ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Archaeologists say they’ve found a massive underground structure that could be four times the size of Stonehenge

Archaeologists say they’ve found a massive underground structure that could be four times the size of Stonehenge

Archaeologists have confirmed that the ruins of a significant, modern prehistoric stone monument, buried less than 3 kilometres (186 miles) from Stonehenge have been identified.

Artist’s concept of how the stones at Durrington Walls may have been positioned.

The site is 15 times the size of Stonehenge. The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project team – a group of British archaeologists – used multi-sensor technologies to reveal evidence for a row of about 90 standing stones hidden beneath the bank of what is now called Durrington Walls, a super-henge in Britain.

Durrington Walls is one of the largest known henge monuments measuring 500 meters (0.3 miles) in diameter. It’s thought to have been built around 4,500 years ago.

The word henge refers to a particular type of earthwork, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area. Henges may have contained (or may still contain) ritual structures such as stone circles, timber circles and coves.

Durrington Walls may have contained an ancient village at one time. The henge surrounds several smaller enclosures and timber circles and is associated with a recently excavated later Neolithic settlement.

The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project team, using non-invasive geophysical prospection and remote sensing technologies, discovered evidence for a row of up to 90 standing stones, some of which may have originally measured up to 4.5 meters (14.8 feet) in height. Many of these stones have survived because they were pushed over and the massive bank of the later henge raised over the recumbent stones or the pits in which they stood.

These stones have been hidden for millennia.

Durrington Walls is less than 3 kilometres (1.86 miles) from Stonehenge. It is a circular earthwork, some 15 times larger than Stonehenge.
Artist’s concept of standing stones beneath Durrington Walls super-henge.

At Durrington, more than 4.5 thousand years ago, a natural depression near the river Avon appears to have been accentuated by a chalk cut scarp and then delineated on the southern side by the row of massive stones. Essentially forming a C-shaped ‘arena’, the monument may have surrounded traces of springs and a dry valley leading from there into the Avon.

Although none of the stones has yet been excavated, researchers are interested in a unique sarsen standing stone – a kind of sandstone boulder – which they are calling the Cuckoo Stone, in the adjacent field.

The researchers say this particular stone suggests that other stones may have come from local sources.

“Cuckoo Stone” in a field near Durrington Walls. Researchers are interested in this stone as being possibly related to the stones buried beneath the structure.

Previous, intensive study of the area around Stonehenge had led archaeologists to believe that only Stonehenge and a smaller henge at the end of what researchers call Stonehenge Avenue possessed significant stone structures. The researchers now say:

The latest surveys now provide evidence that Stonehenge’s largest neighbour, Durrington Walls, had an earlier phase which included a large row of standing stones probably of local origin and that the context of the preservation of these stones is exceptional and the configuration unique to British archaeology.

Radar evidence for hidden stones at Durrington Walls.

The earthwork enclosure at Durrington Walls was built about a century after the Stonehenge sarsen circle (in the 27th century BC), but archaeologists say the new stone row could be contemporary with or earlier than this.

Paul Garwood, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Birmingham is the principal prehistorian on the project. Garwood said in a statement:

The extraordinary scale, detail and novelty of the evidence produced by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, which the new discoveries at Durrington Walls exemplify, is changing fundamentally our understanding of Stonehenge and the world around it.

Everything written previously about the Stonehenge landscape and the ancient monuments within it will need to be re-written.

Artist concept of standing stones at Durrington Walls.
ASIA, INDIA, WORLD

8th-Century A.D. Rock-Cut Temple Revealed in India

8th-Century A.D. Rock-Cut Temple Revealed in India

On the banks of the Arjuna River at Sivakasi ‘s M Pudhupatti village in India, a three-chambered rock-covered temple, believed to be 1,200 years old, has been identified.

The three-chambered historical site is on banks of Arjuna River at Sivakasi’s M Pudhupatti village; no idols, statues of god identified so far
 

The building, cut in the side of a limestone rock, was riddled with thickets and debris until a week ago when residents in the locality chanced upon it.

