Mesolithic Human Remains Discovered in Northern England
Analysis of material discovered in the cave found some of it was much older than estimated
Human remains unearthed in a cave in Cumbria have been dubbed the “oldest northerner” after being found to date back 11,000 years.
Bone and a shell bead discovered at Heaning Wood Bone Cave, near Great Urswick, were analysed by the University of Central Lancashire.
Dr Rick Peterson said the site had been used for burials.
He described it as evidence of “some of the earliest dates for human activity” in northern Britain after the Ice Age.
A periwinkle shell bead was one of the discoveries found to be about 11,000 years old
The site had been excavated since 2016 by local archaeologist Martin Stables with the university brought in to “try to interpret the evidence”.
Dr Peterson, who teaches archaeology and cultural anthropology, led the academic team.
He said several bodies from the cave had been dated and the group was amazed when one set of remains was found to be much older than thought.
“The caves have been dug before, in the 1950s, and work by Liverpool John Moores University about 10 years ago dated some of the material to the early Bronze Age [about 4,000 years ago].
“There were at least eight people buried in this cave. Some of them came back [dated] from the Bronze Age, some of them were Neolithic which is about 6,000 years ago.
“One individual and one piece of shell bead buried with him came back with a date roundabout 11,000 years ago which is astonishingly early for the north.
“To put it in perspective, the last Ice Age lasted until about 11,600 years ago. After that period, the global temperature warmed rapidly over about 100 years to give us the climate we’ve got today.
“These people are just about as early as we could expect them to be – the pioneers reoccupying the land after the Ice Age.”
Archaeologist Martin Stables has been excavating the site since 2016
Earlier human remains have been discovered in southern England and Wales but the destructive effect of past glaciations means such finds are rare in northern Britain, the university said.
Before this discovery, the “earliest northerner” was a 10,000-year-old burial from the nearby Kent’s Bank Cavern discovered in 2013.
5,000-year-old ‘tavern’ discovered on an archeological dig
A team of researchers studying the archeological site of Lagash in southern Iraq uncovered a public eating space that dates back to 2700 B.C.
Archeologists unearthed a 5,000-year-old “tavern” in one of southwest Asia’s earliest cities.
A team of researchers studying the archeological site of Lagash in southern Iraq uncovered the public eating space, which dates back to 2700 B.C., according to the University of Pennsylvania.
The area was replete with benches, a type of clay refrigerator referred to as a “zeer,” an oven, and storage containers, many of which still contained food.
The area was replete with benches, a type of clay refrigerator referred to as a “zeer,” an oven, and storage containers.
The area was replete with benches, a type of clay refrigerator referred to as a “zeer,” an oven, and storage containers.Lagash Archaeological Project
The tavern was discovered during an excavation in Lagash which sought items illustrating what life was like in the urban neighborhood.
“The site was of major political, economic, and religious importance,” Holly Pittman, a professor in Penn’s History of Art department, told the university. “However, we also think that Lagash was a significant population center that had ready access to fertile land and people dedicated to intensive craft production.”
“The site was of major political, economic, and religious importance,” UPenn professor Holly Pittman said.
Pittman likened the ancient metropolis to the city of Trenton, N.J., once known for being the East Coast’s center of manufacturing.
“In that way the city might have been something like Trenton,” she explained, “as in ‘Trenton makes, the world takes,’ a capital city but also an important industrial one.”
‘Better than finding gold’: towers’ remains may rewrite history of English civil war
The excavations at Coleshill Manor, east of Birmingham, Warwickshire, revealed the stone bases of two towers from a late medieval fortified gatehouse.
When archaeologists working on the route of HS2 began excavating a stretch of pasture in Warwickshire, they were not expecting to uncover what one of them calls “the highlight of our careers”. Their excavations revealed the monumental stone bases of two towers from a late medieval fortified gatehouse, the existence of which had been completely lost to history.
While that find was remarkable in itself, the ruins were even more significant than they first appeared – and might even rewrite the history of the English civil war.
