Long stretch of underground aqueduct found in Naples
Once played in by local children, a vast tunnel that goes through a hill in Naples, Italy, is actually a Roman aqueduct, archaeologists say.
Speleologists explore the Aqua Augusta, a Roman aqueduct that was previously the least-documented aqueduct in the Roman world.
Forty years ago, when children in Naples were playing in caves and tunnels under the hill of Posillipo in Italy, they didn’t know their playground was actually a Roman aqueduct.
When they shared their memories with archaeological authorities recently, it kicked off an exploration of one of the longest, most mysterious examples of ancient water infrastructure in the Roman world.
Rome’s famous aqueducts supplied water for baths, drinking, public fountains and more. Built during a period of about half a millennium (roughly 300 B.C. to A.D. 200), aqueducts around the former Roman Empire are highly recognizable thanks to their multitiered arched structure.
But this marvel of ancient architecture represents only a small fraction of the actual water system; the vast majority of the infrastructure is still underground.
Outside of Rome, subterranean aqueducts and their paths are much less understood. This knowledge gap included the newly investigated Aqua Augusta, also called the Serino aqueduct, which was built between 30 B.C. and 20 B.C. to connect luxury villas and suburban outposts in the Bay of Naples.
Circling Naples and running down to the ancient vacation destination of Pompeii, the Aqua Augusta is known to have covered at least 87 miles (140 kilometers), bringing water to people all along the coast as well as inland.
But the complex Aqua Augusta has barely been explored by researchers, making it the least-documented aqueduct in the Roman world.
New discoveries earlier this month by the Cocceius Association, a non-profit group that engages in speleo-archaeological work, are bringing this fascinating aqueduct to light.
This This Roman aqueduct found in Naples supplied water to ancient luxury villas.
Thanks to reports from locals who used to explore the tunnels as kids, association members found a branch of the aqueduct that carried drinking water to the hill of Posillipo and to the crescent-shaped island of Nisida.
So far, around 2,100 feet (650 meters) of the excellently preserved aqueduct has been found, making it the longest known segment of the Aqua Augusta.
Graziano Ferrari, president of the Cocceius Association, told Live Science in an email that “the Augusta channel runs quite near to the surface, so the inner air is good, and strong breezes often run in the passages.”
Exploring the aqueduct requires considerable caving experience, though. Speleologists’ most difficult challenge in exploring the tunnel was to circumvent the tangle of thorns at one entrance.
“Luckily, the caving suits are quite thornproof,” he said. “After succeeding in entering the channel, we met normal caving challenges — some sections where you have to crawl on all fours or squeeze through.”
In a new report, Ferrari and Cocceius Association Vice President Raffaella Lamagna list several scientific studies that can be done now that this stretch of aqueduct has been found.
Specifically, they will be able to calculate the ancient water flow with high precision, to learn more about the eruptive sequences that formed the hill of Posillipo, and to study the mineral deposits on the walls of the aqueduct.
Rabun Taylor, a professor of classics at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the report, told Live Science in an email that the newly discovered aqueduct section is interesting because it is “actually a byway that served elite Roman villas, not a city.
Multiple demands on this single water source stretched it very thin, requiring careful maintenance and strict rationing.”
Taylor, an expert on Roman aqueducts, also said the new find “may be able to tell us a lot about the local climate over hundreds of years when the water was flowing.”
This insight is possible thanks to a thick deposit of lime, a calcium-rich mineral that “accumulates annually like tree rings and can be analyzed isotopically as a proxy for temperature and rainfall,” he explained.
Ferrari, Lamagna and other members of the Cocceius Association plan to analyze the construction of the aqueduct as well, to determine the methods used and the presence of water control structures.
“We believe that there are ample prospects for defining a research and exploration plan for this important discovery, which adds a significant element to the knowledge of the ancient population” living in the Bay of Naples, they wrote in the report.
