The World’s Oldest Stash: Scientists Find 2,700-Year-Old Pot
Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.
A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.
They apparently were getting high too.
Lead author Ethan Russo told Discovery News that marijuana “is quite similar” to what’s grown today.
“We know from both the chemical analysis and genetics that it could produce THC (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid synthase, the main psychoactive chemical in the plant),” he explained, adding that no one could feel its effects today, due to decomposition over the millennia.
Russo served as a visiting professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany while conducting the study. He and his international team analyzed the cannabis, which was excavated at the Yanghai Tombs near Turpan, China.
It was found lightly pounded in a wooden bowl in a leather basket near the head of a blue-eyed Caucasian man who died when he was about 45.
“This individual was buried with an unusual number of high value, rare items,” Russo said, mentioning that the objects included a make-up bag, bridles, pots, archery equipment and a kongou harp. The researchers believe the individual was a shaman from the Gushi people, who spoke a now-extinct language called Tocharian that was similar to Celtic.
Scientists originally thought the plant material in the grave was coriander, but microscopic botanical analysis of the bowl contents, along with genetic testing, revealed that it was cannabis.
The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their colour and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown.
What is in question, however, is how the marijuana was administered, since no pipes or other objects associated with smoking were found in the grave.
“Perhaps it was ingested orally,” Russo said. “It might also have been fumigated, as the Scythian tribes to the north did subsequently.”
Although other cultures in the area used hemp to make various goods as early as 7,000 years ago, additional tomb finds indicate the Gushi fabricated their clothing from wool and made their rope out of reed fibres.
The scientists are unsure if the marijuana was grown for more spiritual or medical purposes, but it’s evident that the blue-eyed man was buried with a lot of it.
“As with other grave goods, it was traditional to place items needed for the afterlife in the tomb with the departed,” Russo said.
The ancient marijuana stash is now housed at Turpan Museum in China. In the future, Russo hopes to conduct further research at the Yanghai site, which has 2,000 other tombs
A Message From a Mysterious Ancient Culture in Siberia
On the right bank of the Askiz river, a unique archaeological site from the early first millennium C.E. has been found. It is associated with the enigmatic Tashtyk culture in ancient Siberia and for a change, it sheds light not only on how they died, but who they were.
The Tashtyks’ unusual funerary practices had already been described in numerous articles and research but we know little about how they lived before the evil day. Now at the new site dubbed Kazanovka 14, archaeologists have gained rare insight into their culture, their adaptations to the environment and their relationships in this “oasis” in southern Siberia.
The Askiz is a tributary of the Abakan River. It passes through the balmy Minusinsk Basin in the southern Siberian republic of Khakassia, where the previously unknown site was found during the field season of 2021.
The Minusinsk Basin is a territory bordered by mountains and forests, with abundant lakes, fertile land and the mildest climate in Siberia. One might call it an oasis of the steppe. The winter winds blow the snow away from the mountains, making the area a perfect place to keep sheep, who can roam freely. It is therefore little wonder that the Minusinsk hollow attracted semi-nomadic tribes and their flocks throughout history. Archaeologists over the years have uncovered sites of a number of cultures from the third millennia B.C.E. onward.
While performing construction works along the Mezhdurechensk–Tayshet railroad from 2019 to 2021, various sites from the Early Bronze Age to the later Middle Ages were discovered. These included burials of many cultures and settlements. One of the sites, called “Kazanovka 14,” was excavated in 2021.
The salvage excavation of Kazanovka 14 was carried out by Anton Vybornov of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography SB RAS Novosibirsk, Russia, under the leadership of Timoshenko Alexey. It was here that the scholars found new evidence of how the Tashtyks lived their life, after finding the remains of a burned-down wooden structure, and a remarkable petroglyph – an engraved sandstone slab.
Kazanovka 14, to the right of the track
Excavating the Tashtyk site of Kazanovka 14
Their discoveries were reported in the journal of Problems of Archaeology, Ethnography, Anthropology of Siberia and Neighboring Territories. As Anton Vybornov told Haaretz, Kazanovka 14 was a Tashtyk seasonal camp, as indicated by characteristic finds known from the vast majority of burial grounds of which this “culture” is famous.
A little bit Scythian
The Tashtyk culture was common in the Khakassian Minusink basin, in southern Siberia, from almost 2,000 to about 1,600 years ago. But the culture is not easy to define, Vybornov says. In some ways, they seem to have carried on some Scythian traditions. In other ways, they evince Hunnic – Sarmatian types of cultures, mixed with local traditions known in the Basin. The Tashtyk culture is also considered to be a local southern Siberian phenomenon on which basis the later medieval Yenisei Kirgizian state would arise.
