The discovery of a burial chamber in the archaeological zone of Palenque with a primary burial, composed of a human skeleton, and a secondary burial, an offering made up of three plates and a niche with various green stone figures, was reported by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), informed its director Diego Prieto during the morning conference of President López Obrador, from Palenque, Chiapas.
Prieto Hernandez emphasized that the discovery was registered during the salvage of Structure CP3, during the construction works of the Mayan Train.
The head of INAH explained that the skeleton of the individual of the primary burial presents a face-up position and is oriented towards the north, something usual in the ancient funerary customs of Palenque.
The skeletal remains of the second deposit would correspond to a woman, who was probably buried in a different place.
Prieto Hernandez said that there is also another skull, of which the analyses continue for its identification.
The archaeological salvage tasks, said Diego Prieto, are practically concluded, nevertheless, the archaeologists and other professionals continue with the analysis and interpretation of the archaeological information.
Flotsam May Be Wreckage of Historic 19th-Century Ship
A chunk of weather-beaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last fall has piqued the interest of experts who say it is likely part of the SS Savannah, which ran aground and broke apart in 1821, two years after it became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power.
This photo shows the 1819 painting of the SS Savannah, by Hunter Wood, LT USMS. A chunk of weatherbeaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last fall has piqued the interest of experts who say it is likely part of the SS Savannah, a famous shipwreck that became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power in 1819 and then ran aground off Long Island two years later.
Tony Femminella, executive director of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, and Betsy DeMaria, museum technician with Fire Island National Seashore, stand beside a section of the hull of a ship believed to be the SS Savannah, at the Fire Island lighthouse, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in New York. The SS Savannah wrecked in 1821 off Fire Island.
The roughly 13-foot (4-meter) square piece of wreckage was spotted in October off Fire Island, a barrier island that hugs Long Island’s southern shore, and is now in the custody of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society. It will work with National Park Service officials to identify the wreckage and put it on public display.
“It was pretty thrilling to find it,” said Betsy DeMaria, a museum technician at the park service’s Fire Island National Seashore. “We definitely are going to have some subject matter experts take a look at it and help us get a better view of what we have here.”
It may be difficult to identify the wreckage with 100% certainty, but park service officials said the Savannah is a top contender among Fire Island’s known shipwrecks.
Explorers have searched for the Savannah for over two centuries but have not found anything they could definitively link to the famous ship. The newly discovered wreckage, though, “very well could be” a piece of the historic shipwreck, said Ira Breskin, a senior lecturer at the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx. “It makes perfect sense.”
Evidence includes the 1-to-1.3-inch (2.5-to-3.3-centimeter) wooden pegs holding the wreckage’s planks together, consistent with a 100-foot (30.5-meter) vessel, park service officials said in a news release.
The Savannah was 98 feet, 6 inches (30 meters) long. Additionally, the officials said, the wreckage’s iron spikes suggest a ship built around 1820. The Savannah was built in 1818.
Breskin, author of “The Business of Shipping,” noted that the Savannah’s use of steam power was so advanced for its time that the May 24, 1819, start of its transatlantic voyage is commemorated as National Maritime Day. “It’s important because they were trying to basically show the viability of a steam engine to make it across the pond,” he said.
Breskin said a nautical archaeologist should be able to help identify the Fire Island wreckage, which appears likely to be from the Savannah. “It’s plausible, and it’s important, and it’s living history if the scientists confirm that it is what we think it is,” he said.
The Savannah, a sailing ship outfitted with a 90-horsepower steam engine, traveled mainly under sail across the Atlantic, using steam power for 80 hours of the nearly month-long passage to Liverpool, England.
Crowds cheered as the Savannah sailed from Liverpool to Sweden and Russia and then back to its home port of Savannah, Georgia, but the ship was not a financial success, in part because people were afraid to travel on the hybrid vessel. The Savannah’s steam engine was removed and sold after the ship’s owners suffered losses in the Great Savannah Fire of 1820.
The Savannah was transporting cargo between Savannah and New York when it ran aground off Fire Island. It later broke apart. The crew made it safely to shore and the cargo of cotton was salvaged, but the Augusta Chronicle & Georgia Gazette reported that “Captain Holdridge was considerably hurt by being upset in the boat.”
Explorers have searched for the Savannah over the two centuries since it but have not found anything they could definitively link to the famous ship.
