Category Archives: WORLD

ASIA, PHILIPPINES, WORLD

700,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Point to Mysterious Human Relative

700,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Point to Mysterious Human Relative

A recent finding of stone instruments and other evidence has shown that in Southeast Asia hominins, our pre-human relatives – were in South East Asia hundreds of thousands of years earlier than we thought.

The 57 stone tools and an almost complete rhinocéros skeleton which shows signs of being butchered were found in the Philippines and date back 709,000 years.

Previously, the earliest evidence for hominin habitation in the area was found in Callao Cave, a river-floodplain on the northern island of Luzon. It’s only 67,000 years old.

Researchers found a 700,000-year-old site on the Philippine island of Luzon where unknown hominins butchered a rhinoceros. To avoid damaging the bones, the team dug them up with only bamboo sticks.

The tools found consist of 49 sharp-edge stone flakes, six cores – the stones from which the flakes are hammered – and two possible hammer stones. In addition, the site yielded a collection of skeletons: a stegodon, brown deer, freshwater turtle, and monitor lizard.

The rhinoceros skeleton was very interesting. Several of the bones had cut marks consistent with butchering, and the humerus bones seemed to have been hit with a hammerstone, possibly to access the rich marrow inside.

The tools weren’t made by humans – our oldest evidence of Homo sapiens is from about 300,000 years ago – but by a close ancestor. And their presence means we need to reconsider how humans and hominins spread through South East Asia.

Archaeologist Gerrit van den Bergh from the University of Wollongong in Australia says that hominins most likely spread through the region in several waves throughout the millennia.

He also believes that they probably travelled from north to south from China and Taiwan, rather than west to East from Borneo or Palawan through Indonesia, using the ocean currents and settling as they went.

Eventually, this migration could have landed on the Indonesian island of Flores to give rise to Homo floresiensis, also known as the “hobbit” for its small stature.

Evidence of hominins dating back 700,000 years has been found on the Indonesian island of Java. In addition, Homo floresiensis ancestors have been found on Flores from around the same time. Both of these finds are consistent with the new migration hypothesis.

Previously, it had been thought that hominins didn’t have boats, and therefore couldn’t have travelled by water to reach Luzon and the other islands of Wallacea, the group of islands separated from mainland Australia and Asia by deep oceans.

But the north-to-south migration hypothesis is supported by another fossil record: that of animals.

“If you look at the fossil and recent faunas you see that there is an impoverishment as you go from north to south. On Luzon, you find fossils of stegodons, elephants, giant rats, rhino, deer, large reptiles, and a type of water buffalo.

“On Sulawesi, the fossil fauna is already impoverished; there’s no evidence of rhinos or deer ever entering there. Then on Flores, you only had stegodons, Komodo dragons, humans, and giant rats, that’s all,” van den Bergh said.

“If animals did reach these islands by chance, by entering the sea and following the currents south, then you would expect the further south you go the fewer species you would find – and that’s what we see.”

If the animals didn’t have boats, the humans needn’t have either. However, they could have had rafts, used for fishing, or been caught up in debris and carried out to sea by tsunamis, which are relatively common in the area.

Who these hominins were is unknown, and will probably remain so without their bones to study. They could have been the ancestors of the owner of that foot bone hundreds of thousands of years later; they could have been Luzon’s version of Homo floresiensis; or they could have been a different group, perhaps even the mysterious Denisovans. But the discovery has archaeologists excited to keep digging to see what else they can find.

“There’s a lot of focus again in the islands of South East Asia because they are places where you find natural experiments in hominin evolution. That’s what makes Flores unique, and now Luzon is another place we can start looking for fossil evidence,” van den Bergh said.

“On Flores, we’re pretty certain they arrived about 1 million years ago based on stone tool evidence, but we don’t know when hominins first arrived on Luzon. Now we can go looking in older strata and see if we can find more artifacts, or even better, fossil evidence.”

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

5,700-year-old Neolithic house discovered by archaeologists in Cork

5,700-year-old Neolithic house discovered by archaeologists in Cork

Archaeologists in North Cork have uncovered the foundations of a 5,700-year-old Neolithic house in addition to evidence of Iron Age smelting and Bronze Age burial sites. 

5,700-year-old Neolithic house discovered by archaeologists in Cork
The incredible discoveries were made following eight excavations in sites across north Cork

The archaeologists excavated a total of eight sites as part of two road realignment projects on the N73 road which links Mallow and Mitchelstown, near the villages of Shanballymore and Kildorrery, and a house dating back to 3700BC was found at one of the sites.

