Palaeontologists Unearth 139 Million-Year-Old Pregnant Dinosaur Fossil in Chile
Archaeologists in Chile have unearthed the fossilized remains of a 13ft-long pregnant ichthyosaur from a melting glacier -marking the first time a complete ichthyosaur has been found in the country.
The 139-million-year-old fossil was carefully collected by helicopter following an expedition in March and April this year by the University of Magallanes (UMAG) in the Tyndall Glacier area of Chilean Patagonia.
Named ‘Fiona’ by scientists at the University of Manchester, the 139-million-year-old fossil died when she was pregnant and still had several embryos in her belly.
Ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles that lived in the age of dinosaurs, and Fiona is the only pregnant female of Valanginian-Hauterivian age – between 129 and 139 million years old from the Early Cretaceous period – to be excavated on the entire planet.
Dr. Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist working on the study, said: ‘The fact that these incredible ichthyosaurs are so well preserved in an extreme environment, revealed by a retreating glacier, is unlike anywhere else in the world.
The remains of the creature, which researchers from the University of Manchester have named Fiona, were unearthed from a melting glacier deep in Patagonia.
‘The considerable number of ichthyosaurs found in the area, including complete skeletons of adults, juveniles, and newborns provides a unique window into the past.’
Now, researchers are keen to find out what information they can gather from the incredibly rare find.
Fiona was first found in 2009 by Dr. Judith Pardo-Pérez, a Magellanic palaeontologist and UMAG researcher.
The team hopes to compare the ichthyosaurs found in the Tyndall Glacier with those previously found in Chilean Patagonia.
Collecting this specimen was not easy, as the glacier is within a 10-hour hike or horseback ride. The expedition lasted 31 days and was described by the researchers as an ‘almost titanic challenge.’
‘At four meters long, complete, and with embryos in gestation, the excavation will help to provide information on its species, on the palaeobiology of embryonic development, and on a disease that affected it during its lifetime,’ said Dr. Judith Pardo-Perez, who led the study.
Alongside Fiona, 23 other new specimens were discovered during the expedition, making the Tyndall Glacier the most abundant ichthyosaur graveyard in the world, according to the team.
Ichthyosaurs.
Alongside Fiona, 23 other new specimens were discovered during the expedition, making the Tyndall Glacier the most abundant ichthyosaur graveyard in the world, according to the team.
Fiona will now be prepared in the palaeontology laboratory of the Río Seco Natural History Museum in Punta Arenas, where it will be temporarily stored for later exhibition.
Ukrainian Soldiers Discover Archaeological Treasures While Digging Defenses in Port City Odessa
Trench warfare is a way of life in Ukraine: In an unsettling echo of past wars, the hand-dug ditches provide defensive cover for troops as Russia’s invasion stretches on.
Soldiers transported the amphorae, which were in excellent condition, to a local museum for safekeeping.
Now, reports the Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian defence unit discovered something unexpected while digging a trench in Odessa: ancient amphorae.
Soldiers with the Ukrainian 126th Territorial Defense found the tall, bottle-necked jars along with some ceramic shards earlier this month, taking to Facebook to document the find.
According to the defense troops, the amphorae have been dated to the fourth or fifth centuries C.E., a time when Odessa was a Roman settlement called Odessus.
The third-most populous city in Ukraine and an important shipping hub on the southwestern coast, Odessa is currently under Russian siege. The Times’ Tom Ball reports Russia has been targeting the city with missile strikes and a naval blockade to choke the port’s exports of Ukrainian grain and wheat.
The amphorae, which are in excellent condition, have been transferred to the Odessa Archaeological Museum.
“We are not Russians, we preserve our history,” journalist Yana Suporovska tells Heritage Daily.
Amphorae were first used in the Bronze Age more than 3,000 years ago and became the dominant means of storing and transporting goods in civilizations across the Mediterranean.
The urns had different shapes depending on what was they were designed to hold. Tall and slim ones were used for wine; broader ones transported dried fish and cereals; miniature ones stored perfume; and a special souvenir amphora would be filled with olives and given to the winners of the Panathenaic Games—the ancient ancestor of the modern Olympics.
Similar vessels were used by numerous ancient civilizations.
Used by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines, amphorae were storage solutions that could double as works of art. Decorative Greek vessels, for example, depicted moments from Greek mythology, the triumphs of great athletes, and even erotic scenes.
