NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

More evidence shows Vikings came to North America before Columbus

More evidence shows Vikings came to North America before Columbus

More evidence shows Vikings came to North America before Columbus

Although the discovery of North America is synonymous with Christopher Columbus, new research reveals that Viking sailors landed on the shores of North America about 700 years before Columbus.

Archaeologists from the University of Iceland came to this conclusion after analyzing wood recovered from five Norse farmsteads in Greenland, according to a study recently published in the journal Antiquity.

Microscopic analysis of wood suggests that Norse people in Greenland were using timber that came from North America over 700 years ago.

The study focused on the timber used in Norse sites in Greenland between 1000 and 1400. According to the findings, some of the wood came from trees grown outside of Greenland.

As part of the study, 8,552 pieces of wood were examined to determine their origin. Only 26 pieces, or 0.27 percent of the total assemblage, belonged to trees that were definitively imported. These were oak, hemlock, beech, and Jack pine.

“These findings highlight the fact that Norse Greenlanders had the means, knowledge, and appropriate vessels to cross the Davis Strait to the east coast of North America, at least up until the 14th century,” archaeologist Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir from the University of Iceland says.

A study of wood reveals Vikings were traveling to North America around 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

“The wood taxa identified in this study show, without doubt, that the Norse harvested timber resources in North America,” researchers said, adding that the trees could have been felled near the Gulf of St. Lawrence in far eastern Canada.

The few pieces of American wood were only found at one farm known as Garðar, the most prominent of the group.

“This suggests that high-status farms such as Garðar were probably the only settlements that had both the need and the means to acquire North American timber,” researchers said.

Historical records have long suggested that medieval Norse Greenlandic society (985-1450 CE) imported timber from the Americas, but this is some of the first scientific evidence to support the claim.

According to a new study on timber, these epic journeys may have been undertaken in order to hunt for resources.

According to a 13th-century Norwegian text called Konungsskuggsjá, “everything that is needed to improve the land must be purchased abroad, both iron and all the timber used in building houses.”

Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga rauða, describe journeys between Greenland to the North American east coast as early as 1000 CE.

Locations of resource areas and potential import routes Figure from the journal Antiquity

There is sturdy evidence to back up this idea. Texts from 14th-century Italy speak of Norsemen making direct contact with a place called Markland, thought to be part of the Labrador coast in Canada.

As for hard evidence of Norse settlements in North America, archeologists in the 1960s excavated a Viking village on the island of Newfoundland that dates to approximately 1,000 years ago. Known as the L’Anse aux Meadows, it’s widely considered to be the earliest evidence of European presence in North America.

According to researchers, the study’s results appear to support claims made in medieval texts that wood was brought from the New World to Europe.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Remains of Child Mill Workers Examined in Northern England

Remains of Child Mill Workers Examined in Northern England

Remains of Child Mill Workers Examined in Northern England
The excavation site in Fewston, North Yorkshire, where the remains were discovered.

Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence of the harrowing lives of children known as “pauper apprentices” who were forced into labour during industrialization in England.

A team of experts analyzed the skeletal remains of more than 150 individuals from a rural churchyard cemetery in the village of Fewston, North Yorkshire.

Most of the remains belonged to young people aged between eight and 20.

Results showed evidence of stunted growth and malnutrition in the children, as well as signs of diseases associated with hazardous labour.

The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Plos One, shed light on these forgotten children who were transported from workhouses in London and forced to work long hours in the mills of the north of England.

Scientists and community volunteers analysing the skeletal remains from Fewston (Durham University)

Lead author Rebecca Gowland, a professor in the Department of Archaeology, at Durham University, said: “This is the first bioarchaeological evidence for pauper apprentices in the past and it unequivocally highlights the toll placed on their developing bodies.

“To see direct evidence, written in the bones, of the hardships these children had faced was very moving.

“It was important to the scientists and the local community that these findings could provide a testimony of their short lives.”

While the use of children as a cheap source of labour during industrialisation in 18th and 19th century England is well-documented, there is little direct evidence of their struggles.

For the study, the experts performed a chemical analysis of the teeth remains.

They were able to identify the sex of the children as well as determine that they were not local to the area and were probably from London.

Examination of the bones and teeth also highlighted the conditions that affected the children, including tuberculosis, respiratory disease, rickets and delayed growth.