Weapons and artefacts found in Tashtyk context
One thing we can be sure about is their idiosyncratic and colourful burial practices.
Tashtyk funerary practices involved either cremation or inhumation. The remains were buried either in box graves dug into the ground and lined by wood, or massive crypt burial mounds. The ash and cremated bones were put inside a leather bag that was then stuffed with dry grass. The bag was arranged inside a leather-dressed dummy, and a mask was placed on the area of the face.
In the case of Inhumation, which was also common, the deceased was dressed in leather. Their heads were wrapped with shrouds, orin any case a cloth tissue, and a mask was placed on top.
Tashtyk burial masks
Illustration of a mask on a Tashtyk woman’s body
The masks were the most extraordinary feature of these burials. They were essentially portraits of the dead made using clay and plaster and embellished with red paint. On the forehead, a spiral was drawn, and the cheeks and chin were blushed with the paint as well.
Once the dummies or bodies had been prepared, they were placed in box graves or crypts, among grave goods, including pottery and metal vessels. The crypts were big, with a corridor leading inside. When its mortuary duty was finished, the crypt was sealed, burned, and covered, to stand for eternity overlooking the Basin. While we can say plenty about their way of death, as revealed by the abundance of Tashtyk burial sites and practices, we cannot say much about their way of life. Barely any Tashtyk settlements have been found, hence the importance of Kazanovka 14.
Just below the surface, three to 20 centimetres below the modern deposits, the archaeologists unearthed what seems to have been a seasonal campsite of this semi-nomads, who moved from winter to summer camps and practised farming throughout the years in this fertile land. In the southern part of the camp, they found a charred destruction layer that they believe came from a collapsed structure built of wooden sticks attached horizontally or vertically together. The excavators also detected holes in the ground in the area of the structure, indicating the placement of wooden posts that supported the walls and/or the ceiling.
Pottery vessels found in Kazanovka 14
There was also a hearth, and together with pottery vessels, bone and metal objects, and animal remains, there were several spots of burnt clay accumulations. This leads Anton to surmise that the structure might have been a potter’s workshop, a possibility worth considering even though the research is still basic and further analysis is required. Alternatively, the structure could have been a simple house, a hut, or even a yurt. It seems the site ceased to exist when the fire consumed the wooden structure and what was within, sealing the place for good – until it was uncovered by the expedition in 2021.
Kazanovka 14 not only sheds light on the Tashtyk way of life. It also opens a window to their artistic world and their perception of themselves and their surroundings. The fire might have burned down their house, but signs of the Tashtyks’ artistic spirit survived the conflagration long after their death. Among the ash and debris, the archaeologists found astragalus bones, which are animal ankle bones, with marks incised on them, including crosses, circles, and lines. These are familiar from other sites and might have been used as game pieces. A sense of spaceBut the most exciting discovery of the season was the engraved sandstone slab.
The sandstone slab in situ
The petroglyph
The depictions on the sandstone are divided into three panels. The lower has what seemed to be a stylistic representation of trees. The upper features three horizontal lines with smaller stripes in between. The middle panel was bordered by three vertical lines on each side with stripes in between, similar to the upper panel.
The panel’s centre is oddly empty, with some elements on the side and a semicircle in the middle. Despite its cryptic nature, Vybornov and his team were extremely excited by the find, a whisper left behind by these enigmatic people about themselves and their world, an unintentional message from the past. Learning about the finds and the burnt structure found in Kazanovka 14, and the petroglyphs on the slab, one wonders if it might show that very structure.
When asked about it, Vybornov said that it had been his first thought as well, but at this stage that remains pure speculation. Only further research and analysis of the material, and correlation to old and new finds hopefully to be made, can unveil what the message the Tashtykians wanted to deliver actually was.
Skulls suggest Romans in London enjoyed human blood sports
Left: Digital radiograph showing a healed skull fracture. Right: Skull showing sharp-force injuries and fractures inflicted around the time of death.
A joint research project between the Museum of London and the Natural History Museum has re-evaluated human remains discovered under the London Wall in 1988.
The majority of the remains were recovered from an industrial site in the Walbrook Valley and have been curated by the Museum of London.
Because the skull is the first body part to disarticulate, it was first thought that these were skull bones that had separated from the rest of the bodies over time and been washed out from graves. Similar crania are often found in the River Thames.
