Ancient coins dating to 1,700 years ago were discovered by a family during a camping trip on an Israeli beach near Atlit on Tuesday. Yotam Dahan, a tour guide from Klil in northern Israel, found a bundle of antique coins during a family camping trip in Habonim beach.
The ancient bundle of coins was found on Habonim beach in Israel.
The bundle of coins, weighing a total of 6 kg., agglutinated after years of lying underwater. They were determined to have been used in the fourth century CE, following an inspection by expert Dr Donald Tzvi-Ariel.
After posting photos of the coins to Facebook, Dahan was contacted by Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Haifa District director Karem Said to identify the exact location of the discovery on the beach.
IAA marine archaeology department head Yaakov Sharvit noted the coins might have belonged to an ancient ship sailing the Mediterranean Sea.
“Archaeological sites are prevalent all along the Habonim beach strip,” Sharvit said. “Archaeological records show vessels were often washed ashore along with all their cargo,” he added.
“The bundle of coins found shows they were packed together and agglutinated due to oxidation of the metals,” Sharvit noted.
Dahan generously handed the coins to IAA’s Treasures of the State Department and was subsequently given a certificate of appreciation by the IAA.
Graves dating back 2,700 years have been unearthed in southern Mexico City
Experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have discovered 26 ancient graves dating back 2,700 years at a site in Mexico City.
Located in the south of the capital and adjoining a modern-day cemetery, the site measures 360 square meters and archaeologists believe that it might have been used by women for activities related to the care of infants.
During excavations over the last four months, the INAH team has found the graves at depths between 1.2 and 3.3 meters below street level. About 20 of them are in a perfect state of conservation.
They were found between 1.2 and 3.3 meters below street level; about 20 are perfectly conserved.
“Until now, we have detected four stages of settlement; four historical periods linked to the start of the 20th century, the Porfiriato [the period of more than three decades when former president Porfirio Díaz was in power], Mexico’s independence and the pre-Hispanic period,” said Antonio Balcorta Yépez, an INAH archaeologist working on the project.
Of the 26 graves found, 11 are in the form of a truncated cone, while the archaeologists have also found vestiges of walls from pre-Hispanic structures.
Ancient graves were discovered in southern Mexico City.
“We’ve made a series of discoveries that have revolutionized the knowledge we had about graves in the pre-classic period. The context suggests to us that we are in a village where they carried out specialized activities.
The height [of the site and] its geographical and strategic position indicates to us that the people [who lived on] this hill may have had greater control over certain resources compared to the village of Copilco,” Balcorta said.
Truncated cone graves were not only used for funeral purposes but also to store grains, artefacts and waste materials, he explained.
However, there is also evidence that indicates that at least two of the graves may have been used by women for everyday activities related to caring for their children, such as giving a herbal steam bath to a newborn baby.
That theory is supported by the discovery of more than 130 figurines in the graves, most of which represent pregnant women, while a smaller number are of infants. The ceramic pieces feature red, yellow and black colourings on their different body parts.
The INAH team has extracted samples from different parts of the graves to carry out chemical and pollen analyses aimed at confirming or rejecting the perinatal care hypothesis.
The archaeologists have also made discoveries from more recent times including remnants of ammunition used in the Mexican revolution and parts of adobe bricks and other building materials that formed part of a house that stood on the site at the end of the 19th century.
Because it is 2,296 meters above sea level, it is believed that the site was not affected by lava flows following the eruption of the Xitle Volcano between 245 and 315 AD and for that reason it has remained in well-conserved condition.
6,000-Year-Old Axe Discovered at George Washington’s Estate
About 6,000 years ago, a precious stone axe that had been skillfully carved and shaped by Native Americans was lost on a ridge overlooking the Potomac River in Virginia. The axe, about seven inches long, had been hewed and smoothed and was narrowed at one end where a wooden handle attached. Its loss must have been keenly felt.
Six millennia later, on Oct. 12, 2018, Dominic Anderson and Jared Phillips, 17-year-hold high school seniors from Ohio, were on an archaeological dig at George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon, when a stone that looked like a big potato turned up in their sifting screen. Not sure what it was, they asked the Mount Vernon archaeologists working nearby.
It was the lost axe, missing for 60 centuries.
