Category Archives: WORLD

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

Burned Layer at Jamestown Linked to Bacon’s Rebellion

Burned Layer at Jamestown Linked to Bacon’s Rebellion

While placing lights at the front of Historic Jamestowne’s memorial church ahead of its 2019 reopening, Jamestown Rediscovery’s Senior Staff Archaeologist Sean Romo made an interesting discovery: burn deposits buried just below the surface.

The artefacts, including window leads, collected on top of the burn deposits, date to just after the 1676 fire.

With several recorded accounts of open fires at the settlement, Romo said there were three possible causes. It could be evidence of the January 1608 fort burning, the result of Confederate troops’ 1862 retreat or it could be evidence of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676.

But the team could not definitively decide until they opened up the ground. But Romo had his doubts. While Confederate forces occupied the site, several spots around the island were disturbed in order to fortify the wall.

But, what the team uncovered was something of wonder: a square, 15-by-15 feet, filled with intact burn deposits along with several artefacts on the surface.

“We expected this space to be disturbed in some way, but once we took off the modern deposits, we were shocked. The fact that this site is really intact is incredible,” Romo said.

While historians have well-documented accounts of Nathaniel Bacon’s 1676 siege of Jamestown, there had never been any evidence identified as the burning of the island’s parish church.

But, nearly 345 years after the recorded event, the Jamestown Rediscovery’s team has definitively confirmed evidence of “one of the most unusual and complicated chapters in Jamestown’s history,” according to the National Park Service’s article.

While the team had several causes to consider, Romo said the artefacts, including window leads, collected on top of the burn deposits, date to just after the 1676 fire, proving that what they were looking at were from a wooden structure predating the rebellion.

On Sept. 19, 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a siege on Jamestown, burning the site to the ground after several skirmishes with Gov. Sir William Berkeley over Native relations.

The rebellion is known as the first of its kind in the American colonies as Bacon, a wealthy landowner, gained the support of poor farmers.

Additionally, in a second dig site along the church’s eastern wall, there is definitive evidence of the construction of the existing brick church tower following its burning.

According to Director of Archaeology Dave Givens, this discovery is crucial in telling the complete story of Jamestown’s history and the team plans to continue their efforts to understand other artefacts at the site.

“We have positive evidence of Bacon’s Rebellion and the burning that took place,” Givens said. “The nice thing about this dig is that, as it evolves, it will help us understand more about the layers and what we’re seeing every day.”

AUSTRALIA, WORLD

Rare 6,000-year-old mussel shell reveals insights into First Nations technology

Rare 6,000-year-old mussel shell reveals insights into First Nations technology

New research by archaeologists has described rare shell artefacts discovered at Calperum Station and Murrawong (Glen Lossie) on the Murray River in South Australia.

The artefacts were found in sites known to archaeologists as shell middens during field trips by Flinders and Griffith University scientists, in collaboration with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation and the Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal Corporation.

Two of the modified freshwater mussel shells are perforated, with the other is serrated. The authors say the finely serrated shell is a very rare artefact with few close Australian examples known to exist.

A perforated shell was found at Calperum Station.

The discoveries range in age from around 6000 to 600 years old and more than double the known examples of such artefacts from this region.

Professor Amy Roberts at Flinders University, the lead author of the paper, says that whilst midden sites are a common type in many parts of the country, shell artefacts are rarely identified within them.

Archaeologist Amy Roberts working at a Riverland site.

“These artefacts remind us that middens are not only the remnants of meals eaten long ago but that they also provide insights into Aboriginal technologies and cultural activities. It’s a remarkable object to look at, but also highly enigmatic.”

Serrated shell artefact from Calperum Station in South Australia’s Riverland region. Perforated shell artefact from Calperum Station in South Australia’s Riverland region.

In over 25 years of recording archaeological sites in the Riverland, including many hundreds of shell middens, co-author Craig Westell says he has never come across an object like the serrated artefact.

Potential uses for the perforated shells include ornamentation, tool stringing and fibre scraping while the serrated artefact may have been used for ornamentation, idle tinkering, or as a food utensil.

Dr Chris Wilson, a Ngarrindjeri archaeologist, says accounts about the use of shells recorded from Aboriginal Elders who lived along the Murray River opened space for the team to think about the functional, symbolic, and aesthetic importance of these objects.

