, with skeletons found in various positions, with many offerings, especially ceramics.

The last state of construction has stairs on the west side leading to a temple on top, which faced Iztaccíhuatl. During the colonial period, the pyramid was severely damaged on its north side in order to build the Camino Real to Puebla. The west was damaged later with the installation of a rail line.

Enigmalith: A 100,000-Year-Old electrical connector found embedded In Stone

Enigmalith: A 100,000-Year-Old electrical connector found embedded In Stone

This electrical connector is one of the artefacts that are less known, yet its characteristics are incredibly interesting. According to experts who have analyzed the artefact, estimated it to be approximately 100,000-year-old. Over the years, dozens of objects have been discovered that do not fit in the mainstream insight of history, archaeology, and anthropology.

The Alien electrical connector was discovered in 1998 when electrical engineer John. J. Williams found what appeared to be an electrical connector protruding from the ground on a hiking trip in North America.
The object was found in the middle of nowhere, far away from any sort of human settlements, industrial complexes, airports, factories, and electronic or nuclear plants.

After digging deeper into the ground, Williams discovered a device with a triple plug, embedded into the rock.

Williams did not tell the exact location where the electric connector was found, which has led sceptics to conclude that this artefact is just another hoax.

But the further revelation about the characteristics of this artefact says otherwise.

The artifact is now referred to as the Petradox.

A device that has the undeniable aspect of an electrical component that ended up embedded into solid granite, stone composed of quartz and feldspar, with small traces of mica.

There is a huge amount of secrecy surrounding this electric connector.
Numerous offers of up to 500,000 dollars for the device have been made to Williams but he has denied the offers.

He has refused to sell it.

Though, he stated that the artefact, however, is available to any researchers for analysis. So far, only a few researchers have analyzed this mysterious object, resembling without a doubt an electrical component.

The Petradox is not an accretion, concretion, pumice, or fossil.
It does not contain any known resins, cement, glues, adhesives, limestone, mortar, or other non-rhyolite / non-granite binding agents.
It is a hard substance.

The alleged electric connector itself is about 8 mm in diameter; the pins of the device are about 3 mm high, and the spacing between the pins is approximately 2.5 mm while the pin thickness is about 1 mm.

Researchers believe that the rock is at least 100,000 years old, something impossible if you believe that the object is of artificial origin.
The conventional understanding of the technological development of mankind tells us that there is no way humans could have made something like this at that time in history.

As per Williams, who has consulted an engineer and geologist to analyze the object. The electric connector embedded in the granite reveals no trace of having been glued or welded in any known form, it is clear that the object already existed at the time of the formation of the rock.

The artefact has a weak magnetic attraction, Ohmmeter readings indicate either open-circuit or very high impedance between the pins. The artefact has been compared to an electronic connector or any other similar electrical component.

Apparently, it is not made up of wood, plastic, metal, rubber, or any other identifiable material. The founder of the artefact has not allowed the object to be divided into half for analysis but X-ray results have shown that the artefact consists of an enigmatic opaque internal structure in the centre of the stone.

According to Williams, melted blobs of a metallic-like material on the component’s periphery suggests that some metal object near the Petradox was subjected to high temperatures to melt the metal and molten metal splashing onto the embedded component.

William is strongly convinced that he has found a genuine artefact that belonged to an advanced ancient civilization or an extraterrestrial race.
He is willing to let researchers authenticate the artefact under certain conditions. The first condition laid down by him is that he would be present during the analysis, and the second, that the rock remains unharmed.

The artifact has two possibilities.

Either scientific analysis could confirm it as being an elaborate hoax, or it could radically change our understanding of the history of mankind and change the way we look at history and our origins. No trace of glue or welding suggests that the object already existed at the time of the formation of the rock.

Many believe that science does not have an interest in these objects because they are afraid of what they might find out.

You might also be interested in watching this interesting video about the 2000 years old enigmatic Dropa Stones which are considered evidence Of ancient aliens.

Alien-like fish with a translucent head that exposes its green eyes is spotted near California

Alien-like fish with a translucent head that exposes its green eyes is spotted near California

There is an alien-like fish that lives some 2,000 feet below the ocean off the coast of California that has a translucent head that exposes its glowing eyes. Called the barreley fish, the deep-sea creature was spotted by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) using its remote-operated vehicle (ROV).

‘MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles Ventana and Doc Ricketts have logged more than 5,600 successful dives and recorded more than 27,600 hours of video—yet we’ve only encountered this fish nine times,’ the video description reads.

The elusive fish has two small indentations where its eyes would normally be, but instead, its eyes are two glowing green orbs behind its face that gaze up towards the top of its head.