Swiss Museum Returns Sacred Objects to Canada’s First Nations
The two representatives of Haudenosaunee Confederation Clayton Logan (Seneca Nation), left, and Brennen Ferguson (Tuscarora Nation), right, hold boxes containing sacred objects during the ceremony of restitution of sacred object to the Haudenosaunee Confederation, at the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva (MEG), in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023. The MEG has returned the traditional sacred objects, a mask and a rattle, to the Haudenosaunee after 200 years in Switzerland.
Two artifacts sacred to some of Canada’s Indigenous peoples are now back on home territory after a Swiss museum returned them to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy this month.
The objects, a medicine mask and turtle rattle, had been in the possession of the Geneva Museum of Ethnography (MEG) for nearly 200 years.
The museum acknowledged last month that the artifacts were originally acquired without consent, noting in a press release it was taking the unprecedented step of returning them as part of its commitment to ensuring both human remains and sacred objects are restored to their rightful owners.
Mohawk elder and activist Kenneth Deer — one of the three men sent to retrieve the objects — said he was “surprised and thankful” for the museum’s co-operation and called the MEG “progressive” for returning the objects without conditions or complications.
“It was a very quick turnaround because sometimes it takes years to get objects back from a museum, especially from a foreign country. It was a really good experience, and I think it’s a model for other museums to follow,” Deer said in an interview on Friday.
Deer said the mask was first spotted back in July by Tuscarora Brennen Ferguson, who, along with Deer, is a member of the Haudenosaunee external relations committee.
In November, the committee wrote a letter requesting the return of artifacts to Canada. The museum and the city of Geneva, which founded the MEG in 1901, approved the request.
“The museum was very cooperative, and more than that, they were just respectful,” Ferguson said. “(After I first saw the mask), we met with the director, and we asked her for the mask to be taken off public display, and they did it that very same day. We expressed our wishes, and they worked with us completely.”
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is made up of six nations on both sides of the American and Canadian border: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Tuscarora, and Seneca.
Deer said the MEG offered to ship the artifacts to Canada at the beginning of the year after obtaining a Swiss export permit, but Haudenosaunee elders objected because of the significance of the mask.
“It is a medicine mask used in ceremonies for healing, and we regard these masks as living entities that have great healing powers,” Deer said.
So, a delegation was formed consisting of Deer, Ferguson, and 87-year-old Seneca elder Clayton Logan. Together the three flew to Switzerland to retrieve the sacred objects.
“There was a ceremony, and it was all very terrific. There was a lot of media attention, and a lot of people came out. The Canadian ambassador to the United Nations was present. And there were representatives from the United States government, Mexico and Guatemala, and the Swiss, of course,” Deer said.
Deer said Logan was allowed to burn traditional tobacco during the Feb. 7 ceremony. Deer also gave the museum two Mohawk corn husk dolls, one male and one female, made in Akwesasne.
Meg Director Carine Ayélé Durand issued a press release saying she was very pleased to see the city of Geneva playing an active role in favor of the rights of Indigenous peoples.
“This return of sacred objects was made possible thanks to the relationship we have had with the Haudenosaunee,” Ayélé Durand said in the statement.
She went on to thank the administrative council of the city of Geneva, who she said “made this process extremely smooth and quick.,”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Feb. 18, 2023.
Live Civil War Shell Discovered at Pennsylvania Battlefield
Historic ordnance discovered by archaeologists at Little Round Top in Gettysburg.
Archaeologists working at a historic battlefield at Gettysburg recently made an explosive find: a live 160-year-old artillery shell that had to be detonated by a specially trained U.S. Army disposal team.
The shell was found on Feb. 8 at Little Round Top, a hill that offered Union forces a strategic position during the Civil War. On July 2, 1863, the second day of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, the North and the South struggled for 90 minutes to control Little Round Top, leaving thousands of soldiers dead.
The rocky hill was not, however, an ideal platform for an artillery offensive, as Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee suggested in his 1864 report about the Gettysburg campaign. Lee reported that Confederate Gen. Longstreet was delayed by Union forces firing from Little Round Top, but Longstreet decided to go around them rather than attempt to take the hill.
An 18-month-long rehabilitation project is currently taking place at Little Round Top as the National Park Service works to preserve and protect the battlefield landscape and to add new signage for Gettysburg visitors.
Archaeologist Steven Brann and his team from Stantec, a consultancy company that also performs archaeological work, were sweeping the area with metal detectors when they hit on something nearly 2 feet (0.6 meter) underground. “It is standard procedure to use metal detectors on battlefields,” Brann told Live Science in an email.
