EUROPE, GREENLAND, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice

In northwestern Greenland in 1966, US Army scientists drilled through nearly a mile of ice and pulled up a fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt from the bottom. Then this frozen sediment was lost in a freezer for decades. It was accidentally rediscovered in 2017.

Engineers with the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory capture part of an ice core at Camp Century, Greenland, circa 1966.

In 2019, University of Vermont scientist Andrew Christ looked at it through his microscope — and couldn’t believe what he was seeing: twigs and leaves instead of just sand and rock. That suggested that the ice was gone in the recent geologic past — and that a vegetated landscape, perhaps a boreal forest, stood where a mile-deep ice sheet as big as Alaska stands today.

Over the last year, Christ and an international team of scientists — led by Paul Bierman at UVM, Joerg Schaefer at Columbia University, and Dorthe Dahl-Jensen at the University of Copenhagen — have studied these one-of-a-kind fossil plants and sediment from the bottom of Greenland. Their results show that most, or all, of Greenland, must have been ice-free within the last million years, perhaps even the last few hundred thousand years.

Greenland

“Ice sheets typically pulverize and destroy everything in their path,” says Christ, “but what we discovered was delicate plant structures — perfectly preserved. They’re fossils, but they look like they died yesterday. It’s a time capsule of what used to live on Greenland that we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.”

The discovery helps confirm a new and troubling understanding that the Greenland ice has melted off entirely during recent warm periods in Earth’s history — periods like the one we are now creating with human-caused climate change.

Understanding the Greenland Ice Sheet in the past is critical for predicting how it will respond to climate warming in the future and how quickly it will melt. Since some twenty feet of sea-level rise is tied up in Greenland’s ice, every coastal city in the world is at risk. The new study provides the strongest evidence yet that Greenland is more fragile and sensitive to climate change than previously understood — and at grave risk of irreversibly melting off.

“This is not a twenty-generation problem,” says Paul Bierman, a geoscientist at UVM in the College of Arts & Sciences, Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources, and fellow in the Gund Institute for Environment. “This is an urgent problem for the next 50 years.”

The new research was published March 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Beneath the Ice

The material for the new PNAS study came from Camp Century, a Cold War military base dug inside the ice sheet far above the Arctic Circle in the 1960s. The real purpose of the camp was a super-secret effort, called Project Iceworm, to hide 600 nuclear missiles under the ice close to the Soviet Union. As a cover, the Army presented the camp as a polar science station.

A sediment sample from the Camp Century core site.

The military mission failed, but the science team did complete important research, including drilling a 4560-foot-deep ice core. The Camp Century scientists were focused on the ice itself — part of the burgeoning effort at the time to understand the deep history of Earth’s ice ages. They, apparently, took less interest in a bit of dirt gathered from beneath the ice core. Then, in a truly cinematic set of strange plot twists, the ice core was moved from an Army freezer to the University of Buffalo in the 1970s, to another freezer in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the 1990s, where it languished for decades — until it surfaced when the cores were being moved to a new freezer.

For much of the Pleistocene — the icy period covering the last 2.6 million years — portions of the ice on Greenland persisted even during warmer spells called “interglacials.” But most of this general story has been pieced together from indirect evidence in mud and rock that washed off the island and was gathered by offshore ocean drilling. The extent of Greenland’s ice sheet and what kinds of ecosystems existed there before the last interglacial warm period — that ended about 120,000 years ago — have been hotly debated and poorly understood.

The new study makes clear that the deep ice at Camp Century — some 75 miles inland from the coast and only 800 miles from the North Pole — entirely melted at least once within the last million years and was covered with vegetation, including moss and perhaps trees. The new research, supported by the National Science Foundation, lines up with data from two other ice cores from the center of Greenland, collected in the 1990s. Sediment from the bottom of these cores also indicates that the ice sheet was gone for some time in the recent geologic past.

