Archaeologist discovers a 6,000-year-old island settlement off the Croatian coast
Croatia, June 24 – Archaeologist Mate Parica was examining satellite images of Croatia’s coastline when he spotted something unusual. “I thought: maybe it is natural, maybe not,” said Parica, a professor at the University of Zadar.
The image showed a large, shallow area on the seabed jutting out from the eastern shore of the island of Korcula.
Parica and a colleague decided to dive at the site and discovered what they believe is a Neolithic settlement from around 4,500 years BC, built on a small piece of land that was connected to the main island by a narrow strip.
Aerial view of Neolithic settlement in Lumbarda, Croatia, June 23, 2021.
The pair found the remains of stone walls which had surrounded the settlement, as well as tools and other objects used by the inhabitants.
“We found some ceramic objects and flint knives,” he said.
Archaeologist diver works on a Neolithic settlement in Lumbarda, Croatia.
Marta Kalebota who runs the archaeological collection in the Korcula town museum said the settlement’s location was highly unusual.
“We are not aware at the moment of a similar finding elsewhere that a Neolithic settlement was built on an islet connected with a narrow strip of land,” she said.
Parica also said the island settlement discovery was atypical and that Neolithic finds were mostly made in caves.
“The fortunate thing is that this area, unlike most parts of the Mediterranean, is safe from big waves as many islands protect the coast.
That certainly helped preserve the site from natural destruction,” he said.
New early human discovered in 130,000-year-old fossils at Israeli cement site
Tel Aviv University Professor Israel Hershkovitz, holds what scientists say are two pieces of fossilised bone of a previously unknown kind of early human discovered at the Nesher Ramla site in central Israel.
Researchers in Israel have discovered a previously unknown type of ancient human who coexisted with our species around 100,000 years ago.
They believe the remains discovered near Ramla are those of one of the “final survivors” of a long-extinct human race.
A team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excavated prehistoric remains near the city of Ramla that could not be matched to any known species of the Homo genus, which includes contemporary humans (Homo sapiens).
A partial skull and jaw from a person who lived between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago were discovered.
The fragments of a skull and a lower jaw with teeth were about 130,000 years old and could force a rethink of parts of the human family tree, the researchers said.
University of Tel Aviv anthropologists and archaeologists led by Yossi Zaidner called the discovery the “Nesher Ramla Homo type” after the place where the bones were discovered in a paper published in the journal Science.
Dating to between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago, “the morphology of the Nesher Ramla humans shares features with both Neanderthals… and archaic Homo,” the researchers said in a statement.
“At the same time, this type of Homo is very unlike modern humans — displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin, and very large teeth.”
Along with the human remains, the dig uncovered large quantities of animal bones as well as stone tools.
“The archaeological finds associated with human fossils show that ‘Nesher Ramla Homo’ possessed advanced stone-tool production technologies and most likely interacted with the local Homo sapiens,” archaeologist Zaidner said.
“We had never imagined that alongside Homo sapiens, archaic Homo roamed the area so late in human history”.
The researchers believe that early Nesher Ramla Homo group members were already present in the Near East 400,000 years ago.
The new discoveries bear resemblances to ancient “pre-Neanderthal” European populations, according to the researchers.
The treasure inside beer lost in a shipwreck 120 years ago
Long-forgotten strains of yeast are searched for in wrecks, abandoned breweries and other places in the hope that they can be put to good use if they are resurrected. gently relieving himself through a hatch in the sunken hold, he could see the wreckage treasure waiting for him. He had been there for over 100 years. But now a part was about to be released from its resting place.
Many of the bottles found on board the Wallachia remained unopened despite spending more than 100 years underwater
The explorer in question, Steve Hickman, a dive technician and amateur diver, was carrying a small bag in the net with him.
The treasure he was looking for was beer. Rows of glass beer bottles, partly buried in the silt, were kept in the hold of this ship. With visibility reduced to zero, Hickman was effectively blinded. But he knew this shoulder wellve and had visited it several times before. He continued, searching for more bottles in the dark. Once he gathered and bagged a few, he escaped and his team carefully brought the bottles to the surface.
The wreck was Wallachia, a cargo ship that sank in 1895 off the coast of Scotland following a collision with another ship in thick fog. Wallachia had just left Glasgow and was packed with
Since he began diving in Wallachia in the 1980s, Hickman has collected tens of bottles containing whiskey, gin and beer. But his recent visit, teamwork with several fellow divers, led to something unusual.
The bottles they recovered were turned over to scientists at a research company called Brewlab, who, along with colleagues at the University of Sunderland, was able to extract live yeast from the liquid in three of the bottles. . They then used this yeast in an attempt to recreate the original beer.