It was important to us to find out about the children who worked in the mills. They were overlooked in life and treated as a commodity – but we hope we have done them some justice by telling their stories and creating a lasting commemoration

Sally Robinson, Washburn Heritage Centre

Professor Michelle Alexander, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, who was a senior author of the study, said: “We undertook a chemical analysis of the bones to study diet and found that the apprentices had a lack of animal protein in the diet compared to the locals, more on a level with the victims of the Great Irish Famine.”

The remains have since been reburied in a ceremony that involved contributions from the local community.

Sally Robinson, from the Washburn Heritage Centre, Yorkshire, who led the team of local volunteers, said: “It’s easy to forget that the Washburn valley had an industrial past given the beauty of the reservoirs that visitors see today.

“It was important to us to find out about the children who worked in the mills.

“They were overlooked in life and treated as a commodity – but we hope we have done them some justice by telling their stories and creating a lasting commemoration.”

The excavation was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

WORLD

First records of human kissing may date back 1,000 years earlier than estimated

First records of human kissing may date back 1,000 years earlier than estimated

First records of human kissing may date back 1,000 years earlier than estimated
Ancient Mesopotamian clay tables show evidence of kissing as part of romantic intimacy.

Humanity’s earliest record of kissing dates back about 4,500 years in the ancient Middle East, 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to researchers.

Scientists have highlighted evidence that suggests kissing was practised in some of the earliest Mesopotamian societies and documented in ancient texts from 2500BC that have been largely overlooked.

In an article published in the journal Science, researchers also cited evidence that kissing may have contributed to the spread of orally transmitted diseases such as cold sores.

Although research had suggested that friendly or familial kissing was a common behaviour between humans across time and geography, romantic-sexual kissing was not thought to be culturally universal.

Researchers said the findings suggest kissing was considered an ordinary part of romantic intimacy in ancient times across many cultures and did not originate in a specific region, as earlier research had proposed.

A previous hypothesis suggested that the earliest evidence of kissing came from what would be modern-day India in 1500 BC.

Ancient Mesopotamian texts suggest that kissing was something that married couples did, though kissing was also seen as a part of an unmarried person’s desires when in love.

Dr Troels Pank Arbøll, an expert on the history of medicine in Mesopotamia at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said: “In ancient Mesopotamia, which is the name for the early human cultures that existed between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in present-day Iraq and Syria, people wrote in cuneiform script [wedge-shaped marks] on clay tablets.

“Many thousands of these clay tablets have survived to this day, and they contain clear examples that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy in ancient times, just as kissing could be part of friendships and family members relations.

“Therefore, kissing should not be regarded as a custom that originated exclusively in any single region and spread from there but rather appears to have been practised in multiple ancient cultures over several millennia.”

Studies have shown that bonobos kiss with a romantic-sexual purpose and chimpanzees engage in platonic kissing to manage social relationships. As the closest living relatives to humans, scientists said these practices hint at the ancient presence and evolution of the behaviour in humans.

The researchers also said kissing may have unintentionally played a role in the transmission of pathogens, such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), which causes cold sores and diphtheria, a highly contagious bacterial infection.

It is thought that bu’shanu, a disease described in ancient medical texts, could be the HSV-1 infection. It was found in and around the mouth, which is one of the main signs of the herpes virus.

Dr Arbøll said: “There is a substantial corpus of medical texts from Mesopotamia, some of which mention a disease with symptoms reminiscent of the herpes simplex virus 1.”

However, researchers said these texts cannot be read at face value because they were influenced by a variety of cultural and religious concepts of the time.

WORLD

3-D Digital Model of RMS Titanic Created

3-D Digital Model of RMS Titanic Created

3-D Digital Model of RMS Titanic Created
A view of the Titanic’s bow was created by stitching together thousands of images taken with deep-sea submersibles.

The first ever full-scale digital scan of the Titanic has revealed the world’s most famous shipwreck in “astonishing,” never-before-seen detail.

Caked in mud and surrounded by pitch-black water, the corroded wreck of the Titanic was scanned by submersibles using deep-sea mapping to create “an exact ‘digital twin'” that experts will use to shed light on the ship’s final hours above water.