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice
Most of Greenland is covered with ice today. But a new study shows that the deep ice at a site called Camp Century in northwestern Greenland entirely melted at least once within the last million years. The research suggests that the landscape may have instead been covered with green tundra, perhaps like this view of eastern Greenland, near the ocean.

The combination of these cores from the center of Greenland with the new insight from Camp Century in the far northwest gives researchers an unprecedented view of the shifting fate of the entire Greenland ice sheet.

The team of scientists used a series of advanced analytical techniques — none of which were available to researchers fifty years ago — to probe the sediment, fossils, and the waxy coating of leaves found at the bottom of the Camp Century ice core. For example, they measured ratios of rare forms — isotopes — of both aluminum and the element beryllium that form in quartz only when the ground is exposed to the sky and can be hit by cosmic rays. These ratios gave the scientists a window into how long rocks at the surface were exposed vs. buried under layers of ice. This analysis gives the scientists a kind of clock for measuring what was happening in Greenland in the past.

Another test used rare forms of oxygen, found in the ice within the sediment, to reveal that precipitation must have fallen at much lower elevations than the height of the current ice sheet, “demonstrating ice sheet absence,” the team writes.

Combining these techniques with studies of luminescence that estimate the amount of time since sediment was exposed to light, radiocarbon-dating of bits of wood in the ice, and analysis of how layers of ice and debris were arranged — allowed the team to be clear that most, if not all, of Greenland, melted at least once during the past million years — making Greenland green with moss and lichen, and perhaps with spruce and fir trees.

And the new study shows that ecosystems of the past were not scoured into oblivion by ages of glaciers and ice sheets bulldozing overtop. Instead, the story of these living landscapes remains captured under the relatively young ice that formed on top of the ground, frozen in place, and holds them still.

In a 1960’s movie about Camp Century created by the Army, the narrator notes that “more than ninety percent of Greenland is permanently frozen under a polar ice cap.” This new study makes clear that it’s not as permanent as we once thought. “Our study shows that Greenland is much more sensitive to natural climate warming than we used to think — and we already know that humanity’s out-of-control warming of the planet hugely exceeds the natural rate,” says Christ.

“Greenland may seem far away,” says UVM’s Paul Bierman, “but it can quickly melt, pouring enough into the oceans that New York, Miami, Dhaka — pick your city — will go underwater.”

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

An 8,000-Year-Old Platform in Britain Could be the Oldest Boat-building site Ever

An 8,000-Year-Old Platform in Britain Could be the Oldest Boat-building site Ever

The Maritime Archaeological Trust has discovered a new 8,000-year-old structure next to what is believed to be the oldest boat building site in the world on the Isle of Wight.

Director of the Maritime Archaeological Trust, Garry Momber, said: “This new discovery is particularly important as the wooden platform is part of a site that doubles the amount of worked wood found in the UK from a period that lasted 5,500 years.”

The site lies east of Yarmouth, and the new platform is the most intact, wooden Middle Stone Age structure ever found in the UK.

The 8,000-year-old wooden platform following reconstruction.

The site is now 11 meters below sea level and during the period there was human activity on the site, it was dry land with lush vegetation. Importantly, it was at a time before the North Sea was fully formed and the Isle of Wight was still connected to mainland Europe.

The site was first discovered in 2005 and contains an arrangement of trimmed timbers that could be platforms, walkways or collapsed structures.

However, these were difficult to interpret until the Maritime Archaeological Trust used state of the art photogrammetry techniques to record the remains. During the late spring, the new structure was spotted eroding from within the drowned forest.

The first task was to create a 3D digital model of the landscape so it could be experienced by non-divers. It was then excavated by the Maritime Archaeological Trust during the summer and has revealed a cohesive platform consisting of split timbers, several layers thick, resting on horizontally laid round-wood foundations.