Given their ubiquity in the ancient world, amphorae still turn up today. Researchers found 6,000 of them in a Roman shipwreck off the Greek island of Kefallinia in 2019. And Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he had discovered two of the ancient urns during a scuba-diving expedition in the Black Sea in 2011, according to the Guardian’s David Batty. Putin’s chief spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, later fessed up and admitted archaeologists had planted the jars for Putin to find.
Russian forces have not shown the same interest in preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Artnet’s Taylor Dafoe reports, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of destroying nearly 200 cultural heritage sites in its ongoing invasion.
Unesco’s figures differ slightly; as of May 16, the agency had verified damage to 133 cultural sites, including museums, religious sites, libraries, monuments and more. Shortly after the invasion began, Unesco Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement that cultural heritage “must be safeguarded as a testimony of the past, but also as a catalyst for peace and cohesion for the future, which the international community has a duty to protect and preserve.”
Among the destroyed sites, the Jerusalem Post reports were ancient Scythian tombs that were over 1,000 years old. Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry accused Russian forces of specifically targeting the cultural site.
Though war helped uncover the trench amphorae, it presents a very real threat to Ukraine’s cultural treasures—even the ones that have yet to be discovered. In a sign of the times, Heritage Daily reports, the ongoing conflict has made it impossible for archaeologists to document the site where the amphorae were found.
Debacle Over 8,000-year-old Human Skull Posted On Facebook
The two kayakers were enjoying the last glimmers of summer on the Minnesota River last September when they spotted an odd brown chunk along the bank. They paddled toward it and looked closer. It appeared to be a bone, so they called the Renville County Sheriff’s Office.
Two kayakers found part of a skull in the Minnesota River in September. The bone is believed to be about 8,000 years old.
When Sheriff Scott Hable was told of the kayakers’ discovery near the city of Sacred Heart, about 110 miles west of Minneapolis, his mind raced to the first possible explanation: Maybe it was the remains of a missing person from a nearby county?
“I don’t think anybody was anticipating the news to come,” Sheriff Hable said.
The sheriff’s office sent the bone to a medical examiner and then to a forensic anthropologist with the F.B.I., who was not able to pinpoint an identity but did make a startling discovery on Tuesday through carbon dating. The bone was part of a skull and most likely was from a young man who lived as many as 8,000 years ago, between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Sheriff Hable said, citing the anthropologist’s findings.
“We have this sort of bizarre report that it’s ancient,” Sheriff Hable said by phone on Wednesday. The young man had likely traversed through parts of what is now Minnesota during the Archaic period in North America, Sheriff Hable said, when people ate primarily nuts and seeds before the time of subsistence farming, according to a report by the Archaeology Laboratory at Augustana University, in South Dakota.
Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, said on Wednesday that the young man would have likely eaten a diet of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small area, rather than following mammals and bison as they migrate for miles.
“There’s probably not that many people at that time wandering around Minnesota 8,000 years ago, because, as I said, the glaciers have only retreated a few thousands of years before that,” Dr. Blue said. “That period, we don’t know much about it.”
Minnesota has three other remains from that time period that have been studied, she said, adding that it is rare for Native American tribes in the state to allow the bones of their ancestors to be examined for archaeological purposes. The F.B.I. anthropologist had examined a depression on the skull and determined that the man had sustained a severe head wound, which Sheriff Hable said was evidence of “blunt force trauma.” It’s unclear if that is how the young man died.
Dr. Blue noted that the edges of the wound appear smooth and rounded on the skull in pictures, indications that it had healed and not been his cause of death.
The bone’s age was determined by carbon dating.
The human skull has been tested and appears to have suffered blunt force trauma.
“It would have been something he actually survived,” Dr. Blue said. “Bone has an amazing ability to try to sort of fix itself after there’s been a traumatic injury.”
She said the skull might have drifted in the river for thousands of years, or been placed in a burial site close to the water and carried away over time.
On Wednesday, when the Renville County Sheriff’s Office posted a news release about the skull and pictures of it on Facebook, Sheriff Hable said, his office was contacted by various Native American groups in the state, including the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council. They informed the sheriff’s office that publishing photos of the skull was “very offensive to the Native American culture,” he said.
“Because there’s a chance that the bones belong to somebody with Native American heritage, we’re just going to honor their request,” Sheriff Hable said, adding that the post was taken down on Wednesday afternoon.
