Category Archives: WORLD

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Traces of Native American Village Found in Florida

Traces of Native American Village Found in Florida

An archaeological bonanza is being unearthed in St. Augustine. This dig is revealing that a Native American village could be bigger — or at least in a different place — than previously imagined. 

That same site would later become one of the state’s first commercial orange groves. Some people may be familiar with the site on Bridge Street, where an old blue house stands crumbling and vegetation has taken over. 

However, in the last few months, the house has been sold and is being restored. 

According to a First Coast News report, St. Augustine city archaeologist Andrea White and her colleagues have found pottery and postholes from Palica, a Native American village, under a nineteenth-century house in St. Augustine’s Lincolnville neighbourhood.

What most people these days don’t see are the archaeologists on the site. They’ve been working in the backyard and even under the house. 

“It’s one of the first opportunities any archaeologists have had to work at this location,” said Andrea White, St. Augustine City Archaeologist.

She and St. Augustine Research and Collections Archaeologist Katherine Sims, along with some archaeology volunteers, have been carefully studying the site.

The house restoration and archaeological dig are revealing some surprises. One of those surprises is the mission site of the Native American village called Palica.

“It was only mapped once,” Sims said. 

That was in the 1700s. 

Later, archaeologists compiled maps and thought Palica was elsewhere in St. Augustine’s Lincolnville neighbourhood.

“When we started this project, we didn’t anticipate finding deposits from Palica on this property,” Sims said. “Once we started work, we immediately realized there is definitely Palica material here! Yes, it was a huge surprise.”

Before the house was built, Native Americans lived here on a Catholic mission site in the early 1700s. Archaeologists have found pottery, but the big find was under the floor of the house where archaeologists found post holes. 

Those are basically evidence of a Native American building, and that’s a big deal.

“These all date to Palica,” White said. “We are 100 per cent confident about the age of these. We’re really excited!”

Archaeologists believe the Palica mission was abandoned in the mid-1700s and 50 to 100 years later, the first part of this house was built. It was part of the Yallaha plantation which was one of Florida’s first commercial orange groves.

Some of the original structure is still part of the house. That original portion date to the early 1800s. The house is being restored, but old parts are being salvaged such as roof shingles that are stamped “Florida” on the underside from the 1800s.

Because the house was built a couple of feet above the ground, the house became a protector of the archaeological artefacts on the ground.

“What’s great about a historic structure is that normally people don’t’ go built something under a house, so it helps preserve everything,” White said.

That includes another surprise under the floor. Archaeologists found a donkey burial, estimated to be from the late 1700s before the house was built.

Laid with respect, not just tossed into the ground, it’s easy to think the animal was possibly someone’s hard-working farm animal during the land’s agricultural time period. 

And so this house and this land are still relinquishing secrets about a story hundreds of years old.

EUROPE, WORLD

What is the roman dodecahedron? the mystery is still unsolved

What is the roman dodecahedron? the mystery is still unsolved

Archaeologists are rarely stumped when it comes to figuring out the purpose of the Roman artefacts they unearth. However, the Roman dodecahedron has everyone baffled. Over 100 of these hollow, knobby, metallic polyhedrons with 12 sides have surfaced at excavation sites mostly around central Europe. At present, there is no definitive answer to their function or purpose.

This Roman dodecahedron derives from the 2nd or 3rd century in Stuttgart, Germany.

The enigmatic geometric forms consist of copper alloy. They range in size from 4 cm to 11 cm, and each of the 12 pentagonal faces contains a circular hole. Oddly, the diameters of the holes are not identical in a single dodecahedron. They also vary from one dodecahedron to another. All of the Roman dodecahedra have five globular knobs at the vertices of the pentagonal faces. The variations in dimensions and designs of the dodecahedra, in addition to their holes, are perplexing.

Discoveries of Roman Dodecahedra

Some dodecahedra surfaced in the antiquities market and, therefore, lacked archaeological context. Others emerged in controlled, scientific excavations.

Archaeologists unearthed the southernmost Roman dodecahedron at Arles in France. The northwesternmost example comes from a site on Hadrian’s Wall in Northern Britain. Yet another piece comes from Bordeaux. Additionally, they have also surfaced as far east as Vienna and Zagreb.