An 8,000-Year-Old Platform in Britain Could be the Oldest Boat-building site Ever

Garry continued “The site contains a wealth of evidence for technological skills that were not thought to have been developed for a further couple of thousand years, such as advanced woodworking. This site shows the value of marine archaeology for understanding the development of civilization.

Yet, being underwater, there are no regulations that can protect it. Therefore, it is down to our charity, with the help of our donors, to save it before it is lost forever.”

The Maritime Archaeological Trust is working with the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) to record and study, reconstruct and display the collection of timbers. Many of the wooden artefacts are being stored in the British Ocean Sediment Core Research facility (BOSCORF), operated by the National Oceanography Centre.

As with sediment cores, ancient wood will degrade more quickly if it is not kept in a dark, wet, and cold setting. While being kept cold, dark, and wet, the aim is to remove salt from within wood cells of the timber, allowing it to be analysed and recorded.

This is important because archaeological information, such as cut marks or engravings, are most often found on the surface of the wood and are lost quickly when timber degrades. Once the timbers have been recorded and have desalinated, the wood can be conserved for display.

Dr Suzanne Maclachlan, the curator at BOSCORF, said “It has been really exciting for us to assist the Trust’s work with such unique and historically important artefacts. This is a great example of how the BOSCORF repository is able to support the delivery of a wide range of marine science.”

When diving on the submerged landscape Dan Snow, the history broadcaster and host of History Hit, one of the world’s biggest history podcasts, commented that he was both awestruck by the incredible remains and shocked by the rate of erosion.

Historian Dan Snow inspecting the 8,000-year-old wooden platform off the coast of the Isle of Wight, UK.

This material, coupled with advanced woodworking skills and finely crafted tools suggests a European, Neolithic (New Stone Age) influence. The problem is that it is all being lost. As the Solent evolves, sections of the ancient land surface are being eroded by up to half a metre per year and the archaeological evidence is disappearing.

Research in 2019 was funded by the Scorpion Trust, the Butley Research Group, the Edward Fort Foundation, and the Maritime Archaeology Trust. Work was conducted with the help of volunteers and many individuals who gave their time and often money, to ensure the material was recovered successfully.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Decorative Roof Tiles from Tang Dynasty Temple Analyzed

Decorative Roof Tiles from Tang Dynasty Temple Analyzed

According to a statement released by Kanazawa University, researchers from Kanazawa University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences examined the end caps of more than 400 curved roof tiles recovered from Ximing Temple, which is located at the site of the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618–907) imperial capital in central China.

Decorative Roof Tiles from Tang Dynasty Temple Analyzed

Any visitor to China will have noticed the spectacular roofs on buildings dating from imperial times. However, the question of how these roof tiles were produced has attracted relatively little attention from archaeologists.

Now, a team of researchers has conducted a major study of tile ends unearthed at the Ximing Temple in Xi’an, yielding exciting insights into their production.

In a study published in Archaeological Research in Asia, researchers from Kanazawa University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have revealed the significance of minute variations in the tile ends used in the roof of the famous Ximing Temple in Xi’an, built during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) when Xi’an (then known as Chang’an) was the imperial capital.

The researchers conducted an investigation of 449 tile ends with lotus patterns from various periods during the Tang dynasty that had been recovered from the Ximing Temple.

Basic information about tile ends and imbrices. The figure shows the structure of a tile end and how tile ends and imbrices are used.

“We were interested in the variations in the tile ends, both those within the conscious control of the artisans who made the tiles, such as whether to use simple or complex lotus patterns and those outside their control, such as the marks left by the deterioration of the molds used to make the tiles,” says lead author of the study Meng Lyu.

“We discovered that the degree of minor variation in the tile ends increases significantly in the later samples,” adds author Guoqiang Gong.

“This suggests to us that there was a shift away from the centralized manufacturing of imperial building materials during the Early Tang period toward one in which small private artisans played an important role in the Late Tang period.”

Intriguingly, the study has revealed traces of the coming together of two distinct cultural traditions. “We found that there were, in fact, two separate production systems at work to make the title ends,” notes author Chunlin Li.