The unexploded round they discovered was about 7 inches (18 centimeters) long and weighed about 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms). “There are procedures in place in case such objects are found,” Brann explained.
Ultimately, the Army’s 55th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company (EOD) from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was called in to remove the shell and destroy it safely.
“Unexploded ordnance still found on the battlefield is a fairly unique circumstance,” Jason Martz, a spokesperson for Gettysburg National Military Park, told Live Science in an email. “It’s only the fifth found since 1980.”
“Most of the objects we find are much smaller, such as percussion caps, bullets, and uniform buttons,” Brann said. “Much of what we find turns out to be modern trash or objects that were discarded during the construction of monuments, such as iron straps and nails.” Still, these artifacts are not usually discovered unless excavation is happening. And as evidenced by the current find, excavation at a battlefield can be dangerous.
“Archaeology work is always completed before any ground disturbance takes place, and it’s a federal offense to dig or metal detect for these items by the general public,” Martz said.
Many commenters and history buffs on the Gettysburg National Military Park’s Facebook post lamented the fact that the ordnance — which Capt.
Matthew Booker, commander of the EOD, identified as a 3-inch Dyer or Burton shell for a rifled cannon — had to be destroyed.
Nonetheless, “this particular shell hasn’t told us its whole story yet,” Martz said. The park is researching the shell and its discovery location in greater detail now, trying to figure out, for example, whether it was fired by Union or Confederate troops, and will release that information to the public when it is available.
“The fact that this shell was found nearly 160 years after the Battle of Gettysburg is a very powerful and tangible connection to the past,” Martz added. “It also reminds us that the battlefield still has stories to tell.”
Cemetery Found in Mexico City Reflects Changing Burial Customs
INAH experts recovered the skeletal remains of 21 individuals during the construction of the so-called “Pavellón Escénico“, in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City.
A cemetery from the early viceregal period (1521-1620 AD) was found in the area where the Chapultepec Forest Garden and “Pabellón Escénico” (Scenic Pavilion) are being built, reports the Ministry of Culture.
Experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), through the Directorate of Archaeological Rescue (DSA), made the discovery in the area known as ecological parking.
In the text, the coordinator of the DSA, María de Lourdes López Camacho, explains that during the monitoring of the works as part of the Chapultepec Project, the INAH dug a two-by-two-meter test pit, and “human skeletal remains were detected from 1.37 meters deep.
Apparently, the remains would be from two different populations.
With the field assistance of archaeologists Blanca Copto Gutiérrez and Alixbeth Daniela Aburto Pérez, “it was decided to double the excavation.
In the last three weeks, the team recovered the bones – in various states of conservation – of 21 individuals, mostly female and male adults, including a couple of infants”, adds the archaeologist.
It details that the burials were carried out directly in the ground and at three different moments during the first century after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
“Despite the fact that most of the burials presented the same west-east orientation, which alludes to the belief in the resurrection in the Christian faith, their arrangement suggests two types of population: one of indigenous origin, probably Mexica, and another European”.
According to the studies, it is a collective burial.
The archaeologist explains that for the most part, “individuals were placed outstretched with their arms crossed over their chests or in the pelvic region, as indicated by the Catholic funeral rite; However, two were buried in a flexed and lateral way, in the Mesoamerican style, not to mention that another couple of individuals were buried carrying a seal and a green obsidian blade, both pre-Hispanic”.
According to their studies, it is a collective burial that corresponds to an early viceroyalty cemetery, “because it shows the transition from pre-Hispanic funeral customs to those implemented with the arrival of the Spaniards and their religious system.”
The report adds that “according to the coordinator of the DSA Bioarchaeology Section, Jorge Arturo Talavera González, who made a first osteological report -which will be complemented with other analyses, including DNA-, the epigenetic traits of certain individuals indicate the presence of two different populations in that context, the Amerindian individuals being identifiable by their spade-shaped teeth .”
Regarding health conditions, the document concludes, “preliminary observations indicate that the people buried suffered, among other conditions, hypoplasia, attrition and dental calculus (wear of enamel and dental structure, as well as tartar), inflammation of the periosteum ( fibrous sheath that covers the bones) and other infectious processes, as well as diseases related to the nutritional deficit”.
The individuals were placed in an extended position with their arms crossed over their chests.
Climate Model Suggests Timeline for Migration to North America
The icy landscape of Chukotka, Russia. During the last ice age, the Bering Land Bridge between Asia and North America emerged, allowing humans to cross over.