There is a distinct lack of consistency in the archaeological context of the cast dodecahedra. Roman military camps, public baths, and temples have contained samples. Dodecahedra surfaced in a Roman theatre, a tomb, and a well that contained numerous discarded items. Several also turned up in coin hoards, suggesting that they were valued objects.

Even an analysis of the layers of dirt around excavation sites from the second to the fourth century CE provides no clues. As a result, these variations in the discoveries have confounded those attempting to clarify their function. Additionally, a complete absence of any mention of them in Roman texts adds to their mystery.

Two dodecahedra and one icosahedron 3rd century CE.

What Was the Function of a Dodecahedron?

From the first report of a dodecahedron in 1739 until today, over two hundred archaeologists, historians, mathematicians, and hobbyists have put forth theories on the purpose of these bizarre objects.

Cosmic or Astrological

Dodecahedra, for the most part, originate in Gallo-Roman lands where Roman culture overlayed an indigenous ancient Celtic civilization. Therefore, several theories involve mysticism. Some propose that the dodecahedra had a religious function with the twelve holes symbolizing cosmic phenomena. Others suggest that they had a talismanic role. However, since they are too large to suspend form the neck, perhaps they dangled from a belt. Alternatively, they could have fit nicely into a leather purse.

A more likely supposition is that they served some function in astronomical calculations. Perhaps they sat on a flat surface or leaned on a stick.

According to this hypothesis, a dodecahedron could align with the sun, which would shine through two holes at a specific time of day in a particular season. The proponents of this theory used complicated mathematical calculations to show that a dodecahedron could predict astronomical events. In his article, The Hypothesis, G.M.C. Wagemans used a series of estimates showing that several dodecahedra could calculate the best time for planting winter grain in specific locations in Northern Europe.

Some skeptics refute mathematical/astronomical theories. They conclude that the differences in hole sizes and the overall size of Roman dodecahedra prove that they cannot have been used to calculate astronomical phenomena. The same goes for the theory that the metal dodecahedron served as a modern-day theodolite for measuring distances required in land surveying.

What is the roman dodecahedron? the mystery is still unsolved
Dodecahedron from Thermae.
Divinations

Other theorists have advanced more straightforward ideas concerning the function of the Roman dodecahedron. Some have said it was useful for soothsaying or divination where seers tossed the metal object and read it like a die. However, the fact that the sides bear no written inscriptions or symbols militates against this purpose. Rolling or tossing a Roman dodecahedron would have been almost impossible because of the protruding knobs. Therefore, it is unlikely to have been a divination tool or an object used in a game.

Candlestick Holder?

Because traces of wax exist in some dodecahedra, researchers have proposed that they were candleholders. However, many experts have dismissed this notion for two reasons. First, the wax residue is probably a remnant of the lost wax process used in casting. Second, if these items were candlestick holders, why haven’t archaeologists found a single example in Italy or regions of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean? The distinct geographical area of dodecahedra discoveries makes the mysterious items unique within the vast world of Roman archaeology. In contrast, other types and models of bronze castings are ubiquitous throughout the Empire.

Knitter?

Among the theories that hobbyists have proposed, the most ingenious involves the use of a dodecahedron to crochet or knit a wool glove. A talented student recently made a Roman dodecahedron 3-D print of one and worked a glove on it. Subsequently, the student recorded the process in a YouTube video.

The idea of making a winter hand-covering on a Roman dodecahedron fits nicely with the wintry geographical discovery sites. Additionally, maybe the different sizes of the holes on the faces correspond to various fingers on a glove.

Decoration?

Perhaps the Roman dodecahedron served as nothing other than decoration. One could imagine that the odd piece suspended from a rope on a belt may have added a bit of swagger to a costume. Similar polyhedral decorative beads with globular protrusions surfaced in sites dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE in Southeast Asia. However, the idea that Roman dodecahedra were merely decorative does not take into account the inconsistent sizes of the circular holes.

Will anyone ever solve the puzzle of the function of the Roman dodecahedron? Judging from the many theories over the last two hundred years, the solution to the enigma may prove to be elusive.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

5000-year-old ‘graveyard of giants’ found in a Chinese village

5000-year-old ‘graveyard of giants’ found in a Chinese village

Archaeologists in China have discovered a 5000-year-old graveyard of abnormally tall people who used to live in the country’s Shandong province. The skeletal remains measured over six feet in height.