Dylan Goetsch, a cultural resources specialist with the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, said in a statement on Thursday that the sheriff’s office “showed a complete lack of cultural sensitivity by their failure to reference the individual as being Native American, their treatment of the individual as a piece of history and their lack of tribal consultation.”
He added that the council had not been made aware of the discovery until seeing the Facebook post.
“Seeing Native American ancestors being displayed and treated as a piece of history is traumatic for many Native Americans as, for centuries, Native American burials were looted, vandalized and destroyed,” Mr. Goetsch said.
Dr. Blue said the skull was definitely from an ancestor of one of the tribes in the area today.
“The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and other ones are very protective of any remains,” she said. “Usually there would not be any sort of invasive analysis and photos are not allowed.”
The Private Cemeteries Act in Minnesota states that it is a felony “to willfully disturb a burial ground.” If the sheriff had not sent the skull to the medical examiner’s office — believing that it may have been from a recent murder victim — the skull most likely would never have been analyzed by an anthropologist, Dr. Blue said.
The skull is expected to be returned to Native American tribes in the state, Sheriff Hable said. Environmental circumstances played a role in the skull’s discovery. A severe drought overtook the state last year, with above-normal temperatures depleting rivers and exposing banks that are typically awash, according to a report from Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources.
“In some parts of the state, the drought was as serious as anything experienced in over 40 years,” the report said, “though for most of the state it was the worst drought in 10 to 30 years.”
Global warming increases the likelihood of drought. Climate change can also affect precipitation patterns around the world, making dry areas drier. Sheriff Hable said that parts of the Minnesota River “were exposed that hadn’t been before” because of the drought.
“Of course, in a kayak, they’re right there, and they happened to spot it,” he said of the people who found the skull. The sheriff’s office did not release their names.
Similarly, a drought made worse by climate change in the Southwest had dropped the water levels in Nevada’s Lake Mead, exposing a metal barrel this month that contained the remains of a person killed about four decades ago, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Officials there had said that the water level drop could result in other bodies being found at the lake.
But Sheriff Hable said he didn’t expect more skulls, let alone one from a different millennium, to be unearthed in his area anytime soon.
A new study shows how diet has transformed the ancient dog into a family pet
The shape of the mandible (the lower jaw) is influenced by the mechanical action of the jaw muscles that connect it to the skull, and the mandible shape, therefore, reflects the diet of the animal.
The lower jaw is also sufficiently robust to survive burial and fossilization, providing valuable insight into the diets of animals that are long dead.
A new international study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences has described the shape of 525 ancient dog mandibles from European archaeological sites.
The study compared these 5,000–10,000-year-old remains to a reference sample of modern dogs, wolves, as well as our Australian dingoes.
“Ancient dogs are physically distinctive from those of modern dogs, with the main differences in the curvature of the body under the carnassial (cutting) tooth, suggesting they fed on more tough and hard foods than most modern dogs,” said Dr. Colline Brassard, lead author of the study.
Modern dogs have an omnivorous diet. They have multiple copies of the amylase gene that increases their ability to digest starch—the carbohydrate found in plants such as grains—a trait that has been interpreted as reflecting their living alongside humans and consuming anthropogenic-sourced foods.
Dr. Brassard said it is likely that a shift from a carnivorous diet to the starch-containing omnivorous diet of modern domesticated dogs could explain the changes evident in their jaw shape.
“Somewhat surprisingly, the shape of dingo mandibles did not group with ancient dogs but was instead intermediate between wolves and modern dogs.
The ancient dogs also showed traits indicating they had a greater bite force than modern dogs, which would also have been useful for defence or hunting,” said Professor Trish Fleming, from Murdoch University, who collaborated on the work, comparing European ancient dogs with dingoes.
The dingo was brought to Australia somewhere about 3,600 to 5,000 years ago and it has lived in isolation until about 200 years ago when Europeans brought modern dogs onto the continent.
Dingoes have a carnivorous diet, with their principal diet being kangaroos and wallabies, and they have recently been shown to have a single copy of the amylase gene, supporting their separation from modern dog lineage prior to this adaptation to an omnivorous diet.
Boy finds 3,000,000-year-old Megalodon shark tooth on a British beach
A six-year-old boy has found a shark tooth belonging to a giant prehistoric megalodon that could be up to 20 million years old. Sammy Shelton found the 10cm-long (4in) tooth on Bawdsey beach in Suffolk during a bank holiday break.