“One produced tile ends with compound petal patterns and curved incisions, whereas the other made end tiles with simple petal patterns and scratched incisions.”

These two styles may ultimately have their origins during an earlier historical period when the Northern Wei dynasty was divided into two regimes on either side of the Taihang mountain range.

This study demonstrates that studying the roof tiles of China’s grand imperial buildings can reveal a great deal about the circumstances of their production and yield insights into larger historical questions.

ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

2,700 Year Old Yogi in Samadhi Found in Indus Valley Civilization Archaeological Site

2,700 Year Old Yogi in Samadhi Found in Indus Valley Civilization Archaeological Site

While Yoga is being sold by Corporate Gurus today, it is necessary to remember that Yoga as a system of Spiritual development was in vogue probably by or before the Rig Veda which is dated around 5000 BC.

However, I have provided information that the Vedas date back much earlier, going back to at least 75000 years. While there is no specific reference to Yoga is found in the Vedas, Yoga seems to have been in vogue during that period or earlier.

And while Shiva is not mentioned in detail in the Vedas the Tamil literature speaks of Him. Evidence about Thiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu is 3.94 Billion years and Jwalapuram in Telangana, India being 74000 years old has come to light.

Lord Shiva.

The 2,700-year-old skeletal remains of an ancient yogi sitting in samadhi have been found in an Indus valley civilization archaeological site located at Balathal, Rajasthan.

Many Indus Valley seals depict pictures of yogis sitting in the lotus position. Here are two examples showing ancient yogis sitting in meditation and keeping their hands on their knees as done in modern yoga meditations. If we see the skeletal remains of the yogi above, we can note that his fingers are in gyana mudra (with the thumb touching index finger), resting on his knees as well.

2,700 Year Old Yogi in Samadhi Found in Indus Valley Civilization Archaeological Site
Yogi Remains in Baithal, Padmasana and with Gyan Mudra

Balathal is an archaeological site located in Vallabhnagar tehsil of the Udaipur district of Rajasthan state in western India. This site, located 6 km from Vallabhnagar town and 42 km from Udaipur city, was discovered by V. N. Misra during a survey in 1962-63. Excavation began in 1994 jointly by the Department of Archaeology of the Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Pune and the Institute of Rajasthan Studies, Udaipur.

Excavation of sites from the 4,500-year-old Ahar culture provide clues to the link between the Harappans and their predecessors. That it existed at all was a surprise – a fortified enclosure of mud and brick, comparable to the citadels of the Harappans, spread over 500 sq m. It was filled with ash and cow dung. A people called the Ahars had built it in Balathal near modern Udaipur some 4,500 years ago.

Carbon dating established that they had lived in and around the Mewar region in Rajasthan between 3,500 and 1,800 B.C. They were Mewar’s first farmers, older even than the Harappans. But why had they built a fort only to fill it with ash and cow dung? To solve the mystery, a team of Indian archaeologists excavating the site went on removing layer after layer of civilisation.

The mystery deepened. They found five skeletons, four in layers between 2,000 B.C. and 1,800 B.C. That was the age of stone and copper, the chalcolithic age. This was the first time human skeletons had been found at any Ahar site. The Ahars, it had been thought, cremated their dead. And the Harappans buried theirs.

There are 90 sites of Ahar – a rural society. The recent round of excavations is establishing that Ahar culture and Harappan civilisation were different though contemporary and related. This village life emerged much before the mature Harappan era.

Harappa’s progress in the mature Harappan period (2,500 B.C.) helped the rural Ahar people to flourish and develop their own township and stone and brick houses. On the scale of civilisation, they emerged far ahead of other chalcolithic cultures in the subcontinent.

And they may be the missing link to show how the Indus people made such a quantum leap from small rural communities to an advanced civilisation.