An archaeological excavation at Jiaojia village in Jinan City’s Zhangqiu District has uncovered 104 houses, 205 graves, and 20 sacrificial pits, according to Xinhua.

Pottery and various objects made with jade were also unearthed during the dig.

The Late Neolithic site uncovered in China dates back to a time when the Yellow River Valley was inhabited by the Longshan Culture, also known as the Black Pottery Culture, which was popular in the region from 3000 to 1900 BC.

The archaeological dig, initiated last year, was led by the University of Shandong.

Grave of giants unearthed in ChinaUNIVERSITY OF SHANDONG
Grave of giants unearthed in ChinaUNIVERSITY OF SHANDONG

An analysis of the skeletal remains suggests the ancient people living in the region were unusually tall, Xinhua reported.

The findings said the tallest individual found in the grave was a male who measured 6’3″.

According to prior studies, the Neolithic males typically measure around 5’5″ and the females around 5’1″. 

The researchers attributed the unusual height to genetics and environment. 

Lead archaeologist Fang Hui, while speaking to Xinhua, said the Late Neolithic civilisation engaged in agriculture, therefore the villagers in the region had access to a variety of nutritious food which could have added to their overall physical growth.

Pottery unearthed in the archaeological dig

“I suspect that this big game specialisation associated with a surplus of high-quality proteins and low population density created environmental conditions leading to the selection of exceptionally tall males,” said the study’s lead author Pavel Grasgruber in an interview with Seeker.

The tallest of the Longshan men were found in tombs, which the Shandong archaeologists said was because of their higher social status and access to better food.

ASIA, INDONESIA, WORLD

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say

31,000-year-old skeleton missing lower left leg is earliest known evidence of surgery, experts say
Australian and Indonesian archaeologists stumbled upon the skeletal remains of a young hunter-gatherer whose lower leg was amputated by a skilled surgeon 31,000 years ago.

A 31,000-year-old skeleton missing its lower left leg and found in a remote Indonesian cave is believed to be the earliest known evidence of surgery, according to a peer-reviewed study that experts say rewrites understanding of human history.

An expedition team led by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists stumbled upon the skeletal remains while excavating a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Borneo looking for ancient rock art in 2020.

The finding turned out to be evidence of the earliest known surgical amputation, pre-dating other discoveries of complex medical procedures across Eurasia by tens of thousands of years.

By measuring the ages of a tooth and burial sediment using radioisotope dating, the scientists estimated the remains to be about 31,000 years old.

Palaeopathological analysis of the remains revealed bony growths on the lower left leg indicative of healing and suggesting the leg was surgically amputated several years before burial.

Dr Tim Maloney, a research fellow at Australia’s Griffith University who oversaw the excavation, said the discovery was an “absolute dream for an archaeologist”.

View of the archaeological excavation at Liang Tebo cave which unearthed the 31,000-year-old skeletal remains.

He said the research team, which included scientists from the Indonesian Institution for Archaeology and Conservation, was examining ancient cultural deposits when they crossed stone markers in the ground revealing a burial site.

After 11 days of excavation, they found the skeleton of a young hunter-gatherer with a healed stump where its lower left leg and foot had been severed. Maloney said the nature of the healing, including the clean stump, showed it was caused by amputation and not an accident or animal attack.

“[The hunter] survived not just as a child, but as an adult amputee in this rainforest environment,” Maloney said. “Importantly, not only does [the stump] lack infection, but it also lacks distinctive crushing.”

Archaeologists at work in Liang Tebo cave in the remote Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat region of East Kalimantan.

Prior to this discovery, Maloney said it had been widely accepted that amputation was a guaranteed death sentence until about 10,000 years ago, when surgical procedures advanced with the development of large settled agricultural societies.

The previous oldest evidence of a successful amputation was a 7,000-year-old skeleton of an elderly farmer from stone age France. His left arm was amputated above the elbow.

The skeletal remains showing the amputated lower left leg.

“This finding very much changes the known history of medical intervention and knowledge of humanity,” Maloney said.

“It implies that early people … had mastered complex surgical procedures allowing this person to survive after the removal of a foot and leg.”

Maloney said the stone age surgeon must have had detailed knowledge of anatomy, including veins, vessels and nerves, to avoid causing fatal blood loss and infection.

He said the successful operation suggested some form of intensive care, including regular disinfection post-operation.