Officials at Mount Vernon announced details of the find. They said it was a major discovery that helps take the story of the site far beyond its place as the home of the first president of what would become the United States.
It “provides a window onto the lives of individuals who lived here nearly 6,000 years ago,” said Sean Devlin, Mount Vernon’s curator of archaeological collections. “Artifacts such as this are a vital resource for helping us learn about the diverse communities who shaped this landscape throughout its long history.”
Mount Vernon officials said the axe had been made from a piece of “greenstone” probably taken from a local river. It had been chipped with a hammer stone to create a cutting edge and then further carved with a harder stone to create a smoother cutting surface. It was then worked even further with a grinding stone, and the groove was cut where the handle would attach. The tool was probably highly valuable.
Devlin said the axe was dated through knowledge of when such tools came into use, by comparing it to other tools from the period, and by dating the methods of its construction. It is believed to be the first such artefact found at Mount Vernon in recent years.
The makers of the axe were probably people who migrated by boat up and down the Potomac River seasonally and may not have lived in fixed villages, Devlin said in a telephone interview. The axe would have been a key possession during their travels.
“When you spend the effort to make tools like this axe, you would have probably carried it with you,” he said. “You wouldn’t just make something like this off the cuff . . . and used it once or twice and chucked it. . . . This is something people invested time in. It definitely isn’t something that was just sort of pitched by the side, just by happenstance.”
The axe was probably used for cutting or carving wood, he said. It probably was not a weapon.
“It’s always fantastic to go out there and see something that’s so evocative,” he said.
The axe was found by students from Archbishop Hoban High School, in Akron, Ohio. Fourteen students, headed by archaeology teacher Jason Anderson, were helping to map out the dimensions of what is believed to be a cemetery for Mount Vernon’s enslaved African Americans and their descendants.
Two high schoolers from Akron, Ohio, stumbled upon the tool while sifting through sediment during a dig at the estate
But the area is relatively pristine and has many prehistoric artefacts, said Joe Downer, Mount Vernon’s archaeological field research manager. Downer said Dominic Anderson, the teacher’s son, and Phillips, the second student, called out to him when they found the axe.
“Is this anything?” Downer said they asked.
“I was kind of taken aback when I saw it,” he said in a telephone interview. “I looked at it, and I held it for a minute, and I was like, ‘Well, that might be one of the coolest things we found out here.’ “
“It’s pretty unmistakable when you see it,” he said.
Jason Anderson, the teacher, said the school’s students have been doing archaeology work at Mount Vernon for six years.
“It’s not a field trip,” he said in a telephone interview. “The students are working. This isn’t just kind of kickback . . . and have a fun time. It’s a lot of work, but it’s very fulfilling work.”
“The neatest thing is: The whole purpose we do any of this stuff is to get students interested in archaeology,” he said. “I’m really glad I didn’t find it, or any of the adults found it. I was super, super excited when the students were the ones to sift through it and say, ‘Hey, what is this?’
The Taliban destroyed Afghanistan’s ancient treasures.
First, they destroyed television sets. Then they destroyed heritage sites. Since 1992, the Taliban’s war on art is the most revolting and senseless crusade anyone has ever accomplished. That feat is only rivalled by the destruction of ancient relics and artefacts by Alexander the Great more than 2,300 years ago.
The purge of thousand-year-old artefacts is the result of the Taliban’s mission of eliminating all that is “un-Islamic” from the world.
Afghanistan lies on the edge of what is known as the Fertile Crescent, an area in the Middle East that birthed the earliest civilizations. It is also called the “Cradle of Civilization.”
This region boasts some of the world’s oldest artefacts and heritage sites dating back to at least 5,000 years ago.
Afghanistan was a crossroad that connected Central Asia to East Asia, which is why the country shares some of the most prized and outstanding evidence of high culture and civilization from thousands of years ago.
Many of these treasures were destroyed by the Taliban, including 2,750 ancient works of art found nowhere else in the world.
The twin Colossi dated back to the 7th century B.C. The Taliban fired grenade launchers into the statues and bombed the top of the mountain to erase the images from the mountainside.
Before and After Destruction: Giant Buddha of Bamiyan
In 1998, they razed the Puli Khumri Library, which housed some of the oldest books in the world. At least 55,000 old manuscripts, scrolls, and books burned.