Sammy Shelton found the giant tooth on a Suffolk beach
It has been confirmed as belonging to a megalodon – the largest shark that ever existed – by expert Prof Ben Garrod. His dad Peter Shelton said Sammy was sleeping with it near his bed as he was “very attached to it”.
The pair, from Bradwell near Gorleston-on-Sea in Norfolk, we’re searching for fossils when they came across the giant shark’s tooth, as first reported in the Great Yarmouth Mercury.
“Sammy was very excited as we’d seen fragments of shark teeth on the beach, but nothing as big and heavy as this,” Mr Shelton said.
Megalodon was a giant and dwarfed all other sea creatures
Sammy found the tooth on the beach beneath Bawdsey’s eroding sandy cliffs while on holiday on 30 May
Photographs of the find were sent to Prof Garrod, a broadcaster and evolutionary biologist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
“It belonged to a megalodon, the largest ever shark – and its teeth are not often found around the UK coastline,” he said.
“Maybe just a handful a year, but this is a particularly good example, in really good condition, whereas they are usually quite worn when found.”
The megalodon could grow up to 18m (60ft) in length, scientists estimate, and weigh up to 60 tonnes, he said.
Dwarfing anything else swimming in the waters at the time, these were “specialist whale eaters – they were ambush hunters,” Prof Garrod said.
The tooth was said to be in very good condition
The megalodon dominated all the seas around the world other than those parts of the oceans surrounding Antarctica.
The megalodon
The cartilaginous fish (whose skeleton is made of cartilage rather than bone) was a carnivore and had no known predators
It could eat anything it liked, but its favourite food was whales, although seals would also have been on the menu
Most of this shark’s hunting was in the open sea (juveniles lived closer to shore) and it attacked its prey near the surface when it came up for air
Megalodon could swim at high speed in short bursts so tended to rush its prey from beneath
It would first aim to disable its prey by injuring a flipper or the tail, then once unable to swim properly, the victim would be easy to finish off
Lived from about 20 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago
Source: BBC Science
The name means “big tooth” and the giants were active from about 22 million years ago until about three million years ago when they became extinct.
Sammy’s find was “a really big thing” for the little boy, Prof Garrod said.
“Not many people who look for a megalodon tooth actually find one,” he said.
“I know – I’ve been searching since I was a child and I knew all the beaches around the area – but I still haven’t found my megalodon.”
Sammy’s excitement has been shared with his friends at school, and he took the tooth to his beaver cubs group, after which he was awarded his explorer badge, his father said.
Sammy described the “massive” tooth as his best-ever find and said it was just lying there on the sand and pebbles.
Underground Labyrinth With Secret Passages, Tunnels In Dobrogea Plateau, Romania
In many cases, the world below us is just as fascinating as the ground we walk on. Across Europe, there is a hidden, often millennia-old subterranean realm of tunnels stretching from the north in Scotland leading down to the Mediterranean.
Limanu Cave’s secret, and still unexplored passages and roads. The network gallery actually resembles a city street map, like the street network of an ancient city developed chaotically, thus the impression of an underground city.
It is an underground world of never-ending tunnels, massive caves, and labyrinths dug by unknown ancient men. There are also underground labyrinths that have not been fully explored yet. One of them is located about 52 kilometres from Constanța, historically known as Tomis, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Romania.
A Vast Underground City Where You Can Get Lost
This vast labyrinth of 12 hectares lies beneath the plateau of Limanu. Researchers started to investigate the place in 1916 and discovered traces left by humans, carved walls and ceilings, and ancient ceramic fragments. Drawings and inscriptions in Roman and Cyrillic alphabets on the walls prove the cave was inhabited between the 1st century BC and 10th century AD.
The labyrinth is vast, with a total length of passages approximately 3.5 km. Dacians used it to hide from the Roman proconsul Marcus Licinius Crassus (c. 115 B.C. —53 BC), who played a vital role in transforming the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. The cave’s early inhabitants used a marking system to avoid getting lost.
Approximately 4,000 meters in length, Limanu Cave is the longest in Dobrogea. It has a chaotic branching of galleries, like the street network of an ancient city. Some researchers believe that at least some of the galleries were entirely dug by human beings, as there are tooling marks on the walls. Certainly, Limanu Cave represented an important human refuge, even since Dacian times.