Viking Raids Revealed by the Extraction of an Anglo-Saxon Monastery
Anglo-Saxon monasteries were more resilient to Viking attacks than previously thought, archaeologists have concluded. Lyminge, a monastery in Kent, was on the front line of long-running Viking hostility which ended in the victories of Alfred the Great.
The monastery endured repeated attacks, but resisted collapse for almost a century, through effective defensive strategies put in place by ecclesiastical and secular rulers of Kent, University of Reading archaeologists say.
The new evidence is presented after a detailed examination of archaeological and historical evidence by Dr Gabor Thomas, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading.
The excavation at Lyminge in Kent revealed hereto information about monastic resilience in the face of raids by the Vikings.
“The image of ruthless Viking raiders slaughtering helpless monks and nuns is based on written records, but a re-examination of the evidence show the monasteries had more resilience than we might expect,” Dr Thomas said.
Despite being located in a region of Kent which bore the full brunt of Viking raids in the later 8th and early 9th centuries, the evidence suggests that the monastic community at Lyminge not only survived these attacks but recovered more completely than historians previously thought, Dr Thomas concludes in research, published today (30 January 2023) in the journal Archaeologia.
During archaeological excavations between 2007-15 and 2019, archaeologists uncovered the main elements of the monastery, including the stone chapel at its heart surrounded by a wide swathe of wooden buildings and other structures where the monastic brethren and their dependents lived out their daily lives. Radiocarbon dating of butchered animal bones discarded as rubbish indicates that this occupation persisted for nearly two centuries following the monastery’s establishment in the second half of the 7th century.
Historical records held at nearby Canterbury Cathedral show that after a raid in 804 CE, the monastic community at Lyminge was granted asylum within the relative safety of the walled refuge of Canterbury, a former Roman town and the administrative and ecclesiastical capital of Anglo-Saxon Kent.
But evidence from Dr Thomas’s dig shows the monks not only returned to re-establish their settlement at Lyminge, but continued living and building for several decades over the course of the 9th century. Dateable artefacts such as silver coins discovered at the site provided Dr Thomas with an insight into the re-establishment of the monastic community.
Dr Thomas said: “This research paints a more complex picture of the experience of monasteries during these troubled times, they were more resilient than the ‘sitting duck’ image portrayed in popular accounts of Viking raiding based on recorded historical events such as the iconic Viking raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne in AD 793.
“However, the resilience of the monastery was subsequently stretched beyond breaking point.
“By the end of the 9th century, at a time when Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great was engaged in a widescale conflict with invading Viking armies, the site of the monastery appears to have been completely abandoned.
“This was most likely due to sustained long-term pressure from Viking armies who are known to have been active in south-eastern Kent in the 880s and 890s.
“Settled life was only eventually restored in Lyminge during the 10th century, but under the authority of the Archbishops of Canterbury who had acquired the lands formerly belonging to the monastery.”
The latest research article is based on the results of over a decade of archaeological research at Lyminge, directed by Dr Thomas. The village was first established by Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century.
“Vikings: Beyond the Legend” display sails into Cincinnati with four ships, and around 500 artifacts
On November 11th Viking Ships will sail into the Cincinnati Museum Center.Vikings are invading once again, but not in their usual violent way. The ships will enter the Union Terminal on November 11th to celebrate the opening of the newest special exhibit, featuring the Scandinavian seafarers.
People most likely picture burly, bearded barbarians with horned helmets whenever Vikings are mentioned, yet experts now state this to be inaccurate. The “Vikings: Beyond the Legend” exhibit aims to combat the stereotype by showcasing four ships and around 500 artifacts that highlight the skilled craftsmanship the Vikings possessed.
Viking Ship Museum
The exhibit will feature four large ships on an interactive, hands-on display. There will also be more than 500 artifacts on loan from the Swedish History Museum.
These original artifacts display the craftsmanship of the people, who used bone, silver, iron, bronze, wood, textiles, leather, and ceramics to create everyday items and ceremonial objects.
