2,700-year-old ancient Egyptian stroke victim discovered
The recent medical inspection of the mummy in Egyptian led to a novel discovery believed to be one of, if not the earliest examples of a stroke in an Egyptian mummy.
A 2,300-year-old mummy is displayed after it was found by the Sakkara pyramids south of Cairo, May 3, 2005.
Upon examination, a research team from the Spanish National Program for Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation concluded that the mummy, a woman between 25 and 40 years of age who died about 2,700 years ago, suffered a right cerebral stroke.
The mummy was studied both macroscopically and radiographically.
The findings, published last month in World Neurosurgery, explain that the position of the female mummy’s shoulders, head, flexed arm and inward turning of the left foot indicate she endured a stroke on the right side of her brain.
The researchers also note that a stick or a crutch remained with her in the mummification process, which they speculate she used in life following the stroke.
The earliest example of a stroke
The researchers believe the woman lived with the aftermath of the stroke for several years. Strokes, which occur when blood supply to the brain is disrupted, are the second highest leading cause of death and disability globally.
The typical stroke patient today is at least 60 years old, decades older than the mummy is believed to have been.
Stroke (illustrative)
Ancient mummies can advance modern medicine
In another study this month that analyzed the remains of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy and found that she may have suffered from nasopharyngeal cancer, Polish researchers said that investigating mummy illnesses can significantly contribute to modern medicine.
Octopus lures from the Mariana Islands were found to be the oldest in the world
An archaeological study has determined that cowrie-shell artefacts found throughout the Mariana Islands were lures used for hunting octopuses and that the devices, similar versions of which have been found on islands across the Pacific, are the oldest known artefacts of their kind in the world.
University of Guam archaeologist Michael Carson at the 2013 excavation of Sanhalom, near the House of Taga, on the island of Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands. The excavation uncovered an octopus lure artefact from a layer that Carson has since carbon dated to 1500–1100 B.C., making it the oldest known artefact of its kind in the world.
The study used carbon dating of archaeological layers to confirm that lures found on the Northern Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan were from about 1500 B.C., or 3,500 years ago.
“That’s back to the time when people were first living in the Mariana Islands. So we think these could be the oldest octopus lures in the entire Pacific region and, in fact, the oldest in the world,” said Michael T. Carson, an archaeologist with the Micronesian Area Research Center at the University of Guam.
The study, titled “Let’s catch octopus for dinner: Ancient inventions of octopus lures in the Mariana Islands of the remote tropical Pacific,” is published in World Archaeology, a peer-reviewed academic journal. Carson, who holds a doctorate in anthropology, is the lead author of the study, assisted by Hsiao-Chun Hung from The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
The fishing devices were made with cowrie shells, a type of sea snail and favourite food of octopuses, that were connected by a fibre cord to a stone sinker and a hook.
They have been found in seven sites in the Mariana Islands. The oldest lures were excavated in 2011 from Sanhalom near the House of Taga in Tinian and in 2016 from Unai Bapot in Saipan. Other locations include Achugao in Saipan, Unai Chulu in Tinian, and Mochom at Mangilao Golf Course, Tarague Beach, and Ritidian Beach Cave in Guam.
Known artefacts, unknown purpose — until now
“The artefacts have been known — we knew about them. It just took a long time considering the possibilities, the different hypotheses, of what they could be,” Carson said. “The conventional idea — what we were told long ago from the Bishop Museum [in Honolulu] — was that these must be for scraping breadfruit or other plants, like maybe taro. [But] they don’t look like that.”
The shells didn’t have the serrated edge of other known food-scraping tools. With their holes and grooves where the fibre cord would have been attached as well as the stone sinker components, they appeared a closer match to octopus lures found in Tonga from about 3,000 years ago or 1100 B.C.
“We’re confident they are the pieces of octopus lures, and we’re confident they date back to 1500 B.C.,” Carson said.
An invention of the ancient CHamorus?
Carson said the question now becomes: Did the ancient CHamoru people invent this adaptation to their environment during the time when they first lived in the islands?”
That’s a possibility, he said, the other being that they brought the tradition with them from their former homeland; however, no artefacts of this kind have yet been discovered in the potential homelands of the first Marianas settlers.
If the CHamoru people did invent the first octopus lures, it provides new insight into their ingenuity and ability to problem solve — having to create novel and specialized ways to live in a new environment and take advantage of an available food source.