Peppering the sandstone walls were hundreds of pockmarks made by musket balls and pistol shot, showing that the building had come under heavy fire.
Experts think this may be evidence that the gatehouse was shot at by parliamentarian troops heading to the nearby Battle of Curdworth Bridge in August 1642, which would make this the scene of the very first skirmish of the civil war.
The finds were “a real shock”, said Stuart Pierson of Wessex Archaeology, who led excavations on the site. “The best way to describe it is that we were just in awe of this tower.
“People always say that you want to find gold in archaeology, but I think for a lot of us finding that tower will always be better than finding gold. I think it’s the highlight of our careers finding that, and I don’t think we’re going to find anything like that again.”
Musket ball impact marks on the outside wall of Coleshill gatehouse.
The team knew that a large Tudor manor house had stood somewhere near the site at Coleshill, east of Birmingham, but its location had been lost. As they started excavating, they were astonished at the state of preservation of its vast ornamental gardens – larger in scale than at Hampton Court.
Pierson had said to colleagues that he expected there might be the remains of a gatehouse, “but we figured a small box structure. We weren’t thinking anything involving towers.” He was on holiday when the first walls were uncovered. “My colleagues say their favourite memory from the site was my expression when I [returned and] saw this complete tower,” he said.
Taken together, the finds make the site “nationally significant – and a bit more”, he added.
In the lead up to the civil war, which pitched forces loyal to King Charles I against parliamentarian soldiers seeking to topple him, Coleshill Manor was in the hands of a royalist, Simon Digby.
The position of his grand home, next to a key strategic crossing of the River Cole, would have put it directly in the path of parliamentarians on the march to Curdworth Bridge. While it is impossible to prove, experts think it is highly likely that it is their musket balls – dozens of which were recovered from the site – which struck the gatehouse on this journey.
While the discovery potentially rewrites the history of the start of the civil war, Pierson said, it can also tell us more about the experience of those living through it. “What it gives us is a more personal [insight] to the civil war.
There are always stories about royalty and the lead parliamentarians, but there’s not so much focus given to the people themselves, even the upper classes who found themselves involved but weren’t necessarily really part of it.”
The discovery features on Digging for Britain on BBC Two at 8pm on Sunday 22 January.
Thin Tooth Enamel Found in H. antecessor Individual
The CENIEH participates in a study in which dental remains of Homo antecessor were analyzed using Micro-Computed Tomography: the results indicate that this thin enamel trait was already present in the genus Homo in the European Early Pleistocene around 900,000 years ago.
Three of the seven premolars belonging to Homo antecessor analyzed in this study/Laura Martín-Francés
The Dental Anthropology Group of the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has participated in a paper published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology on the dental remains of Homo antecessor, the species recovered from level TD6 of the Gran Dolina site (Atapuerca, Burgos), which reveals new aspects of the biology of this species.
The results of this study, led by the researcher Laura Martín-Francés (UCM-ISCIII and CENIEH), suggest that, although the Neanderthals continue to be the only species whose dentition is characterized by the possession of thin enamel, this trait was already present in the genus Homo in the European Early Pleistocene, around 900,000 years ago.
Until recently, it was thought that the Neanderthals were the sole representatives of the genus Homo to possess thin enamel.
Nevertheless, new analyses, which were mainly conducted on the dental remains from the TD6 level at Gran Dolina, have shown that the thin enamel pattern appeared earlier than the Neanderthals.
Due to its phylogenetic position and its relationship to both Neanderthals and modern humans, the H. antecessor collection represents a unique opportunity to find out when this thin enamel trait appeared in our genus”, says Martín-Frances.
Thin and thick enamel
In this study, the enamel thickness pattern and its distribution (which zones present a thinner or thicker layer) in the crown were characterized in seven premolars belonging to two H. antecessor individuals (TD6-H1 and TD6-H3), and this was compared with other species in the fossil record and modern humans from several sites in Europe, China and Africa.
By using micro-computed tomography (mCT) and high-resolution images from the CENIEH’s Microscopy and Micro-Computed Tomography Laboratory, the authors verified the presence of different patterns in the two individuals studied.