Alien-like fish with a translucent head that exposes its green eyes is spotted near California
There is an alien-like fish that lives some 2,000 feet below ocean off the coast of California that has a see-through head that exposes its glowing eyes

Its eyes are in that position to allow the creature to scan the waters above it for food, since it lives so deep where food is scarce, along with allowing it to rotate its eyes forward.

The barreley fish was spotted on an expedition led by Rachel Carson in Monterey Bay off the coast of California last week, but it was first described in 1939, CNET reports.

While its body is mostly dark, the top part of its head is transparent and its eyes are clearly visible. According to evolutionary biologists, the fish developed such a powerful sense of sight as a result of the harsh environment it lives in, where no sunlight can reach.

Its eyes are known as tubular eyes, which are typically among deep-sea creatures, consisting of a multi-layer retina and a big lens, which allows them to detect the maximum quantity of light in one direction.

The elusive fish has two small indentations where its eyes would normally be, but instead, its eyes are two glowing green orbs behind its face that gaze up towards the top of its head

However, the eyes were believed to be fixed in place and seemed to provide only a ‘tunnel-vision’ view of whatever was directly above the fish’s head – this was the theory until 2019.

In 2019, a new study showed that the fish’s unusual eyes can rotate within a transparent shield that covers its head, allowing it to look up for food and forward to see what it is eating. 

The marine biologists also found that it uses its large, flat fins to remain motionless in the water.

The barreley fish was spotted on an expedition led by Rachel Carson in Monterey Bay off the coast of California last week, but it was first described in 1939

This means that creatures around it cannot see it clearly. Predators lurking above it cannot spot it either, however, it can look upwards to hunt for the small fish and plankton it lives off.

When a suitable morsel is identified, the barreleye fish attacks out of the darkness and swiftly engulfs its prey.

To avoid looking at the sun when it moves into shallower waters, the creature’s eyes can rotate to look forward so it can see where it is swimming.

Its amazing eyes glow a bright green and researchers believe it may have developed a form of light filter which allows it to ignore the sunlight and spot the bioluminescence of small fish and jellyfish – its favourite food.

Mammoths Survived in Canada Until 5,000 Years Ago

Mammoths Survived in Canada Until 5,000 Years Ago

Ancient 30,000-year-old DNA of past environments found in permafrost from Yukon, Canada reveals woolly mammoths roamed the region as recently as 5,000 years ago.

The discovery was made by scientists at McMaster University, who built on its previous research that speculated the massive animals died out 9,700 years earlier during the mid-Holocene epoch – a time of climate instability.

The soil samples were taken from the Klondike region of Canada’s Yukon in the early 2010s, but have were placed in a freezer and forgotten.

Mammoths Survived in Canada Until 5,000 Years Ago
Researchers used DNA capture-enrichment technology developed at McMaster University to isolate and rebuild the fluctuating animal and plant communities during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.

Tyler Murchie, an archaeologist specializing in ancient DNA at the university, told Gizmodo that when he saw the samples, he thought there may be ‘cool stuff’ inside them ‘waiting for someone to study.’

Murchie and his team isolated and rebuilt the DNA, showing the fluctuating animal and plant communities at different time points during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, which was an unstable climatic period 11,000 to14,000 years ago when several large species such as mammoths, mastodons and sabre-toothed cats disappeared.

The analysis also showed that mammoths and Yukon horses, which lived alongside mammoths, were already disappearing from the Earth before the climate instability.

However, the researchers note that they did not go extinct due to humans overhunting them as previously thought.

The evidence shows that both the woolly mammoth and ancient horse persisted until as recently as 5,000 years ago, bringing them into the mid-Holocene, the interval beginning roughly 11,000 years ago that we live in today.

The soil samples were taken from the Klondike region of Canada’s Yukon in the early 2010s, but have were placed in a freezer and forgotten

During the early Holocene, the environment in Yukon was dramatically changed due to a shifting climate.  It was previously flowing with lush grasslands, known as the ‘Mammoth Steppe’, but became overrun with shrubs and mosses that were not seen as food for large grazing herds of mammoths, horses and bison. 

Grasslands cannot survive in that part of North America and experts say that is because there are no longer the large grazing animals to manage them.

‘The rich data provides a unique window into the population dynamics of megafuana and nuances the discussion around their extinction through more subtle reconstructions of past ecosystems’ evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, a lead author on the paper and director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre, said in a statement. 

McMaster scientists were able to better date the extinction of the ancient animals with the help of new technology that was not available when they proposed the creatures were living in the Yukon 9,700 years ago. 

‘Now that we have these technologies, we realize how much life-history information is stored in permafrost,’ said Murchie.