Evidence of violent injury
Museum forensic anthropologist Dr Heather Bonney, who analysed the skulls, however, found that many of the individuals had sustained blunt force trauma in the facial area and on the side of their heads around the time of their death.
An adult male skull displaying a healed fracture of the cheekbone sustained during life.
Army trophies
This would suggest several theories, which include that these remains could be the heads of people executed in the amphitheatre near the burial site, or the heads of enemies kept as trophies by the Roman army from the frontiers of Britain, stationed in Roman London.
Roman amphitheatres were typically used for gladiator combat and judicial execution.
Human games
Only a few of the human remains showed signs of the type of decapitation you would expect in judicial execution.
The human remains were deposited between AD 120-AD160, which was a time of prosperity and peace in the province, rather than a period of war when human remains exhibiting violent death would have been more typical.
Violent Londinium
Dr Rebecca Redfern from the Museum of London, said, ‘There is no evidence for social unrest, warfare or other acts of organised violence, during the period that this human remains date from.
The view of bloodthirsty Romans has wide currency, but this is the first time that we have evidence of these types of violence in London.’
Dr Bonney said that similar burial sites for the victims of gladiatorial combat have been found in Europe, but not previously identified in Britain. ‘We know gladiator contests went on in London but not the extent of such contests,’ she said.
‘The prevalence of trauma and young adult males from this site indicates that they probably met a violent end, and their heads were then separated and deposited. Signs of violent injuries sustained during life also provide a fascinating insight into violent activities in Roman London.’
The research team said that the next step was to investigate where the people buried in the site came from.
Holey cow! Evidence of Stone Age veterinary ‘surgery’
A hole in the skull of a Stone Age cow was likely made by humans about 5,000 years ago, probably by a primitive veterinarian or trainee surgeon, scientists said.
A 3D reconstruction of the Stone Age cow’s skull, showing internally and externally the hole produced by trepanation.
The hole appears to have been painstakingly carved into the animal’s head, but whether it was an operation to save the cow or practice for surgery on humans, was not clear, a duo of anthropologists reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
Either way, the puncture does seem to represent the earliest known example of veterinary “trepanation” – the boring of a hole into the skull, they said.
“There are many Neolithic (human) skulls in Europe which bear the marks of trepanation. But we have never seen it in animals,” co-author Fernando Ramirez Rozzi of France’s CNRS research institute told AFP.
The Neolithic era was the closing chapter of the Stone Age – a time when prehistoric humans, hunter-gatherer nomads until then, first tried their hand at cultivating crops and building permanent villages.
The cow skull comes from an archaeological site in western France, inhabited by a Stone Age community between 3,400 and 3,000 BC.
Bone fragments scattered around the camp showed that cows were the main source of food, along with pigs, sheep, and goats.
It was thought at first that the matchbox-sized hole was made when the cow was gored by a horned rival in a fight.
But on closer inspection with high-definition scanners, the team found no splintering or fractures consistent with such a strong blow.
The puncture was too regular to have been the work of a gnawing pest, nor did it appear to have been made by a tumour or infectious diseases, such as syphilis or tuberculosis, as the skull showed no other signs of sickness.
This picture shows cut marks in a cow skull (a, b, c) and in a human skull (d, e) from the Neolithic period suggesting that the technique used for the trepanation in humans is the same as that employed in the cow skull.
DEAD OR ALIVE?
Religious ritual also seemed an unlikely explanation, as the skull was thrown away with the rubbish.
Cut- and scrape marks were found around the hole, said Rozzi – similar to those seen on Neolithic human skulls into which holes had been bored.
“I believe that the evidence of trepanation is indisputable,” the researcher added. “It is the only possible explanation.”
But why would a Stone Age human operate on an animal?
“There are two possible explanations,” according to Rozzi. “Either they were treating the cow, or they were practising on it before trying their hand at the surgery on humans.”
The first option seemed unlikely, he added, given that cows were in such abundance.
The team could not determine whether the hole was made while the cow was still alive, or after it died.
The bone, however, had not started regrowing around the hole, which showed the cow either did not survive the operation, if there was one, or was cut post-mortem.
Ancient DNA reveals surprises about how early Africans lived, travelled and interacted
A new analysis of human remains that were buried in African archaeological sites has produced the earliest DNA from the continent, telling a fascinating tale of how early humans lived, travelled and even found their significant others.