Guests will be able to virtually excavate the Viking ships layer by layer, uncovering rich finds like animals, tools, and weapons just like the archaeologists did. You can also test your own strength using a model Viking sword, and compete in unique Viking games.
On Wednesday, around a dozen people had to maneuver two replica ships into a warehouse which will hold them before their transfer to the Museum Center later this month.
The Krampmacken is a replica of a 26-foot Viking trading boat that was discovered on Gotland Island, Sweden, in the 1920s. The Karls is a reconstruction of a 21-foot sailing vessel.
The exhibit will feature two more ships that have not yet been moved to Cincinnati. One is a unique “Ghost Ship”, made with original iron rivets supporting the spots they would have been placed before the oak hull deteriorated over the course of 1,000 years.
Possibly the most astonishing ship is the 122-foot Roskilde 6, a partly intact Viking long ship that was uncovered from the Roskilde Fjord, Denmark in 1997. This is the only artifact on loan from the National Museum of Denmark.
This Viking warship was one of their fastest due to its long, narrow shape. Several rowers and a shallow draft helped it navigate Scandinavian and Northern European ports, as well as sail up the rivers and deep inland. The ship has never been on display in America, for the reason that not many museums have the capacity to house such a large artifact.
A news release from the museum states the exhibit burst the myth of a culture that was devoted to war and destruction. Vikings actually were explorers, traders, and artisans who contributed to literature, navigation, and religion.
Silhouette of an original Viking ship
The Vikings were originally from Scandinavia, the area that today encompasses the countries of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Yet they also inhabited land throughout northern and eastern Europe. Between 750 and 1100 CE they also went through North America, Iceland, and the British Isles.
While they were definitely warriors, and some did raid and plunder towns, even as far as the Mediterranean and northern Africa, they were also storytellers, merchants, and farmers.
Their source of status was land ownership instead of brute strength. With the plundering aside, they engaged in trade through a large part of Europe. They favored their knowledge of sea current and the winds as alternative navigational tools for travelling between their trading centers.
The Vikings also worshiped Norse gods like Thor, Freya, and Odin, but accepted several aspects of Christianity. Unlike their European counterparts, women were the heads of their households and had great influence in Viking society.
Discounted tickets for museum members went on sale October 3rd. General admissions tickets are on sale November 1st. Tickets will cost $19.50 for adults, $12.50 for children, and $17.50 for seniors.
“Viking: Beyond the Legend” is a combined venture between The Swedish history Museum and the Museum’s Partner located in Austria. The Rokilde 6 is a display of a joint venture between the National Museum of Denmark and it’s Partners.
DNA reveals large migration into Scandinavia during the Viking age
We often think of the Vikings as ultimate explorers, taking their culture with them to far-off lands. But we may not typically think of Viking age Scandinavia as a hub for migration from all over Europe.
In a study published in Cell, we show this is exactly what happened. The Viking period (late 8th century to mid 11th century) was the catalyst for an exceptional inflow of people into Scandinavia. These movements were greater than for any other period we analysed.
What’s also striking is that later Scandinavians don’t show the same high levels of non-local ancestry present in their Viking-era counterparts. We don’t completely understand why the migrants’ genetic impact was reduced in later Scandinavians, but there are some possibilities.
We analysed genomes (the full complement of DNA contained in human cells) from around 17,000 Scandinavian individuals, including nearly 300 from ancient burials. We combined existing datasets with new samples. These were analysed together in a dataset spanning 2,000 years.
We used these genomes to explore when people arrived in the region from outside and where they came from. New DNA samples were collected from several iconic Swedish archaeological sites.
These included Sandby borg, which is a “ring fortress” where a massacre occurred just before 500 AD, and the Vendel cemetery, which features several burials contained in large boats and dating to between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. We also used samples from Viking chamber burials and remains from Kronan, a warship that capsized with more than 800 men in 1676.