It is believed that the house belonged to some of the very first people to live in the area and found alongside were quantities of grain, pottery, and stone tools dating back to the same period.

At a different site in the townland of Waterdyke, archaeologists found evidence of charcoal pits required in the smelting process to produce iron. The pits date back to between 266AD and 1244AD while further evidence of smelting was also found at Annakiska South. 

There was also evidence of a 17th-century enclosure at Annakiska South as well as clay pipes and glass in addition to evidence of a 17th-century smithy situated on the original road that would have made horseshoes for travelers passing between Mallow and Mitchelstown. 

Clay pipes believed to be from the 17th century were among the fragments unearthed by archaeologists in Cork

The Irish Examiner reports that farming knowledge only arrived in Ireland around 200 years before this house was built, meaning that the settlement is one of the oldest farming settlements on the island of Ireland. 

Archaeologists also discovered evidence of ritual sites dating back to roughly the same period at the settlement. 

They found evidence of stone tools and pottery deliberately buried in holes in the Middle Neolithic era (3500BC to 2900BC) in a form of ritual that may have been associated with human burials.

Middle-neolithic pottery found in a sinkhole in Clenor South possibly left as an offering from the people who believed the natural phenomena were portals to the underworld

The tools and pottery may have been buried as an offering of gifts for the gods of the underworld. 

There was also evidence of a barrow cemetery dating back to the Bronze Age nestled by the banks of a meandering stream and overlooked by a nearby settlement. 

Cork County Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), who carried out the excavations and the roadworks, published an “online story map” documenting the archaeologists’ results. 

The online map, created by TII project archaeologist Ken Hanley and Cork County Council resident archaeologist Ed Lynne, also documents previously discovered sites along the route and can be viewed here. 

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

A lost city discovered by Archaeologists when they explore a rural field in Kansas

A lost city discovered by Archaeologists when they explore a rural field in Kansas

In the Great Plains of Kansas, archaeologists have made an innovative and unlikely discovery: a vast town lost centuries ago. Donald Blakeslee discovered a few years ago the lost city of Etzanoa in Arkansas City, Kan, a Wichita State University anthropologist, and an archaeology professor. 

Anthropologist and archaeology professor Donald Blakeslee in one of the pits being excavated in Arkansas City, Kan.
Kacie Larsen of Wichita State University shakes dirt through a screened box to see what artefacts may emerge.

In that small city in south-central Kansas, local residents found the arrowhead and the gold mine underneath their town, pottery, and other ancient artefacts, for decades, in the fields and rivers of the region.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Blakeslee used newly translated documents written by the Spanish conquistadors who came across the land over 400 years ago to determine that these artifacts were once part of the Native American lost city of Etzanoa.

“‘I thought, ‘Wow, their eyewitness descriptions are so clear it’s like you were there,’” Blakeslee told the Times about reading the conquistador’s accounts. “I wanted to see if the archaeology fit their descriptions. Every single detail matched this place.”

The city of Etzanoa is believed to have been around from 1450 to 1700 and was home to approximately 20,000 people. Blakeslee said that the city was the second-largest settlement in the present-day United States at the time and spanned across at least five miles of the space between the Walnut and Arkansas rivers.

The 20,000 inhabitants of Etzanoa were said to have lived in “thatched, beehive-shaped houses.”

In 1541, conquistador Francisco Vazquez de Coronado came to the town hoping to discover its fabled gold but instead found Native Americans in a collection of settlements that he called Quivira.

Sixty years later in 1601, Juan de Oñate led a team of 70 conquistadors from New Mexico to Quivira, also hoping to find its gold but they ran into a tribe called the Escanxaques, who told them of the nearby city of Etzanoa.

Oñate and his team arrived at the city and were greeted peacefully by the inhabitants of Etzanoa. However, things quickly went south when the conquistadors started taking hostages, which then caused the city’s residents to flee in fear.

The group of conquistadors explored the vast area of more than 2,000 houses but feared an attack from the peoples they dislodged and decided to return home.

On their return trip, they were attacked by some 1,000 members of the Escanxaque tribe and a huge battle took place. The conquistadors lost and returned home to New Mexico, never to come back to the area again.

