Archaeologists have found a previously unknown Roman city with buildings of monumental proportions in Spain’s Aragon Region

Archaeologists from the University of Zaragoza in Spain have discovered a previously unknown Roman city with buildings of monumental proportions.

The urban complex, which existed between the first and second centuries, had “buildings of immense sizes” as well as public facilities including baths, water supply, streets, and sewers.

Researchers thought the 10-acre site, also located at Artieda, in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain, was home to several separate archaeological sites, including San Pedro and the Rein Hermitage.

In 2018, Artieda City Council asked the University of Zaragoza’s Department of Archeology for help in examining some of the remains found around the San Pedro hermitage, known variously as El Forau de la Tuta, Campo de la Virgen, or Campo del Royo.

And after 3 years of research, experts have confirmed that these sites form one large single archaeological complex. El Forau de la Tuta is the name for everything now, since the team realized they’re all one interconnected city. Until the real name of the city is revealed, of course!

The team published the results of their 3 years of work in a report, El Forau de la Tuta: A Hitherto Unknown Roman Imperial City on the Southern Slopes of the Pyrenees.

The team detected two phases of occupation on the surface of the site: one during the Roman imperial period (the 1st to 5th centuries) and another during the early-medieval Christian era (the 9th to 13th centuries).

The researchers discovered two streets, the whispers of sidewalks, four rudimentary cement sewer outlets, one life-sized marble hand of a presumed public monument, and even the reception room of a thermal bath—complete with mosaics preserved by the collapsed sandstone ceiling.

They did this by combining remote sensing techniques like georadar and aerial images with conventional methods.

This magnificent find features two cupids riding seahorses and is decorated with shell and scallop designs.

The report states that the settlement was “of urban character—the city’s name is currently unknown—and it developed during the [Roman] imperial period”.

The researchers also learned that the settlement had another life as a rural habitat during the Visigoth and early Andalusian periods. A medieval peasant village sat atop the Roman ruins from the ninth to 13th centuries.

The El Forau de la Tuta location lies 1.5 kilometres from Artieda’s city centre, in the lush Aragón River plain.

It is located within a 390-meter long and 140-meter broad agricultural area.

It is four hectares in size, but it’s likely that the site is significantly bigger and that it encompasses other, as-yet-undiscovered agricultural areas.

Oldest European human fossil found in Spain

A jawbone fragment discovered in northern Spain last month could be the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor found to date in Europe, Spanish palaeontologists said on Friday. The researchers said the fossil found at an archaeological site on 30 June in the Atapuerca mountain range was about 1.4m years old.

Until now, the oldest hominid fossil found in Europe was a jawbone found at the same site in 2007 that was determined to be 1.2m years old.

Atapuerca holds one of the richest records of prehistoric human occupation in Europe.

Researchers will now have to complete their first estimate for the age of the jawbone fragment using dating techniques, palaeoanthropologist José María Berúmudez de Castro, the co-director of the Atapuerca research project, said during a news conference.

Since the jawbone fragment was found some 2 metres below the layer of earth of the 2007 find “it is logical and reasonable to think it is older”, he said.

The dating of the jawbone fragment will be carried out at the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, a city located about six miles from Atapuerca.

The process should take six to eight months to complete, Bermúdez de Castro said.

The analysis could help identify which hominid species the jawbone fragment belongs to and better understand how human beings evolved on the European continent.

Scientists have so far been unable to determine with certainty the species of the jawbone discovered in 2007. The fossil could correspond to Homo antecessor, discovered in the 1990s.

The Atapuerca Foundation, which runs the archaeological site, said it was very likely the jawbone fragment “belongs to one of the first populations that colonised Europe”.

In 2000 the archaeological site of Atapuerca was included on Unesco’s list of world heritage sites, giving it access to UN conservation funding.

It contains thousands of hominid fossils and tools including a flint discovered in 2013 that is 1.4m years old.

Timber From 17th-Century Spanish Shipwreck Discovered In Caves Off Oregon’s Coast

In 1693, the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a Manila galleon loaded with silk, porcelain and beeswax, set sail from the Philippines on a trading expedition to Mexico. But the ship—and its valuable cargo—never reached its destination. Instead, the vessel ended up shipwrecked off the coast of Oregon, becoming one of roughly 3,000 ships lost in the region to date.

Over the next two centuries or so, explorers, merchants, Indigenous peoples, scholars and curious locals alike traded stories about the fabled wreck, which was “occasionally visible” along the Oregon shoreline, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia’s Cameron La Follette. In 1813 or 1814, fur trader Alexander Henry detailed how members of the Clatsop tribe frequently exchanged “lumps of beeswax, fresh out of the sand, which they collect on the coast … where the Spanish ship was cast away some years ago.” The fate of the ship’s crew is unclear, but Indigenous oral histories suggest that some survived the disaster.