While archaeologists have identified the structure as a rock-cut temple,no idol, statue, or relief of gods or goddesses has so far been identified inside the temple’s three chambers — the garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum), ardhamandapam, and maha mandapam. A 20-feet long limestone mound marks the entrance to it. There are traces of cement on the walls and in the ceiling.

Archeologists believe these might have been part of the repair carried out by devotees around 100 years ago.

At several places inside the structure, the limestone is falling apart; there is a massive hole in the ceiling of the maha mandapam. Retired assistant director of the State Archeology Department Dr C Santhalingam said, “The temple is unique in three aspects.

First: It is a Sandhara-type of temple. There is no identified Sandhara-type rock-cut temple in India”. These temples have a circumambulatory passage (pradakshinapath) around the shrine.

Not all temples have these passages, said sources. “Second: The temple has two circumambulatory passages; this is very rare. While one passage moves in a clockwise direction from the ardhamandapam, the second one is adjacent to the mahamandapam,” he added. 

“Third: The temple is carved entirely out of limestone,” he said. The stone is considered an inferior type owing to its features. “This is the reason why there is no artistic design, sculpture, or carving in the temple. However, there are niches on both the sides of the entrance to the garbagriha.

Moreover, there is a stone naga statue in the garbagriha,” said Santhalingam. The residents might have placed it there over a century ago to offer worship. The interior of the structure and the surrounding riverbank were cleaned by the local body.

‘From the Pandian Era’

The temple belongs to the early-Pandian era, around 8th century CE. It is similar to the Valli cave temple in Tiruchendur, which is carved out of sandstone, a rock similar in features to limestone, Santhalingam said. 

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

Ancient Irish DNA reveals incredible secrets, including Down Syndrome

Ancient Irish DNA reveals incredible secrets, including Down Syndrome

In the earliest periods of Irish history, archaeologists and geneticists led by those from Trinity have shed new light.

The Poulnabrone portal dolmen in County Clare where the fascinating discovery was made.

The amazing findings of this study include an adult male genome hidden in the heart of the Newgrange passage tomb points to first-degree incest, implying he was among a ruling social elite akin to the similarly inbred Inca god-kings and Egyptian pharaohs.

Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland is world-famous for its annual solar alignment where the winter solstice sunrise illuminates its sacred inner chamber in a golden blast of light. However, little is known about who was interred in the heart of this imposing 200,000 tonnes monument or of the Neolithic society which built it over 5,000 years ago.

The survey of ancient Irish genomes, published in Nature, suggests a man who had been buried in this chamber belonged to a dynastic elite.

The research, led by the team from Trinity, was carried out in collaboration with colleagues from University College London, NUIG, University College Cork, University of Cambridge, Queen’s University Belfast, Sligo Institute of Technology and the National Monuments Service, with support from the National Museum of Ireland and National Museums Northern Ireland.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” said Lara Cassidy, professor at Trinity College Dublin, first author of the paper. “We all inherit two copies of the genome, one from our mother and one from our father; well, this individual’s copies were extremely similar, a tell-tale sign of close inbreeding. In fact, our analyses allowed us to confirm that his parents were first-degree relatives.”

Matings of this type (e.g. brother-sister unions) are a near universal taboo for entwined cultural and biological reasons. The only confirmed social acceptances of first-degree incest are found among the elites – typically within a deified royal family.

By breaking the rules, the elite separates itself from the general population, intensifying hierarchy and legitimising power. Public ritual and extravagant monumental architecture often co-occur with dynastic incest, to achieve the same ends.

“Here the auspicious location of the male skeletal remains is matched by the unprecedented nature of his ancient genome,” said Professor of Population Genetics at Trinity, Dan Bradley. “The prestige of the burial makes this very likely a socially sanctioned union and speaks of a hierarchy so extreme that the only partners worthy of the elite were family members.”