During the last ice age, the coastal route from Asia to North America was so treacherous, humans likely crossed over only during two-time windows, when environmental factors were more favorable for the long and dangerous journey, a new study finds.
The first window lasted from 24,500 to 22,000 years ago, and the other spanned from 16,400 to 14,800 years ago, according to the study, published Feb. 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
During these periods, winter sea ice cover and sea ice-free summers would have likely given these travelers access to a diverse marine buffet, as well as ways to safely travel along the North Pacific coast, the researchers said.
There are two main scenarios explaining how people may have first migrated to the New World. The older idea suggested that people made this journey on land when Beringia — the land bridge that once connected Asia with North America — was relatively ice-free. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that travelers used watercraft along the Pacific coasts of Asia, Beringia, and North America before 15,000 years ago, when giant ice sheets would have made an overland journey extraordinarily difficult.
To see how viable the coastal route may have been for migration at different times, scientists analyzed how changes in climate over the past 45,000 years might have influenced sea ice, glacier extent, ocean current strength, and food supplies on land and sea.
The researchers developed climate models based on new data on sea ice variations and previously collected sediment samples from the Gulf of Alaska holding details about sea ice, sea surface temperatures, salinity and debris carried on ice. Their models revealed the two time windows — the first 2,500-year-long window and the second 1,600-year-long span — for year-round coastal migration, which would have enabled a favorable coastal route when the inland route was blocked.
During those two windows, summer kelp forests would have helped keep travelers fed. Sea ice during the winter during those periods also may have supported migration; when stuck on the shoreline, sea ice can be relatively flat and stable, so ancient hunters could have walked on it and captured seals, whales and other prey to survive those winters, the researchers noted.
“Rather than being an obstacle, we suggest that sea ice may have partly facilitated movement and subsistence in this region,” study first author Summer Praetorius, a paleoceanographer at the U.S. Geological Survey, in Menlo Park, California, told Live Science.
Other times during the past 45,000 years were likely less friendly to coastal migration. For instance, a giant pulse of meltwater drained into the Pacific between about 18,500 and 16,000 years ago; this huge pulse came from the edges of the giant ice sheet that once covered most of northeastern North America, and would have more than doubled the average strength of the northward ocean currents along Alaska. This, in turn, would have made boat travel heading south along the Pacific coast more difficult.
The melting glaciers at this time also would have led giant icebergs to regularly calve into the ocean, posing a major hazard to coastal migration.
“At present we know more about the ice-free corridor — the timing of its opening and the timing of when it became viable for human migration,” Michael Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University who did not take part in this research, told Live Science. “This paper is a good step in doing the same for the coastal migration route.”
In the future, the researchers would like to “look into how marine ecosystems were changing in response to past climate variations to better understand what resources were available to coastal people at different times,” Praetorius said. She also wants to learn more about any brief warming spells a few centuries to millennia long that happened around Beringia, to see if they were linked to specific periods of migration.
“It is becoming clear that people entered the Americas by traversing the coast,” Waters said. “They took the coastal migration hypothesis to the next level. Well done.”
Archaeologists in northern Mexico shed new light on ancient Huastec burial and construction practices
Recent excavations at a site in the state of Tamaulipas included analysis of large earthen mounds that were used for burials and everyday activities.
A carved green quartz earring found inside a mound at the El Naranjo site
Archaeologists in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, have identified remnants of a human settlement active more than a millennium ago that shed light on the pre-Columbian Huastec civilisation.
The foundations of four large earthen mounds were found at the archaeological site known as El Naranjo, and served not only as burial grounds but also places for daily activities, according to an announcement last week by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Researchers say it is one of the most important findings in the region in recent decades due to the volume of recovered material.
“Without a doubt, they were dynamic spaces,” archaeologist Esteban Ávalos says. “In addition to what is related to human burials, we propose that there were daily activities. This is based on the discovery of hearths, not very stylised ceramics, grinding stones and projectile points.”
An earring of carved shell found inside a mound at the El Naranjo site
The ancient Huastec civilisation occupied land stretching across what is now six Mexican states and constructed substructure mounds for activity that have been identified at archaeological sites including Vista Hermosa and Platanito.
At El Naranjo, archaeologists have so far excavated two of the four mounds, which held a dozen human interments. The smaller, measuring 20 metres in diameter and named Mound 4, revealed multiple burials of adults adorned with earrings made of green quartz and shells, some carved in the shape of flowers.
At the larger mound, measuring 30 metres in diameter and named Mound 1, researchers identified several other burials in addition to the discrete grave of one adult within a limestone structure.