French explorers came nearly a century later to that part of south-central Kansas but did not find any evidence of Etzanoa or its people. It is believed that disease caused the untimely demise of the population.

However, traces of the people and their city would not stay hidden forever. Blakeslee and a team of excavators found the site of the ancient battle in a neighborhood in Arkansas City and found remanents from the battle.

Locals in the area had been uncovering artifacts from the lost city for decades but didn’t understand why until evidence of the city itself was discovered by Blakeslee.

“Lots of artifacts have been taken from here,” Warren “Hap” McLeod, a resident of Arkansas City who lives on the spot where the battle took place, told the Times. “Now we know why. There were 20,000 people living here for over 200 years.” One local resident said that the sheer amount of artifacts that people in the area have is mindblowing.

Russell Bishop, a former Arkansas City resident, shows off the arrowheads he found in the area as a kid.
Professor Donald Blakeslee of Wichita State University shows a black pot unearthed by student Jeremiah Perkins, behind him.

“My boss had an entire basement full of pottery and all kinds of artefacts,” Russell Bishop told the Times. “We’d be out there working and he would recognize a black spot on the ground as an ancient campfire site … I don’t think anyone knew how big this all was. I’m glad they’re finally getting to the bottom of it.”

The Great Plains were long-regarded as huge, empty spaces in ancient times that were populated mainly by nomadic tribes. But Blakeslee’s discovery of Etzanoa could prove that some of the tribes in the area weren’t nomadic and were actually more urban than previously believed.

Blakeslee has also discovered evidence that similar, large-scale lost cities could be located in nearby counties which might have been around during the time of Etzanoa. These latest groundbreaking archaeological finds are helping researchers fill in huge blanks in early American history.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

1,900 years ago: Terrified mother and child’s final moments preserved in ash after Pompeii volcano blast

1,900 years ago: Terrified mother and child’s final moments preserved in ash after Pompeii volcano blast

Having been buried in ash for over 1,900 years, this tragic story of what seems to be a child on the belly of its terrified mother is a step closer to being unveiled in this disturbing image.

In 79 A.D., after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Restorers are working on the carefully preserved plaster casts of 86 Romans at Pompeii, including a child seemingly frozen in terror.

It is believed that the child was four, due to his height and was sheltering in a location dubbed House of the Golden Bracelet with his family when tragedy struck.

This haunting image shows what appears to be a child resting on the stomach of an adult. It is estimated that anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 residents of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were killed on the spot
Restorers are working on the carefully preserved plaster casts of 86 of the Romans trapped in Pompeii in 79 AD, including children seemingly frozen in terror. Here, Stefano Vanacore, director of the laboratory at Pompeii Archaeological Site can be seen carrying the remains of a petrified child in his arms
Experts at the site are readying the poignant remains for a forthcoming exhibition called Pompeii and Europe. It could be supposed that this victim was trapped in a building or terrified

He was discovered alongside an adult male and female, presumed to be his parents, as well as a younger child who appeared to be asleep on his mother’s lap. The little boy’s clothing is visible in the plaster cast, and his facial expression is one of peace, Decoded Past reported.

Stefania Giudice, a conservator from Naples national archaeological Museum, told journalist Natashas Sheldon: ‘It can be very moving handling these remains when we apply the plaster.’ 

‘Even though it happened 2,000 years ago, it could be a boy, a mother, or a family. It’s human archaeology, not just archaeology.’

The perfectly-preserved settlement was discovered by accident in the 18th century, buried under 30ft (9 metres) of ash. Archaeologists were amazed to find human remains inside the voids. Plaster of Paris was poured inside to create casts of humans, and when this material is broken it reveals bones inside (shown)
The perfectly-preserved settlement was discovered by accident in the 18th century, buried under 30ft (9 meters) of ash. Archaeologists were amazed to find human remains inside the voids. Plaster of Paris was poured inside to create casts of humans, and when this material is broken it reveals bones inside (shown)

Experts at the Pompeii Archaeological Site are readying the poignant remains for a forthcoming exhibition called Pompeii and Europe. The people’s poses reveal how they died, some trapped in buildings, and others sheltering with family members. 

In one haunting image, Stefano Vanacore, director of the laboratory can be seen carrying the remains of the tiny child in his arms who was imprisoned in ash when the volcano erupted on 24 August. 

Another plaster cast of an adult reveals he raised his hands above his head in a protective gesture, seemingly in a bid to stave off death. Pompeii was a large Roman town in the Italian region of Campania. 