The team also unearthed a web of distant familial relations between this man and other individuals from sites of the passage tomb tradition across the country, including the mega-cemeteries of Carrowmore and Carrowkeel in Co. Sligo.

“It seems what we have here is a powerful extended kin-group, who had access to elite burial sites in many regions of the island for at least half a millennium,” added Cassidy.

Remarkably, a local myth resonates with these results and the Newgrange solar phenomenon. First recorded in the 11th century AD, four millennia after construction, the story tells of a builder-king who restarted the daily solar cycle by sleeping with his sister.

The Middle Irish place name for the neighbouring Dowth passage tomb, Fertae Chuile, is based on this lore and can be translated as “Hill of Sin.”

“Given the world-famous solstice alignments of Brú na Bóinne, the magical solar manipulations in this myth already had scholars questioning how long an oral tradition could survive,” said Ros Ó Maoldúin, an archaeologist on the study. “To now discover a potential prehistoric precedent for the incestuous aspect is extraordinary.”

The genome survey stretched over two millennia and unearthed other unexpected results. Within the oldest known burial structure on the island, Poulnabrone portal tomb, the earliest yet diagnosed case of Down Syndrome was discovered in a male infant who was buried there five and a half thousand years ago.

Poulnabrone tomb, in The Burren, County Clare.

Additionally, the analyses showed that the monument builders were early farmers who migrated to Ireland and replaced the hunter-gatherers who preceded them. However, this replacement was not absolute; a single western Irish individual was found to have an Irish hunter-gatherer in his recent family tree, pointing toward a swamping of the earlier population rather than an extermination.

Genomes from the rare remains of Irish hunter-gatherers themselves showed they were most closely related to the hunter-gatherer populations from Britain (e.g. Cheddar Man) and mainland Europe.

However, unlike British samples, these earliest Irelanders had the genetic imprint of a prolonged island isolation. This fits with what we know about prehistoric sea levels after the Ice Age: Britain maintained a land bridge to the continent long after the retreat of the glaciers, while Ireland was separated by sea and its small early populations must have arrived in primitive boats.

AFRICA, SUDAN, WORLD

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war 13,000 years ago

Saharan remains may be evidence of first race war 13,000 years ago

Humans’ remains of people killed 13,000 years ago in what scientists believe is the oldest identified race war, are today due to going on display at the British Museum in London.

Two skeletons from a massacre in the Sahara desert in 11,000BC, which killed at least 26 people, will be shown in the new Ancient Egypt gallery, alongside the flint-tipped weapons with which they were killed.

French scientists have been working with the museum to examine dozens of skeletons that were found grouped together in the Jebel Sahaba cemetery – one of the earliest organized burial grounds – on the east bank of the Nile, northern Sudan, in the 1960s.

A pair of skeletons belonging to people who were killed on a massacre 13,000 years ago as the result of climate change is going on show in the British Museum, London. Pencils pinpoint out pieces of weaponry responsible for their demise

They believe the remains of the 60 individuals found – around half of which had cut marks on their bones – represent the first communal violence between groups.

Fighting probably broke out because of the environmental disaster of the Ice Age, which caused the attackers and victims to live together in a smaller area, the experts explained.

Renee Friedman, the museum’s curator of early Egypt, told The Times that the attackers and victims were hunter-gatherers who usually avoided violence by moving on when a certain area became overcrowded.

But she believed that the cold and dry conditions of the Nile valley around that time caused a ‘population crisis’, as more people moved to the same area surrounded by desert.

She said: ‘Things were probably very tight, so we think that people started picking on one another.’

The museum acquired the remains in 2002 when they were donated by Fred Wendorf, an American archaeologist who excavated the site in the 1960s.

At least 60 individuals were found and examined using modern technology. One body was found with 39 pieces of flint from arrows and other flint-tipped weapons, Dr. Friedman said.