Emeritus Prof Matthew Spriggs of the Australian National University School of Archaeology and Anthropology, who was not involved in the study, said the discovery was “an important rewrite of our species history” that “underlines yet again that our ancestors were as smart as we are, with or without the technologies we take for granted today”.

Spriggs said it should not be surprising that stone age people could have developed an understanding of the internal workings of mammals through hunting, and had treatments for infection and injury.

“We tend to forget that modern humans like us 30,000 years ago … would have had their intellectuals, their doctors, their inventors,” he said.

He said they would have had to experiment with plant medicines and other treatments to stay alive.

“Any inhabitants of tropical rainforests today, usually now mixing hunting and gathering with forms of agriculture, have a large pharmacopoeia that would have to have been developed over millennia.”

The study was published in the journal Nature.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Eerie ‘yellow brick road’ to Atlantis was discovered atop an ancient undersea mountain

Eerie ‘yellow brick road’ to Atlantis was discovered atop an ancient undersea mountain

A team of marine biologists realized they definitely weren’t in Kansas anymore after discovering what appeared to be a yellow brick road on top of an undersea mountain near Hawaii.

“The yellow brick road?” a scientist mused in a YouTube video of the discovery.

Others remarked that the rocks were reminiscent of a very different fictional world: “It’s the road to Atlantis,” one researcher said. 

The yellow rocks, divided from each other at neat 90-degree angles, form a narrow strip and look like they were carved and arranged by human hands.  However, the seemingly paved roadway was simply the natural result of ancient volcanic activity thousands of feet below the water’s surface, the researchers said in a description below the video.

“At the summit of Nootka Seamount, the team spotted a ‘dried lake bed’ formation, now IDed as a fractured flow of hyaloclastite rock (a volcanic rock formed in high-energy eruptions where many rock fragments settle to the seabed),” the researchers wrote.

Eerie 'yellow brick road' to Atlantis was discovered atop an ancient undersea mountain

The remarkably brick-like divisions between the rocks are likely the coincidental result of heating and cooling stresses from multiple volcanic eruptions over millions of years, the team added.

The researchers took a detour down this eerie undersea road while piloting a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) around the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a protected conservation area encompassing about 582,578 square miles (1,508,870 square kilometres) of the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii.

The expedition is part of the Ocean Exploration Trust’s Nautilus Exploration Program and aims to investigate the ancient seamounts near Liliʻuokalani Ridge, at the monument’s western edge.

One of the team’s main goals is to collect geological samples from the area’s seamounts — underwater mountains formed by volcanic activity — to better understand their ages and origins.

Learning this may also yield new insights into the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, the researchers wrote on the Nautilus website. The team will also collect microbial samples, to study what kinds of oddball organisms have managed to thrive near the deep, underwater volcanoes of the Pacific.

“Our exploration of this never-before-surveyed area is helping researchers take a deeper look at life on and within the rocky slopes of these deep, ancient seamounts,” the researchers added.

Previous expeditions aboard the Nautilus research vessel have turned up plenty of unnerving marine oddities. During a 2018 excursion to the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument, researchers were dumbfounded by a wriggling, googly-eyed creature that seemed to change shape while in front of the camera.

Researchers later identified the creature as a gulper eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), an incredibly big-mouthed fish that can unhinge its massive jaw to swallow prey even larger than itself.

The researchers controlling the ROV during that expedition also responded to the strange sight before them with a cultural reference.

“Looks like a Muppet,” one researcher said.

AFRICA, WORLD

This 230-Million-Year-Old African Dinosaur is the Oldest Dinosaur Species Ever

This 230-Million-Year-Old African Dinosaur is the Oldest Dinosaur Species Ever

The newly discovered dinosaur Mbiresaurus raathi, is pictured here with other Triassic animals whose remains were also recovered from northern Zimbabwe.

The oldest definitive dinosaur species ever discovered in Africa — and one of the oldest dino species to walk Earth — has been unearthed in Zimbabwe, a new study finds. The finding sheds new light on dinosaur evolution, and on one of the most fundamental questions of Triassic palaeontology: Why did dinosaurs live in only some parts of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea?

Scientists began working on the Pebbly Arkose Formation in northern Zimbabwe in 2017. After five years of careful excavation and COVID delays, they’ve finally unveiled the dig’s star specimen: Mbiresaurus raathi, a nearly complete skeleton named after “Mbire,” the Shona dynasty that once ruled the region.