In 2018, a similar project in Tasmania used yeast from 220-year-old beer bottles found on a wreck forget close to a drink from the 1700s. But the study of Wallachia yeast revealed a surprise. These beers contained an unusual type of yeast and the team behind the work is now evaluating whether this strain perishes. long overdue could have applications in modern brewing or could even improve the beers of today.
When opened, the beer inside the bottles found on the Wallachia had a far from appetising odour, but the yeast they contain could be invaluable
In any case, there is a
“Yeast species apart from Saccharomyces cerevisiae are often more tolerant of things like using frozen dough and sometimes even have increased lifting capacity, ”Heil explains.
Thomas says he wants to sample and study yeast sealed containers found on even more shipwrecks, or other times well preserved and watered capsules. And by studying the genetics of ancient yeast strains, it might also be possible to identify previously unknown but desirable genes, which might influence genetically modified yeast in the future.
But the Wallachia Wreck is a sobering reminder of how lucky we are to have access to a handful of historic yeasts that keep us alive. can partner with confidence at a specific time and place.
In the 30 or so years since Hickman dived there, he has witnessed the wreckage deteriorating over time. The structures and walkways above and around the engine room collapsed. The cracks in the ship’s ageing walls widened. The ship is disappearing.
“I suspect that maybe in the next 20-30 years it will be completely gone,” he says.
Wallachia will disappear. probably taking her remaining beer bottles with her as she slowly shatters on the seabed. Precious link with 19th-century brewers will finally disappear forever, taking with it the precious yeasts it carries in
Remains of a 3000-year-old shark attack victim discovered in Japan
Newspapers regularly carry stories of terrifying shark attacks, but in a paper published today, Oxford-led researchers reveal their discovery of a 3,000-year-old victim – attacked by a shark in the Seto Inland Sea of the Japanese archipelago.
The research in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, shows that this body is the earliest direct evidence for a shark attack on a human and an international research team has carefully recreated what happened – using a combination of archaeological science and forensic techniques.
The grim discovery of the victim was made by Oxford researchers, J. Alyssa White and Professor Rick Schulting, while investigating the evidence for violent trauma on the skeletal remains of prehistoric hunter-gatherers at Kyoto University.
They came upon No24, from the previously excavated site of Tsukumo, an adult male riddled with traumatic injuries.
‘We were initially flummoxed by what could have caused at least 790 deep, serrated injuries to this man,’ say the Oxford pair. ‘There were so many injuries and yet he was buried in the community burial ground, the Tsukumo Shell-mound cemetery site.’
They continue, ‘The injuries were mainly confined to the arms, legs, and front of the chest and abdomen. Through a process of elimination, we ruled out human conflict and more commonly-reported animal predators or scavengers.’
Since archaeological cases of shark reports are extremely rare, they turned to forensic shark attack cases for clues and worked with expert George Burgess, Director Emeritus of the Florida Program for Shark Research. And reconstruction of the attack was put together by the international team.
The team concluded that the individual died more than 3,000 years ago, between 1370 to 1010 BC. The distribution of wounds strongly suggest the victim was alive at the time of the attack; his left hand was sheared off, possibly a defence wound.
Individual No 24’s body had been recovered soon after the attack and buried with his people at the cemetery. Excavation records showed he was also missing his right leg and his left leg was placed on top of his body in an inverted position.
According to the pair, ‘Given the injuries, he was clearly the victim of a shark attack.
The man may well have been fishing with companions at the time, since he was recovered quickly. And, based on the character and distribution of the tooth marks, the most likely species responsible was either a tiger or white shark.’
Co-author Dr Mark Hudson, a researcher with the Max Planck Institute, says, ‘The Neolithic people of Jomon Japan exploited a range of marine resources…
It’s not clear if Tsukumo 24 was deliberately targeting sharks or if the shark was attracted by blood or bait from other fish. Either way, this find not only provides a new perspective on ancient Japan but is also a rare example of archaeologists being able to reconstruct a dramatic episode in the life of a prehistoric community.’
Dirty secrets: sediment DNA reveals a 300,000-year timeline of ancient and modern humans living in Siberia
In Siberia, researchers lay out a grid in Denisova Cave to systematically sample soil layers for DNA.
Science Magazine reports that analysis of more than 700 soil samples from Siberia’s Denisova Cave has detected traces of modern human DNA, which suggests that modern humans may have occupied the cave alongside Denisovans and Neanderthals.
The group was named “Denisovans” in its honour. Now, an extensive analysis of DNA in the cave’s soils reveals it also hosted modern humans—who arrived early enough that they may have once lived there alongside Denisovans and Neanderthals.