A 3,300-Year-Old Bird Claw Was Discovered By Archaeologists While Digging In A Cave
Scientists have estimated the Earth to be more or less 4.54 billion years old, predating even human existence. Indeed, there’s a lot more to learn about our home planet than what we were taught in schools. So, when a photo of an unusually massive bird claw surfaced online, people couldn’t help but be astounded by it.
The giant claw was discovered by the members of the New Zealand Speleological Society in 1987.
They were traversing the cave systems of Mount Owen in New Zealand when they unearthed a breathtaking find. It was a claw that seemed to have belonged to a dinosaur. And much to their surprise, it still had muscles and skin tissues attached to it.
Over three decades ago, archaeologists found an unusually massive bird claw while traversing the cave systems of Mount Owen in New Zealand
Later, they found out that the mysterious talon had belonged to an extinct flightless bird species called moa. Native to New Zealand, moas, unfortunately, had become extinct approximately 700 to 800 years ago.
So, archaeologists have then posited that the mummified moa claw must have been over 3,300 years old upon discovery!
The claw turned out to have belonged to a now-extinct flightless species called moa.
Moas’ lineage most likely began around 80 million years ago on the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. Derived from the Polynesian word for fowl, moas consisted of three families, six genera and nine species.
These species varied in sizes—some were around the size of a turkey, while others were larger than an ostrich. Of the nine species, the two largest had a height of about 12 feet and a weight of about 510 pounds.
Moas varied in sizes—with some as small as a turkey and others as big as an ostrich.
The now-extinct birds’ remains have revealed that they were mainly grazers and browsers, eating mostly fruits, grass, leaves and seeds.
Genetic studies have shown that their closest relatives were the flighted South American tinamous, a sister group to ratites. However, unlike all other ratites, the nine species of moa were the only flightless birds without vestigial wings.
Moas used to be the largest terrestrial animals and herbivores that dominated the forests of New Zealand. Prior to human arrival, their only predator was the Haast’s eagle. Meanwhile, the arrival of the Polynesians, particularly the Maori, dated back to the early 1300s. Shortly after, moas became extinct and so did the Haast’s eagle.
Sadly, they became extinct shortly after humans arrived on the island
Many scientists claimed that their extinction was mainly due to hunting and habitat reduction. Apparently, Trevor Worthy, a paleozoologist known for his extensive research on moa agreed with this presumption.
“The inescapable conclusion is these birds were not senescent, not in the old age of their lineage and about to exit from the world. Rather they were robust, healthy populations when humans encountered and terminated them.”
But whatever brought about these species’ extinction, may their remains serve as a reminder for us to protect other remaining endangered species
Evidence of Neolithic Dairy Farming Found in Wales
BBC News reports that dairy fat has been detected on pottery unearthed at the Trellyffaint Neolithic monument, a site in southwest Wales where two concentric earthen henges have been found.
The four-year project explored the monument and its surroundings near Newport, Pembrokeshire
Dairy farming could have been happening in Wales as early as 3,100BC, according to new research. Shards of decorated pottery taken from the Trellyffaint Neolithic monument near Newport, Pembrokeshire, were found to contain dairy fat residue. The residue could only originate from milk-based substances such as butter, cheese, or more probably yoghurt.
George Nash, of the Welsh Rock Art Organisation, said it was the earliest proof of dairy farming in Wales.
Project leader Dr Nash said Julie Dunne of the University of Bristol had detected the dairy fat residues from the inner surfaces of the pottery, as well as dating them with 94.5% accuracy to 3,100BC.
“It’s incredibly rare to find any archaeological remains such as bone and pottery in this part of Wales because of the soil’s acidity,” he said.
This stone feature was discovered during excavation
“So, we can’t say for certain that this is the earliest example of dairy farming, but it is the earliest that anyone has been able to prove, using new revolutionary direct dating methods.
“The discovery of this pottery is important because it is right on the cusp of when a new Neolithic ideology was taking hold.”
Early farmers
Dr Nash, who teaches at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, termed the period a “Neolithic package” that included animal husbandry, pottery making, food procurement and different ways of burying and venerating the dead.
It gradually replaced the hunting, fishing and gathering way of life which had typified the previous era.