Reports claim two thousand people died, and the location was abandoned until it was rediscovered in 1748
The majority of plaster casts were made in mid 19th century, meaning that some have degenerated and need repairing, offering experts a glimpse inside them

Mount Vesuvius unleashed its power by spewing ash hundreds of feet into the air for 18 hours, which fell onto the doomed town, choking residents and covering buildings.

But the deadly disaster occurred the next morning, when the volcano’s cone collapsed, causing an avalanche of mud travelling at 100mph (160km/h) to flood Pompeii, destroying everything in its path and covering the town so that all but the tallest buildings were buried.

People were buried too in the ash, which hardened to form a porous shell, meaning that the soft tissues of the bodies decayed, leaving the skeleton in a void. Reports claim two thousand people died, and the location was abandoned until it was rediscovered in 1748.

Many of the buildings, artifacts, and skeletons were found intact under a layer of debris. It is now classified as a Unesco World Heritage Site and more than 2.5 million tourists visit each year, French and Italian archaeologists excavating areas of the ancient town found raw clay vases that appear to have been dropped by Roman potters fleeing the disaster.  

The perfectly-preserved settlement was discovered by accident in the 18th century, buried under 30ft (9metres) of ash. Excavators were amazed to find human remains inside voids of the ash and soon worked out how to create casts of the people to capture a moment frozen in time.

Archaeologists poured plaster inside to capture the positions the people were in when they died, trapping their skeletons inside the plaster before removing the cast from the hole a couple of days later.

The technique means it’s possible to see the anguished and pained expressions of men, women, and children who all perished as well as details such as hairstyles and clothes.

Roman writer, Pliny the younger, described the panic during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Terrified Romans (illustrated) living in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum saw ‘sheets of fire and leaping flames’ as they ran through dark streets carrying torches with pumice stone raining down upon them, he said
Roman writer, Pliny the younger, described the panic during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Terrified Romans (illustrated) living in the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum saw ‘sheets of fire and leaping flames’ as they ran through dark streets carrying torches with pumice stone raining down upon them, he said

Creating casts is an exact science because the plaster must be thin enough to show details of the person, but thick enough to support the remains, the BBC reported.

Approximately 1,150 bodies have been discovered so far, although a third of the city has yet to be excavated. The majority of plaster casts were made in the mid 19th century, meaning that some have degenerated and need repairing, offering experts a glimpse inside them.

In all, only around 100 of the voids have been captured in plaster, to reveal people’s poses as well as writhing pet dogs, for example. It is estimated that anywhere between 10,000 and 25,000 residents of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were killed on the spot.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Britain’s secret treasure trove of stone age rock art

Britain’s secret treasure trove of stone age rock art

They have been found where the earth meets the sky, high up on the moorlands of northern England, a mysterious series of strange and ancient carvings hewn into the rocks and boulders.

More than 100 elaborate carvings dating back thousands of years have been discovered on rocks and boulders in the North of England. The art, thought to be the work of Neolithic man, is open to the air but is so remote that it had lain undisturbed and undetected for thousands of years  –  until it was recently discovered by English Heritage.

It includes a series of intricate designs of concentric circles, interlocking rings, and hollowed cups. They are among only 2,500 examples that exist in England – having survived natural erosion, quarrying, and field clearance. Around 100 volunteers, trained by English Heritage, have been recording the location, content, context, and condition of rock art for the last four years as part of the pilot project.

Britain's secret treasure trove of stone age rock art
Volunteers have found more than 100 examples of ancient rock art in places like the Ketley Crag in Northumberland

During the Neolithic period, 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, the man moved away from the roaming existence of the hunter-gatherer who traversed the country, following his prey, to a more settled existence.

New Stone Age man preferred to stay put, tending cereals and domestic animals. How all of this fitted in with the abstract curves of their rock carvings is anyone’s guess.

Mysterious presence: A carved boulder at Baildon Moor, West Yorks

It’s not possible to date the art itself, but its age can be assessed by the context in which it is found. For example, if it is near burial sites which took the form of large cairns or long mounds in which people are buried in groups, it is more likely to date back to the New Stone Age.

The most interesting discovery includes a large carved panel found on a sandstone boulder on Barningham Moor, a 300m-high (984ft) area of Co Durham, on the edge of the Pennines.