“It tells us that […] this kind of food resource was important enough for them that they invented something very particular to trap these foods,” Carson said. “We can’t say that it contributed to a massive percentage of their diet — it probably did not — but it was important enough that it became what we would call a ‘tradition’ in archaeology.”
The next question to look at, Carson said, is whether there are similar objects anywhere else from an older time.
“Purely from an archaeology standpoint, knowing the oldest of something is always important — because then you can track how things change through time,” he said. “[…] The only other place that would be is in the overseas homeland area for the first CHamoru people moving to the Marianas. So we would look in islands in Southeast Asia and Taiwan for those findings.”
An 8,500-year-old human skeleton and musical instrument were found in the garden of the apartment
An approximately 8,500-year-old human skeleton and a three-hole musical instrument were found during an excavation in the garden of an apartment in the Bahçelievler District of Bilecik.
This place, which is likely to be one of the first points of human settlements in Western Anatolia, was discovered for the first time when a resident of Bilecik reported some ceramic pieces found here to the Archeology Museum.
As a result of two years of work, 11 human skeletons estimated to be 8,500 years old and musical instruments with three holes from the same period were found in the garden of the apartment.
Archaeologists also found grains such as lentils, barley and vetch, as well as varieties of wheat used to make bread and pasta.
Stating that this year’s most important find is a three-hole wind instrument, Fidan added: “We also found religious objects such as ornamented boxes made of terracotta, human-shaped amulets and animal figures during the excavations. In addition, a skull we found in the courtyard gives us information about the religious life of that period.”
8,500 years old 3-hole musical instrument found in Bilecik
Fidan said, “We think that this musical instrument, which has 3 holes, is a part of a musical instrument that makes sounds and changes sound notes. He also stated that the tool can be used thanks to an appliqué mouthpiece attached to this piece.
The head of the excavation, Assoc. ErkanFidan said, “The human skeletons found in the excavation area belong to the oldest adolescent people in the Neolithic Age in Western Anatolia.
“Fidan stated that “the human communities that came here 9 thousand years ago and stayed here for about a thousand years, unearthed the first villages.” In addition, Fidan said that people living in the region who know how to do agriculture also domesticated animals.
8,500 years old 3-hole musical instrument found in Bilecik
Fidan also noted that they found other human skeletons in the excavation area and that these skeletons were examined in detail at the Hacettepe University Anthropology Department Laboratory.
He also stated that they aim to learn a lot about these people in the near future, about their age, gender, illness and the food they eat.
The finds found in the excavation will be exhibited in the Bilecik Archeology Museum after the restoration and research works are completed.
An almost one-metre-long sword estimated to be around a thousand years old has been found in southern Poland. Historians say it is one of the most valuable discoveries in the region in a long time.
The sword was found only 30 centimetres below ground level near the village of Lewin Klodzki, close to the border with the Czech Republic, by Konrad Oczkowski who is exploring the area with the permission of archaeologists.
No remains were found alongside the sword to indicate who its owner was, and neither were any other metal objects.
Joanna Klimek-Szymanowicz Wójt Gminy Lewin Kłodzki
Mr. Konrad Oczkowski explored the site with our permission and with all the permits – said archaeologist Marek Kowalski from the Wałbrzych branch of the Lower Silesian Monuments Conservation Department. – On Monday morning, he informed us about the possible discovery of an archaeological monument.
Mr Konrad was very professional. Since he was not an archaeologist, after removing the layer of soil and realizing it was a sword head, he covered and masked the monument with earth, marked the find’s location in a familiar way, and notified the conservation services. On Tuesday, July 19, archaeological services emerged at the site and picked up medieval weapons from the ground.
The sword is in good condition. However, it was deposited directly in the ground, so it was partially corroded due to oxygen ingress. The shaft is separated from the rest, and the blade is cracked at the blade. The sword was found in a place that restorers do not want to disclose yet. The fact is that there was a settlement in the area before 1945, but its origins date back only to the 17th century.
“Such a sword is priceless,” said archaeologist Marek Kowalski, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
“It had the value of one or even several villages. So it undoubtedly belonged to some knight. Such things were not simply abandoned.”
It is not yet known whether the sword ended up underground in the 11th century or later. However, the expert who inspected the weapon, Dr Lech Marek from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Wrocław, has no doubts regarding the sword’s age, said Kowalski.