“This recent shell finds confirm that our Ancestors not only made utensils and tools for everyday use but they were also gifted with making artistic pieces using any materials that were readily available.”

“The research that Amy and her team do in partnership with the First Peoples of the River Murray and Mallee has been much appreciated, their research gives us more accurate details of our Ancestral history within the Riverland,” says River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation spokesperson Fiona Giles.”

The paper, “Aboriginal Serrated and Perforated Shell Artifacts from the Murray River, South Australia,” (2021) by A.L. Roberts, C. Westell, C. Wilson, M. Langley, River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation and the Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal Corporation has been published in Archaeology in Oceania.

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

Three Phases of Wooden Wagon Way Uncovered in Scotland

Three Phases of Wooden Wagon Way Uncovered in Scotland

BBC News reports that three layers of wooden tracks constructed for the horse-drawn Tranent Waggonway have been uncovered in East Lothian by researchers from the 1722 Waggonway Project.

Three Phases of Wooden Wagon Way Uncovered in Scotland
The 1722 Waggonway Project said the early railway was unique in archaeology

The Tranent Waggonway in East Lothian was first constructed in 1722.

It was initially built for hauling coal from a pit at Tranent to Cockenzie and Port Seton for use as fuel in a process for making salt.

New archaeological excavations have revealed three wooden railways, each one laid immediately on top of the last.

The 1722 Waggonway Project said it appeared to have been an attempt to upgrade the railway with “crudely cut timbers” over a short period of time.

The gauge – the distance between the two rails – was also changed from an initial 3ft 3in (about one metre) in the first phase to 4ft (1.2m) in the second and third phases.

The project team said there was no other site like it in railway archaeology.

Its research has identified the three phases of upgrades happening between 1722-25, 1728-30 and 1743-44.

The second phase was described as “extremely well constructed”, with cobbles laid to form a track between the rails for the horses that pulled the waggons.

The new excavations were done this year

Railway historian Anthony Leslie Dawson said: “Whilst we know these railways had a limited lifespan due to their method of construction, to see this process of continual replacement and upgrade – including a change of gauge – in the archaeological record is outstanding.

“The waggonway excavation has shown that these waggonways are far more complex than the single-phase structures previously excavated, and the survival of timber on-site including joints helps us further understand the construction of these early railways.”

The project’s archaeologists also excavated a salt pan building in Cockenzie, and discovered evidence of use of the site in the production of salt lasted from 1630 to about 1780.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

They rebuild the faces of Egyptian mummies from their 2,000-year-old DNA

They rebuild the faces of Egyptian mummies from their 2,000-year-old DNA

Three ancient Egyptians’ faces have been brought to life using 2,000-year-old DNA. Scientists have used DNA dating back over 2,000 years to bring the faces of three ancient Egyptian males to life.

The trio of samples, estimated to be between 2,023 and 2,797 years old, is thought to be the first time contemporary procedures have been employed on the human DNA of this antiquity.

JK2134, who lived between 776 and 569 BC, JK2888, who lived around 97-2 BC, and JK2911, who lived between 769 and 560 BC, were the names given to the three.

A research team from Germany has collaborated with a US-based DNA technology company to generate a visual reconstruction of the faces of three ancient Egyptian mummies.

Parabon NanoLabs employed cutting-edge technology and a forensic artist to forecast the men’s appearance around the age of 25 to reveal the features of the ancient Egyptian mummies.

The mummies come from the Abusir el-Meleq, an ancient Nile hamlet. The researchers discovered that their origin was more similar to the modern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern people than Egyptians.

They were described as having light brown complexions, dark hair and eyes, and no freckles.

“These results are highly consistent with Schuenemann et al’s conclusions that ‘ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than modern-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times and that they had an allele for lighter skin,” according to a press release from Parabon.

Before they were sequenced and “matched to the human reference genome,” raw data from three ancient Egyptian mummies was received from the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). Each sample was subjected to enzymatic damage repair.

It was argued that the work was only possible because of biometric developments in the field of low-coverage imputation.

“Parabon has been the leader in forensic microarray analysis for years, and with the advent of this new imputation method, we can now handle even the most complex samples, ancient or forensic,” said Dr. Janet Cady, a Parabon bioinformaticist and WGS analyst who spearheaded the work.