Hora Rockshelter in Malawi, where recent excavations uncovered two of the individuals analyzed in a collaborative study of ancient DNA.
An interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers outlined its findings in “Ancient DNA reveals deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers.” The paper was published today in Nature and reports findings from ancient DNA from six individuals buried in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia who lived between 18,000 and 5,000 years ago.
“This more than doubles the antiquity of reported ancient DNA data from sub-Saharan Africa,” said David Reich, a professor at Harvard University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute whose lab generated the data in the paper. “The study is particularly exciting as a truly equal collaboration of archaeologists and geneticists.”
The study also reanalyzed published data from 28 individuals buried at sites across the continent, generating new and improved data for 15 of them. The result was an unprecedented dataset of DNA from ancient African foragers — people who hunted, gathered or fished. Their genetic legacy is difficult to reconstruct from present-day people because of the many population movements and mixtures that have occurred in the last few thousand years.
Mt. Hora in Malawi, where recent excavations at Hora Rockshelter uncovered two of the individuals analyzed in a collaborative study of ancient DNA.
Thanks to this data, the researchers were able to outline major demographic shifts that took place between about 80,000 and 20,000 years ago. As far back as about 50,000 years ago, people from different regions of the continent moved and settled in other areas and developed alliances and networks over longer distances to trade, share information and even find reproductive partners. This social network helped them survive and thrive, the researchers wrote.
Elizabeth Sawchuk , an author of the study who is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta and a research assistant professor at Stony Brook University, said a dramatic cultural change took place during this timeframe, as beads, pigments and other symbolic art became common across Africa. Researchers long assumed that major changes in the archaeological record about 50,000 years ago reflected a shift in social networks and maybe even changes in population size. However, such hypotheses have remained difficult to test.
“We’ve never been able to directly explore these proposed demographic shifts, until now,” she said. “It has been difficult to reconstruct events in our deeper past using the DNA of people living today, and artefacts like stone tools and beads can’t tell us the whole story. Ancient DNA provides direct insight into the people themselves, which was the missing part of the puzzle.”
The Livingstone Museum in Zambia, where some of the skeletal remains in the study are curated.
Mary Prendergast, an author of the paper and associate professor of anthropology at Rice University, said there are arguments that the development and expansion of long-distance trade networks around this time helped humans weather the last Ice Age.
“Humans began relying on each other in new ways,” she said. “And this creativity and innovation might be what allowed people to thrive.”
The researchers were also able to demonstrate that by about 20,000 years ago, people had stopped moving around so much.
“Maybe it was because by that point, previously established social networks allowed for the flow of information and technologies without people having to move,” Sawchuk said.
Prendergast said the study provides a better understanding of how people moved and mingled in this part of Africa. Previously, the earliest African DNA came from what is now Morocco — but the individuals in this study lived as far from there as Bangladesh is from Norway, she noted.
“Our genetic study confirms an archaeological pattern of more local behaviour in eastern Africa over time,” said Jessica Thompson, an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University, and author of the study and one of the researchers who uncovered the remains. “At first people found reproductive partners from wide geographic and cultural pools. Later, they prioritized partners who lived closer, and who were potentially more culturally similar.”
Ostrich eggshell beads from Mlambalasi Rockshelter in Tanzania, where one of the individuals in the study was buried.
The research team included scholars from Canada, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, the United States, Zambia and many other countries. Critical contributions to the study came from curators and co-authors at African museums who are responsible for protecting and preserving the remains.
Potiphar Kaliba, director of research at the Malawi Department of Museums and Monuments and an author of the study, noted that some of the skeletons sampled for the study were excavated a half-century ago, yet their DNA is preserved despite hot and humid climates in the tropics.
“This work shows why it’s so important to invest in the stewardship of human remains and archaeological artefacts in African museums,” Kaliba said.
The work also helps address global imbalances in research, Prendergast said.
“There are around 30 times more published ancient DNA sequences from Europe than from Africa,” she said. “Given that Africa harbours the greatest human genetic diversity on the planet, we have much more to learn.”
“By associating archaeological artifacts with ancient DNA, the researchers have created a remarkable framework for exploring the prehistory of humans in Africa,” said Archaeology and Archaeometry program director John Yellen of the U.S. National Science Foundation, one of the funders behind this project. “This insight is charting a new way forward to understanding humanity and our complex shared history.”
Evidence of Surgery Some 5,300 Years Ago Identified in Spain
A team of several researchers from the University of Valladolid, in Spain and one from the Spanish National Research Council in Italy, has found evidence of the earliest ear surgery performed on a human being.