While the individual TD6-H1 has thin enamel, with a clear affinity to the Neanderthal characteristic, TD6-H3 shows a thick-enamel pattern similar to the majority of fossil species and modern humans.
“Among the possible causes that could justify the presence of distinct enamel patterns in these individuals from the same species, we believe that the most plausible is variability within the same population”, adds Martín-Francés.
The study, in which researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing and University College London (UCL) also participated, received financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación project PID2021-122355NB-C33, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, ERDF, EU and the Consejería de Cultura y Turismo of the Junta de Castilla y León; and the project IJC2020-043979-I, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and NextGenerationEU/PRTR.
Authentic 3,000-Year-Old Bronze Age sword put on display at Field Museum
Once thought to be a replica, this authentic, ancient sword will be on view as a teaser for First Kings of Europe exhibition.
Installation of a Bronze Age Era sword (1080-900 BC) in the Field Museum’s main hall as a preview for an upcoming special exhibition, First Kings of Europe.
Nearly 100 years ago, the Field Museum acquired a bronze sword from Europe, but it was thought to be a well-made replica. But a new analysis of the sword revealed that the sword is the real deal, dating back 3,000 years to the Bronze Age.
While preparing for First Kings of Europe, a special exhibition opening at the Field Museum in March 2023, Hungarian archaeologists working alongside Field Museum scientists asked to see the “replica” sword that had been retrieved from the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary in the 1930s, where it may have been placed in an ancient ritual 3,000 years ago to commemorate lost loved ones or a battle.
The group of Field Museum scientists, including a chemist, and archeologists used an X-ray fluorescence detector, an instrument that looks like a ray gun.
When they compared the sword’s chemical makeup to other known Bronze Age swords in Europe, their content of bronze, copper, and tin were nearly identical.
Bill Parkinson, a curator of anthropology at the Field who helped create the upcoming First Kings of Europe exhibition, says he was surprised by the results. “Usually this story goes the other way round,” he says– “What we think is an original turns out to be a fake.”
Had this sword been known to be authentic earlier in the planning of the exhibition, it would have been included in the Bronze Age era section of the show, which will showcase items from southeastern Europe, spanning thousands of years. Instead, the newly-authenticated sword will be installed in the Field Museum’s main hall as a preview for the new exhibition.
First Kings of Europe opens on March 31, 2023. More information on the First Kings of Europe can be found here. For more information, contact press@fieldmuseum.org.
The majority of the remains had the head placed at the feet
A number of decapitated skeletons have been uncovered by archaeologists at a Roman burial site.
The discovery, which included evidence of Roman and Iron Age settlements, was made at Wintringham near St Neots, Cambridgeshire.
Dating from 2,500 years ago, the site will feature in the latest series of BBC Two’s Digging for Britain.
Patrick Moan from Oxford Archaeology said the find had “revealed amazing insights into the people” of the area.
The work comes ahead of a development of about 2,800 homes in the village.
Several pieces of Roman pottery were found at the site
Archaeologists uncovered an Iron Age settlement composed of 40 roundhouses and a network of trackways and enclosures related to farming activities.
The Oxford Archaeology team also discovered Roman coins, brooches, a large lead lid or platter, and numerous pottery vessels.
A Roman kiln and a large number of quern and millstones, used to grind grains, were also found.
Stone roundhouses were uncovered by Oxford Archaeology
Experts said the decapitated skeletons dated back to the third century AD, with 11 out of the 17 burials having their heads positioned by the feet.
The individuals were interred carefully, often buried with pottery and in one case, a pottery vessel was found in place of the head, archaeologists said.
Mr Moan, the project manager, said: “These results add greatly to our understanding of the local landscape’s history which we can now share with local communities.”
Specialists will now start analysing the skeletons with the hope of providing more details about the burial rites that were in use in the area.
The discovery will feature on episode three of Digging for Britain on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Sunday or on the iPlayer.
3,600-year-old hoards may contain the earliest silver currency in Israel and Gaza
A collection of hacksilber from Tel el-Ajjul in Gaza.