Murchie and his team isolated and rebuilt the DNA, showing the fluctuating animal and plant communities at different time points during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, which was an unstable climatic period 11,000 to14,000 years ago when a several large species such as mammoths, mastodons and sabre-toothed cats disappeared

‘The amount of genetic data in permafrost is quite enormous and really allows for a scale of the ecosystem and evolutionary reconstruction that is unparalleled with other methods to date’ he says.

‘Although mammoths are gone forever, horses are not’ says Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History, another co-author. 

‘The horse that lived in the Yukon 5,000 years ago is directly related to the horse species we have today, Equus caballus. 

‘Biologically, this makes the horse a native North American mammal, and it should be treated as such.’

Mammoth graveyard unearthed at Mexico’s new airport

Mammoth graveyard unearthed at Mexico’s new airport

Archaeologists in hard hats and face masks carefully remove earth from around enormous bones at the site of Mexico City’s new airport, where construction work has uncovered a huge trove of mammoth skeletons.

The remains of dozens of the extinct giants and other prehistoric creatures have been found in Zumpango on the northern edge of the capital, which sits on an ancient lake bed.

“More than 100 individual mammoths, individual camels, horses, bison, fish, birds, antelopes and rodents have already been recovered,” said army captain Jesus Cantoral, who heads the excavation team.

In total remains have been found at 194 spots across the site since the first discoveries were made in October last year during work on a fuel terminal, he told AFP.

Most of the animals are believed to have roamed the Earth between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago. Experts worked painstakingly to extract the bones of one of the mammoth skeletons, taking care not to disturb a mound of the earth supporting another specimen.

At the same time thousands of construction workers continued to labour away across the site as dozens of excavators and trucks shifted earth and transported building materials.

The authorities say they have kept a careful watch to ensure the precious remains are preserved during work on the airport, which President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promised will be inaugurated in March 2022.

Experts believe the extinct giants were attracted by a lake that existed in prehistoric times

Stuck in mud

Experts believe the mammoths were drawn to the area by food and water provided by a lake that existed in prehistoric times.

“The place had a lot of natural resources, enough for these individuals to survive for a long time and for many generations,” said archaeologist Araceli Yanez.

In winter the lake area became muddy, trapping the giant mammals who starved, she said.

“It attracted a large number of mammoths, and they got stuck, as is the case with this individual, and died here,” Yanez added.

The lake was also very good for preserving the remains.

The remains of prehistoric camels, horses, bison, fish, birds, antelopes and rodents have also been found at the site

Mexico has been the scene of surprising mammoth discoveries before. In the 1970s, workers building the Mexico City subway found a mammoth skeleton while digging on the capital’s north side.

In 2012, workers digging to build a wastewater treatment plant outside the capital discovered hundreds of bones belonging to mammoths and other Ice Age animals.

The authorities plan to put the ancient remains on display at a museum at the airport

And last year archaeologists found the skeletons of 14 mammoths in Tultepec, near the site of the new airport.

Some bore signs that the animals had been hunted, leading experts to conclude at the time that they had found “the world’s first mammoth trap.”

The government began construction of the new aviation hub in 2019 at the Santa Lucia military airbase, months after cancelling work on another partially completed airport.

Lopez Obrador, who ran on a pro-austerity, anti-graft platform, had criticized that project championed by his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto as an unnecessary mega-project marred by corruption.

His administration has tasked the military with overseeing the construction of the new airport, which will house a museum showcasing the mammoth skeletons and other ancient remains.

Ancient Americans made art deep within the dark zones of caves throughout the Southeast

Ancient Americans made art deep within the dark zones of caves throughout the Southeast

On a cold winter day in 1980, a group of recreational cavemen entered the course of a narrow, wet stream south of Knoxville, Tennessee. He navigated a slippery mud slope and a tight keyhole through the cave wall, trampled himself through the stream, sank through another keyhole and climbed more mud. Eventually, they entered a high and relatively dry passage deep in the “dark zone” of the cave – beyond the reach of outside light.

On the walls around them, they began to see lines and shapes in the remains of the soil laid long ago, when the stream flowed at this high level. No modern or historical graffiti intersected the surfaces. He saw images of animals, people and transformational characters with birds with human characteristics and mammals with snakes.

Ancient cave art has long been the most compelling of all artefacts from the human past, fascinating to both scientists and the public. Its visible manifestations resonate through the ages, as to speak to us from ancient times. And in 1980 this group of caves occurred at the first ancient cave art site in North America.

Since then archaeologists like me have discovered dozens of cave art sites in the southeast.

We have been able to learn details about when cave art first appeared in the region, when it was mostly produced and what it might be used for. We have also learned a great deal by working with the surviving descendants of cave art makers, the present-day Native American peoples of the Southeast, about what cave art means and how important it is to indigenous communities.