Two previous studies noted extensive migration into Scandinavia during the Viking age. But in our latest study, we have clarified some of the details about this flow of genes into the region.
We found that movements of people from western Europe impacted all of Scandinavia, while migration from the east was more localised, with peaks in the Lake Mälaren Valley and Gotland. Finally, gene flow from southern Europe largely affected the south of Scandinavia.
Since the study was based on a 2,000-year chronology, it was not only possible to see there was an increase in migration during the Viking era, but also that it starts to fall with the onset of the medieval period.
The non-local ancestry that arrives in the region at this time falls away in later periods. Much of the genetic influence from eastern Europe disappears and the western and southern influence becomes significantly diluted. The best way to explain this is that people who arrived in Scandinavia during Viking times did not have as many children as the people who were already living there.
An archaeologist uncovers human remains at Sandby borg in Sweden. Daniel Lindskog, Author provided
There are different possible reasons for this. The migrants could have belonged to groups that did not intend to settle down in Scandinavia, instead aiming to return to where they came from. Tradespeople and diplomats are examples in this category. Additionally, the migrants could also have belonged to groups that were not allowed to have families or children, such as slaves and priests.
We also looked at influences that began at earlier periods in time. For example, the DNA of modern Scandinavians changes gradually as you travel from north to south. This genetic “cline”, or gradient, is due to migrations into the region of people carrying shared genetic similarities known as the Uralic component.
Modern examples of where the Uralic genetic component can be found are among Sami people, people in modern Finland, some Native Americans and some central Asian groups.
In our dataset, we found occasional instances of people with Uralic ancestry – mainly in northern Scandinavia – during the Viking period and medieval times. But the Uralic influence seems to increase after this time, since individuals from our 17th century sample have similar levels of this ancestry to people living today.
Underwater excavations of the Kronan wreck. Image: Lars Einarsson. Lars Einarsson, Author provided
There were many other fascinating stories from our study. For example, at the Viking age burial site of Sala, by the river Sagån, we find a woman that seems to be fully British or Irish in her genomic composition. This woman was buried in a prestigious Viking period boat burial. We don’t know exactly what position she held in society, but she would not have been a slave or a priest.
Among the individuals found on the wreck of the Kronan, there were two people who came from what is now Finland and another who has a genetic affinity with people from the Baltic states, such as Lithuania and Latvia (though this identification is not conclusive). At the time of the Kronan incident in 1676, these areas were part of the Swedish Empire, though they are independent today.
The work sheds more light on the historical events that shaped the populations of Scandinavia over time. The Viking age was marked by Scandinavians’ curiosity of the world outside their home region. But, from our results, it also appears that the world outside this region was curious enough about the Vikings to travel to Scandinavia.
In Search of The Lost Testament of Alexander the Great: Excavating Homeric Heroes
The ancient city of Aegae in Greece, where the royal tombs are located, dates back to the 7th century BCE; it became Macedonia’s first capital after it was conglomerated from a collection of villages into a city in the 5th century BCE. Aegae was eventually supplanted by a new capital at Pella in the 4th century BCE but retained its status as the spiritual home and burial ground of the Macedonian kings.
Aegae Becomes Lost to History
Both settlements were partially destroyed by Rome in 168 BCE following the Battle of Pydna when Macedonia was finally defeated, and a landslide which buried the older capital in the 1st century, after which it was uninhabited.
The name ‘Aegae’ ceased to be used and its history was grazed over by goats and sheep and survived in oral legend only, while papyri and faded vellums told of a former city of kings. Only a nearby early Christian basilica built from the stones of the ancient ruins marked the forgotten location.
In the 1920s, on what had once been the southeast side of the Macedonian royal palace, Greek refugees from the Euxine Pontus region of Asia Minor founded the village of Vergina, and the still unidentified fallen stones were used as masonry in the new houses.