A team of Israeli archaeologists has discovered the earliest evidence of silver being used as currency in the Levant, dating back more than 3,600 years, which is 500 years prior to previous estimates.
“This is the earliest evidence of hoarded silver,” the University of Haifa’s Dr. Tzilla Eshel told The Times of Israel.
Uncovered in excavations around Israel and the Gaza Strip, the proto-coinage’s silver dates to the Middle Bronze Age and originated in either ancient Anatolia or in the area of ancient Greece, researchers from the University of Haifa and Hebrew University said on Sunday.
“This means that we are witnessing the first evidence that there was continuous and long-term trade of metals between the Levant and Anatolia, already 1,700 years before the common era,” said Eshel. “We know for sure that in the Iron Age this kind of trade existed, but our findings move the beginning of this type of trade in metals to 500 years earlier,” she said.
The discovery, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, shows that ancient cities in the region had a much more developed long-distance trade relationship and local economy than previously believed.
The silver hoards were found in Israel’s Megiddo, Gezer and Shiloh, as well as Tel el-‘Ajjul in the Gaza Strip. Their different origins were discovered through isotope analysis. The current study also examined previously discovered samples from the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Rockefeller Museum, and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Pieces of hacksilber discovered at Tel Gezer, before cleaning.
“The use of silver [as currency] indicates a society that used scales, and indicates a society that used writing to write down the transactions,” explained Eshel. “It also means you need to have silver flowing into the area constantly, so the volume of trade has to be larger, and you can see something bigger is happening in economic terms.”
People in the Levant didn’t begin using minted coins until almost 1,000 years after these pieces of broken silver were used as currency, said the researchers. For major purchases, these crudely cut pieces of silver acted as currency through the weight of the precious metal.
“Before there were coins there were a kind of proto-coins. In fact, people, before they would make coins, they first used the idea of taking silver, breaking it up into pieces and weighing them on a scale or balance,” then-head of the Israel Antiquities Authority coin department Donald Ariel told The Times of Israel in a video interview in 2020. “They are lumps of broken jewelry,” said Ariel.
The silver hoards are what is called hacksilber, a German term that means silver that has been cut to specific weights. The team of researchers determined that the fact that there were multiple hoards of these hacksilber discovered throughout the Holy Land — sometimes inside pottery or wrapped in fabric — pointed to the fact that they were widely used.
In fact, the biblical currency of the “shekel” was originally a weight measurement. According to the Babylonians, 1 shekel was approximately 16.83 grams.
“This is the way Abraham paid for the Cave of the Patriarchs — he weighed 400 shekels. There were no coins at the time. He weighed pieces of silver,” said Ariel.
Follow the silver brick road
There were no known silver mines in the Levant, so researchers set out to determine where the pieces of silver originated. Using isotopic testing that examines the chemical composition of lead in the silver, the researchers were able to match it to silver mined from an area in Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey. In the excavated hoards, the silver was also accompanied by other objects from Anatolia, such as the head of an ax and a pendant, confirming Anatolia as the likely origin of the silver.
Eshel calls isotopic testing “an amazing and very powerful tool,” which allowed researchers to pinpoint the geographic area where the silver was likely mined based on its unique chemical composition. She noted that the test isn’t always conclusive and there are some academic debates about its implementation. In some cases researchers can pinpoint the exact spot where a silver object was mined, though the current findings confirmed a more general geographic region.
A location where pieces of silver were discovered at Tel Gezer
“Before, archaeologists tracked trade routes using ceramics, but not every trade route has ceramic evidence,” Eshel said. “This is the first time we are doing it for silver in the Bronze Age.”
Silver first reached the Levant in the 4th millennium BCE, used for figurines and jewelry. Only in the Bronze Age, in the 3rd millennium BCE, were pieces of silver used as currency, Eshel said.
“We know that the silver was the main means of value and exchange in Mesopotamia for a long time, even before the Levant,” explained Eshel. “Everything was valued by silver shekel.”