It features abstract carvings — interlocking grooves and hollowed cups with surrounding circles. Tools of stone or bone were used to carve the symbols and the work is so well preserved that the ‘peck’ marks are still visible.

Barningham Moor has revealed an elaborately carved panel

Kate Wilson, inspector of ancient monuments at English Heritage, said: ‘There are many theories as to what rock art carvings mean. They may have played a role in fire, feastings and offering activities, or been used as signposts, or to mark territory.

‘They may have spiritual significance. In hunter-gatherer communities, those places where mountains touch the sky or the sea reaches the shore are often considered the domain of supernatural ancestors. Most rock art is found in those areas.’

She said that the Neolithic Age saw the arrival of ‘a fairly sophisticated culture’, with the introduction of agriculture. ‘They were settling and cultivating something,’ she added.

Revealed after 5,000 years by a team of English Heritage volunteers at Buttony, Northumberland Buttony Northumberland

‘You find monuments such as stone circles and henges. Something’s going on where society’s changing. This is a story yet to be told.’

The results of the four year initiative – funded by English Heritage, in partnership with Northumberland and Durham County Councils – will now be published online.

Richard Stroud, a volunteer who discovered the Barningham boulder, said: ‘We expected to discover one or two simple carvings. Instead, we found a breathtaking panel, probably one of the most complex discovered in County Durham.’

A mysterious circular design was uncovered in Chatton, Northumberland

He added: ‘There is a gulf of time and civilization between the society that carved this stone and ours, its true meaning is something we will possibly never understand.’

Edward Impey, director of research and standards at English Heritage, said: ‘The online record of the Northumberland and Durham examples will serve as the starting point for a national survey, and, we hope, help us understand their meaning and lead to the discovery of others.’

Logging of ‘rock art’ was led for decades by retired Hexham headmaster Stan Beckensall, who went on to donate his archive to Newcastle University. His finds over the last 50 years have now been added to the online database of 1,500 carvings. English Heritage is now hoping the pioneering work undertaken will be continued in other counties to create a nationwide record.

This example in Old Bewick in Northumberkand was one of the new discoveries of the four-year English Heritage project

Sara Rushton, the Northumberland county archaeologist, and manager of the project, said: ‘Our volunteer recorders have worked alongside experts in the field to develop new techniques and produce stunning three-dimensional computer models of rock art for display.

‘These models can be manipulated to show some carvings which are now almost completely invisible to the naked eye and will be a fantastic tool for managing these ancient sites for the future.’

A work of rock art uncovered at Dod Law, Northumberland

Made with simple tools of stone or bone, some of the patterns are as plain as a hollowed cup shape. Others feature abstract designs painstakingly carved into the local sandstone.  But despite their meticulous notes, there is only so much we will ever know about the men who laboured to leave such an indelible mark on the landscape. And perhaps that is all part of their magic.

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Possible Bronze Age Burials Unearthed in Ireland

Possible Bronze Age Burials Unearthed in Ireland

At the excavation site of a new community hospital in the Sheil District, Ballyshannon, several finds from the Bronze Period have been discovered.

The Bronze Age urn will undergo further examination

In the course of archaeological research, a large capstone was found last week. It comprises a large flat sandstone boulder complete with rock art in the form of cup marks incised into its upper surface.

Monuments of this kind are classified as Boulder Burials and are thought to date to the Bronze Age 2,500 BC to 500BC.  

The capstone did overlay a small amount of cairn material within a large pit, which was fully investigated but contained no burial.

A number of differing burial sites have been found at the site

The National Monuments Service and National Museum were made aware of the unearthing of the capstone last Monday (August 24) and a team of three archaeologists has been on the sites since carefully examining the area where the capstone was unearthed and a wider area close to it.  

On Friday, August 28 the capstone was carefully removed from the site for further examination and analysis.

Subsequent further archaeological Investigations have uncovered the remains of an inverted urn burial. Urn burials date to the Bronze Age and comprise a large ceramic pot usually highly decorated, and containing cremated remains.

The urn has been removed by the Specialist Conservator and sent for conservation. All the cremated remains recovered from the site will be analyzed by osteoarchaeologist and the results presented in the site excavation report.

The dig is on the site of a new hospital at Ballyshannon

Mr. Shane Campbell, HSE Estates Manager, North West was present at the unearthing and stated “The earth removal work that started last week is part of an overall €21 million euro construction of the new Sheil Community Hospital.  I wish to offer reassurance that work is continuing on site as planned.