The network of galleries resembles a city street map, like the street network of an ancient city developed chaotically, thus the impression of an underground city.
Remarkable Galleries
Some of the galleries have rectangular, very regular sections, and it seems humans carved them as signs of chiseling are visible. In order to avoid the collapse of ceilings, supporting walls and pillars were built in limestone slabs.
The drawings of galloping horses are of particular interest, while their riders have faces displayed from the front. Their silhouette and presentation strikingly resemble those of Dacian riders depicted on pottery discovered in many settlements in the area inhabited by Thraco-Dacians.
The earliest drawings are very likely from the prosperous time of the Geto-Dacian culture, the time when the cave was furnished as well. Other pictures show Christian religious symbols, letters, or words in the Cyrillic alphabet. This artwork belongs to the Roman-Byzantine period and the subsequent times.
According to Ph.D. Adina Boroneant, “Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archaeology, Romanian Academy, the Limanu Cave was a shelter for the local population until later, 10th-11th centuries AD.
Surveys have revealed archaeological material proving that local Dacians inhabited the cave even in that era. Existing evidence allows us to assume that a local Geto-Dacian authority ordered the maze of Limanu as a defense measure against the Roman danger.” The account of Dio Cassius shows that the cave was a place of refuge, purposefully chosen and renovated, not some adventitious cavern,” Ph.D. Boroneant writes in his ‘Labirintul subterrane de la Limanu’ (The Underground Labyrinth of Limanu).
Tales Of Mysterious Sounds Coming From Underground Realms
Local stories mention strange and frightening wails like a prolonged high-pitched cry of grief, pain, or anger coming from the depths of the earth.
A scientific explanation for these strange sounds provided by speleologists is that the eerie wails are produced by the wind that sweeps through many underground galleries at Limanu. This noise affects the human psyche.
The cavern has a unique characteristic: although it is located on a complex of lakes and close to the Black Sea, it is so impenetrable that not even water can pass through.
The cave is also known as Caracicula (the old name of Limanu settlement), Bats’, or Icons’ – due to some images carved in stone that once guarded the entrance.
Limanu Cave is one of the three habitats in Romania for horseshoe bats – Rhinolophus Mehelyi. The species decreased from over 5,000 specimens to about 300 individuals. However, ecologists warned about the vulnerability of the cave, which is a magnet for treasure hunters. Through their actions, they tend to destroy the fauna.
Being located near the border with Bulgaria, Limanu cave had the reputation of a tunnel carrying fugitives across the border, particularly during the communist time.
There are many reasons to suspect the Dobrogea caves are hiding mysteries still waiting to be discovered.
New Huge Viking Ship Discovered By Radar In Øye, Norway – What Is Hidden Beneath The Ground?
A new Viking Age ship has been discovered by archaeologists in Norway during a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey. This exciting find reveals a huge Viking boat buried beneath the ground in Øye, in Kvinesdal.
The Øye Viking Age ship was discovered by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU).
This archaeological discovery is highly significant not only because Viking ship burials are rarely found, but also due to the fact that Kvinesdal was once the home to one of Southern Norway’s largest known burial sites from the Iron and Viking Ages.
Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) said the ancient boat was spotted while researchers conducted geophysical surveys in the area as part of the road-building project E39 led by Nye Veier.
The surveys are a part of the research project “Arkeologi på Ney Veier” (Archaeology on new roads). Based on preliminary reports, archaeologists estimate the Viking boat to be between 8 to 9 meters long.
Several ancient burial mounds have been observed in the vicinity of the Viking ship.
Niku researchers inform that in addition to the boat burial there are traces of several other burial mounds.
At present, it is still unknown how much of the Viking boat remains. Excavations must be carried out and hopefully, the new road project will not interfere with archaeologists’ work. As previously explained on AncientPages.com, Viking burials were very complex which is the reason why so few boat burials have been unearthed.
When a great Viking chieftain died, he received a ship burial. This involved placing the deceased on the ship, sailing him out to sea, and setting the Viking ship on fire. People could watch flames dance high in the air as they embraced the mighty warrior on his way to the afterlife.
By modern standards, it might sound crude, but Viking burials were intended to be a spectacular ritual. Viking funeral traditions involved burning ships and complex ancient rituals. Based on discovered archaeological evidence it seems that the funeral boat or wagon was a practice reserved for the wealthy.