Ahar culture flourished predominantly in the Mewar region of Rajasthan, on the eastern side of the Aravallis, and in undulating rocky plateaus and plains along the Banas River and its tributaries.

In modern Rajasthan, Ahar sites have been reported in Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Dungarpur, Bhilwara, Rajsamand, Bundi, Tonk and Ajmer dotting10,000 sq km. “There is a commonality in all 90-sites located in Southeastern Rajasthan and parts of Madhya Pradesh,” says Jaipur-based Rima Hooja, a scholar on Ahar culture.

Their name comes from a mid-1950s excavation led by R.C. Aggarwal, former director of archaeology, Rajasthan, at Ahar near Udaipur. A few years later, one excavation was carried out at Gilund in Rajsamand and then the focus shifted to the Harappans.

The Deccan College, Pune and Institute of Rajasthan Studies, Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur turned their attention to Ahar culture in 1994 and began excavations in Balathal. Deccan College and the University of Pennsylvania began digging in Gilund in 1999 and the Jaipur circle of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) began excavation at Ojiyana in Bhilwara in 2000. And discoveries began pouring in.

Gwen Robbins, a biological anthropologist from the University of Oregon, USA, in her ongoing preliminary analysis of the bones, found the first skeleton uncovered was of a male. Dead at the age of 50, he suffered from joint disease and had lost all but four of his teeth at least five years before death. On closer inspection of the remains, a left mandible and a few cranial fragments were found to be of a second individual aged 35 whose sex couldn’t be determined.

The third skeleton was of a female approximately 35 years of age. The fourth was of a 35-year-old woman, and it caught the archaeologists’ interest. It had been buried with a small earthen lota (pot) near the head. Why was the lota there? “I am certain that the fortified enclosure had a ritual function,” says Dr V.N. Mishra, former principal of the Deccan College, who led the excavations: “You don’t find such selective burials in cow dung and ash anywhere else.”

The fifth skeleton, from a different era, was of an adult male 35 to 40 years old and had been buried in a seated position that resembles the modern samadhi burial of sadhus who renounce the world. The ritual of burial in ash and cow dung raises the need to look at related traditions in present-day Hindu communities such as Gosain and Jogi which bury their dead.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

2,800-Year-Old Urartu Jars Uncovered In Eastern Turkey

2,800-Year-Old Urartu Jars Uncovered In Eastern Turkey

At this time, using the common hand tool trowel, some researchers are looking into the secrets of an ancient kingdom. Historians believe they have discovered ruins that are estimated to be over 2,800 years old in the eastern Van region, Turkey.

The pithos burial chambers, which are like large ceramic jars, are thought to be from the Kingdom of Urartu, which ruled the country from the mid-ninth century BC until its defeat by the Medes.

Vans was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom until it fell early in the sixth century BC. 

2,800-Year-Old Urartu Jars Uncovered In Eastern Turkey
Painstaking: Archaeologists believe these 2,800-year-old pithos tombs from the Kingdom of Urartu

Every summer a team of around 50 archaeologists take part in an annual excavation at Van Fortress in a bid to uncover treasures that have been buried for thousands of years.

With permission from the country’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism university teams have been working together.

They are currently working at the top of the fortress, where a palace was located, and the northern quarter.

‘Our work is aimed at repairing and further protecting Old Van City,’ Dr Erkan Konyar from Istanbul University said according to Todays Zaman.

‘We are carrying out work to protect the areas that we have worked on in previous years. ‘

Just 38km from Van excavation work is also taking place at Urartu Castle. This year they discovered part of the walls.

Head of Excavation Doç. Dr Mehmet Işıklı, told Hurriyet Daily News: ‘This made us very excited, as even though these walls witnessed great earthquakes, their architecture remained quite robust and unchanged.