Despite widespread interest in the 17th-century ship, tangible evidence of the so-called “Beeswax Wreck” remained elusive until recently.

Last week, reports Kristin Romey for National Geographic, a team spearheaded by the Maritime Archaeological Society (MAS) successfully recovered a dozen timbers from the Santo Cristo de Burgos’ wooden hull.

The find makes the vessel one of only three Manila galleons identified on the North American West Coast, as well as one of just three in the world with surviving wood pieces, per the Oregon Coast Beach Connection.

Fisherman Craig Andes brought the hull fragments to society’s attention in early 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic. He’d first noticed the pieces of wood while exploring sea caves near the beach town of Manzanita in 2013 but only decided to bring in experts after realizing that the smaller fragments were on the verge of being swept away.

Initially, the MAS team was sceptical of Andes’ discovery.

“I was convinced it was driftwood,” the society’s president, Scott Williams, tells National Geographic. “To think that 300-year-old ship timbers could survive the Oregon coast was just crazy.”

Then, however, testing revealed that the timbers came from an Asian tropical hardwood felled in the mid- to late-17th century—a result that prompted Williams and his colleagues to take a closer look at the caves. They confirmed Andes’ suspicions that summer but were unable to retrieve the pieces, as the caves are only accessible via water or a dangerous rock scramble.

Thanks to weather- and Covid-related delays, the official recovery mission—funded in part by the National Geographic Society—didn’t take place until June 13. MAS archaeologists, staff from cultural resource management firm SEARCH Inc., and representatives of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and local sheriff’s offices secured the timbers in just 90 minutes, wrapping up the expedition before high tide.

“The last few timbers, I ended up staying behind to get those bundled up so I had to swim out to the jet ski because I got trapped where I couldn’t get out any other way,” archaeologist Stacy Scott tells KPTV Fox 12 Oregon.

According to a separate Oregon Coast Beach Connection report, the Santo Cristo de Burgos likely ran aground in shallow water, which rarely preserves shipwrecks. But storms and a massive tsunami in 1700 scattered pieces of the wreck, perhaps depositing the newly recovered timbers into the sea caves. Other possible explanations for the fragments’ improbable survival include the cold, less salty conditions of Oregon’s North Coast and shifting sands that buried and shielded the timbers, writes the Astorian’s Katie Frankowicz.

In the decades following the shipwreck, objects from the vessel washed ashore, fueling rumours of the enigmatic wreck’s existence. Per a timeline compiled by MAS, the flow of beeswax tapered off in the late 1860s, with an 85-pound chunk discovered in 1894 deemed “the largest piece found in 20 years.” Though locals at one point disagreed whether the wax was natural or came from a shipwreck, by 1920, most appeared to accept the latter scenario.

During the 20th century, the Beeswax Wreck became the stuff of local legend, spawning stories of buried treasure and perhaps even inspiring Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Goonies. Continued interest in the ship led to the launch of the Beeswax Wreck Project in 2006 and MAS’ formation in 2015.

Though the wooden pieces are a significant find, Williams tells the Astorian that archaeologists “haven’t found what we would call ‘The Wreck.’ We don’t know if something like ‘The Wreck’ exists.” Pieces of the galleon’s lower hull could still be hidden nearby; the team hopes to recover additional hull fragments from other caves in the near future.

“Will this answer big questions? Probably not,” says marine archaeologist James Delgado to the Astorian. “But it’s another step in a process that could potentially lead to further discovery.”

Ancient humans used Spanish caves for rock art for more than 50,000 years

Cueva de Ardales in Málaga, Spain, is a famous site containing more than 1,000 prehistoric cave paintings and engravings. It also includes artefacts and human remains. But since its discovery in 1821, after an earthquake unearthed the entrance, the way ancient humans used the cave has been a mystery.

New research, published in PLoS ONE, on items from the first excavation has shed light on prehistoric Iberia’s human inhabitants. Archaeologists from Spain, Germany and Denmark collaborated to analyse the paintings, relics and human bones from the cave.

Combining radiometric dating – measuring the presence of radioactive elements such as carbon-14 to determine the age of remains – with other analyses of artefacts from the site, the researchers have determined the first occupants of Cueva de Ardales, arriving more than 65,000 years ago, were likely Neanderthals.

Modern humans came to use the cave around 30,000 years later. This timeframe coincides with the disappearance of Homo neanderthalensis some 40,000 years ago. 