The cemetery was discovered in 1965. It contained at least 61 individuals dating back about 13,000 years ago. The graveyard (illustrated showing the position in which the skeletons were found,) is one of the earliest formal cemeteries in the world
French scientists have been working with The British Museum to examine dozens of skeletons that were found grouped together in the Jebel Sahaba cemetery. An image of excavations at Jebel Sahaba
in 1965 is pictured
They believe the remains of the 60 individuals found (a skull is pictured) represent the first communal violence between groups because almost half the remains have cut marks on them

As well as the human remains, the display will include flint arrowhead fragments and a healed forearm fracture, which was most likely sustained by a victim who was trying to defend himself during the conflict.

Over the past two years, anthropologists from Bordeaux University have managed to find dozens of previously undetected conflict marks on the victims’ bones.

The British Museum scientists are now planning to research more about the victims themselves, including their gender, age, and diet.

Meanwhile, according to The Independent, work carried out at Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Alaska, and New Orleans’ Tulane University suggests these humans were part of the general sub-Saharan originating population, who were ancestors of modern Black Africans.

Dr. Daniel Antoine, a curator in the British Museum’s Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department, told the paper: ‘The skeletal material is of great importance – not only because of the evidence for conflict but also because the Jebel Sahaba cemetery is the oldest discovered in the Nile valley so far.’

EUROPE, POLAND, WORLD

1,000-year-old Christian cemetery yields terrifying discoveries

1,000-year-old Christian cemetery yields terrifying discoveries

It is suspected that the nearly 1,000-year-old find is the oldest known Christian burial site in north Poland’s Dobrzyn Region. In the year 966 Poland formally accepted Christianity, switching from paganism to Catholicism.

In the village of Starorypin Prywatny, archaeologists have now discovered possible proof of Christianity, unearthing the corpses of women and children in 30 graves.

Lead archaeologist Dr Jadwiga Lewandowska of the Dobrzyn Land Museum in Rypin said: “Until now, based on uncovered artefacts, we thought the necropolis dated back to the 12th century.

“Thanks to the physicochemical analysis of bones discovered last year, we know that it already existed in the middle of the 11th century.”

The burial site yielded a number of gruesome discoveries, including the body of a woman with a boulder on her chest. Another woman was buried on her side in the foetal position. It is likely the woman was tied up when she was buried.

A 1,000-year-old cemetery was discovered in northern Poland

And the majority of the bodies uncovered at the site were of children. These were children aged two-and-a-half to four-years-old. One of the burials also appears to have been a premature birth.

Professor Krzysztof Szostka of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw said: “What is interesting, it was in this grave that we found probably the most beautiful necklace we have so far been able to find at the cemetery.”

The oldest corpses were of men aged 40 to 45-years-old. And the women were all likely aged 25 to 30-years-old. The corpses all featured grounded down teeth, which is a sign of a diet heavy in poorly refined flour.

Alongside the corpses, the archaeologists discovered a number of small metallic crosses – evidence of the denizens’ Christian faith.

Dr Lewandowska said: “The wealth of the deceased’s items surprised us.”

From the 13th century and onwards, Christians were buried without personal effects.

And the cemetery is likely to yield many more discoveries in the years to come as only a small fraction of it has been explored so far. The 30 graves are part of a necropolis believed to cover nearly five acres of land.

So far, the archaeologists have only explored a few hundred square metres of it. The cemetery was discovered in a cornfield and, unfortunately, many of its graves have been destroyed by the ploughing of the land.

None of the bodies unearthed at the site has been linked to other religious practices outside of Christianity. The archaeologists believe this is good sign Christianity reached this part of Poland earlier than the mid-11th century.

ASIA, CHINA, WORLD

Rare 6-Million-Year-Old Skull of Juvenile Ape Discovered

Rare 6-Million-Year-Old Skull of Juvenile Ape Discovered

A new cranium of a fossil ape from Shuitangba, a Miocene site in Yunnan province, China has been confirmed by a team of scientists. Dr Denise Su, curator of palaeobotany and paleoecology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, co-authored research describing the new skull published online in the Chinese Science Bulletin.