Parabon used their “Snapshot DNA Phenotyping pipeline” on the three ancient mummy samples after the “imputation” stage. Snapshot, which was created to deal with missing data in difficult forensic cases, “predicted each mummy’s ancestry, colour, and face morphology,” according to the researchers. The men’s front and side profiles, as well as a facial heat map, were revealed by the three-dimensional “face morphology.”

“It’s fantastic to see,” said Dr. Ellen Greytak, Parabon’s director of bioinformatics. This is a condensed version of the information.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Gold mask among 3,000-year-old relics unearthed in southwest China

Gold mask among 3,000-year-old relics unearthed in southwest China

Earlier this year, archaeologists were awed when they discovered the partial remains of a 3,000-year-old gold mask at the Sanxingdui dig in China’s Sichuan province.

A bronze mask was discovered in one of the eight sacrificial pits discovered at the Sanxingdui ruins site
A bronze mask was discovered in one of the eight sacrificial pits discovered at the Sanxingdui ruins site

Weighing in at half a pound, the mask was considered unprecedented. But, this month, experts’ expectations were bested once again when another gold-mask was found at the same site—this one far more complete.

Last Thursday, the mask was excavated in the sacrificial pits of Sanxingdui, which have yielded numerous artefacts since they were initially found in 1929.

An archaeologist at work in one of the sacrificial pits.

According to the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, the mask is more than one foot long and was crafted by ancient people. While many objects found at Sanxingdui are known to be thousands of years old, archaeologists have not yet said when the mask was made.

“The new discoveries demonstrate once again that imagination and creativity of the ancient Chinese far surpassed what people today had expected,” Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, told Xinhua.

The mask was discovered this month as part of a cache of more than 500 pieces that also includes a jade knife, a bronze head, and a zun, or an urn that would have held wine used in rituals in ancient China.

sacrificial
An artefact found at Sanxingdui.

There are also some bronze objects that have not yet been identified because they are “so unique that even we don’t know how to name them,” Zhao Hao, an associate professor at Peking University, told Xinhua.

The new trove brings the total number of objects found at Sanxingdui to around 2,000.

Some experts within China have regarded the sacrificial pits there as being of extreme archaeological importance—even more significant, perhaps, than the Terracotta Army, which was buried Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, sometime around 210 B.C.E. in Shaanxi.

ASIA, LEBANON, WORLD

Mass grave of 25 Christian soldiers who were ”decapitated” during a 13th century Crusade is unearthed in Lebanon

Mass grave of 25 Christian soldiers who were ”decapitated” during a 13th century Crusade is unearthed in Lebanon

A pair of mass graves containing 25 Crusaders who were slaughtered during a 13th-century war in the Holy Land have been unearthed in Lebanon. A team of international archaeologists uncovered the gruesome scene at Sidon Castle on the eastern Mediterranean coast of south Lebanon.

Wounds on the remains suggest the soldiers died at the end of swords, maces and arrows, and charring on some bones means they were burned after being dropped into the pit. Other remains show markings on the neck, which likely means these individuals were captured on the battlefield and later decapitated.  

Historical records written by crusaders show that Sidon was attacked and destroyed in 1253 by Mamluk troops, and again in 1260 by Mongols, and the soldiers found in the mass graves likely perished in one of these battles.

A pair of mass graves containing 25 Crusaders who were slaughter during a 13th-century war has been unearthed in Lebanon

The Crusades were a series of religious wars fought between 1095 and 1291, in which Christian invaders tried to claim the near East, including Lebanon where the 25 dead soldiers were found.

The mass graves were found within the town walls and were rectilinear grave pits that also contained artefacts that belonged to the Crusaders.

‘Within the grave pit (burial 110) a wide variety of artefacts were observed dispersed amongst the human and non-human bones, with no immediate patterning evident, reads the study published in the journal PLOS ONE.

‘Metal finds included copper alloy buckles and fittings, at least two different sizes of iron nails, other iron fittings, a silver coin, a silver finger-ring and a single copper alloy arrowhead.

The mass graves were found within the town walls and were rectilinear grave pits that also contained artefacts that belonged to the Crusaders

Other finds included medieval potsherds, residual Persian period potsherds, glass fragments, and a small piece of charred, twisted fibre.’

Archaeologists knew the remains belonged to Crusaders after discovering the  European style belt buckles and a crusader coin within the graves.

DNA and isotope analyses of their teeth further confirmed that some of the men were born in Europe, while others were the offspring of crusader settlers who migrated to the ‘Holy Land’ and intermarried with local people.