Homo sapiens used the cave sporadically until as recently as the beginning of the Copper Age, around 7,000 years ago.

Rock art is believed to be an indication of humankind’s first attempts to understand, rationalise and abstract the external world.

Our ability to imagine and communicate through language, writing, science, art and abstractions are likely consequences of such leaps in ancient human culture.

The authors write: “Our research presents a well-stratified series of more than 50 radiometric dates in Cueva de Ardales that confirm the antiquity of Palaeolithic art from over 58,000 years ago. It also confirms that the cave was a place of special activities linked to art, as numerous fragments of ochre were discovered in the Middle Palaeolithic levels.”

The oldest examples of cave art in the Málaga site include abstract signs such as dots, fingertips and hand stencils created with red pigment. Later artwork involves more complex paintings and figures such as animals.

Human remains indicate the use of the cave as a burial place in the Holocene – the period of geological time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or “ice age”, around 12,000 years ago.

There is limited evidence of domestic activities at Cueva de Ardales, suggesting humans were not residing in the cave.

The team’s findings confirm that Cueva de Ardales is a site of immense symbolic value.

The Iberian Peninsula holds more than 30 other caves with similar rock art, making the region a key locality for investigating the history and culture of ancient humans in Europe.

Foraging badger uncovers a hoard of more than 200 Roman coins dating back to the THIRD century in a Spanish cave

Archaeologists are thanking a hungry badger for the discovery of a stash of 209 ancient Roman coins, found in a cave in the Asturias region of northern Spain.

The find came a few months after Storm Filomena, a historic blizzard that hit the Iberian peninsula in January 2021, blanketing Madrid in several feet of snow.

The unusual precipitation would have made it hard for animals to find food, reports the Guardian.

Experts believe that a badger rooting around for something to eat in the snow happened upon the crack in La Cuesta cave, where the coins were hidden, unearthing the treasure.

The disappointed badger left about 90 coins littering the ground in front of his den, where Roberto Garcia, a local resident found them. He called in the archaeology experts and in April the Asturias department of culture began conducting excavations in the cave.

The copper and bronze coins dating from the third to fifth centuries A.D. Some were minted in far-off cities, including Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Arles, Lyon, Rome, London, and Antioch.

Experts believe ancient Spaniards might have hidden the treasure during the invasion of the Suevi, a Germanic people, in the year 409 A.D.

“We think it’s a reflection of the social and political instability which came along with the fall of Rome and the arrival of groups of barbarians to northern Spain,” Alfonso Fanjul Peraza, an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Madrid who led the dig, told CNN.

The team’s studies to date have been published in the Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. It’s the largest find of its kind in a Spanish cave.

The coins are undergoing cleaning and conservation ahead of going on view at the Archaeological Museum of Asturias, and further excavations are planned for the site, as experts believe they may be part of a larger hoard.

“We want to know,” Fanjul Peraza told El Pais, “if it was a one-off hiding place, or if there was a group of humans living there,”

The Neanderthal lifestyle: archaeological insights from Valencia

A research team from the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia (UV) has discovered and dated in Aspe (Alicante) an open-air neanderthal habitat over 120,000 years old in the Natural Park of Los Aljezares.

The team was led by Professor Aleix Eixea, in collaboration with the University of Alicante (UA), the Bizkaiko Arkeologi Museoa and the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution of France.

Neanderthals, also known as homo neanderthalensis, are an extinct subspecies of humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. Experts are not sure of the exact cause of their extinction; they may have simply assimilated and interbred with homo sapiens (modern humans).

Based on the recent study of the area, Prof. Eixea posited that “this site served as a crossing point for the neanderthal populations between the coast and the interior of the Iberian Peninsula within a wide territorial network that the different groups would use to stock up on biotic and abiotic resources.” 

We know that during the Middle Paleolithic era, the period during which Neanderthals lived, the primitive human populations settled in open-air camps. This is the case at the Los Aljezares site.

However, historically, the archaeological record of the European Paleolithic Era, particularly that of the Iberian Peninsula, comes from sites located in caves. In fact, most of the archeological excavations there in the last century and a half have been carried out in caves.

Thus, there is relatively little data about neanderthal activity –human behaviour, settlement patterns, and so on — outside of their cave shelters. 

Prof. Eixea explained that the Los Aljezares site “is one of the few examples of this type in the Iberian Peninsula and the only one in the Valencian area in which two archaeological levels have been documented in their original position, rich in lithic, faunal and archaeobotanical materials, and well-dated in time.”

This made it possible for researchers to gain a more detailed understanding of the landscape and climate, both very different from the current ones, and also the activity of the neanderthals themselves. 

