Hungry badger accidentally unearths hundreds of ancient Roman coins in Spain
A badger has led archaeologists to a hoard of more than 200 Roman coins that had been hidden in a cave in Spain for centuries.
The animal had burrowed into a crack in the rock inside the La Cuesta cave in the Asturias region of northwest Spain and dug out coins that were later discovered by a local man, Roberto García, according to a paper on the find published in December.
García called in archaeologists, including dig director Alfonso Fanjul, who believes the badger was searching for food or digging itself a nest.
“When we arrived we found the hole that led to the badger’s nest, and the ground around it full of coins,” Fanjul told CNN on Monday, adding that more than 90 coins had been dug up by the badger.
The team then performed an archaeological excavation that recovered a total of 209 coins dating from 200 AD to 400 AD.
The cave is in the Asturias region of northwestern Spain.
This corresponds with the Late Roman period when barbarians such as the Suebi arrived in the Iberian peninsula.
Fanjul believes the coins were hidden by refugees sheltering in the area, saying: “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.”
The coins were probably hidden by people fleeing barbarians, archaeologists say
The coins are currently being cleaned and will be put on display at the Archaeological Museum of Asturias, said Fanjul, who plans to carry out further excavations at the site this year.
“We’ve taken out the first deposit, but we think there is a lot more to take out,” he said, adding that it’s already the largest Roman hoard recovered from inside a cave in Spain.
“It’s a unique moment that you dream about from a young age,” Fanjul said. “It’s an exceptional moment that you never think you will have as an archaeologist.”
Fanjul believes further excavations will improve our understanding of the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the medieval kingdoms of northern Spain.
“We think it’s an ideal site to learn more about the people that we’re living through this transition,” he said.
Massive 1,100 Year Old Maya Site Discovered In Georgia’s Mountains
In Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, the Mayans constructed astonishing temples – but now some assume that the ancient people fled their dissolving civilization and ended up in Georgia.
A 1,100-year-old archaeological site is believed by the historian and architect Richard Thornton to show that Mayan refugees fled Central America and ended up near Blairsville in the North Georgian mountains.
His amazing theory is based on the discovery of 300 to 500 rock terraces and mounds that date to 900AD on the side of the Brasstown Bald mountain – around the time the Mayans started to die out.
This 3D virtual reality image was made from the Johannes Loubser site plan.
Mr Thornton’s blockbuster theory revolves around the area near Brasstown Bald potentially being the ‘fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540’. He described it as ‘certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.
The Mayans died out around 900AD for reasons still debated by scholars – although drought, overpopulation and war are the most popular theories, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The remains were first found by retired engineer Carey Waldrip when he went walking in the area in the 1990s. Archaeologist Johannes Loubser excavated part of the site and wrote a report about it in 2010, but does not believe the rock terraces are Mayan.
Look at this: The remains were first found by retired engineer Carey Waldrip, pictured when he went walking in the area in the 1990s
‘I think that (Mr Thornton) selectively presents the evidence,’ Mr Loubser told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ‘But he’s a better marketer than I and other archaeologists are.’
Mr Loubser, who excavated a rock wall and small mound, added that claims like this must be backed up with ‘hard evidence’ because of the various conflicting opinions in the archaeological world.’
Mr Loubser believes the structures could have been built by the Cherokee Indians or an earlier tribe between 800AD and 1100AD. He stopped digging because he realized the site could be a grave.
Still, Mr Thornton claims early maps of the location named two villages ‘Itsate’, which was how Itza Mayans described themselves. The terrace structures and dates helped him reach his conclusion.
‘It was commonplace for the Itza Maya to sculpt a hill into a pentagonal mound,’ he argues. ‘There are dozens of such structures in Central America.’
But not everyone is impressed by Mr Thornton’s theory. He cited University of Georgia archaeology professor Mark Williams in an article on Examiner.com.
‘I am the archaeologist Mark Williams mentioned in this article,’ Professor Williams said on Facebook. ‘This is total and complete bunk. There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now.’
‘The sites are certainly those of Native Americans of prehistoric Georgia,’ Professor Williams told ABC News. ‘Wild theories are not new, but the web simply spreads them faster than ever.’