From the outside, these caves give no indication of the ancient art that may have been inside.

Cave Art in America?

Some people think of North America when they think of ancient cave art.

The world’s first modern discovery of cave art was made in Altamira, northern Spain, in 1879, a century before Tennessee cavers made their discovery. The scientific establishment of that day immediately denied the authenticity of the site. Later discoveries served to substantiate this and other ancient sites. As the earliest manifestations of human creativity, perhaps 40,000 years old, European Palaeolithic cave art is now justifiably famous around the world.

But similar cave art was not found anywhere in North America, although Native American rock art has been recorded outside the caves since the arrival of Europeans. The artefact deep beneath the ground was unknown in the 1980s, and the Southeast was an impossible place to find it, given how much archaeology had been done there since the colonial period.

Nevertheless, Tennessee cavers assumed they were seeing something extraordinary and brought archaeologist Charles Faulkner to the cave. He started a research project there, named Mud Glyph Cave. His archaeological works have shown that the art was from the Mississippian culture, about 800 years old, and depicts imagery characteristic of ancient Native American religious beliefs. Many of those beliefs are still held by descendants of Mississippian peoples: the modern Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Kaushatta, Muskogee, Seminole and Yuchi, among others.

Following the discovery of Mud Glyph Cave, archaeologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, began systematic cave surveys. Today, we’ve listed 92 dark-zone cave art sites in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Some sites are also known in Arkansas, Missouri and Wisconsin.

What did he paint?

There are three forms of southeastern cave art.

  • Mud glyphs, like Mud Glyphs Cave, are images found in soil surfaces preserved in caves.
  • Petroglyphs are images carved directly into the limestone of the cave walls.
  • Pictographs are paintings, usually made with charcoal-based pigments, that are placed on cave walls.
  • Sometimes, more than one technique is found in the same cave, and neither method appears in other ways at an earlier or later time.
The Archaic picture of a hunter and a hunt dates back to 6,500 years.

Some southeastern cave art is quite ancient. The oldest cave art sites date back to about 6,500 years, during the Archaic period (10,000–1000 BC). These early sites are rare and appear to be clustered on the modern Kentucky–Tennessee state line. The imagery was simple and often abstract, although representational images do exist.

Woodland period Petroglyph of a box-shaped human-like creature with a long neck and U-shaped head.

The number of cave art sites increases with time. The Woodland period (1000 BC – 1000 AD) saw a more general and more widespread art production. Abstract art was still abundant and less mundane. Perhaps more spiritual subject matter was common. During the woodland, collisions between humans and animals such as “bird-man” made their first appearance.

The Mississippian period (AD 1000–1500) is the last contact stage in the Southeast before the arrival of Europeans, and it was when most dark-zone cave arts were produced. The theme is explicitly religious and includes spirit people and animals that do not exist in the natural world. There is also strong evidence that Mississippian art caves were compositions, in which images were arranged through cave passages to suggest stories or narratives in a systematic way, however, their locations and relationships were told.

The painting from the Mississippian period depicts an animal with toes, a blunt forehead and a long muzzle, with a long curved tail on its back.

Cave art continued into the modern era

In recent years, researchers have realized that cave art has a strong connection with the historical tribes that occupied the Southeast at the time of the European invasion.

In several caves in Alabama and Tennessee, inscriptions from the mid-19th century were inscribed on the cave walls in the Cherokee course. This writing system was invented by Cherokee scholar Sequoyah between 1800 and 1824 and was quickly adopted as the tribe’s primary means of written expression.

An 1828 Cherokee syllabic inscription relating to a stickball ceremony, on the wall of a cave in Alabama.

Cherokee archaeologists, historians, and linguists, along with non-native archaeologists like me, have documented and translated these cave writings. As it turns out, they refer to various important religious ceremonies and spiritual concepts that emphasize the sacred nature of the caves, their isolation and their connection to powerful spirits. These texts reflect similar religious ideas represented by graphic images in the earlier, pre-Contact time period.

Mud Glyph Cave was first discovered more than four decades ago, based on all the rediscoveries, the cave art in the Southeast for a long time. These artists worked in ancient times when ancestral Native Americans lived in the rich natural landscapes of the Southeast all the way through historical times, before forcibly removing indigenous people east of the Mississippi River in the 1830s. Trail of Tears was seen.

As the survey continues, researchers uncover more dark cave sites each year – in fact, four new caves were found in the first half of 2021. With each new discovery, the tradition began to reach the richness and diversity of the Palaeolithic art of Europe, where 350 sites are currently known. Archaeologists were unaware of the dark-zone cave art of the American Southeast even 40 years ago, indicating that new finds may be discovered in areas that have been explored for centuries.