The contractor is on-site and continuing with the site clearance, removal of trees, etc and erecting the site Hhoarding, all as planned, the archaeological works will not delay the overall works programme.  

The HSE would like to thank Tamlyn McHugh and Fadó Archaeology for their painstaking work in uncovering these significant historical artifacts and ensuring they are properly conserved.”  

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

One of Scotland’s great mysteries: the 5,200 years old carved stone balls

One of Scotland’s great mysteries: the 5,200 years old carved stone balls

Scottish carved stone balls are a mysterious class of artefacts, and scientists have been the subject of much speculation by scientists over the years.

In all, more than 500 stone balls were collected, the largest to fit neatly into the palm of the hand. They were designed so that a number of knobs protrude from the surface and some have beautiful, intricate patterns incised onto them.

So elaborate are the carvings that early archaeologists didn’t believe it was possible for them to have been made using flint tools, so they dated them to a later period. But we know they were indeed carved using flint and date back to around 3,200 BC to 2,500 BC, a time when people in Scotland were leaving their lives as hunter-gatherers and settling into life in farming communities.

What were they for?

Although no hard evidence exists to definitively determine their function, many have speculated as to the stones’ purpose.

Some believe that they were part of a weighing system for primitive scales, but others argue that their weights vary too much for that to be practical. They might have been used to weigh down fishing nets, or as bearings to move bigger rocks, but then why would they be carved so elaborately?

Australian author Lynne Kelly has proposed that the stone balls served as “memory devices” that could have been used as mnemonic aids to the oral history of the times, much like Australian Aboriginal cultures used rock art and their surroundings.

Three Scottish examples, in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow
Some suggest the carved stone balls were used as weapons.

Others have suggested they were used as weapons — either fixed to a wooden handle or simply thrown. But most of the stones show no signs of the kind of damage you’d expect to see on a weapon.

“It is perhaps best to think of them as ceremonial or stylized weapons,” explains Hugo Anderson-Whymark, curator of National Museums Scotland. “Things that could inflict damage if you wanted to use them, and may in some circumstances have been used that way, but are more likely to be objects which represent the status or power of the individual that held them in that community.”

Prehistoric stone balls in 3D

In an effort to gain more understanding, and make the stones more accessible to the public, Anderson-Whymark has created 3D images of the balls. Using a technique called photogrammetry, Anderson-Whymark took hundreds of 2D images from every angle to create very detailed 3D renderings of 60 carved stone balls.

The images, which have been uploaded online for anyone to see, revealed details of the stone balls that had not previously been visible.
“Actually being able to see them in virtual reality is hugely valuable,” Anderson-Whymark told CNN. “It allows us to see some fine details which we didn’t spot before.

“There’s one of them that has concentric lines on the circles, and no one had ever seen that before and it’s been in our collection for well over 100 years,” he added.

The 3D images also revealed that some of the stones were modified over time, possibly across generations. It’s still unclear what that could mean, but Anderson-Whymark said that at the very least it opens the door to other possibilities about the balls’ purpose and significance to people of that era.

“It’s telling us how they were worked and re-worked over time. It’s allowing us to explore that bigger story of how they were made and how they developed, which is potentially going to tell us more about that bigger theory of how they were used,” Anderson-Whymark said.

Some of the 3D images of the carved stone balls revealed previously unknown details about their design.
Carved stone balls, classed as Neolithic
Many of the balls have not had their discovery site recorded and most are found as a result of agricultural activity.

While a few of the balls have been found in Ireland and northern England (one even travelled to Norway), all the others have been found in Scotland, mostly in Aberdeenshire. Five were found at the remarkably preserved Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae, in the Orkney Islands, off the northern coast of Scotland.

National Museums Scotland, in Edinburgh, has the world’s largest collection of these carved stone balls at around 200 (including 60 casts). Perhaps most famous among them is the Towie ball. Found in Aberdeenshire in the 19th century, it features neatly carved circles, spirals and lines on four knobs.

“The Towie carved stone ball is the finest example of a carved stone ball from Scotland and the motifs on it are just absolutely incredible,” Anderson-Whymark said. “The very fine grooves on the surface are about a millimetre across and have all been carved with a flint tool. Incredibly fine, delicate workmanship.”

An enduring enigma

According to the museum, the patterns on the Towie ball are sacred symbols resembling those in a passage grave in Ireland. Anderson-Whymark says the similarities in the design raise interesting questions about the relationships between these locations.