In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes their study of a human skull found at the Dolmen of El Pendónis back in 2018 and what they learned from it.
Dolmen of El Pendónis is a dig site near Burgos, Spain. Prior research has shown that the site was once used by early people as a funerary chamber. Prior research has also shown that the site was used for approximately 800 years, between 3,800 and 3,000 BC.
Skull understudy found at El Pendón site. Superior: Frontal and lateral view of the skull (Photo: ÑFotógrafos Photography Study). Inferior: Skull with mastoidectomy in situ in the context of the megalithic ossuary.
In the summer of 2018, a skull was found at the site and was put into storage. More recently, the researchers with this new effort retrieved the skull and took a closer look at it. In so doing, they found it bore evidence of a type of cranial surgery meant to cure an ear ailment.
They also found evidence showing that the patient, a woman between the ages of 35 and 50, had survived the surgery—at least for a few months.
There was evidence of bone regrowth in the holes that had been bored through her skull. The skull was dated 5,300 years ago, making it the earliest known example of ear surgery.
The procedure, known today as a mastoidectomy, is done to clean out the area behind the ear that has become infected. Failure to correct the problem can lead to deafness in some cases, or progressive infections leading to more serious problems, including death.
The woman who underwent the procedure required it on both ears. It is presumed that her condition was painful, enough so that she was willing to undergo what must have been an incredibly painful surgery.
Further inspection of the skull showed she had lost a lot of teeth, suggesting she was quite old for the time.
The researchers also found evidence of enlarged auditory canals, likely the result of the surgical procedure.
In the same tomb as the surgical patient, a flint tool was discovered—it had evidence of having been reheated several times, likely making it a cautery tool for stopping bleeding.
Earlier this year, scientists published a study of whole-body CT scans of 137 mummies: ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, ancestral Puebloans of southwest America, and Unangan hunter-gatherers of the Aleutian Islands.
This mummy was once Amenhotep III, King Tut’s grandfather.
They reported signs of atherosclerosis—a dangerous artery hardening that can lead to heart attacks or stroke—in 34 per cent of them. What struck the research team, led by Randall Thompson of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri, was that it afflicted mummies from every group. Frank Rühli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, also sees the condition in about 30 to 50 per cent of the adult specimens he studies.
The breadth of these findings suggests that atherosclerosis today may have less to do with modern excesses such as overeating and more with underlying genetic factors that seem present in a certain percentage of humans living almost anywhere in the world. Someday, identifying those genes could lead to new drugs for heart disease.
They’re now finding signs of everything from prostate cancer to malaria in mummies across the globe.
Ancient mummies can provide a wealth of information about the health of early civilizations, which may help us better treat diseases today. But because mummies are both rare and delicate, researchers have been limited in what they could do to them—and therefore what they could learn from them.
Recent improvements of two medical tools—DNA sequencing, which can reveal microbial infections, and CT scanning—are letting paleopathologists diagnose mummies’ causes of death in detail. They’re now finding signs of everything from prostate cancer to malaria in mummies across the globe.
By comparing the ancient forms of those diseases with their contemporary equivalents, researchers can learn how those diseases evolved, what makes them so harmful, and—possibly—how to stop them.
In the case of tuberculosis (TB), which kills upwards of 1.4 million people a year, researchers are using DNA sequencing and CT scans in mummies to understand what conditions TB thrives in and how to treat it.
Work from Haagen Klaus, a biological anthropologist at George Mason University, suggests that, contrary to what some experts think, Europeans might have brought a particularly deadly form of TB to the Americas.
His preliminary DNA data hints that Peruvian remains dating back to the 10th century—before Spanish explorers arrived—might have been infected with a more benign strain of the TB bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, or a different species altogether, Mycobacterium kansasii. And many studies have shown that the bodies of Central Americans from before and after European contact rarely, if ever, show signs of TB symptoms. Klaus subscribes to the hypothesis that this may be because M. tuberculosis thrives in the presence of iron, and these people ate a low-iron diet with little meat. If true, this insight could point to new drugs that would inhibit M. tuberculosis from taking up an iron.
Researchers use magnetic resonance imaging to see inside mummies, such as this one from ancient Peru.
Researchers use magnetic resonance imaging to see inside mummies, such as this one from ancient Peru.
Other scientists are using DNA sequencing to investigate Chagas disease, an illness caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which can cause fatal heart failure or swelling of digestive system organs.