“Identical swords have been excavated at Ostrów Lednicki, where one of the most important castles of the Piast state was,” Kowalski added, referring to the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland, which ruled Poland until the 14th century.
The first Piasts, probably of West Slavic and Lechitic tribe descent, appeared around 940 in the territory of Greater Poland (Wielkopolska).
The archaeologists speculate that there may have been a fortress near the site where the sword was found. In the 11th century, Bolesław the Brave, the first king of Poland, who was in conflict with the Czechs, ordered his son, Mieszko II, to invade Bohemia, today the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic.
The sword will now be subjected to a historical analysis, examined for metallography using CT scans in an attempt to find inscriptions despite the corroded surface, Kowalski told Gazeta Wyborcza.
This might help the researchers to determine where the sword was made and who was its potential owner.
Activists urge archaeologists not to assume the gender of ancient human remains
A group of activists have urged archaeologists not to categorise the gender of skeletons using only ‘male’ and ‘female’.
The Black Trowel Collective, a group of American archaeologists, claimed there are suggestions that many historical cultures had more than two genders and so archaeologists should be “wary of projecting our modern sex and gender identity categories onto past individuals”.
The group claimed scientists have a “long history of imposing modern patriarchal gender and sexual norms onto the past”.
“Human gender is highly variable and… human beings have historically been comfortable with a range of genders beyond modern ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ binaries,” the group wrote in a blog post.
The Daily Mail claims that some academics are beginning to label ancient human skeletons as ‘non-binary’ or ‘gender neutral.
The idea has been criticised by historian Jeremy Black, who said gender is key to understanding history.
“It is an absurd proposition as the difference between genders, just as the difference between religious, social and national groups, are key motors in history,” he told the Daily Mail.
“This very ideological approach to knowledge means that we’re in danger of making knowledge itself simply a matter of political preference.”
Rare Roman coin bearing Cancer zodiac sign found off Israeli Coast
A nearly 2,000-year-old Roman coin, etched with a symbol of the zodiac, was fished from the waters around Haifa in northern Israel, reports the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The coin depicts Luna, the goddess of the moon, and the zodiac sign for Cancer.
Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) made the discovery while conducting an underwater archaeological survey.
The bronze coin was minted in Alexandria, Egypt, during the reign of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, and it was found in “an exceptional state of preservation,” according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office, per Google Translate.
One side of the coin features an image of Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon, and an image of the zodiac sign for Cancer; the other side depicts Antoninus Pius.
The coin also bears the inscription “Year Eight,” indicating that it was produced during the eighth year of Pius’ rule, which spanned from 138 to 161 C.E.
This ancient relic belonged to a series of 13 coins, portraying the 12 signs of the zodiac and the complete zodiac wheel, per a statement from IAA. It is the first such coin that has been discovered off the coast of Israel.
Astrology, which originated in Mesopotamia circa the third millennium B.C.E., was deeply entrenched in Roman culture.
Though sometimes viewed with suspicion and hostility by emperors, who understood that astrological predictions could be used to subvert their authority, astrology was a popular practice among all classes of Roman society.
“Astrology was only one of a wider number of divinatory practices in the empire,” writes Matthew Bunson in the Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. “But for capturing the public interest and imagination, all paled alongside astrology.”
Pius led the empire through one of its most peaceful eras. Before this period, hostilities abounded in what is now Israel—particularly in the years after 70 C.E., when Roman forces destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
In 130 C.E., the emperor Hadrian initiated plans to build a Roman metropolis in Jerusalem. He also outlawed circumcision, a core practice in Judaism.
Shortly afterwards, Jews launched a rebellion against Roman rulers known as the Bar Kochba Revolt. Roman forces ultimately quashed the rebellion after three years of fighting and “enormous losses” on both sides.
Conversely, Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, was “not a military man,” writes the Washington Post’s Rachel Pannett. He helped cool relations with the empire’s Jews by allowing them to resume the practice of circumcision.
The bronze coin depicting Pius was found near a “small hoard” of other coins, indicating that it fell into the sea during a shipwreck, Jacob Sharvit, head of the IAA’s marine archaeology unit, tells the AFP.
“Along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the State of Israel, and in its maritime space, there are many archaeological sites and findings, which tell of connections that existed here in ancient times between the ports of the Mediterranean Sea and the countries along it,” Sharvit says in the statement from the prime minister’s office.