The pithos tombs, which are like large ceramic jars. Pictured: An archaeologist working to uncover the resting place
The ancient site where the pithos tombs were discovered thought to be from the Kingdom of Urartu, which ruled from the country from the mid-ninth century BC
ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Archaeologists Discover Additional Dead Sea Scroll Fragments In Desert Caves

Archaeologists Discover Additional Dead Sea Scroll Fragments In Desert Caves

Archaeologists in Israel have found new fragments of a Dead Sea Scroll for the first time in 60 years. The parchment fragments, which number in the hundreds, were most likely buried in a desert cave between 132 and 136 A.D., during the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba rebellion against the Romans.

Archaeologists Discover Additional Dead Sea Scroll Fragments In Desert Caves
Part of the Twelve Minor Prophets scroll, written in Greek.

The 80 or so fragments are inscribed with Greek translations of verse from the biblical books of Zechariah and Nahum, according to Ilan Ben Zion of the Associated Press (AP).

Researchers with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) found the nearly 2,000-year-old scrolls in the Cave of Horror, a site in the Judean Desert that derives its name from the 40 skeletons discovered there during excavations in the 1960s.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish manuscripts penned between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D., include the oldest known fragments of the Hebrew Bible. Modern researchers first learned of the texts’ existence in the 1940s, when local Bedouin shepherds happened upon a set of the scrolls in the Qumran Caves.

According to Haaretz’s Ruth Schuster and Ariel David, the newly discovered bits of parchment appear to be missing sections of a scroll found in the Cave of Horror in 1952. Like the fragments, that scroll bears lines from the Twelve, a book of the Hebrew Bible that contains the writings of 12 minor prophets.

Archaeologists found the scroll fragments at a site known as the Cave of Horror.

Aside from the name of God, which appears in Hebrew, the new scroll fragments are written entirely in Greek. Scholars say the find sheds light on the evolution of biblical texts from their earliest forms.

“When we think about the biblical text, we think about something very static. It wasn’t static. There are slight differences and some of those differences are important,” Joe Uziel, head of the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls unit, tells the AP. “Every little piece of information that we can add, we can understand a little bit better.”

The discovery was part of an Israeli government project launched in 2017 to survey the caves of the Judean Desert and recover artefacts before looters could steal them. Per an IAA statement, researchers had to rappel down a sheer cliff to reach the Cave of Horror, which is surrounded by gorges and located some 260 feet below a clifftop.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind,” says IAA Director Israel Hasson in the statement.

As part of the new research, archaeologists explored a number of desert caves in the area. In addition to the scroll fragments, reports Amanda Borschel-Dan for the Times of Israel, they found an array of artefacts dating to the Bar Kokhba revolt, which saw Jewish rebels using the caves as hideouts.

Highlights of the discovery include a cache of coins bearing Jewish symbols like a harp and a date palm, arrowheads and spear tips, sandals, fabric, and lice combs.

Cache of coins from the period of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome.
Cache of coins from the period of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome.
An archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) shows ancient lice comb from the Bar Kochba Jewish revolt period, excavated from an area in the Judean Desert, after conservation work is done at the IAA’s Dead Sea conservation laboratory in Jerusalem, March 16, 2021.

The team found far older items, too. Youth volunteers participating in the exploration of one of the Muraba’at Caves, for instance, discovered a huge, 24- to 26-gallon basket made 10,500 years ago. As Ella Tercatin writes for the Jerusalem Post, experts think the woven vessel is the oldest of its kind found to date.

Researchers working in the Cave of Horrors also found the 6,000-year-old remains of a child whose body was naturally mummified in the dry cave. Based on a CT scan, they estimate that the individual, likely a girl, was between 6 and 12 years old. They were buried in the fetal position in a shallow pit, with cloth tucked around their body.

“It was obvious that whoever buried the child had wrapped [them] up and pushed the edges of the cloth beneath [them], just as a parent covers [their] child in a blanket,” says IAA prehistorian Ronit Lupu in the statement. “A small bundle of cloth was clutched in the child’s hands.”

Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in caves along the coast of the Dead Sea in what’s now Israel and the West Bank, date to between the second century B.C. and second century A.D. Per the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, the scrolls have helped scholars understand different Jewish sects that were active during that period.

As Andrew Lawler reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2010, researchers found around 15,000 scroll fragments between the late 1940s and early 1960s.

Some of the scrolls include texts that are remarkably similar to later versions of biblical books, but with some subtle differences and additional material. Others set out regulations, forming the basis for legal commentaries in the Talmud.

Hasson says that the discoveries point to the importance of putting resources into a continued exploration of the caves.

“We must ensure that we recover all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves before the robbers do,” he adds in the statement. “Some things are beyond value.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Oldest woven basket in the world found in Israel dates back 10,000 years

Oldest woven basket in the world found in Israel dates back 10,000 years

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered several 2,000-year-old biblical scroll fragments, a 6,000-year-old skeleton, ancient coins and what is thought to be the world’s oldest woven basket in a cave, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Tuesday.

The basket was found empty and closed with a lid. Only a small amount of soil was retrieved in it and the researchers hope it will help identify what the vessel contained.

A perfectly preserved large woven basket dating back some 10,500 years was unearthed in the Judean Desert, the Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday.

The 10,500-year-old basket as found in Muraba‘at Cave.

Experts believe the artefact is probably the oldest of its kind ever uncovered. It was excavated in a Judean Desert cave by the IAA in cooperation with the Civil Administration’s Archaeology Department.
“This is the most exciting discovery that I have encountered in my life,” Dr Haim Cohen said during a press briefing at the IAA lab in Jerusalem.

Materials from four different parts of the basket were analyzed to date. The researchers concluded that the object was manufactured around 10,500 years ago during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period.

“The basket has a capacity of some 92 litres,” Cohen said. “We do not know yet which type of plant was used to make it, but we are looking into it. However, we can already say that two people wove it and that one of them was left-handed.”

The basket was found empty and closed with a lid. Only a small amount of soil was retrieved in it, and the researchers hope it will help identify what the vessel contained.

According to Cohen, the ancient people who manufactured it probably did not live in the cave but rather used it for storage.

The archaeologists found evidence that antiquities looters had probably arrived some 10 km. from the artefact, but they stopped excavating just before reaching it.

The rescue operation aims at surveying hundreds of caves in the Judean Desert to trace and preserve the antiquities that are still hidden there before they are retrieved and sold on the private market, as has happened in the past.

“Organic materials usually do not have the ability to survive for such long periods,” Dr Naama Sukenik from the IAA’s Organic Material Department told The Jerusalem Post. “However, the special climatic condition of the Judean Desert, its dry weather, have allowed for dozens of artefacts to last for centuries and millennia.”

Among other items, the archaeologists have found fragments of textiles still carrying their bright colours dating back to the Roman period, parts of sandals, a small comb with 2,000-year-old lice stuck between its teeth, seeds and pieces of rope.

Dozens of scroll fragments from a biblical scroll dating back some 2,000 years were also unearthed in the first discovery of its kind in decades.

About half of the area still remains to be surveyed and shed further light into life in Israel over the course of millennia.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Chinese mummy suggests brain surgery was carried out 3,600 years ago

Chinese mummy suggests brain surgery was carried out 3,600 years ago

A three-and-a-half-millennia-old skull has uncovered evidence of an early form of brain surgery. The mummified woman’s perforated skull was discovered in the Xiaohe tomb in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Experts said that the hole, which measures around 2 inches (50mm) in diameter, was most likely an early form of craniotomy. The amount of skull removed depends on the type of surgery being performed, and the flap is later replaced using screws.

It may have also been a form of trepanation, which involves the removal of a piece of bone from the skull. This procedure has been performed since prehistoric times, and cave paintings indicate that ancient people believed the practise would cure epileptic seizures, headaches and mental disorders.