Because silver was so precious, it was only used for large purchases, such as land. Day-to-day currency more likely used grain, pegged to the shekel weight, such as 2 shekels for a bag of grain, noted Eshel. Eshel said she read that a half gram of silver was equal to a day and a half of work.
A silver hoard of pieces used for currency prior to coin minting
Eshel said that hacked silver is often overlooked by archaeologists because it’s fairly ugly. Oftentimes, such as at Tel el-Ajjul in Gaza near the Egyptian border, hacksilber is found with more beautiful or flashier objects that hold more attention. But Eshel said that the irregular lumps of silver can reveal just as much, if not more, about daily life in the ancient Levant.
“This raw material doesn’t have a nice shape and doesn’t look so great in photos,” she said. “But I think it’s beautiful.”
Digital Scans Reveal Secrets of ‘Golden Boy’ Mummy
The teenage mummy’s body was covered in ferns, amulets and a gilded face mask, earning it the name “Golden Boy.”
Incredibly detailed computed tomography (CT scans) of the so-called “Golden Boy” mummy from ancient Egypt have revealed a hidden trove of 49 amulets, many of which were made of gold.
The young mummy earned its nickname because of the dazzling display of wealth, which included a gilded head mask found in the mummy’s sarcophagus. Researchers think he was about 14 or 15 years old when he died because his wisdom teeth had not yet emerged.
The Golden Boy was originally unearthed in 1916 at a cemetery in southern Egypt and has been stored in the basement of The Egyptian Museum in Cairo ever since. The mummy had been “laid inside two coffins, an outer coffin with a Greek inscription and an inner wooden sarcophagus,” according to a statement.
While analyzing the scans, the researchers found that the dozens of amulets, comprised of 21 different shapes and sizes, were strategically placed on or inside his body.
Those included “a two-finger amulet next to the [boy’s] uncircumcised penis, a golden heart scarab placed inside the thoracic cavity and a golden tongue inside the mouth,” according to the statement.
The mummy was also wearing a pair of sandals, and a garland of ferns was draped across his body, according to the statement.
“This mummy is a showcase of Egyptian beliefs about death and the afterlife during the Ptolemaic period,” Sahar Saleem, the study’s lead author and a professor of radiology at the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University in Egypt, told Live Science in an email.
While researchers aren’t sure of the mummy’s true identity, based on the grave goods alone, they think he was of high socioeconomic status.
The amulets served important roles in the afterlife.
A series of images from the study, including CT scans that “digitally unwrapped” the mummy.
“Ancient Egyptians believed in the power of amulets … and they were used for protection and for providing specific benefits for the living and the dead,” Saleem said. “In modern science, this is explained by energy.
Different materials, shapes and colors (e.g. crystals) provide energy with different wavelengths that could have [an] effect on the body. Amulets were used by ancient Egyptians in their lives. Embalmers placed amulets during mummification to vitalize the dead body.”
For example, the teenage mummy’s tongue was capped in gold “to enable the deceased to speak” and the sandals “were to enable the deceased to walk out of the tomb in the [afterlife],” Saleem said.
However, one amulet in particular stood out to Saleem: the golden heart scarab placed inside the torso cavity. She wound up creating a replica of it using a 3D printer.
“It was really amazing especially after I 3D printed [it] and was able to hold it in my hands,” Saleem said. “There were engraved marks on the back that could represent the inscriptions and spells the priests wrote to protect the boy during his journey. Scarabs symbolize rebirth in ancient Egyptians and [were] in the form of a discoid (disc-shaped) beetle.”
She added that the heart scarab measured about 1.5 inches (4 centimeters) and was inscribed with verses from “The Book of the Dead,” an important ancient Egyptian text that helped guide the deceased in the afterlife.
“It was very important in the afterlife during judging the deceased and weighing of the heart against the feather of Maat (the goddess of truth),” Saleem said. “The heart scarab silenced the heart [on] judgement day so not to bear witness against the deceased.
A heart scarab was placed inside the torso cavity during mummification to substitute for the heart if the body was ever deprived [of] this important organ for any reason.”