This type of burial was not common however and was likely reserved for sea captains, noble Vikings, and the very wealthy. In Old Norse times, boats proper boats took several months to construct and would not have been wasted without a valid cause or a suitable amount of status.
Another option was that the Vikings was burned, and cremation was rather common during the early Viking Age. Ashes were later spread over the waters. The vast majority of the burial finds throughout the Viking world are cremations.
Archaeological discoveries such as the finding of the magnificent Gokstad Viking ship discovered in 1880 offer more insight into the world of the Vikings. When scientists re-opened and examined the grave in 2007 we could finally learn more about the man who became known as one of the most famous Vikings in Norway – the Gokstad Viking Chief and his remarkable ship.
The Gokstad Viking ship 1880 when it was discovered.
The Gokstad ship was built in about 850, at the height of the Viking period. In those days there was a need for ships that could serve many purposes, and the Gokstad ship could have been used for voyages of exploration, trade, and Viking raids. The ship could be both sailed and rowed. There are 16 oar holes on each side of the ship. With oarsmen, steersmen, and lookout, that would have meant a crew of 34.
In recent years there have been exciting reports of unearthed Viking Age burial ships in Sweden and Norway.
The giant Gjellestad Viking ship burial in Norway found some years ago has given a unique opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the Vikings.
The discoveries were made by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) with technology developed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro).
– We are certain that there is a ship there, but how much is preserved is hard to say before further investigation”, Morten Hanisch, county conservator in Østfold said at the time.
The reconstruction of the Gjellestad Viking ship burial site.
Later, scientists using modern technology put together an outstanding virtual tour of the Gjellestad Viking ship burial site, allowing viewers to see what the place looked like in ancient times.
The new radar discovery in Øye is promising and hopefully, researchers will be able to unearth and examine the remains of the Viking ship. Once they accomplish this, we will learn more about the boat and its history. Maybe remains of a Viking Chief will also be found.
Incredibly Well-Preserved 1,000-Year-Old Wooden Ladder Discovered In The UK
Archaeologists in the UK have made many fascinating discoveries while excavating at a site known as Field 44 near the village of Tempsford in Central Bedfordshire.
Some weeks ago, archaeologists working in the area announced the remains of a Roman malting oven that could be the earliest physical evidence for beer-making in the UK, dating back more than 2,000 years to the Iron Age. Evidence of early Iron Age porridge and bread-making has also been uncovered.
In recent days MOLA archaeologists have unearthed an incredibly, well-preserved 1,000-year-old wooden ladder.
This 1,000-year-old wooden ladder has been unearthed in the UK.
According to the MOLA scientists, the ladder was found in a well, where water and mud preserved the wood for 1,000s of years! Preliminary reports state the ladder comes from a cluster of watering holes dated to the Middle Iron Age (c.300-100 BC).
In the vicinity archaeologists also found Roman artefacts and evidence of an ancient farm that has offered an incredible glimpse through time to see how life has changed over the last 6,000 years.
The farm’s story spans a 700-year period from Middle Iron Age to the Roman conquest and beyond. Well before the farmstead existed, people were already visiting this area. Although no evidence of where they lived has been found, they left behind signs of their activities.
Flint arrowheads were discovered dating back to the Neolithic (c. 4000-2200 BC) and Bronze Age (c. 2600-700 BC), suggesting people were hunting animals in the surrounding landscape well before the farmstead existed.
The first evidence of a settlement is from the Middle Iron Age (c. 300-100 BC), with the unearthing of two large roundhouses dating back to that period.
They measure more than 15 meters in diameter and contain evidence of the remains of butchered animals, pottery, loom weights, and personal items. This shows that people both lived and worked in them.
The remains of the northern roundhouse, show its shape and size.
After the Roman conquest in AD 43, there is evidence, that the settlement expanded and continued to be occupied for around 400 years. During this time, farming was an essential activity at this settlement.
This is proved by the discovery of an oven used to dry grains and make malt for brewing, as well as by the querns (simple hand mills for grinding grains) and cereals found on site.
However, this was also a place where goods were being produced and traded. Archaeologists have identified a Roman pottery kiln with a vast number of wasters (pots which failed during the firing process).
Moreover, a number of higher-status small finds have also been uncovered, beyond what is expected of a typical farmstead in this part of the country. Together these discoveries show the growing wealth and importance of the settlement.
“These early excavations suggested that the site had a long and complex history, which is now being revealed,” MOLA archaeologists say.