The dairy fat residue was discovered on pottery at the site
Interest in Trellyffaint began when former University of Bristol archaeology graduates Les Dodds and Phil Dell conducted several geophysical surveys on and around the Neolithic stone chambers.
They discovered two concentric henges along with other buried objects. The henges – two circular earthen banks – are roughly contemporary with Stonehenge, dating from the mid to latter part of the Neolithic period, between 3,000BC and 2,000BC.
However, Dr Nash said it is important to view the period as a continuum of social and ritual development rather than a single event.
“As the population grew throughout this period, communities had to diversify the way in which they sourced their food,” he explained.
“Initially, farming was a far riskier economy than hunting, fishing and gathering, as if you had one outbreak of disease – one crop failure – then you were prone to starvation and instability.
“It is probable that throughout the Neolithic period in western Britain, both natural resources and farming played equal roles in providing communities with the resources they needed.
Markings on a stone in the monument suggest the night sky
“The pottery recovered from this excavation probably reveals something about the veneration of the earth and what it could provide, hence the offering of dairy products within a ritualised landscape”.
The survey discovered the main chamber was largely in a good state of preservation. However, at some point in the recent past, the enormous capstone covering the chamber had slipped off its supporting upright stones. Up to 75 engraved cupmarks – gouged circular indentations – and several intersecting lines were recorded on top of this stone.
New religious ideology
The cupmarks, which feature on only a handful of Neolithic burial-ritual monuments in Wales, suggest the stone formed part of a new religious ideology where rock art represented the night sky and constellations.
Maybe a few hundred years later, the community using Trellyffaint made the decision to yet again change their worldview, which resulted in the construction of the two concentric henges a few yards north of the monument.
For this new set of monuments, offering dairy products rather than looking towards the night sky became the new way of veneration. The artefacts discovered will be presented to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff for safekeeping, while the team’s research is due for publication in several international scientific journals.
New clue to human evolution’s biggest mystery emerges in Philippines
Denisovans are an elusive bunch, known mainly from ancient DNA samples and traces of that DNA that the ancient hominids shared when they interbred with Homo sapiens. They left their biggest genetic imprint on people who now live in Southeast Asian islands, nearby Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Ayta people in the Philippines, shown here, belong to a group of ethnic communities that includes one with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, a new study finds.
Genetic evidence now shows that a Philippine Negrito ethnic group has inherited the most Denisovan ancestry of all. Indigenous people known as the Ayta Magbukon get around 5 per cent of their DNA from Denisovans, a new study finds.
This finding fits an evolutionary scenario in which two or more Stone Age Denisovan populations independently reached various Southeast Asian islands, including the Philippines and a landmass that consisted of what’s now Papua New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania.
Evolutionary geneticists Maximilian Larena and Mattias Jakobsson, both at Uppsala University in Sweden, and their team describe the new evidence on August 12 in Current Biology.
Even as the complexities of ancient interbreeding in Southeast Asia become clearer, Denisovans remain a mysterious crowd. “It’s unclear how the different Denisovan groups on the mainland and on Southeast Asian islands were related [to each other] and how genetically diverse they were,” Jakobsson says.
Papua New Guinea highlanders — estimated to carry close to 4 per cent Denisovan DNA in the new study — were previously thought to be the modern record-holders for Denisovan ancestry. But the Ayta Magbukon display roughly 30 per cent to 40 per cent more Denisovan ancestry than Papua New Guinea highlanders and Indigenous Australians, Jakobsson says.
That calculation accounts for the recent mating of East Asians with Philippine Negrito groups, including the Ayta Magbukon, that diluted Denisovan inheritance to varying degrees.
Genetic analyses suggest that Ayta Magbukon people retain slightly more Denisovan ancestry than other Philippine Negrito groups due to having mated less often with East Asian migrants to the island around 2,281 years ago, the scientists say.
Their genetic analyses compared ancient DNA from Denisovans and Neandertals with that of 1,107 individuals from 118 ethnic groups in the Philippines, including 25 Negrito populations. Comparisons were then made to previously collected DNA from present-day Papua New Guinea highlanders and Indigenous Australians.
The new report underscores that “still today there are populations that have not been fully genetically described and that Denisovans were geographically widespread,” says paleogeneticist Cosimo Posth of the University of Tübingen in Germany, who was not part of the new research.