The team ventured into the grave pits to take a closer look at the pile of bones that showed many of the soldiers were attacked from behind as they were running away from the battle. Others have sword wounds across the back of the neck, indicating they were possibly captives executed by decapitation after the battle.

Dr Richard Mikulski of Bournemouth University, who excavated and analyzed the skeletal remains and worked with the archaeologists at the Sidon excavation site, explained, ‘All the bodies were of teenage or adult males, indicating that they were combatants who fought in the battle when Sidon was attacked. 

‘When we found so many weapon injuries on the bones as we excavated them, I knew we had made a special discovery.’

DNA and isotope analyses of their teeth further confirmed that some of the men were born in Europe, while others were the offspring of crusader settlers who migrated to the ‘Holy Land’ and intermarried with local people

Bournemouth University colleague Dr Martin Smith, said in a statement: ‘To distinguish so many mixed up bodies and body parts took a huge amount of work, but we were finally able to separate them out and look at the pattern of wounds they had sustained.’

‘The way the body parts were positioned suggests they had been left to decompose on the surface before being dropped into a pit sometime later. Charring on some bones suggests they used fire to burn some of the bodies.’

Dr Piers Mitchell of the University of Cambridge, who was the crusader expert on the project, explained: ‘Crusader records tell us that King Louis IX of France was on crusade in the Holy Land at the time of the attack on Sidon in 1253. 

‘He went to the city after the battle and personally helped to bury the rotting corpses in mass graves such as these. Wouldn’t it be amazing if King Louis himself had helped to bury these bodies?’

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

12th Century stone idol of Lord Ganesh discovered

12th Century stone idol of Lord Ganesh discovered

A 12th-century idol representing the Hindu god Ganesh has been discovered accidentally in southeastern India. A farmer in the village of Motupalli in Prakasam District stumbled across the stone statue while tilling his land. In Hinduism, Lord Ganesh is presented as a portly elephant-headed figure with four arms.

He is considered the god of wisdom, the patron of science and art and the remover of obstacles. Standing about 18 inches tall, the idol displays Ganesh sitting cross-legged, known as the ‘Padmasana’ posture, on a lotus pedestal.

Two of the idol’s hands are broken—in one remaining hand, he holds his broken tusk and in the other a sweet Indian dumpling known as a modaka.

The announcement of the idol’s discovery came during the 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival when Hindus celebrate Lord Ganesh’s birth.

Farmer Siripudi Venkateswaralu discovered the idol on September 9 while tilling his farm in Motupalli, a village in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh, The Hindu reported.

12th Century stone idol of Lord Ganesh discovered
A 13 inch stone idol of Ganesh, the Hindu remover of obstacles, was discovered in Andhra Pradesh on the eve of a festival celebrating the elephant-headed god’s birth

Found on the eve of a festival devoted to Ganesh, the 800-year-old idol drew crowds of locals and visitors alike.  Running from September 10 to 19 this year, Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated with fasting, offerings, and prayers.

Later, modaka is distributed and public feasts and martial arts exhibitions are held.

Ganesh is typically presented with four arms, with an axe in his upper right hand, a noose in his upper left hand and sweet dumplings in the lower left. His broken tusk is often shown in his lower right though sometimes the hand is extended out to the viewer in a posture of enlightenment.

On the tenth day, idols of Ganesh are carried in a public procession and immersed in a nearby river or sea. 

The statue found in Motupall is 42 inches long, 30 inches wide and 18 inches tall, and is missing Ganesh’s typical mukut, or crown, according to archaeologist E. Sivanagi Reddy.

Reddy dated the icon to the 12th century, when Andhra Pradesh was ruled by the Chola dynasty, based on its style and inscriptions in the ruins of the nearby Kodanda Ramaswamy temple.

The Chola dynasty was a Tamil empire that governed southern India until the 13th century.

In Hindu iconography, Ganesh is usually depicted with an elephant head and a stout human body with four arms.

Each appendage carries an item with ritual significance: An axe in his upper right hand, and his broken tusk, or ‘danta,’ in his lower right. (In one story, Ganesh’s tusk was broken by an axe thrown by a warrior seeking to attack his father, Shiva.) 

A noose is in his upper left hand and sweets are in the lower left. The idol was taken to the temple by the Motupalli Heritage Society, though its final disposition is unknown.