Mr Thornton wasn’t bothered by the ensuing debate, in fact, that’s exactly what he wanted. ‘I’m not an archaeologist. I’m a big picture man,’ said Mr Thorton to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ‘We’re hoping this article stirs up some interest. I was just trying to get the archaeologists to work some more on the site and they come back snapping like mad dogs.’
He works with a company called His pared his map of the Georgia site, it reminded him of other Mayan works. ‘It’s identical to sites in Belize,’ he argued.
The Mayans have been under intense scrutiny over the past few years as rumours abound about their mysterious 5,125-year calendar allegedly predicting the apocalypse on December 21 2012.
But various experts have spoken out against Doomsday, including Mexico’s ‘Grand Warlock’ Antonio Vazquez, to say that the Mayan calendar instead will just reset and a new time-span will begin.
Giant 30-foot ‘sea dragon’ fossil from 180 million years ago discovered in UK
The remains of a monstrous, 33-foot-long (10 meters) “sea dragon” that swam in the seas when dinosaurs were alive some 180 million years ago have been unearthed on a nature reserve in England.
This ichthyosaur would have been some 33 feet (10 meters) long when it lived about 180 million years ago.
The behemoth is the biggest and most complete fossil of its kind ever discovered in the U.K.
“It is a truly unprecedented discovery and one of the greatest finds in British palaeontological history,” excavation leader Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist and visiting scientist at the University of Manchester, said in a statement.
Though many such ichthyosaurs have been found in the U.K., none have been as large as the current discovery.
Ichthyosaurs are an extinct order, or large group, of marine reptiles that evolved in the Triassic period about 250 million years ago and disappeared from the fossil record 90 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous period. They had long snouts and looked similar to modern-day dolphins.
The newly discovered fossil belonged to a large species of ichthyosaur called Temnodontosaurus trigonodon — the first time this species has appeared in the U.K. Joe Davis, a conservation team leader for the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, found the ichthyosaur on the Rutland Water Nature Reserve in the East Midlands in January 2021, according to the statement.
Davis was walking across a drained lagoon with Paul Trevor, who also works on the reserve for the trust when he saw what appeared to be clay pipes sticking out of the mud and remarked to Trevor that they looked like vertebrae.
Davis was familiar with sea creature bones, having previously found whale and dolphin skeletons while working on the Hebrides, a series of islands off northwest Scotland.
“We followed what indisputably looked like a spine and Paul [Trevor] discovered something further along that could have been a jawbone,” Davis said. “We couldn’t quite believe it.”
Archaeologists excavated the fossil between August and September in 2021.
The discovery will be featured on a British television series called “Digging for Britain,” which airs in the U.K. on Tuesday (Jan. 11) on BBC Two.
Archaeologists are still studying and conserving the ichthyosaur fossil and scientific papers about the discovery will be published in the future, according to the statement, though no timeframe was given.
The ancient Kingdom Discovered Beneath Mound in Iraq
An ancient city called ‘Idu’ has been discovered in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Hidden beneath a 32 foot (10 metres) mound, the city is thought to have been a hub of activity between 3,300 and 2,900 years ago.
Inscriptions made for kings in walls, tablets and stone plinths, reveal that it was once filled with luxurious palaces.
The discovery was made five years ago after a local villager found a clay tablet with the name ‘Idu’ carved in.
The ancient city of Idu is now part of a Tell that rises about 32 feet (10 metres) above the surrounding plain. The modern-day name of the site is Satu Qala and a village lies on top of the Tell
It is thought the inscription was made by the local kings celebrating the construction of the royal palace. Archaeologists at the University of Leipzig in Germany spent the next few years excavating the area.
They believe the city of Idu spent much of its time under the control of the Assyrian Empire about 3,300 years ago. But archaeologists also found evidence that it was a fiercely independent city.
A domestic structure, with at least two rooms, that may date to relatively late in the life of the newfound ancient city, perhaps around 2,000 years ago when the Parthian Empire controlled the area in Iraq.
Its people fought for and won, 140 years of independence before they were reconquered by the Assyrians. Among the treasures found were artwork showing a bearded sphinx with a human head and the body of a winged lion.
Above it was the words: ‘Palace of Ba’auri, king of the land of Idu, son of Edima, also king of the land of Idu.’
They also found a cylinder seal dating back roughly 2,600 years depicting a man crouching before a griffon.