“One thing they show is that there was perhaps a long-distance contact in that period which we don’t always give prehistoric people credit for,” he said.

“Certainly, when we look at Orkney, we see objects which are moving up from around the west coast through the western seaways … The grooved ware (a style of British Neolithic pottery) originates in Orkney and it travels south towards Ireland and into southern Britain as well.
“We’re seeing things, ideas and people moving with them through that time.”

The enigma of the stone balls will endure for now, and while we may never know exactly what they were used for, we can still appreciate them as fine examples of Neolithic art.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

1.8-million-year-old skull gives a glimpse of our evolution

1.8-million-year-old skull gives a glimpse of our evolution

The finding of a 1.8 million-year-old skull from a human ancestor found in a medieval Georgian village is a dramatic example of early evolution and shows that our ancestral tree has fewer branches than some believe, researchers say.

1.8-million-year-old skull gives a glimpse of our evolution
A photo provided by the journal Science shows a pre-human skull found in the ground at the medieval village Dmanisi, Georgia. The discovery of the estimated 1.8-million-year-old skull of a human ancestor captures early human evolution on the move in a vivid snapshot and indicates our family tree may have fewer branches than originally thought, scientists say.

The fossil is the most complete pre-human skull uncovered. With other partial remains previously found at the rural site, it gives researchers the earliest evidence of human ancestors moving out of Africa and spreading north to the rest of the world, according to a study published in the journal Science.

The skull and other remains offer a glimpse of a population of pre-humans of various sizes living at the same time – something that scientists had not seen before for such an ancient era. This diversity bolsters one of two competing theories about the way our early ancestors evolved, spreading out more like a tree than a bush.

Nearly all of the previous pre-human discoveries have been fragmented bones, scattered over time and locations – like a smattering of random tweets of our evolutionary history. The findings at Dmanisi are more complete, weaving more of a short story. Before the site was found, the movement from Africa was put at about 1 million years ago.

When examined with the earlier Georgian finds, the skull “shows that this special immigration out of Africa happened much earlier than we thought and a much more primitive group did it,” said study lead author David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgia National Museum. “This is important to understanding human evolution.”

For years, some scientists have said humans evolved from only one or two species, much like a tree branches out from a trunk, while others say the process was more like a bush with several offshoots that went nowhere.

Even bush-favoring scientists say these findings show one single species nearly 2 million years ago at the former Soviet republic site. But they disagree that the same conclusion can be said for bones found elsewhere, such as Africa.

However, Lordkipanidze and colleagues point out that the skulls found in Georgia are different sizes but are considered to be the same species. So, they reason, it’s likely the various skulls found in different places and times in Africa may not be different species, but variations in one species.

To see how a species can vary, just look in the mirror, they said.

“Danny DeVito, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal are the same species,” Lordkipanidze said.

The adult male skull found wasn’t from our species, Homo sapiens. It was from an ancestral species – in the same genus or class called Homo – that led to modern humans. Scientists say the Dmanisi population is likely an early part of our long-lived primary ancestral species, Homo erectus.

Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, wasn’t part of the study but praised it as “the first good evidence of what these expanding hominids looked like and what they were doing.”

Fred Spoor at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, a competitor and proponent of a busy family tree with many species disagreed with the study’s overall conclusion, but he lauded the Georgia skull discovery as critical and even beautiful.

“It really shows the process of evolution in action,” he said.

Spoor said it seems to have captured a crucial point in the evolutionary process where our ancestors transitioned from Homo habilis to Homo erectus – although the study authors said that depiction is going a bit too far.

The researchers found the first part of the skull, a large jaw, below a medieval fortress in 2000. Five years later – on Lordkipanidze’s 42nd birthday – they unearthed the well-preserved skull, gingerly extracted it, putting it into a cloth-lined case and popped champagne. It matched the jaw perfectly.

They were probably separated when our ancestor lost a fight with a hungry carnivore, which pulled apart his skull and jaw bones, Lordkipanidze said.

The skull was from an adult male just shy of 5 feet (1.5 meters) with a massive jaw and big teeth, but a small brain, implying limited thinking capability, said study co-author Marcia Ponce de Leon of the University of Zurich. It also seems to be the point where legs are getting longer, for walking upright, and smaller hips, she said.

“This is a strange combination of features that we didn’t know before in early Homo,” Ponce de Leon said.