Further analysis of the configuration of the site indicated that it was also a place where neanderthals would make stone and wooden tools. They also prepared animals they hunted (deer and horses) for consumption. 

Overall, Los Aljezares can be said to provide a number of keys to understanding the ecology, adaptation and dynamics of the neanderthal lifestyle in the Iberian Peninsula. 

Archaeology breakthrough as Christopher Columbus’ first tomb found: ‘We got it!’

The burial site of Columbus has been a mystery for some time. He was initially left to rest in Valladolid, a city in northwest Spain, three years after his death in 1506. However, the exact location of this first tomb has never been confirmed, until now.

After being buried in Valladolid, Columbus’ remains were taken to his family mausoleum in the southern city of Seville and were moved several more times over the following centuries before returning to Seville in 1898.

In 1544 his remains were moved from Seville to Santo Domingo, which is the capital of the Dominican Republic, in accordance with the instructions he had left behind.

In 1795 his bones were moved to Havana before being shipped back across the Atlantic and returned to Seville in 1898.

In 2005, researchers from the University of Granada used DNA samples to confirm that it was in fact Columbus’ remains that were left in the Seville tomb.

Researchers have now determined that he was first buried in the San Francisco convent in Valladolid which no longer exists.

This was revealed in a study by Spain’s Naval Museum.

The site is currently a commercial zone near the spacious Plaza Mayor, a broad, pedestrianised expanse surrounded by arcaded buildings painted red.

The researchers’ statement follows “a detailed historical investigation, confirmed by ground-penetrating radars.”

Researchers used samples of lead, brick, and gold from the Seville burial report to find the match with the burial spot in Valladolid.

Marcial Castro, who led the research, said: “I was tasked with identifying the location where Columbus was buried from these threads of gold, silver, nails, lead, brick and to my surprise we got it.”

Historians and archeologists have since recreated in 3D the dimensions of the chapel in Valladolid that housed the remains of Columbus.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonisation of the Americas.

His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

But the navigator has also long been blamed for carrying the sexually transmitted infection syphilis from the Americas to Europe through his crewmen.

While the researchers in Spain are confident they have found the true burial spot, The Dominican Republic maintained that the navigator rests in the cathedral in Santo Domingo, in a coffin found in 1877 with the inscription “Christopher Columbus.”

This claim is made due to the fact that the bodies of the explorer and his son were transferred from the Iberian peninsula in 1523 to Hispaniola – a territory that is today divided between the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic and the French-speaking Haiti – where Christopher Columbus wished to be buried.

A 3,700-year-old burial site suggests female rule in Bronze Age Spain

Archaeologists in Spain have determined that the 3,700-year-old remains of a woman found beneath a Bronze Age era ruin may well be the first case of an ancient female ruling elite in Western Europe.

The discovery at the La Almoloya site in Murcia, Spain, dates to around 1,700 B.C., according to newly published research in the British journal Antiquity.

The woman’s potential status as a ruler also means that the ruin her body was buried beneath is likely the first palace found in Western Europe dating from the Bronze Age, which lasted from about 3,200 -1,200 B.C.

The Almoloya site was first discovered in 1944 and is believed to be the cradle of the El Argar society, which flourished between 2,200 and 1,550 B.C. in the southeast part of what is now Spain.

They were one of the first societies in the region to use bronze, build cities, and erect monuments. El Argar is also considered to be an early example of a class-based state, with divisions in wealth and labour.

The woman’s remains, discovered in 2014, were buried with a man and several valuable objects, most notably a rare silver crown-like diadem on her head.

Further analysis of the remains and artefacts over the last few years led researchers to their conclusions about the significance of the find.

“These grave goods has allowed us to grasp the economic and political power of this individual and the dominant class to which they belonged,” researchers said in a press release.

The remains of the woman and man were found in a large jar located beneath the floor of a room. Researchers believe the woman was 25-30 years old and the man was 35-40 when they died around the same time in the mid-17th century B.C.

Genetic analysis indicates they had children together, including a daughter buried elsewhere on the site.

But it was the valuable objects, and the diadem, in particular, that suggested the political importance of the woman.

Also significant was the location of the remains beneath a room in a large building complex that seems to have had both residential and political functions, including a room with benches that could hold up to 50 people that researchers nicknamed the ‘parliament’.

This combination of residential and political use means the building meets the definition of a palace and would make it the first discovered that dates from the Bronze Age in Western Europe.

“The La Almoloya discoveries have revealed unexpected political dimensions of the highly stratified El Argar society,” the researchers said.

The building was destroyed by fire not long after the woman was interred, they said.