After being struck by an iceberg just four days into its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City in April 1912, the ship plunged to its current resting place 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) below the surface in the North Atlantic, roughly 370 nautical miles (690 kilometers) south of Newfoundland, Canada. Of the ship’s 2,240 passengers and crew, more than 1,500 people died following the catastrophic crash.

The sunken ship’s remains were unexpectedly discovered during a secret Cold War mission in 1985.

Since then, divers have explored the wreck a number of times, photographing artifacts left behind in the chaos of the ship’s sinking.

Now the new scan — showing the full ship unobscured by gloomy water — may help scientists better understand how it veered into the iceberg and how it sank.

“This model will allow people to zoom out and look at the entire thing for the first time. So, by capturing this 3D model, what we’re able to do is visualize the wreck in a completely new way, there’s all kinds of amazing small little details that you can see,” Gerhard Seiffert, a 3D imaging specialist at the deep-sea mapping company Magellan that conducted the scan alongside the filmmakers Atlantic Productions, said in a statement. 

“This is the Titanic as no one had ever seen it before,” Seiffert said.

A full view of the Titanic, with a visible crack between the bow and the stern of the ship.

Researchers created the unprecedented scan by stitching together more than 715,000 sonar images of the wreck with 4K video footage, taken during more than 200 hours of surveying with two submersibles named “Romeo” and “Juliet.”

The model maps the ship with millimeter-scale precision, revealing individual rivets; the ship’s serial number; and the 3-mile-long (5 km) debris field surrounding the vessel.

A top-down view of the Titanic’s bow, surrounding it is scattered debris.

For experts studying the wreck, the scan comes just in time. The ship is slowly disintegrating as deep-sea microbes feast on its iron hull, and previous salvage operations have caused accidental damage to the ship.

For example, one operation conducted in 2019 by the company RMS Titanic Inc. destroyed the ship’s crow’s nest while retrieving its bell.

“I have been studying Titanic for 20 years, but this is a true game-changer,” Parks Stephenson, a Titanic expert, said in the statement. “We’ve got actual data that engineers can take to examine the true mechanics behind the breakup and the sinking and thereby get even closer to the true story of the Titanic disaster. For the next generation of Titanic exploration, research, and analysis, this is the beginning of a new chapter.”

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved face at Spain’s Tossal de La Cala castle

Archaeologists have discovered a rock-carved face at Toscal De La Cala, a Roman fort in Benidorm, on the east coast of Spain.

Archaeologists from the University of Alicante discovered a 2,000-year-old rock-carved “inscultura” face with three artistic representations of a human face, a cornucopia, and a phallus during excavations.

The carving was described by University of Alicante professor Jesús Moratalla, head of the excavation, as “a relief of outstanding historical importance”.

The carving measures 57 x 42 centimeters, however, Moratalla and his team believe that this scene is “possibly incomplete” since “the upper right quadrant” being missing.

Historical and Cultural Heritage Councilor Ana Pellicer said that there are no parallel references to engraving and reliefs of similar composition at sites in Rome.

Tossal de la Cala in Benidorm. Photo: University of Alicante (AU)

Unknown is the carving’s purpose; it might have been graffiti or served a ritualistic function. Given that the Romans considered the phallus to be the embodiment of masculine generative power and one of the symbols of the safety of the state (sacra Romana), the inclusion of a phallus raises the possibility that it served to offer protection.

Given that many Roman deities connected to the harvest, prosperity, or spiritual abundance are frequently depicted carrying a cornucopia in Roman reliefs and coins, the depiction of a cornucopia or “horn of plenty” raises the possibility that the face could be that of a god or goddess.

In a myth, the cornucopia was created when Heracles (Roman Hercules) wrestled with the river god Achelous and ripped off one of his horns; river gods were sometimes depicted as horned.

Located on a 100-meter-high hill, the Tossal de La Cala site was excavated in the 1940s by Father Belda and in 1965 by Professor M. Tarradell, dating the archaeological remains found between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.

Archaeological excavations carried out by the University of Alicante (AU) since 2013 reveal that it was a Roman settlement occupied by the armies of Quinto Sertorio during the Sertorian Wars.