These ancient sites must be safeguarded “in the light of diverse development interests” along Israel’s coasts, says Eli Eskosido, the IAA’s general director, in the IAA statement.
“Rather than simply defining the country’s border,” he adds, “the sea is now recognized as an integral part of our cultural heritage.”
Early Humans Placed the Hearth at the Optimal Location in Their Cave 170,000 Years Ago
Reconstruction of ancient humans in the Lazaret Cave, France (Pay attention to the location of the hearth).
Spatial planning in caves 170,000 years ago.
Findings indicate that early humans knew a great deal about spatial planning: they controlled fire and used it for various needs and placed their hearth at the optimal location in the cave – to obtain maximum benefit while exposed to a minimum amount of unhealthy smoke.
A groundbreaking study in prehistoric archaeology at Tel Aviv University provides evidence for high cognitive abilities in early humans who lived 170,000 years ago. In a first-of-its-kind study, the researchers developed a software-based smoke dispersal simulation model and applied it to a known prehistoric site.
They discovered that the early humans who occupied the cave had placed their hearth at the optimal location – enabling maximum utilization of the fire for their activities and needs while exposing them to a minimal amount of smoke.
The study was led by PhD student Yafit Kedar, and Prof. Ran Barkai from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at TAU, together with Dr. Gil Kedar. The paper was published in Scientific Reports.
Reconstruction of meat roasting on the campfire at the Lazaret Cave, France.
Yafit Kedar explains that the use of fire by early humans has been widely debated by researchers for many years, regarding questions such as: At what point in their evolution did humans learn how to control fire and ignite it at will? When did they begin to use it on a daily basis? Did they use the inner space of the cave efficiently in relation to the fire? While all researchers agree that modern humans were capable of all these things, the dispute continues about the skills and abilities of earlier types of humans.
Yafit Kedar: “One focal issue in the debate is the location of hearths in caves occupied by early humans for long periods of time. Multilayered hearths have been found in many caves, indicating that fires had been lit at the same spot over many years. In previous studies, using a software-based model of air circulation in caves, along with a simulator of smoke dispersal in a closed space, we found that the optimal location for minimal smoke exposure in the winter was at the back of the cave. The least favorable location was the cave’s entrance.”
Excavations at the Lazaret Cave, France.
In the current study the researchers applied their smoke dispersal model to an extensively studied prehistoric site – the Lazaret Cave in southeastern France, inhabited by early humans around 170-150 thousand years ago. Yafit Kedar: “According to our model, based on previous studies, placing the hearth at the back of the cave would have reduced smoke density to a minimum, allowing the smoke to circulate out of the cave right next to the ceiling. But in the archaeological layers we examined, the hearth was located at the center of the cave. We tried to understand why the occupants had chosen this spot, and whether smoke dispersal had been a significant consideration in the cave’s spatial division into activity areas.”
To answer these questions, the researchers performed a range of smoke dispersal simulations for 16 hypothetical hearth locations inside the 290sqm cave. For each hypothetical hearth they analyzed smoke density throughout the cave using thousands of simulated sensors placed 50cm apart from the floor to the height of 1.5m.
To understand the health implications of smoke exposure, measurements were compared with the average smoke exposure recommendations of the World Health Organization. In this way four activity zones were mapped in the cave for each hearth: a red zone which is essentially out of bounds due to high smoke density; a yellow area suitable for short-term occupation of several minutes; a green area suitable for long-term occupation of several hours or days; and a blue area which is essentially smoke-free.
Yafit and Gil Kedar: “We found that the average smoke density, based on measuring the number of particles per spatial unit, is in fact minimal when the hearth is located at the back of the cave – just as our model had predicted. But we also discovered that in this situation, the area with low smoke density, most suitable for prolonged activity, is relatively distant from the hearth itself.
Early humans needed a balance – a hearth close to which they could work, cook, eat, sleep, get together, warm themselves, etc. while exposed to a minimum amount of smoke. Ultimately, when all needs are taken into consideration – daily activities vs. the damages of smoke exposure – the occupants placed their hearth at the optimal spot in the cave.”
The study identified a 25sqm area in the cave which would be optimal for locating the hearth in order to enjoy its benefits while avoiding too much exposure to smoke. Astonishingly, in the several layers examined by in this study, the early humans actually did place their hearth within this area.