A significant discovery is the new juvenile cranium of the fossil ape Lufengpithecus, since juvenile crania of apes and hominins are extremely rare in fossil records, particularly those of infants and young juveniles.

The latest find cranium is just the second relatively complete cranium of a young juvenile in the entire Miocene (23 to 5 million years ago) record of fossil apes all over the Old World, and both were discovered from the late Miocene of Yunnan Province.

An extremely rare juvenile skull of an extinct ape that lived some 6 million years ago has now been revealed from China.

The new cranium is also noteworthy for its age. Shuitangba, the site from which it was recovered, at just over 6 million years, dates to near the end of the Miocene, a time when apes had become extinct in most of Eurasia.

Shuitangba has also produced remains of the fossil monkey, Mesopithecus, which represents the earliest occurrence of monkeys in East Asia.

The Shuitangba site in China, where an extremely rare juvenile skull of an extinct ape has now been revealed.

The preservation of the new cranium is excellent, which is important because all previously discovered adult crania of the species to which it is assigned, Lufengpithecus lufengensis, were badly crushed and distorted during the fossilization process.

In living ape species, cranial anatomy in individuals at the same stage of development as the new fossil cranium already show a close resemblance to those of adults. Therefore, this fossil gives researchers the best look at the cranial anatomy of the species.

The team notes that the new cranium shows little resemblance to those of living orangutans, and in particular, shows none of what are considered to be key diagnostic features of orangutan crania.

Lufengpithecus, therefore, appears to represent a late surviving lineage of Eurasian apes, but with no certain affinities yet clear.

The survival of this lineage is not entirely surprising since southern China was less affected by the climatic deterioration during the later Miocene that resulted in the extinction of many ape species throughout the rest of Eurasia.

The researchers are hopeful that renewed excavations will produce the remains of adult individuals, which will allow them to better assess both the relationships among members of this lineage as well as the relationships of this lineage to other fossil and living apes.

“In addition to the ape, we have recovered hundreds of specimens of other animals and plants,” said Su.

“We are looking forward to going back to Shuitangba next year to continue fieldwork and, hopefully, find more specimens of not only the ape but other animals and plants that will tell us more about the environment.

Given what we have recovered so far, Shuitangba has great potential to help us learn more about the environment in the latest part of the Miocene in southern China and the evolution of the plants and animals found there.”

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

8,600 years old Textile tools found in western Turkey

8,600 years old Textile tools found in western Turkey

The excavation site in Ekşi Höyük, one of the oldest settlements in western Anatolia, located in the present-day Denizli province, western Turkey.

Hurriyet Daily News reports that 8,600-year-old textile tools have been uncovered in western Anatolia at the ancient settlement site of Ekşi Höyük.

Fulya Dedeoğlu of Ege University said the bone needles and round stones for spinning thread were found in a building dated to the Neolithic period. 

Bone needles and round stones used for spinning thread dating back some 8,600 years were found in an excavation site in Ekşi Höyük, one of the oldest settlements in western Anatolia, located in the present-day Denizli province.

“During excavations carried out in this Neolithic-era settlement, we discovered some of the first tools used for textiles in history,” Ege University’s Fulya Dedeoğlu, head of the excavation team, told Anadolu Agency (AA).

“The architectural remains here are in very good condition. You can see all of the typical materials of the era here.”

Archaeologists in western Turkey have discovered textile tools nearly twice as old as Egypt’s Great Pyramids.

She added: “One of the most striking things we found is the needle bones, which we think date back to 8,600 years ago, and carved round stones for spinning thread.”

She stressed that Denizli is known for its history in textiles and that many bone needles used in textiles were found at the excavation site.

“The findings here prove that the textile tradition in Denizli dates back to earlier times. We’ve discovered them in a building that we think was built in 6400 B.C.,” Dedeoğlu added.

Along with Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry, academics from universities across the country are helping in the excavations, which started in 2015.