The species’ name honours Michael Raath, who helped discover the first fossils in the area. At roughly 230 million years old, the specimen is on par with the oldest dinosaurs ever found. Their results were published online Wednesday (Aug. 31) in the journal Nature(opens in new tab).

“The earliest dinosaurs were small — far from the giants we usually think of,” Christian Kammerer, a research curator of palaeontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email.

The newly named dinosaur is a sauropodomorph, a relative of the towering (and iconic) long-necked sauropods like Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus. At around 6 feet (2 meters) long, or about as long as a Shetland pony, and 1.5 feet (0.5 m) tall at the hip, M. raathi wasn’t tiny, but it would have been dwarfed by later sauropods, such as the massive 122-foot-long (37 m) Patagotitan.

M. raathi lived during the late Triassic period (252 million to 201 million years ago) along the banks of an ancient river in what would become Zimbabwe. It was a rich ecosystem, filled with more than just dinosaurs. “I think a lot of the story is about all the different animals that we found together,” study first author Christopher Griffin, a vertebrate paleontologist at Yale University, told Live Science.

The excavation unearthed numerous protomammals known as cynodonts, as well as armored crocodilians, bizarre beaked reptiles called rhynchosaurs, and even evidence of an early meat-eating dinosaur.

This assemblage almost exactly mirrors the fossils palaeontologists might expect to find an ocean away, buried in the steppes of Patagonia or tucked away in the rocky outcroppings of Brazil.

During the Triassic period, all of Earth’s continents were smooshed together into one giant landmass known as Pangaea. Because of this ancient proximity, many regions that are now separated by entire oceans — such as the coasts of South America and Africa — once shared flora and fauna. “If you draw a line across Pangaea connecting northern Argentina and southern Brazil, you cross northern Zimbabwe as well,” Griffin said.

Study first author Christopher Griffin excavates some Mbiresaurus raathi fossils, seen here wrapped in a plaster field jacket, in 2017.

Consequently, M. raathi closely resembles other late Triassic sauropodomorphs, like the deceptively named Eoraptor and the dog-size Saturnalia, both found in Brazil, as well as some found in India.

It remains a bit of a mystery as to why certain animal species were relegated to certain regions of Pangaea during this time. “You might think that it would be easy to traverse a supercontinent,” Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science, “But it seems not.”

Sites such as the Pebbly Arkose Formation, however, offer clues to this millennia-old mystery. Building on earlier research, the researchers proposed that varied climate patterns held Triassic animals in place, rather than physical boundaries like oceans.

The closely-related dinosaurs found in South America, south-central Africa and India indicate that similar animals roamed freely across this particular latitude band, but not outside of it, likely because of climatic barriers like extreme heat or drought, the researchers wrote in the study.

This 230-Million-Year-Old African Dinosaur is the Oldest Dinosaur Species Ever
Paleontolgist Sterling Nesbitt (left) and Christopher Griffin (right) excavate the remains of a herrerasaurid dinosaur in 2019.

Dinosaurs probably didn’t disperse to the other parts of Pangaea until these climatic barriers relaxed. But the stomping grounds of other major animal groups with roots in the Triassic, including mammals, turtles, amphibians and reptiles, are still influenced today by how these climatic bands’ affected the groups’ ancestors, the team suggested.

Meanwhile, there is one other dinosaur fossil discovered in Africa that may be even older than M. raathi — Nyasasaurus, which was found in a roughly 245 million-year-old fossil formation in Tanzania.

However, Nyasasaurus is known only from a handful of bones. Taken together, they do not form a complete enough skeleton to determine whether it was a true dinosaur, or simply a dinosaur ancestor, known as a dinosauromorph. Either way, M. raathi represents a key piece in the mosaic of dinosaur lineage.

“As a rule, the discovery of a new species is very important to science,” said study co-author Darlington Munyikwa, a palaeontologist and deputy executive director of National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe. And, he told Live Science, the fact that this species is the oldest confirmed dinosaur in Africa makes it particularly “awesome.” The specimen now resides in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, where it will inspire generations of palaeontologists to come.

“We’ve known next to nothing about the earliest dinosaurs in Africa, and the discovery of Mbiresaurus changes that,” said Brusatte. “I think it is one of the most important recent dinosaur discoveries anywhere on the planet.”