The Sertorian Wars was a civil war fought between a group of Roman rebels (Sertorian) and the Roman government. (80 to 72 BC)

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis

Remains of Ritual Meal Found at Pompeii’s Temple of Isis
An ancient fresco from Herculaneum, a town near Pompeii, shows prayers to Isis in a temple of the cult, while a priest dressed as the Egyptian god Bes performs a ritual dance. What seem to be two ibises — sacred Egyptian birds — can be seen near the foot of a burner in the temple.

Archaeologists excavating the Temple of Isis in Pompeii have discovered the remains of a ritual banquet where dozens of birds were eaten, possibly to placate the goddess after her temple was downsized.

The find shows the importance of birds to worshippers of Isis, an Egyptian cult that had become established in Roman society by the first century A.D., according to a study published on April 27 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 

“The ritual … was likely performed by three priests of Isis in a single day,” possibly to atone for renovations that had made the temple slightly smaller, study first author Chiara Corbino, an archaeologist at Italy’s Institute of Heritage Science, told Live Science in an email. 

Pompeii was a wealthy Roman resort city that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. It was buried beneath a layer of volcanic ash up to 20 feet (6 meters) thick and has been progressively excavated to provide a snapshot of life in the early Roman Empire. 

Corbino said the renovations seem to have been made after an earthquake damaged the temple in A.D. 62, which meant the banquet took place between that time and the eruption in 79.

A wall painting or fresco in the town of Herculaneum, about 10 miles from Pompeii and destroyed in A.D. 79 by the same eruption of Vesuvius, portrays a ceremony in a temple of the cult of Isis, which otherwise would be kept secret from those not initiated into its mysteries. What seems to be two ibises can be seen near the altar.

The excavations revealed the charred remains of at least eight chickens, a goose, a turtle dove, a pig and two clams; part of the meat would be cooked and eaten by the priests, while the rest would have been set out on the floor as an offering to Isis, she said.

Isis — the Greek name for the “great mother” of the ancient Egyptians, known as Aset or Eset — was often portrayed with bird wings, and some archaeologists think she may have once been a bird deity, like the falcon-headed Egyptian god Horus.

The new finding adds more evidence that birds were central to the Isis cult. “This work confirms that bird sacrifice was an important part of the Isis rituals,” the authors wrote in the study.

Cult of Isis

The Isis cult spread from Egypt to Greece and became part of the Roman world by the first century B.C. 

Sabine Deschler-Erb, a historian and archaeologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland who was not involved in the study, said the mobility of soldiers, administrators, and traders in the Roman Empire promoted the spread of Eastern religions such as the Isis cult. 

The cult rituals were secret and not allowed to be written down, so archaeology is the only way of finding out about them, she said. Until now, in the case of the Isis cult, sacrificial remains had been found only in Greece, Spain, and Germany. 

“The study of Pompeii is the first archaeozoological investigation of an Isis sanctuary in Italy,” she said.

The Temple of Isis in Pompeii was discovered in the 18th century. The cult of Isis was originally Egyptian, but it became popular throughout the Roman world. Here we see the ruins of the Temple of Isis mostly destroyed during the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.

Animal sacrifices

Isabel Köster, a historian at the University of Colorado Boulder who didn’t take part in the study, noted that the finds at Pompeii are similar to the remains of bird sacrifices found at Isis temples in Roman territories, such as the Sanctuary of Isis and Magna Mater in Mainz, Germany. 

However, Jan Bremmer, a historian and professor emeritus at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who wasn’t involved in the study, said the chickens and geese offered at Pompeii suggest Isis was not an important god in Roman worship at the time. “Those usually received more important animals,” like cattle, he said.

Regardless of their species, sacrificial animals would usually be ceremonially killed while appropriate prayers were recited or sung. The meat was often then charred, and part of it was offered to the god; the rest would typically be cooked and eaten by the priests and whoever had paid for the sacrifice.

Erica Rowan, an archaeologist at Royal Holloway, University of London who wasn’t involved with the study, noted both similarities and differences between the bird offerings at Pompeii and those made to Isis elsewhere. For example, the animal sacrifices to Isis at Mainz and at Delos in Greece were almost completely consumed by fire, rather than leaving significant remains; while the remains of cattle and fish were found with those of birds at the Baelo Claudia site in Spain.

“They are similar enough to show that there was clearly communication between the various congregations or cult members,” she said. 