‘We were lucky to be one of the first teams to begin excavations in Iraq after the 2003 war,’ archaeologists Cinzia Pappi told MailOnline.
‘The discovery of ancient Idu at Satu Qala revealed a multicultural capital and a crossroad between northern and southern Iraq and between Iraq and Western Iran in the second and first millennia BC.
‘Particularly the discovery of a local dynasty of kings fills a gap in what scholars had previously thought of as a dark age in the history of ancient Iraq.
‘Together these results have helped to redraw the political and historical map of the development of the Assyrian Empire.’
This work shows a bearded sphinx with a human male head and the body of a winged lion. Found in four fragments it was also created for King Ba’auri and has almost the exact same inscription as the depiction of the horse.
The city was hidden beneath a mound, called a tell, which is currently home to a village called Satu Qala.
‘For wide-scale excavations to continue, at least some of these houses will have to be removed,’ said archaeologists Cinzia Pappi
‘Unfortunately, until a settlement is reached between the villagers and the Kurdistan regional government, further work is currently not possible.’
Archaeologists plan to continue excavating the site once they reach an agreement.
In the meantime, a study on the materials from the site, now stored in the Erbil Museum of Antiquities, has just been completed in co-operation with the University of Pennsylvania.
Together, the researchers will explore the surrounding area to determine the extent of the kingdom of Idu in its regional context
The findings have been reported in the journal Anatolica.
Archaeologists are currently busy analysing artefacts already excavated. They also plan to survey the surrounding area to get a better sense of how large the kingdom of Idu was
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
3,000-year-old clan cemetery uncovered in central China
Photo provided by the Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology on Jan. 5, 2022, shows a horse buried with the dead at the Shaojiapeng site, which is decorated with shell strings. (Anyang Institute of cultural relics and archaeology/Handout via Xinhua)
A large-scale tomb cluster dating back to the late Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) was recently discovered in Shaojiapeng Village, Anyang City of central China’s Henan Province, according to the city’s institute of cultural relics and archaeology.
Located 2.4 km away from the palace and ancestral temple of the Yin Ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Shaojiapeng site is believed to be a major living area for a clan named “Ce” in the Shang Dynasty.
The Chinese character “Ce” was found on the inscription of bronzeware uncovered in the cemetery relics, which indicates the identity of the clan.
A total of 18 building foundations, 24 tombs, four-horse and chariot pits, along with relics including exquisite bronzeware, jade and stone objects, bone ware and mussels, were found during the two-year excavation of the site.
Six carriages and several warriors and horses buried with the dead were uncovered in the pits, with luxurious decorations on the relics.
Some warriors were found wearing hats with shell strings and the foreheads of some horses were decorated with gold veneer and bronze backing.
“This is very rare among the ancient discoveries of Anyang, reflecting the extraordinary status and power of the carriage owner,” said Kong Deming, director of the institute.
The researchers are still working on unlocking the remaining mysteries of the site, including the social status of the clan, their division of labour and their relationship with the Shang royal family.
The relics at the site are diverse and relatively well-preserved, making them of great significance to studies on the scope and layout of the Yin Ruins, according to Kong.
Europe’s first farmers came from Turkey confirmed by DNA
It was an innovation that changed the course of human history forever, leading to the rise of the first civilisations and transforming the way of life of our ancestors.
Now researchers believe they have pinpointed where the first farmers who spread into Europe 8,000 years ago came from – Anatolia in Turkey. Using ancient DNA from human remains found in the region, a study has been able to trace the lineage of early European farmers back to the Anatolian plateau in Turkey.
They said farmers from Anatolia appear to have moved into Europe around 8,000 years ago, replacing the hunter-gatherer cultures that lived there.
Ancient DNA from human remains (pictured) found in Anatolia, Turkey, has revealed that the farmers who lived there 8,000 years ago were among the first to spread into Europe. The farming revolution brought about changes in human culture that led to some of the first civilisations in history emerging
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the farming revolution then spread.
Anders Götherstörm, head of archaeogenetic research at the archaeological research laboratory at Stockholm University, said: ‘Our results stress the importance Anatolia has had on Europe’s prehistory.
‘But to fully understand how the agricultural development proceeded we need to dive deeper down into material from the Levant.’
The researchers extracted DNA from human remains found at the site of an ancient settlement in Kumtepe in Troas, northwestern Anatolia, in Turkey.