Supervised excavations at what turned out to be the founding city of the Argead (otherwise, Temenid) dynasty go back to the 1860s when a dig by French archaeologist, Léon Heuzey, sponsored by Napoleon III, revealed a Macedonian tomb next to the village of Palatitsia, ‘the small palaces’, a name that hinted tantalizingly at its former significance, though it was erroneously thought to be the site of the ancient city of Valla. In the 1930s, Konstantinos Romaios, a professor of archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, revealed a further tomb, but as Albert Olmstead’s above despondent summation affirms, as late as 1948 archaeologists still had not pinpointed the location of Aegae.
Royal Macedonian Burial Mound in Vergina.
Between 1958 and 1975 excavations in the area were extended by Georgios Bakalakis and Fotis Petsas, the antiquities curator (from 1955-1965). Professor Manolis Andronikos, a pupil of Romaios, eventually became convinced the so-called Great Tumulus, Megali Toumba, must house the tombs of the Macedonian kings.
But it was the British historian, Nicholas Hammond, who first voiced the idea (in fact in 1968) that the ancient ruins lying between Vergina and Palatitsia (rather than those at the town of Edessa) were in fact the lost city of Aegae, a contention that was not immediately accepted.
The City of Kings is Found
After initial disappointment in 1977 when shafts were sunk through the center of the mound (where remains of a stoa and/or cenotaph tumulus might have nevertheless been found) with some 60,000 cubic feet (1699 cubic meters) of earth removed, and while preparing an access ramp on the southeast perimeter for works planned the following season, Andronikos stumbled across gold, literally: two royal tombs were finally revealed.
Tombs I and II had originally been buried together under a single low tumulus with Tomb II at its center; Tomb III, close by, was discovered the following year. Andronikos was exposing what is now referred to as the ‘royal burial cluster of Philip II’, Alexander’s father.
A model of the tomb of Philip II.
The precious articles found within suggested to Andronikos that in the ‘monumental death chamber’ of Tomb II, ‘laid on an elaborate gold and ivory deathbed wearing his precious golden oak wreath’ – which features 313 oak leaves and 68 acorns – King Philip II had been ‘surrendered, like a new Heracles, to the funeral pyre’.
For the flesh-boned cremation (the evidence lies in the color, warping and minute forms of bone fractures) which took place soon after its occupant’s death (distinct from ‘dry-boned’ which takes place long after death when flesh has rotted away) revealed traces of gold droplets, a clue that the king was placed on the pyre wearing his crown. A more recent analysis suggests that in the holokautoma, the total incineration, his body was wrapped in an asbestos shroud to help separate the bones from the pyre debris.
Within the Great Tumulus of Aegae, Andronikos discovered some ‘forty-seven complete or nearly complete stelae’ [commemorative stone slabs] representing commoners’ graves dating back to the second half of the 4th century BCE. Since his death in 1992, the Eucleia and Cybele sanctuaries, the acropolis and vast necropolis with graves dating mostly to the Early Iron Age (1,000-700 BCE), and the northeast gate, have all been revealed, along with the royal palace, which is now considered to be the largest building in classical Greece.
Occupying 41,259 square feet (3833 sq. m.), it is three times the size of the Athenian Parthenon. Archaeologists have unearthed the fortress walls, more cemeteries with more sanctuaries and over 1,000 identified graves in total, besides the burial clusters of royal women and earlier Temenid kings (clusters ‘B’ and ‘C’), including the Heuzey and Bella clusters closer to Palatitsia. All in all, some 500 tumuli have been exposed covering over 900 hectares between Vergina and Palatitsia and they reveal the extent of the ancient city, which, with its suburbs, covered some 6,500 hectares.