The new study “gives [researchers] unprecedented insight into the past,” says Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a molecular paleoecologist at the University of Copenhagen who was not involved with the work. “It literally shows what [before] they have only been able to hypothesize.”
Humans—including Neanderthals and Denisovans—are known to have occupied Denisova Cave for at least 300,000 years.
Selection of stone tools and personal ornaments made from bone, tooth and ivory recovered from the same sediment layers as modern human ancient DNA.
The cave also contains sophisticated stone tools and jewellery at higher, later levels. But no modern human fossils have been found there.
Those artefacts, extensive studies of DNA from these bones, and even one early study of DNA from soils have cemented the cave’s importance for piecing together human evolution.
But eight fossils are not much to go on, so Elena Zavala, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and colleagues teamed up with Russian researchers to see what kind of DNA was present in the soils of the three-chamber cave (see the video, below).
Researchers have been studying DNA isolated from soils for more than 40 years, including sequencing DNA from permafrost, but only in the past 4 years has anyone found DNA from extinct humans in ancient soils.
Working with another team of experts who had previously dated the layers of the cave, the researchers dug out 728 soil samples. After 2 years of analysis, in which they isolated and sequenced the samples, the researchers found human DNA in 175 of them. That makes the study “the largest and most systematic of its kind,” says Katerina Douka, an archaeological scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who was not involved in the work.
The data reveal a complex history of human and animal habitation, with different groups moving in and out of the cave over time, Zavala and her colleagues report today in Nature. Their work confirms that Denisovans were the cave’s first human inhabitants, about 300,000 years ago.
They disappeared 130,000 years ago, only to be followed by a different group of Denisovans, who likely made many of the stone tools, some 30,000 years later. Neanderthals appeared on the scene about 170,000 years ago, with different groups using the cave at various points in time, some overlapping with the Denisovans.
The last to arrive were modern humans, who showed up about 45,000 years ago. The soil layer that corresponds with that period contained DNA from all three human groups, the researchers report.
“The time periods [of each layer] are quite large, so we can’t concretely say if they overlapped or not,” Zavala says. But, Douka adds, “I cannot think of another site where three human species lived through time.”
Given the jewellery and sophisticated artefacts in later layers, some researchers had suspected moderns had been there. But no one knew they had arrived as early as 45,000 years ago—and overlapped with both of our archaic cousins.
“It suggests a more complicated interplay between archaic and modern humans,” says Ron Pinhasi, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Vienna who was not involved with the work.
The soil samples also yielded DNA from many species of animals. About 170,000 years ago, the climate went from warmer to colder, and Neanderthals moved in, so did different species of hyenas and bears.
It’s the combination of genomic data from both the fossils and the soil samples that really makes the new work stand out, Pinhasi says. “It’s a super promising direction [for future work].” Douka agrees, and says the new study should help ancient soil DNA become “a mainstream archaeological tool.”
She is already amazed at the progress that it, combined with other studies, has made possible. “Let’s not forget that as recently as in 2010 we had absolutely no evidence that Denisovans existed, and that these various hominins ever met, let alone that they interbred repeatedly and co-existed for millennia,” she wrote in an email.
A metal detectorist discovered two ancient and extremely rare gold coins thought to have been lost during the Black Death. Near Reepham, Norfolk, a leopard-shaped 23-carat gold coin was discovered alongside an Edward III golden coin.
The leopard was withdrawn within months of its being minted in 1344 and according to finds liaison officer Helen Geake, hardly any of the coins have survived.
The coins would be worth the equivalent of £12,000 in terms of today’s currency and would have been owned by someone at the top of society’, she told the BBC.
The coins were discovered by a metal detectorist in Reepham, Norfolk in October 2019
‘For some reason, they didn’t catch on, but when one or two pennies were the equivalent of a day’s wages at today’s minimum wage rate, perhaps very few people used them,’ she said.
Called a florin, leopard and a helm, the coinage was an attempt by King Edward III to produce a gold coin suitable to be used in Europe as well as in England.
But, the gold used to strike the coins was overvalued, which resulted in them being unacceptable to the public. Within months, they were melted down to produce the more popular gold noble, worth six shillings and eightpence.
The coin was discovered alongside a rare Edward III noble, thought to date between 1351 and 1352, while the bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, was ravaging Europe.
Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is carried by fleas and transmitted between animals.
The bubonic plague – the most common form – is caused by the bite of an infected flea and can spread through contact with infectious bodily fluids or contaminated materials. Patients may show signs of fever and nausea and at an advanced stage may develop open sores filled with pus.
It devastated Europe in the Middle Ages, most notably in the Black Death of the 1340s which killed a third or more of the continent’s population.