The perforated skull (pictured) was discovered as part of a mummified body of a woman in the ‘Little River’ Xiaohe tomb complex.  Experts said that the hole, measuring around 2 inches (50mm) in diameter, was most likely an early form of craniotomy – a procedure that involves removing bone to get access to the brain
The wound suggests that the female (pictured), who died in her 40s, must have lived for at least a month, or even longer, after receiving the surgery

Lead archaeologist Zhu Hong who made the discovery said: ‘[The wound] suggests the female, who died in her 40s, must have lived for at least a month, or even longer, after receiving the surgery.’

He added there were also signs of healing tissues around the wound. The mummy dates back to 1,615 BC and is one of the hundreds discovered in the Xiaohe ‘Little River’ Tomb complex.

Lying 108 miles (175 km) west of the ancient city of Loulan, the site was first explored in 1934 by Swedish archaeologist Folke Bergman, but not fully excavated until 2005.

Dating of the area has shown it goes back to approximately 2,000 BC, although tests have revealed the bodies contain DNA from the east and west. 

In particular, males were found to have chromosomes typically found in Northern and Eastern Europe, alongside DNA found in Siberia. The massive burial site has more than 330 graves and contains the largest number of mummies ever found in the world.

These tombs include adults and children as well as 15 intact mummies, although approximately half of the tombs were said to have been looted by grave robbers. 

The majority of the coffins found on the site were made of wood, and were shaped like boats, buried upside down. This practice is similar to how the Egyptians believed boats would take Pharaohs to the land of the ‘Gods’

The massive burial site has more than 330 graves and contains the largest number of mummies ever found in the world. These tombs include adults and children as well as 15 intact mummies. The majority of the coffins found on the site were made of wood, and were shaped like boats (pictured) buried upside down

Clothes and jewellery found in the tomb were also buried alongside the mummies, in small baskets, and the bodies were wrapped in cowhide and wool. 

This prevented sand from getting inside the corpses.  In addition to the wood coffins, four clay-covered rectangular coffins were also found, surrounded by stakes. 

And six of the coffins were found to contain wooden ‘bodies’, rather than corpses.  Each of these wooden sculptures was the same shape and were designed to look like males.  Sexual iconography was everywhere at the site, with posts representing phalluses and vulvas placed in front of each grave. 

Sientists recreated ancient brain surgery to understand medical techniques that existed almost 2,500 years ago. A team of experts in Russia spent the past year examining skulls found with intricate surgical holes in a bid to fathom out how early nomadic doctors carried out their work.

This practice is similar to how the Egyptians believed boats would take Pharaohs to the land of the ‘Gods’. Clothes and jewellery found in the tomb were also buried alongside the mummies, in small baskets, and the bodies (pictured) were wrapped in cowhide and wool. This prevented sand from getting inside the corpses
Scientists recreated ancient brain surgery on a modern skull (shown) to understand medical techniques that existed almost 2,500 years ago. A team of experts in Russia spent the past year examining skulls found with intricate surgical holes in a bid to fathom out how early nomadic doctors worked.
Evidence from ancient skulls (pictured) suggest they are among the earliest ever examples of trepanation – an ancient form of neurosurgery

Evidence suggested they were among the earliest ever examples of trepanation – the oldest form of known neurosurgery – with the procedures skillfully carried out. The oldest samples of skulls with boreholes drilled into them were found in a burial site in France dating back to 6500 BC.

But it was also used by the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Romans, Greeks and the early Mesoamerican civilisations. Even the ‘father of medicine Hippocrates advocated the process in his 400 BC tome ‘On Injuries of the Head’.

The procedure was carried out by Aleksei Krivoshapkin according to ancient methods used in the Altai Mountains on the skull of a woman who had died of natural causes shortly before.

Analysis of the skulls of ancient patients found that the operations were carried out with only one tool, a bronze knife, with the surgeons, carefully scraping at the skull, yet leaving behind only minimal traces of their work.

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