The Death of Philip II
Having survived numerous battles, skirmishes, city sieges and hostile alliances against him, Philip’s death was sudden and unexpected. Intending to show the Greek world his impressive enhanced religious capital at Aegae with its revolutionary palace design that would have been visible from afar as visitors crossed the plains below, and when entering its older amphitheater at which the tragedies of the resident Euripides must have once been heard, Philip was stabbed at the wedding of his daughter, Cleopatra, in 336 BCE.
It was nothing short of a ‘spectacular, world-shaking event’. Unearthing in 1977 what is thought by many to be his tomb was no less dramatic and it has since been dubbed the ‘discovery of the century’.
A bust of Philip II of Macedon.
Philip’s funeral had been overseen by a grief-stricken, or perhaps a quietly elated, king-in-the-waiting, Alexander the Great. His bones appear to have been washed in emulation of the rites described in Homer’s Iliad in which Achilles’ remains were similarly prepared before being steeped in wine and oil.
After cremation, the bones were carefully collected and placed in the twenty-four-carat gold chest or larnax weighing 11 kilograms (24.25 lbs.), in a similar manner to the burial rites of Hector and Patroclus, and they were possibly covered in a soft purple cloth. However, the discovery of traces of the rare mineral huntite and Tyrian purple (porphyra) hint that Philip may in fact have been cremated in an elaborate funeral mask.
The gold larnax found in the main chamber, which contained the cremated bones.
The remains of bones and trappings of four horses have been found in what appears to have been a purifactory fire above the cornice. Along with two swords and a sarissa (pike), they were left to decay in a (now collapsed) mud brick structure above the tomb. Some scholars believe the remains include the mounts of Philip’s assassins and/or his famous chariot horses.
Once again, this would have followed the funerary rites Homer described for Patroclus. The Macedonian burial tradition, clearly following a heroic template, may have influenced Plato when he was writing his Laws which outlined the ideal burial in an idealized state.
Grave Goods of a Warrior King
What are believed by some scholars to be Philip’s remarkable funerary possessions provide a testament to a warrior king: a sword in a scabbard and a short sword, six spears and pikes of different lengths, two pairs of greaves, a throat-protecting gorget besides the aforementioned ceremonial shield (‘completely unsuitable to ward off the blows of battle’, according to Andronikos), body armor and the impressive once-plumed iron helmet.
The weaponry is representative of a soldier who fought in both the Macedonian cavalry and infantry regiments. In front of the sarcophagus in the main chamber were found the remains of a wooden couch decorated with five (of fourteen finally recovered) chryselephantine miniature relief figures thought (by some) to represent the family of Philip II.
Winthrop Lindsay Adams insightfully stated back in 1980 that the contents of the antechamber of Tomb II are ‘crucial to identification of the king in the main chamber’. And the contents are fascinating; they include a Scythian gold gorytos, the distinct two-part quiver that traditionally held arrows (seventy-four were found) often poison-tipped and unleashed by a compact powerful Scythian compound bow.
This is suggestive of a warrior woman whose identity we probe further in the epilogue. The gorytos, along with the exquisite items retrieved from the main chamber of Tomb II, are now on display in the Archaeological Museum at Vergina; the gold wreaths and the diadem have been described as the most beautiful pieces of jewelry of the ancient world.
The Scythian gorytos (quiver) and a pair of ornate greaves were photographed as they were found lying in the antechamber.
Unravelling Identities
Osteoarcheological studies on the bones of the two individuals from Tomb II, one of the longest and tallest of the chamber tombs at Aegae, have led to conflicting conclusions, as the press release made clear. But as Antikas’ 2014 report points out, the ‘…remains had been studied insufficiently and/or misinterpreted, causing debates among archaeologists and anthropologists for over three decades.’
Fortunately, the last thirty years have witnessed significant advances in bioarcheology. Working on behalf of the Aristotle University Vergina Excavation, Prof. Antikas explains that from 2009 to 2014 osteological and physiochemical analyses backed by CT and XRF scans (X-ray-computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray fluorescence) have provided new theories regarding age, gender, paleopathology and morphological changes to the bones which are now catalogued by 4,500 photos.