In August Reddy was part of a team of archaeologists who found a Tamil inscription in the temple dedicated to Prataparudra, emperor of the Kakatiya dynasty that supplanted the Chola.

The inscription dated to the early 14t century and registers the land as a gift ‘for the merit of the king,’ The Deccan Chronicle reported. Prataparudra was the last Kakatiya ruler: He died during a 1323 invasion that saw the kingdom annexed to the Islamic Delhi Sultanate.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

This Ancient Underground City Was Big Enough to House 20,000 People

This Ancient Underground City Was Big Enough to House 20,000 People

Chicago, like a lot of other modern cities, has a hidden secret: It’s home to miles of passageways deep underground that allow commuters to get from one place to another without risking nasty weather.

This Ancient Underground City Was Big Enough to House 20,000 People
Illustration of the underground maze-like ancient city beneath Cappadocia.
The Cappadocia landscape with its tuff towers.

Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Dallas all have their own networks of underground tunnels, as well. But there’s a place in Eastern Europe that puts those forgotten passages to shame. Welcome to Derinkuyu — the underground city.

A Subterranean Suburb

Picture this. It’s 1963, and you’re on a construction crew renovating a home. You bring your sledgehammer down on a soft stone wall, and it all crumbles away, revealing a large, snaking passageway so long that you can’t see where it ends.

This is the true story of how the undercity at Derinkuyu was (re-)discovered. While those workers knew they’d found something special, they couldn’t know just how massive their discovery had been.

Stretching 250 feet (76 meters) underground with at least 18 distinct levels, Derinkuyu was a truly massive place to live. Yes, live. There was room for 20,000 people to stay here, complete with all of the necessities (and a few luxuries) — freshwater, stables, places of worship, and even wineries and oil presses.

Circular stones were used to seal access to passageways.

It isn’t the only underground city in the area known as Cappadocia, but it’s the deepest one we know of, and for many years, it was believed to be the largest as well. (Another recently discovered location may have been home to even more people.)

Derinkuyu and the other 40-ish underground cities nearby are made possible thanks to the prevalence of tuff in the area, a kind of volcanic rock that solidifies into something soft and crumbly. That makes it relatively easy to carve enormous subterranean passages — but why would you want to? The answer lies in the cities’ origins.

Defense Against the Sword Arts

Derinkuyu isn’t exactly inhospitable on the surface level (after all, that’s where the people who found it were living). So why did ancient people decide to build their living quarters below the surface? Because they weren’t hiding from the broiling sun or annual meteor showers.

They were clearly hiding from invading forces, with massive, rolling stone doors to block off each floor should any armies breach the fortress. But who were the people of the caves, and who were they defending themselves against? The answer to the second question depends on the answer to the first.

The earliest known people to live in the area were the Hittites, who ruled the Turkish Peninsula from about the 17th to 13th centuries B.C.E. — well over three millennia ago.

Some scholars point to artefacts with Hittite cultural elements, such as a small statue of a lion, found in the underground caves. That suggests these ancient people would have been taking refuge from invading Thracians.

A 55-meter (180-ft) shaft used a primary well at Derinkuyu.

If they were, it didn’t work forever: A tribe of Thracians, the Phrygians, conquered the area next. It’s possible that the Hittites never lived underground, however; an alternate theory says that it was the Phrygians, not the Hittites, who spawned the subterranean city.

Since the construction of many of the large underground complexes is dated to some time between the 10th and 7th centuries B.C.E., and the Phrygians lived there until the 6th century B.C.E., they’re generally regarded to have created the first caves. In that case, they may have been hiding from the Persian host under Cyrus the Great that eventually did take over the region.

Lost and Found

The Persians would have used those caves as well, as would all of the people to come after. Eventually, according to some sources, early Christians around the 2nd century C.E. took root in the caves as they fled Roman persecution.

This pattern continued throughout the centuries and millennia to come — in fact, Greek Christians were still using the caves as late as 1923. It’s pretty incredible, then, that the caves would have been forgotten in the 40-odd years between their last residents and their “re-discovery.”

It’s more likely, then, that it wasn’t the caves themselves, but the extent of the caves that were forgotten. While the holes burrowed into the area’s fairy chimneys would have been obvious even from a distance, it’s likely that the people living in more modern accommodations never realized that the caves in the wilderness outside of the urban area reached 18 stories down.