After the Black Death plague became a common phenomenon in Europe, with outbreaks recurring regularly until the 18th century. When the Great Plague of 1665 hit, a fifth of people in London died, with victims shut in their homes and red crosses painted on the door.
Bubonic plague has almost completely vanished from the rich world, with 90 per cent of all cases now found in Africa. It is now treatable with antibiotics, as long as they are administered quickly.
Still, there have been a few non-fatal cases in the U.S., with an average of seven reported a year, according to disease control bosses. From 2010 to 2015 there were 3,248 cases reported worldwide, including 584 deaths, says the World Health Organisation.
Some plague vaccines have been developed, but none are available to the general public. The WHO does not recommend vaccination except for high-risk groups such as health care workers.
Without antibiotics, the bubonic strain can spread to the lungs – where it becomes the more virulent pneumonic form. Pneumonic plague, which can kill within 24 hours, can then be passed on through coughing, sneezing or spitting.
The coins were thought to be lost after the Norman Conquest, as the only coins in circulation were silver pennies.
Dr Geake said no one really knows why Edward III decided to reintroduce the first gold coins in England since the Anglo-Saxon era. The find shows that the leopard, worth three shillings at the time, was in circulation for longer than historians have previously believed.
The coin was discovered alongside a rare Edward III noble, thought to date between 1351/52
But, after looking at the circumstances at the time, they realised that it coincided with the Black Death reaching England in 1348 – a ‘cataclysmic’ event which saw coinage issues drop in priority.
‘Usually the authorities would be keen to remove a withdrawn coin as soon as possible,’ Dr Geake said.
The coins were discovered by a metal detectorist in October 2019.
Is there an ‘underworld’ under the earth, according to a new archaeological find?
Excavations at the Yazlkaya Rock Temple in Turkey, which began over 200 years ago, have uncovered an ancient calendar and a map of the cosmos, both of which provide fascinating evidence.
The paintings in the strange stone carvings, which were probably made about 3,200 years ago, include details of an “underworld” sitting beneath the earth.
Watch an explanation from Luwian Studies University that researched the subject:
In the temple, discovered by a French archaeologist and historian Charles Texier as early as 1834, limestone carvings depicting more than 90 different figures, including animals, monsters and gods, have been found.
It took almost 200 years to decipher the paintings, but researchers have determined that the representations are of a cosmos that includes the Earth, the sky and the “underworld” that show the vitality of the creation myth.
On one wall there are drawings of the goddess of the sun and the goddess of the storm, where one can see that gods were placed in the painting higher than the other figures.
In contrast, on the eastern and western walls of the temple one can see the lesser people, the phases of the moon and the seasons, signifying “cycles and rebirth,” according to the researchers.
Relief with the twelve gods of the underworld at Yazılıkaya Rock Temple
According to estimates, scholars estimate that in those days there were about 17 deities, each with a line marking between the gods. Also, in one of the rooms of the temple was a painting dedicated to the “underworld,” with testimonies of the god of the sword.
“We believe the temple fully represents a symbolic image of the universe, including its static levels – earth, sky and underworld, as well as the cyclical processes of renewal – day and night or summer and winter,” one researcher explained in an interview in an article published in the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology.
Italy said Monday it had recovered from a Belgian collector hundreds of illegally gathered archaeological finds dating as far back as the sixth century BC, worth 11 million euros.
A police officer handles one of the nearly 800 archeological pieces ‘of exceptional rarity and inestimable value’ recovered from a Belgian collector.
The nearly 800 pieces “of exceptional rarity and inestimable value”, including stelae, amphorae and other works, came from clandestine excavations in Apulia in Italy’s southeastern tip, according to the Carabinieri police in charge of cultural heritage.
The investigation began in 2017 after a state archaeology lab in Apulia noticed in European art catalogues that decorative elements from a Daunian funerary stele belonging to a “wealthy Belgian collector” resembled those found within a fragment in a southern Italian museum.
That flat stone slab from Daunia—a historical region of Apulia—in the collection of the Belgian collector was missing a piece in its centre.
An official within the restoration lab noticed that the piece in the museum’s collection completed the design of a shield and a warrior on horseback that was missing on the stele.
“During the course of the search, a veritable ‘archaeological treasure’ was recovered, consisting of hundreds of Apulian figurative ceramic finds and other Daunian stelae, all illegally exported from Italy, which were then seized in Belgium,” read a statement from police.
Italy was able to repatriate the works after all the legal appeals of the collector were dismissed, police said.
Besides stelae, the collection includes vases painted with red figures, amphorae, black glazed ceramics, and numerous terracotta figurines. The pieces date back to between the sixth and third centuries BC.