PERU, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru

1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru

Peruvian archeologists have unearthed eight children and 12 adults apparently sacrificed around 800-1,200 years ago, they said on Tuesday, in a major dig at the pre-Incan Cajamarquilla complex east of Lima.

A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of one of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
Peruvian archeologists show ceramic pieces found it with 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru
A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
A view shows a tomb at an excavation site where archeologists work to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.

The remains were outside an underground tomb where the team from Peru’s San Marcos University found November an ancient mummy thought to be a VIP bound with ropes, in a fetal position.

Archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen said the bodies, some mummified and others skeletons, were wrapped in various layers of textiles as part of ancient pre-Hispanic ritual, and had likely been sacrificed to accompany the main mummy.

“For them, death was not the end, but rather a transition to a parallel world where the dead lived,” Van Dalen told a news conference. “They thought that the souls of the dead became protectors of the living.”

Van Dalen said the burial pattern was familiar, citing the tomb of the Lord of Sipán, a ruler from 1,700 years ago found along with children and adults sacrificed to be buried with him.

A Peruvian archeologist works at an excavation site to recover the remains of 14 pre-Incan mummies, six children and eight adults which are nearly 1000 years old, at the archeological complex in Cajamarquilla, Peru.
1,200-year-old remains of sacrificed adults, and kids unearthed in Peru
A pre-Incan mummy unearthed at the Cajamarquilla archaeological site and believed to be between 800 and 1,200 years old is exhibited at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Peru.
A member of the media takes a picture of a pre-Incan mummy unearthed at the Cajamarquilla archaeological site and believed to be between 800 and 1,200 years old, at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Peru.

“This is precisely what we think and propose in the case of the mummy at Cajamarquilla, which would have been buried with these people,” he said. “As part of the ritual, evidence of violence has been found in some of the individuals.”

Yomira Huamán, part of the team, said that along with funeral items, there were musical artifacts such as the “zampoña,” a wind instrument of Andean origin with several wooden tubes in the form of flutes.

“Our investigations suggest the mummy of Cajamarquilla would be a man of approximately 35 years. This character did not have any organs, meaning he was eviscerated after death,” she said.

Peru is home to hundreds of archaeological sites of cultures that developed before and after the Inca Empire, which 500 years ago dominated the southern part of the continent, ranging from southern Ecuador and Colombia to central Chile.

“The complex has only been excavated 1%,” Huamán said. “I think Cajamarquilla has much more to say, much more to tell us.”

ASIA, JORDAN, WORLD

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years

The oldest scaled-down drawings of actual structures go back 9,000 years
Massive ancient hunting traps called desert kites (one in Jordan is shown above) include long walls that converge on enclosed spaces where animals were driven into pits.

Two large, engraved stones found in the Middle East display the oldest known building plans drawn to scale, researchers say.

One carved depiction covers part of a rectangular stone found at a Jordanian campsite dating to about 9,000 years ago. Two other engravings were made roughly 8,000 years ago on a boulder discovered at the base of a cliff in Saudi Arabia.

Carvings on these stones depict nearby desert kites, massive structures once used to capture animal herds, scientists report May 17 in PLOS ONE.

Desert kites consist of stone walls up to five kilometers long that narrow into large enclosures surrounded by pits where hunters trapped animals, such as gazelles and deer (SN: 4/18/11). Kite depictions at the two sites closely resemble the shape, layout, and proportions of desert kites found close by, archaeologist Rémy Crassard and colleagues say.

Scale drawings etched in rock may have served as maps that helped hunters plan strategies for driving animal herds into specific desert kites, the scientists report.

These engravings might also have been blueprints for building desert kites, or public displays of their makers’ ability to transfer large, 3-D structures onto small, flat surfaces.

A rectangular stone found at a Jordanian site (left) contains a roughly 9,000-year-old engraving (shown illustrated in outline at right) that accurately portrays the shape and proportions of a nearby desert kite.

As farming and animal domestication took root in parts of the Middle East, regional hunting groups that built desert kites to trap wild animal herds maintained special regard for massive hunting structures, says Crassard, of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Lyon.

Other ancient maps and structural plans, intended as scaled-down drawings, date to about 4,300 years ago in Mesopotamia. Those depictions, Crassard says, were not as accurate as the newly discovered desert kite engravings.

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