The parasite infects roughly 10 million people, mostly in Latin America, and appears to be spreading. Some think that different strains of the parasite affect different organs. So in 2008, when Ana Carolina Vicente and Ana Jansen of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro reported their discovery of T. cruzi in the enlarged colon of a 560-year-old mummified body from Brazil, they might have come upon an important clue.
Previously, they found T. cruzi in a sample of bone remains from 4,500 to 7,000 years ago. Comparing the DNA of different samples of the parasite could reveal more about its evolution and spread, and perhaps influence treatment someday.
Paleopathologists are also taking advantage of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which detects signals from water.
Dry mummies haven’t been perfect for this technique, but recent improvements in MRI might make for better images of soft tissues, such as tongues. Plus, unlike the radiation from CT scanning, MRI has no possible risk of damaging DNA evidence.
93-Million-Year-Old “Killer” Crocodile Discovered With a Baby Dinosaur in Its Stomach
Advanced nuclear and synchrotron imaging has confirmed that a 93-million-year-old crocodile found in Central Queensland devoured a juvenile dinosaur based on remains found in the fossilized stomach contents.
Nuclear techniques confirm the rare findings that crocodiles devoured a baby dinosaur.
The discovery of the fossils in 2010 was made by the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum (QLD) in association with the University of New England, who are publishing their research in the journal Godwana Research.
The research was carried out by a large team led by Dr Matt White of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and the University of New England.
The crocodile Confractosuchus sauroktonos, which translates as ‘the broken crocodile dinosaur killer’ was about 2 to 2.5 meters in length. ‘Broken’ refers to the fact that the crocodile was found in a massive, shattered boulder.
Early neutron imaging scans of one rock fragment from the boulder detected bones of the small chicken-sized juvenile dinosaur in the gut, an ornithopod that has not yet been formally identified by species.
Dr. Joseph Bevitt and Dr Matt White with the sample on the Imaging and Medical beamline at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron.
Senior Instrument Scientist Dr. Joseph Bevitt explained that the dinosaur bones were entirely embedded within the dense ironstone rock and were serendipitously discovered when the sample was exposed to the penetrative power of neutrons at ANSTO.
Dingo, Australia’s only neutron imaging instrument, can be used to produce two and three-dimensional images of a solid object and reveal concealed features within it.
“In the initial scan in 2015, I spotted a buried bone in there that looked like a chicken bone with a hook on it and thought straight away that it was a dinosaur,” explained Dr. Bevitt.
“Human eyes had never seen it previously, as it was, and still is, totally encased in rock.”
The finding led to further, high-resolution scans using Dingo and the synchrotron X-ray Imaging and Medical Beamline over a number of years.
The unprepared rock samples containing the fossilised crocodile. Right: 3D images of the encased crocodile reconstructed with the Imaging and Medical Beamline, and inset, the stomach contents revealed using the Dingo neutron imaging instrument.
“3D digital scans from the Imaging and Medical Beamline guided the physical preparation of the crocodile, which was impossible without knowing precisely where the bones were,” said Dr. Bevitt.
Conversely, the fragile samples had to be carefully reduced to a size that synchrotron X-rays could penetrate for high-quality scanning.
“The results were outstanding in providing an entire picture of the crocodile and its last meal, a partially digested juvenile dinosaur.”
It is believed to be the first time a synchrotron beamline has been used in this way. IMBL Instrument scientist Dr. Anton Maximenko assisted the investigative team to push up against the power limits and finetune the facility to successfully scan the large samples.
Dr. Bevitt explained that the team used the full intensity of the synchrotron X-ray beam to achieve the results on the dense rock.
Together, Drs Bevitt and White did all the data processing and importantly, developed new software mechanisms for processing and merging all data sets of this fragmented crocodile. In this way, the crocodile was reconstructed as a digital, 3D jigsaw puzzle.
To confirm the dinosaur was actually in the gut of the crocodile, the team observed infilled worm tunnels, plant roots and geological features that extended between rock fragments.
“The chemistry of rock provided the evidence, said Dr Bevitt.
Investigators think it is likely that the crocodile was caught up in a megaflood event, was buried and died suddenly.
“The fossilized remains were found in a large boulder. Concretions often form when organic matter, or say a crocodile, sinks to the bottom of a river. Because the environment is rich in minerals, within days the mud around the organism can solidify and harden because of the presence of bacteria,” explained Dr Bevitt.
The specimens are now on display at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, Winton.