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

Archaeologists unearth remains of 17th-century female “vampire” in Poland

Archaeologists unearth remains of 17th-century female “vampire” in Poland

Vampire folklore across cultures is filled with various tips on how to keep a recently deceased person from rising from the grave as an undead fiend who preys on the living.

Archaeologists unearth remains of 17th-century female “vampire” in Poland
Archaeologists discovered what may be the skeleton of a 17th-century female “vampire” near Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Now archaeologists have uncovered an unusual example of people using these tips in a 17th-century Polish cemetery near Bydgoszcz: a female skeleton buried with a sickle placed across her neck, as well as a padlock on the big toe of her left foot.

Tales of vampire-like creatures date back at least 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. For instance, the Assyrians feared a demon goddess called Lamastu (literally, “she who erases”), who they said killed babies in their cribs or while still in the womb. Other ancient texts mention a similar creature, Lilith—who also appears in Hebrew texts and folklore—who steals away infants and unborn children. Neither of these could be considered “vampires” in the modern sense, but they are the precursors to the Greek legend of Lamia, an immortal monster who sucked the blood from young children.

In Chinese folklore, another type of proto-vampire, called the k’uei, were reanimated corpses that rose from the grave and preyed on the living, as were the Russian upir, Indian vetala, Romanian strigoi, and Greek vrykolakas.

News reports specifically referencing vampires didn’t appear in English until 1732, as suspected “epidemics” of vampirism caused a mass hysteria that swept across Eastern Europe.

 By the 19th century, most of Europe was consumed by vampire hysteria, inspiring writers like John Polidori (“The Vampyre,” 1819), Sheridan LeFanu (Carmilla, 1872), and of course, Bram Stoker, whose Dracula (1897) pretty much spawned the modern vampire genre.

Archaeologists excavating a 17th-century cemetery near Bydgoszcz in Poland.

Naturally, the fear evoked by the presumed existence of such creatures inspired many different approaches to ensuring that the dead stayed dead. In the early Middle Ages, Russian villagers would exhume suspect corpses and destroy the body by cremation, decapitation, or by driving a wooden stake through the heart. Stakes were often secured above corpses upon burial, so the creature would impale itself if it tried to escape.

In Germany and the western Slavic regions, suspected vampires were decapitated, and the head was buried between the feet or away from the body. Other strategies included burying corpses upside down, severing the tendons at the knees, or—in the case of Greek vrykolakas—placing crosses and inscribed pottery fragments on the chest of the deceased.

In places where vampires were believed to suffer from arithmomania, poppy seeds or millet seeds would be scattered at the site of a suspected vampire. (The X-Files episode “Bad Blood” humorously used this bit of folklore with Mulder’s favorite snack, sunflower seeds.)

The first early medieval graves in the region near Bydgoszcz were discovered between 2005 and 2009, when archaeologists recovered jewelry, semi-precious stones, a bronze bowl, and fragments of silk clothing.

Dariusz Poliński of the Nicholas Copernicus University led the archaeological team that returned to the site earlier this year in hopes of discovering more artifacts. That didn’t happen, so they turned their attention to a nearby 17th-century cemetery in the village of Pień instead.

The burial is unusual because a sickle was placed across the neck—presumably to decapitate the corpse if the woman tried to “rise” as a vampire.

That’s when the researchers identified the grave containing the female skeleton. Other examples of anti-vampire burials have been found in Poland, according to Poliński.

Several skeletons with severed heads were found in 2008, for example, and a body with a brick forced into the mouth and holes drilled through the legs was also found. “Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing them with a stone,” said Poliński.

Nonetheless, this latest find is unique. While there have been reports of people placing scythes or sickles near a grave as an offering to prevent demons from entering the body, the placement of this sickle was different. “It was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured,” said Poliński. As for the padlock on the big toe, “This symbolizes the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning.”

Another unusual feature is that the skeleton appears to be that of a woman of high social status, given the care with which she was buried. There were also remnants of a silk cap on her head, which would not have been affordable for a member of a lower class. As for why she would have been buried in such a way, Poliński said that she had very noticeable protruding front teeth. This may have made her appearance different enough that she was deemed a witch or vampire by superstitious locals.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Neolithic culinary traditions of ancient Brits uncovered

Neolithic culinary traditions of ancient Brits uncovered

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered intriguing new insights into the diet of people living in Neolithic Britain and found evidence that cereals, including wheat, were cooked in pots.