The remains are thought to belong to Neolithic farmers who were among the first inhabitants of the settlement, which eventually gave rise to the city of Troy.
The team behind the study compared the DNA with genetic material from other ancient farmers in Europe along with DNA from modern Europeans.
Ayca Omrak, who was the first author of the research at Stockholm University, said: ‘I have never worked with more complicated material.
‘I could use the DNA from the Kumptepe material to trace the European farmers back to Anatolia.
‘It is also fun to have worked with this material from the Kumtepe site, as this is the precursor to Troy.’
A separate study recently found that a rise in farming and metalwork in Ireland led to a ‘genetic shift’ in the region, fuelled by an influx of people from the Black Sea and the Middle East.
This led to the traits that make Celtic people so distinct to emerge around 4,000 years ago. In particular, the researchers said that the adoption of agriculture led to ‘waves of immigration’ in Ireland which ultimately shifted their genetics.
The study was led by Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin. Researchers analysed the DNA of an early Neolithic farmer, a woman who is believed to have lived in the Belfast area 5,200 years ago.
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the revolution spread. The researchers extracted DNA from remains found at Kumtepe in Troas, Turkey
Neolithic farmers spread to replace hunter-gatherer populations in Europe. Wall paintings of hunters (pictured) found in Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia, Turkey is thought to have been made in 6,000BC, just as farming was beginning to spread into Europe. The new study suggests the area was a hub for the farming revolution
They also analysed the DNA of three men found in Rathlin Island in County Down, who lived 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.
While the early farmer woman more closely resembled people from Southern Europe, with black hair and brown eyes, the later men had blue eyes.
One even had an inherited iron disorder, haemochromatosis, commonly found in Irish people. Elsewhere, the woman’s genome was a ‘genetic cocktail’ of early hunter-gatherer DNA mixed with that of Near East farmers.
It is thought these farmers migrated to the region thousands of years ago, bringing farming to the region in around 3,750 BC. However, the genetic traits found in the Bronze Age males were found to be much closer to modern Irish people.
Mysteries Of Ancient ‘Computer’ Found In Greek Shipwreck Solved By Scientists
Archaeologists claim to have solved the mysteries behind an ancient Greek “computer” that shouldn’t even exist. Known for its hidden relics archaeological treasures, Greece has offered great insights into a world long lost.
In fact, some of the earliest advances in understanding space and the position of Earth around the sun were made in ancient Greece.
The very first astronomical calculator was also built in ancient Greece. This “computer” has continued to stun scientists and archaeologists alike.
Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, the 2,000-year-old Greek hand-powered orrey is a mechanical model of the solar system. It’s also considered the world’s oldest analogue computer.
World’s oldest “analogue computer”
Using the Antikythera, Greek scientists used to track eclipses and astronomical positions. In addition, they used to trace the cycle of the Olympic Games (yes, the same ones we all have now).
The Antikythera Mechanism was first found in ruins of a shipwreck in 1901 off the coast of Greek island Antikythera (hence its name). A year later, it was identified as carrying gear by archaeologist Valerios Stais.
At first sight, the Antikythera Mechanism appeared as a hunk of corroded metal that “no one knew quite what to do with.”
In conversation with BBC, Professor Tony Freeth of the University College London said that “it was not recognised at all as being anything interesting when it was discovered, it was just a corroded lump about the size of a large dictionary.”
Using its bronze gear and calculative prowess, ancient Greeks used the Antikythera Mechanism to assess the cycle of the cosmos.
It is now kept in a museum in Athens – split into 82 fragments. But nobody really knew what it was for until Professor Freeth put it under the magical lens of x-ray.
Besides thousands of text characters in Greece, scientists discovered certain cogs that made the computer function. It could predict eclipses, follow the motion of the moon among a series of things.
Researchers Date Horned Helmets Discovered in Denmark
The two Viksø helmets were found in pieces a bog in eastern Denmark in 1942. Archaeologists think they were deliberately deposited there as religious offerings
Two spectacular bronze helmets decorated with bull-like, curved horns may have inspired the idea that more than 1,500 years later, Vikings wore bulls’ horns on their helmets, although there is no evidence they ever did.