Prof. Barkai concludes: “Our study shows that early humans were able, with no sensors or simulators, to choose the perfect location for their hearth and manage the cave’s space as early as 170,000 years ago – long before the advent of modern humans in Europe. This ability reflects ingenuity, experience, and planned action, as well as awareness of the health damage caused by smoke exposure. In addition, the simulation model we developed can assist archaeologists excavating new sites, enabling them to look for hearths and activity areas at their optimal locations.”
In further studies the researchers intend to use their model to investigate the influence of different fuels on smoke dispersal, use of the cave with an active hearth at different times of year, use of several hearths simultaneously, and other relevant issues.
Early Human Evolution: Hominin Fossils in “Cradle of Humankind” May Be a Million Years Older Than Thought
Four different Australopithecus crania were found in the Sterkfontein caves, South Africa. The Sterkfontein cave fill containing this and other Australopithecus fossils was dated to 3.4 to 3.6 million years ago, far older than previously thought. The new date overturns the long-held concept that South African Australopithecus is a younger offshoot of East African Australopithecus afarensis. Credit: Jason Heaton and Ronald Clarke, in cooperation with the Ditsong Museum of Natural History
The Famous Sterkfontein Caves deposit is 1 million years older than previously thought.
New dates for the Australopithecus-bearing Sterkfontein Cave deposit place South African hominin fossils at the centre of global paleo research.
Nearly four million years of hominin and environmental evolution are revealed by fossils found at the Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa. Research began at the site in 1936 when Robert Broom discovered the first adult hominin of the genus Australopithecus.
Since then it has become famous for the hundreds of Australopithecus fossils yielded from excavations of ancient cave infills, including iconic specimens such as the Little Foot skeleton and the cranium known as Mrs. Ples.
Ancient cave infill called ‘Member 4’ is where the majority of Sterkfontein’s wealth of Australopithecus fossils have been excavated from. In fact, it is the richest deposit of Australopithecus fossils in the world.
Over the last 56 years of University of the Witwatersrand-led research at Sterkfontein, the age of Member 4 at Sterkfontein has remained contested. Age estimates have ranged from as young as about 2 million years ago, younger than the appearance of our genus Homo, back to about 3 million years.
New research presented in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) re-evaluates the age of Australopithecus from Member 4 at Sterkfontein together with the Jacovec Cavern, which contains a few additional hominin fossils in a deeper chamber in the cave.
“The new ages range from 3.4-3.6 million years for Member 4, indicating that the Sterkfontein hominins were contemporaries of other early Australopithecus species, like Australopithecus afarensis, in east Africa,” says Professor Dominic Stratford, director of research at the caves, and one of the authors on the paper.
The new ages are based on the radioactive decay of the rare isotopes aluminium-26 and beryllium-10 in the mineral quartz.
“These radioactive isotopes, known as cosmogenic nuclides, are produced by high-energy cosmic ray reactions near the ground surface, and their radioactive decay dates when the rocks were buried in the cave when they fell in the entrance together with the fossils,” says Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in the United States and lead author on the paper.
Previous dating of Member 4 has been based on dating calcite flowstone deposits found within the cave fill, but careful observations show that the flowstone is actually younger than the cave fill and so it underestimates the age of the fossils.
“This re-assessment of the age of Sterkfontein Member 4 Australopithecus fossils has important implications for the role of South Africa on the hominin evolution stage. Younger hominins, including Paranthropus and our genus Homoappear between about 2.8 and 2 million years ago.
Based on previously suggested dates, the South African Australopithecus species were too young to be their ancestors, so it has been considered more likely that Homo and Paranthropus evolved in East Africa,” says Stratford.
The new dates show that Australopithecus existed at Sterkfontein almost a million years prior to the appearance of Paranthropus and Homo, providing more time for them to evolve here, in the Cradle of Humankind, and placing the hominins from this site front and centre in the history early human evolution.
“This important new dating work pushes the age of some of the most interesting fossils in human evolution research, and one of South Africa’s most iconic fossils, Mrs. Ples, back a million years to a time when, in east Africa, we find other iconic early hominins like Lucy,” says Stratford.
“The redating of the Australopithecus-bearing infills at the Sterkfontein Caves will undoubtedly re-ignite the debate over the diverse characteristics of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, and whether there could have been South African ancestors to later hominins,” says Granger.