Pottery Yields Molecular Traces of Neolithic Meals
One of the first pots to be discovered, an Unstan Bowl from Loch Arnish. Previously published in: Garrow, D., & Sturt, F. (2019). Neolithic crannogs: Rethinking settlement, monumentality and deposition in the Outer Hebrides and beyond. Antiquity, 93(369), 664-684. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.41

Using chemical analysis of ancient, and incredibly well-preserved pottery found in the waters surrounding small artificial islands called crannogs in Scotland, the team were able to discern that cereals were cooked in pots and mixed with dairy products and occasionally meat, probably to create early forms of gruel and stew. They also discovered that the people visiting these crannogs used smaller pots to cook cereals with milk and larger pots for meat-based dishes.  

The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Communications.

Photo reconstruction of one of the pots from Loch Langabhat

Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to around 4000 BCE and was probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. This is evidenced by some, often sparse and sporadic, recovery of preserved cereal grains and other debris found at Neolithic sites.

At this time pottery was also introduced into Britain and there is widespread evidence for domesticated products like milk products in molecular lipid fingerprints extracted from the fabric of these pots. However, with the exception of millet, it has not yet been possible to detect molecular traces of accompanying cereals in these lipid signatures, although these went on to become a major staple that dominates the global subsistence economy today.

Previously published an analysis of Roman pottery from Vindolanda [Hadrian’s Wall] demonstrated that specific lipid markers for cereals can survive absorbed in archaeological pottery preserved in waterlogged conditions and be detectable through a high-sensitivity approach but, importantly this was ‘only’ 2,000 years old and from contexts where cereals were well-known to have been present. The new findings reported now show that cereal biomarkers can be preserved for thousands of years longer under favourable conditions.

Another fascinating element of this research was the fact that many of the pots analysed were intact and decorated which could suggest they may have had some sort of ceremonial purpose. Since the actual function of the crannogs themselves is also not fully understood yet (with some being far too small for permanent occupation) the research provides new insights into possible ways these constructions were used.

Aerial view of the crannog at Loch Langabhat. Previously published in Garrow, D., & Sturt, F. (2019). Neolithic crannogs: Rethinking settlement, monumentality and deposition in the Outer Hebrides and beyond. Antiquity, 93(369), 664-684. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.41

During analysis, cereal biomarkers were widely detected (one-third of pots), providing the earliest biomolecular evidence for cereals in absorbed pottery residues in this region.

The findings indicate that wheat was being cooked in pots, despite the fact that the limited evidence from charred plant parts in this region of Atlantic Scotland points mainly to barley. This could be because wheat is under-represented in charred plant remains as it can be prepared differently (e.g., boiled as part of stews), so not as regularly charred or because of more unusual cooking practices.

Cereal markers were strongly associated with lipid residues for dairy products in pots, suggesting they may have been cooked together as a milk-based gruel.

The research was led by Drs Simon Hammann* and Lucy Cramp at the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Dr Hammann said: “It’s very exciting to see that cereal biomarkers in pots can actually survive under favourable conditions in samples from the time when cereals (and pottery) were introduced in Britain. Our lipid-based molecular method can complement archaeobotanical methods to investigate the introduction and spread of cereal agriculture.”

Dr Cramp added: “This research gives us a window into the culinary traditions of early farmers living at the northwestern edge of Europe, whose lifeways are little understood. It gives us the first glimpse of the sorts of practices that were associated with these enigmatic islet locations.”

Crannog sites in the Outer Hebrides are currently the focus of the four-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded ‘Islands of Stone’ project, directed by two of the paper’s authors (Duncan Garrow from the University of Reading and Fraser Sturt from the University of Southampton) along with Angela Gannon, Historic Environment Scotland.

Professor Garrow said: “This research, undertaken by our colleagues at the University of Bristol, has hugely improved our knowledge of these sites in many exciting ways. We very much look forward to developing this collaborative research going forwards.”

The next stage of the research at the University of Bristol is an exploration of the relationship between these islets and other Neolithic occupation sites in the Hebridean region and beyond as well as a more extensive comparative study of the use of different vessel forms through surviving lipid residues. These questions form part of an ongoing Arts and Humanities Research Council/South-West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership-funded PhD studentship.

* Dr Hammann is now based at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen, Germany.