AFRICA, KENYA, WORLD

People Lived in This Cave for 78,000 Years

People Lived in This Cave for 78,000 Years

A large cave site was identified by an international interdisciplinary group of scholars operating along the east coast of Africa that documented significant activities of hunter-gatherers and later, Iron Age communities.

Detailed environmental research has demonstrated that human occupations occur in a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, adding new information about the habitats exploited by our species, and indicating that populations sought refuge in a relatively stable environment.

Prior to this cave excavation, little information was available about the last 78,000 years from coastal East Africa, with the majority of archaeological research focused on the Rift Valley and in South Africa.

Humans lived in the humid coastal forest

A large-scale interdisciplinary study, including scientific analyses of archaeological plants, animals, and shells from the cave indicates a broad perseverance of forest and grassland environments.

As the cave environment underwent little variation over time, humans found the site attractive for occupation, even during periods of time when other parts of Africa would have been inhospitable.

This suggests that humans exploited the cave environment and landscape over the long term, relying on plant and animal resources when the wider surrounding landscapes dried.

The ecological setting of Panga ya Saidi is consistent with increasing evidence that Homo sapiens could adapt to a variety of environments as they moved across Africa and Eurasia, suggesting that flexibility may be the hallmark of our species.

Shipton et al report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya.

Homo sapiens developed a range of survival strategies to live in diverse habitats, including tropical forests, arid zones, coasts, and the cold environments found at higher latitudes.

Technological innovations occur at 67,000 years ago

Carefully prepared stone tool toolkits of the Middle Stone Age occur in deposits dating back to 78,000 years ago, but a distinct shift in technology to the Later Stone Age is shown by the recovery of small artifacts beginning at 67,000 years ago.

The miniaturization of stone tools may reflect changes in hunting practices and behaviors. The Panga ya Saidi sequence after 67,000, however, has a mix of technologies, and no radical break of behavior can be detected at any time, arguing against the cognitive or cultural ‘revolutions’ theorized by some archaeologists.

Moreover, no notable break in human occupation occurs during the Toba volcanic super-eruption of 74,000 years ago, supporting views that the so-called ‘volcanic winter’ did not lead to the near-extinction of human populations, though hints of increased occupation intensity from 60,000 years ago suggest that populations were increasing in size.

Earliest symbolic and cultural items found at Panga ya Saidi cave

The deep archaeological sequence of Panga ya Saidi cave has produced a remarkable new cultural record indicative of cultural complexity over the long term.

Among the recovered items are worked and incised bones, ostrich eggshell beads, marine shell beads, and worked ochre. Panga ya Saidi has produced the oldest bead in Kenya, dating to ~65,000 years ago.

At about 33,000 years ago, beads were most commonly made of shells acquired from the coast. While this demonstrates contact with the coast, there is no evidence for the regular exploitation of marine resources for subsistence purposes.

Ostrich eggshell beads become more common after 25,000 years ago, and after 10,000 years ago, there is again a shift to coastal shell use.

In the layers dating to between ~48,000 to 25,000 years ago, carved bone, carved tusk, a decorated bone tube, a small bone point, and modified pieces of ochre were found. Though indicative of behavioral complexity and symbolism, their intermittent appearance in the cave sequence argues against a model for a behavioral or cognitive revolution at any specific point in time.

Project Principal Investigator and Director of the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Dr. Nicole Boivin states, “The East African coastal hinterland and its forests and have been long considered to be marginal to human evolution so the discovery of Panga ya Saidi cave will certainly change archaeologists’ views and perceptions.”

Group Leader of the Stable Isotopes Lab Dr. Patrick Roberts adds, “Occupation in a tropical forest-grassland environment adds to our knowledge that our species lived in a variety of habitats in Africa.”

“The finds at Panga ya Saidi undermine hypotheses about the use of coasts as a kind of ‘superhighway’ that channeled migrating humans out of Africa, and around the Indian Ocean rim,” observes Professor Michael Petraglia.

All In One Magazine