Her 3,000-Year-Old Bones Showed Unusual Signs of Wear. It Turns Out, She Was a Master Ceramicist

Back in 2022, archaeologists at Eleutherna—an ancient city-state located on the Greek island of Crete—discovered a woman’s skeleton that showed unusual signs of wear.

As Michael Price writes for Science magazine, in comparison to the other females at the site, the muscles on the right side of her body were notably developed, while the cartilage on her knee and hip joints was worn away, leaving the bones smooth and ivory-like.

Initial analysis of the woman’s remains, as well as the pottery found in similar graves at the Orthi Petra burial site, indicated that the approximately 45 to 50 year old lived between 900 B.C.. and 650 B.C. By this point in Crete’s history, the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations—rivals best known for the labyrinthine palace complexes that inspired the classic Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and the gold mask of Agamemnon, respectively—had long since collapsed, ushering the region into a tumultuous period later dubbed the Greek Dark Ages.

Despite determining these demographic details, researchers were unable to ascertain why the woman’s bones showed such unique signs of wear.

The team, led by Adelphi University anthropologist Anagnostis Agelarakis and site excavator Nikolaos Stampolidis, created digital and physical models that allowed them to judge the physical effects of routine tasks such as spinning wool, planting and harvesting crops, weaving on a loom, and bread baking, but none of the actions yielded a match.

Then, as Cara Giaimo reports for Atlas Obscura, the team chanced upon a master ceramicist who lived near the Eleutherna site. The woman demonstrated how she created her large artisan vases—describing the sets of muscles used and subsequent strain experienced—and provided researchers with a key breakthough in the frustrating case.

Her movements and the physical toll exacted by the process, Giaimo writes, closely mirrored that of her 3,000-year-old predecessor.

“Constantly flexing her leg to turn the kick wheel would have worn out her joints,” Science’s Price notes, while “repeatedly leaning to one side of the spinning clay to shape and sculpt it would have developed the muscles on that side of her body.”

The researchers confirmed their hypothesis with the help of medical imaging and anatomical models, according to Archaeology’s Marley Brown, and concluded the woman must have been a master ceramicist, honing her craft over a lifetime of arduous physical labor.

These findings, which were first reported at a May conference hosted by the Museum of Ancient Eleutherna, mark the first time researchers have identified an expert female ceramicist working in the world of ancient Greece.

It makes sense that such a figure should emerge in Eleutherna, Brown writes, as the city-state has long been associated with powerful women. In fact, archaeologists previously unearthed the graves of four priestesses in the same Orthi Petra site where the master artisan was found.

Agelarakis explains that the find is, therefore, somewhat “unsurprising given the importance and privileged social position of the Eleuthernian matriline.”

In an interview with Atlas Obscura’s Giaimo, Agelarakis states that the team’s research represents.

He concludes, “It signifies that women … held craft specialization roles in antiquity, which I think is very important.”

7,000-Year-Old Forest and Footprints Uncovered in the Atlantis of Britain

The surge and flood of the North Sea have uncovered an archeological mystery of the Britain past – the remains of hunter-gatherers chasing wildlife through a long-lost wood. An ancient woodland, dating more than 7,000 years and submerged under the sand for centuries, is slowly uncovered by the ocean.

Tree stumps and felled logs, which have been preserved by peat and sand, are now clearly visible along with a 650 feet (200 meters) stretch of coastline at Low Hauxley near Amble, Northumberland.

Studies of the ancient forest, which existed at a time when the sea level was much lower and Britain had only recently separated from what is now mainland Denmark, have revealed it would have consisted of oak, hazel and alder trees.

The forest first began to form around 5,300 BC but by 5,000 BC the encroaching ocean had covered it up and buried it under the sand. Now the sea levels are rising again, the remnants of the forest are becoming visible and being studied by archaeologists.

Rather than a continuous solid landmass, archaeologists believe Doggerland was a region of low-lying bogs and marshes that would have been home to a range of animals, as well as the hunter-gatherers which stalked them.

But the relatively rapid change in the surrounding environment would have gradually confined animals and humans in the region to Europe and the UK as the bogs and marshes became flooded, making them impassable.

Doctor Clive Waddington, of Archaeology Research Services, said: ‘In 5,000 BC the sea level rose quickly and it drowned the land. The sand dunes were blown back further into the land, burying the forest, and then the sea receded a little.

The sea level is now rising again, cutting back the sand dunes, and uncovering the forest. The forest existed in the late Mesolithic period, which was a time of hunting and gathering for humans.

In addition to tree stumps, archaeologists say they have uncovered animal footprints, highlighting the diverse wildlife which would have roamed the ancient Doggerland forest. 

Dr. Waddington, who says evidence has been discovered of humans living nearby in 5,000 BC, added: ‘On the surface of the peat we have found footprints of adults and children.

‘We can tell by the shapes of the footprints that they would have been wearing leather shoes.

‘We have also found animal footprints of red deer, wild boar, and brown bears.’ 

A similar stretch of ancient forest was uncovered in 2014 near the village of Borth, Ceredigion, in Mid Wales after a spate of winter storms washed away the peat preserving the area.

Peat is able to preserve trees and even the bodies of animals so well because it is so low in oxygen, effectively choking the microbes which break down organic matter, so preserving their organic contents for thousands of years.

But in coastal regions where ancient forests have been long preserved in peat, such as in Wales and Northumberland, the rising seas are washing away this layer and exposing remnants from Britain’s past.