“We can see that they practised both single-individual and multiple-type burials, and that they were buried in different positions—some more frequent than others, such as the dorsal flexed position or the flexed decubitus position,” Ávalos says. “Also that the objects that accompanied them are rare materials in the region, and that they were worked with great care and detail.”
Remains excavated from one of the mounds at the El Naranjo site in northern Mexico
Archaeologists are especially interested in the architecture of the mounds. They were made of alternating layers of earth, limestone and basalt and suggest a specialisation of labour and use of materials. “[The discovery] allows us to characterise and know in-depth the construction systems of this type of earthen construction with stone masonry, which have been little-studied from the architectural point of view,” Ávalos says.
“This contributes to understanding social organisation, resource management and habitability solutions in response to the environment.” He adds that the foundations are similar to those of earthen houses known as Bajareque houses that people in Ocampo and the surrounding areas are currently building, demonstrating the “permanence of traditional knowledge”.
Excavation of the site has been underway as part of the ongoing construction of a superhighway linking the municipalities of Mante and Tula in Tamaulipas.
Archaeologists and physical anthropology experts are studying the recovered remains to further understand the complexity of settlement life at El Naranjo. “We are expected to obtain accurate data about cultural affiliation, age, sex, nutrition and disease,” Ávalos says.
Research Team Identifies Oldest Bone Spear Point In The Americas
A team of researchers has identified the Manis bone projectile point as the oldest weapon made of bone ever found in the Americas at 13,900 years.
Dr. Michael Waters, distinguished professor of anthropology and director of Texas A&M’s Center for the Study of First Americans, led the team whose findings were published this week in Science Advances.
The team studied bone fragments embedded in a mastodon rib bone which was first discovered by Carl Gustafson, who conducted an excavation at the Manis site in Washington state from 1977 to 1979.
Using a CT scan and 3D software, Waters and his team isolated all the bone fragments to show it was the tip of a weapon — a projectile made from the bone of Mastodon, prehistoric relatives of elephants.
“We isolated the bone fragments, printed them out and assembled them,” Waters said. “This clearly showed this was the tip of a bone projectile point. This is this the oldest bone projectile point in the Americas and represents the oldest direct evidence of mastodon hunting in the Americas.”
Ct scan of bone point fragments embedded in the rib. Photo: Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University
Waters said at 13,900 years old, the Manis point is 900 years older than projectile points found to be associated with the Clovis people, whose stone tools he has also studied. Dating from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago, Clovis spear points have been found in Texas and several other sites across the country.
“What is important about Manis is that it’s the first and only bone tool that dates older than Clovis. At the other pre-Clovis site, only stone tools are found,” Waters said. “This shows that the First Americans made and used bone weapons and likely other types of bone tools.”
He said the only reason the Manis specimen was preserved is because the hunter missed, and the projectile got stuck in the mastodon’s rib.
“We show that the bone used to make the point appears to have come from the leg bone of another mastodon and was intentionally shaped into a projectile point form,” Waters said. “The spear with the bone point was thrown at the mastodon. It penetrated the hide and tissue and eventually came into contact with the rib. The objective of the hunter was to get between the ribs and impair lung function, but the hunter missed and hit the rib.”
Waters studied the rib bone previously, presenting findings in a 2011 paper published in Science, in which radiocarbon dating determined the bone’s age and a genetic study of the bone fragments determined that they were mastodon.
“In our new study, we set out to isolate the bone fragments using CT images and 3D software,” he said. “We were able to create 3D images of each fragment and print them out at six times scale. Then we fit the pieces back together to show what the specimen looked like before it entered and splintered in the rib.”
Researchers identify oldest bone spear point In the Americas.
Not much is known about the people who used the Manis spearpoint other than they were some of the first Indigenous people to enter the Americas. Waters said the Manis site and others are giving archaeologists some insight.
“It is looking like the first people that came to the Americas arrived by boat,” he said. “They took a coastal route along the North Pacific and moved south. They eventually got past the ice sheets that covered Canada and made landfall in the Pacific Northwest.
“It is interesting to note that in Idaho there is the 16,000-year-old Coopers Ferry site, in Oregon is the 14,100-year-old site of Paisley Caves. And here we report on the 13,900-year-old Manis site. So there appears to be a cluster of early sites in the Northwestern part of the United States that date from 16,000 to 14,000 years ago that predate Clovis. These sites likely represent the first people and their descendants that entered the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age.”