But it’s too early to say whether Stone Age Homo fossils found on Southeast Asian islands come from Denisovans, populations that interbred with Denisovans or other Homo lineages, Posth says. Only DNA extracted from those fossils can resolve that issue, he adds. Unfortunately, ancient DNA preserves poorly in fossils from tropical climates.
Fossils from the Philippines initially classed as H. luzonensis, dating to 50,000 years ago or more (SN: 4/10/19), might actually represent Denisovans. But a lack of consensus on what Denisovans looked like leaves the evolutionary identity of those fossils uncertain.
Larena and Jakobsson’s findings “further increase my suspicions that Denisovan fossils are hiding in plain sight” among previously excavated discoveries on Southeast Asian islands, says population geneticist João Teixeira of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who did not participate in the new study.
Denisovans may have genetically encompassed H. luzonensis and two other fossil hominids found on different Southeast Asian islands, H. floresiensis on Flores and H. erectus on Java, Teixeira suspects. H. floresiensis, or hobbits, survived from at least 100,000 years ago to around 60,000 years ago (SN: 6/8/16). H. Erectus arrived on Java about 1.6 million years ago and died out between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago (SN: 12/18/19).
Geographic ancestry patterns on Southeastern Asian islands and in Australia suggest that this region was settled by a genetically distinct Denisovan population from southern parts of mainland East Asia, Teixeira and his colleagues reported in the May Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Irish archaeologists have unearthed a 1,600-year-old wooden pagan idol from a bog in Co Roscommon. The artefact was retrieved from a bog in Gortnacrannagh, around six kilometres from the prehistoric royal site of Rathcroghan.
Wood Specialist, Cathy Moore inspecting the Gortnacrannagh Idol. Only a dozen such idols have been found in Ireland and at more than two and a half metres, the Gortnacrannagh Idol is the largest to date.
The idol was made during the Iron Age from a split trunk of an oak tree, with a small human-shaped head at one end and several horizontal notches carved along its body.
Only a dozen such idols have been found in Ireland and at more than two and a half metres, the Gortnacrannagh Idol is the largest to date.
The wooden carving was discovered by a team from the Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS), working in advance of the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge Road Project.
Dr Eve Campbell, director of the AMS excavation site said the idol was carved just over 100 years before St Patrick came to Ireland.
“It is likely to be the image of a pagan deity,” Dr Campbell said.
“Our ancestors saw wetlands as mystical places where they could connect with their gods and the Otherworld.
“The discovery of animal bone alongside a ritual dagger suggests that animal sacrifice was carried out at the site and the idol is likely to have been part of these ceremonies.”
Wooden idols are known from bogs across northern Europe where waterlogged conditions allow for the preservation of ancient wood.
“The lower ends of several figures were also worked to a point suggesting that they may once have stood upright,” said wood specialist, Cathy Moore.
“Their meaning is open to interpretation, but they may have marked special places in the landscape, have represented particular individuals or deities or perhaps have functioned as wooden bog bodies, sacrificed in lieu of humans.”
The idol was made during the Iron Age from a split trunk of an oak tree, with a small human-shaped head at one end and several horizontal notches carved along its body.
The Gortnacrannagh Idol is currently at University College Dublin (UCD), where conservator Susannah Kelly is undertaking the three-year process of preserving the artefact.
Once conserved the idol will go on display at the National Museum of Ireland.
A replica of the idol, made by AMS staff in collaboration with members of the UCC Pallasboy Project and the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture, will go on display at the Rathcroghan Centre in Tulsk, Co Roscommon.
Dr Ros Ó Maoldúin of AMS says the Gortnacrannagh Idol is such “a unique and significant find”, and the replica will “help us understand the idol better and appreciate how it was made.
“It will be possible for people to see this in action at the Craggaunowen Archaeology Park in Co. Clare during the last weekend of August.”
AMS says the discovery will have no impact on the progress of the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge Road Project.
“Road projects such as the N5 provide a significant opportunity for the investigation of our archaeological heritage, said Deirdre McCarthy, a resident archaeologist with Roscommon County Council.
“Gortnacrannagh is an excellent example. Were it not for the road, we would never have known about this extraordinary site.”
Analysis of the artefact and the site it was found in is ongoing.