Rather, the two helmets were likely emblems of the growing power of leaders in Bronze Age Scandinavia. In 1942, a worker cutting peat for fuel discovered the helmets — which sport “eyes” and “beaks” — in a bog near the town of Viksø (also spelled Veksø) in eastern Denmark, a few miles northwest of Copenhagen.
The helmets’ design suggested to some archaeologists that the artefacts originated in the Nordic Bronze Age (roughly from 1750 B.C. to 500 B.C.), but until now no firm date had been determined. The researchers of the new study used radiocarbon methods to date a plug of birch tar on one of the horns.
“For many years in popular culture, people associated the Viksø helmets with the Vikings,” said Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “But actually, it’s nonsense. The horned theme is from the Bronze Age and is traceable back to the ancient Near East.”
The new research by Vandkilde and her colleagues confirms that the helmets were deposited in the bog in about 900 B.C. — almost 3,000 years ago and many centuries before the Vikings or Norse dominated the region.
That dates the helmets to the late Nordic Bronze Age, a time when archaeologists think the regular trade of metals and other items had become common throughout Europe and foreign ideas were influencing Indigenous cultures, the researchers wrote in the journal Praehistorische Zeitschrift.
The elaborately-horned Viksø helmets have been associated with medieval Vikings. But a new study fixes their date to about 900 B.C. – over a thousand years before any Vikings.
Horned helmets
In 1942, a man cutting peat for fuel found broken pieces of the helmets, according to the Danish Ministry of Culture.
When the muddy helmet fragments were first discovered, the man who found them thought they were bits of buried waste, so he set them aside. Later, a foreman noticed the fragments and stored them in a shed for later examination. Later examinations by archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark showed that the “buried waste” fragments were actually parts of two bronze helmets decorated with curved horns. When excavating the peat pit, researchers also found the remains of a wooden slab that one of the helmets seemed to have stood on, which suggested they had been deliberately deposited in the bog.
But metal can’t be reliably dated, and further research suggested the wooden slab might have been placed in the bog earlier than the helmets. It wasn’t until 2019 that one of Vandkilde’s colleagues spotted the birch tar on one of the horns when she was preparing to take new photographs of the helmets at the National Museum of Denmark.
“She noticed that there was primary organic material in the horns and spoke to a colleague at the National Museum responsible for the collection, and they agreed to send a sample for absolute dating,” Vandkilde said.
Previously, any information about the helmets was based on their typology — the style they were made in and any symbols they were decorated with. But the new date is based on the radioactive decay of the isotope carbon 14, which can determine when the organic matter originated. This method let archaeologists pinpoint when the helmets were created and theorize their purpose, she said.
“Typology is quite often a good first step, chronologically speaking, but it is very important when we can have absolute dates, as we can with carbon 14,” Vandkilde said. “We now know with this new date that the helmets were deposited in the bog, perhaps by someone standing on a wooden platform, around 900 B.C.”
Sun symbolism
As well as the having eyes and beak of a bird of prey and curving bull’s horns, archaeologists think the helmets were decorated with plumes of feathers and manes of horsehair.
As well as their prominent horns, the Viksø helmets are adorned with symbols meant to look like the eyes and beak of a bird of prey; plumage that has since eroded was likely stuck into the ends of the horns with birch tar, and each helmet also may have had a mane of horsehair.
Both the bulls’ horns and the bird of prey were probably symbols of the sun, as similar iconography from the time has been found in other parts of Europe, such as on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia and in southwest Iberia. “It’s certainly not coincidental — there must have been some sort of connection there,” Vandkilde said.
It’s possible that the symbology of sun worship may have reached Scandinavia along a sea route, from the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coast, that was used by the seafaring Phoenicians for trade after about 1000 B.C., “independent of the otherwise flourishing transalpine trading route,” the researchers wrote.
There is no sign that the Viksø helmets were ever used for war, which was usually carried out in Bronze Age Scandinavia with only rudimentary helmets or no helmets at all. “They were never used for battle,” Vandkilde said.
Instead, leaders probably wore the helmets as symbols of authority at a time when the region was becoming more politicized and centralized, she said.
“There are many signs of this, and our new dating of the Viksø helmets actually suits this very well — this picture of centralization and the importance of political leadership,” she said. “And those leaders must have used religious beliefs and innovative traits, like the horns, to further their power.”