Although the new investigations employed the latest tools in the science of physical anthropology that the earlier examinations of teams had not benefitted from in the 1980s, the technology has not yet put an end to the debate. In 2008, and prior to the highly scientific post-mortem by Antikas’ team in 2014, the Greek historian, Dr. Miltiades Hatzopoulos, summarized the background to the previous research: ‘The issue has been obscured by precipitate announcements, the quest for publicity, political agendas and petty rivalries…’ The summation sounds remarkably like the motives of the agenda-driven historians who gave us Alexander’s story.
Yet the Great Tumulus at Aegae, built from layers of clay, soil and rock, and thrown up by unknown hands laboring under a still-unnamed king, seems to have protected some of its finest secrets from historians and looters, both from the marauding Gauls and the invading Romans, who carted everything they could back to Italy following Macedonia’s defeat.
No doubt there is much more still to be discovered; the recent excavations at the Kasta Hill polyandreion (communal tomb) at Amphipolis some 100 miles (160 km) from Vergina and the newly unearthed tombs at Pella and Katerini, remind us we have only unearthed a fragment of classical Macedonia, and, we suggest, no more than fragments of the story of Alexander himself.
50,000-Year-Old Tiara Made from Woolly Mammoth Ivory Found in Denisova Cave
Archaeologists recently discovered the remains of an ancient tiara that was worn by a man. The question now is whether the head crown was meant to mark its wearer’s royalty — or simply hold back his hair.
The largest fragment of an ivory tiara that was found in the Denisova Cave this summer is depicted from three separate angles.
The ivory tiara turned up this summer in the Denisova Cave in the Altai mountains of Siberia. The artifact, made from the tusks of the now-extinct woolly mammoth, is between 35,000 and 50,000 years old — likely the oldest one found in the North Eurasia area to date.
The findings, first reported by The Siberian Times, haven’t yet been published in a scientific journal, but the authors plan to submit their report for publication next year.
Tiaras or headbands “made from bone, antler or mammoth tusks are one of the rarest types of personal ornaments known in the Upper Paleolithic of Northern Eurasia,” said Alexander Fedorchenko, a junior researcher at the Department of Stone Age Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The ancient tiara turned up in the Denisova Cave in the Altai mountains of Siberia. The remains of an extinct human species, the Denisovans, were first discovered in this cave.
The Upper Paleolithic, or the end years of the Stone Age, began about 40,000 years ago. In addition to mammoth ivory, the items found in the cave from this time period were made up of a variety of raw materials, like soft stones, tubular bones of animals and birds, mammal teeth and shells from freshwater clams and ostrich eggs, Fedorchenko told Live Science.
“On the one hand, we were very surprised to find this unique diadem,” Fedorchenko said. “On the other hand — when you work at Denisova Cave, you need to be ready for any, even the loudest, scientific discoveries.”
The Denisova cave is famous for first revealing the remains of an extinct human lineage called the Denisovans. The tiara turned up in the same layer of the southern chamber of the cave where those first remains, such as a 40,000-year-old adult tooth was found.
Even though no other remains from other human lineages have been excavated in that layer of the Southern Chamber, Fedorchenko said they can only guess if the head piece belonged to a Denisovan.
Making of a tiara
The Paleolithic dwellers of the cave would have needed to take several steps to craft this diadem, Fedorchenko said. After freeing the mammoth tusks, they likely cut them into thin pieces and soaked them in water so that they could be bent into shape. They then processed them by shaping, scraping, cutting, grinding, drilling and polishing the ivory, Fedorchenko said.
If it’s anything like other tiaras from this time period found in the East European Plain and Eastern Siberia, it most likely had drilled holes at the end to attach it to the head with some sort of cord or strap, he added. Indeed, the largest fragment they found — one of three that together made up a third of the full piece — had half a hole on one side.
Though not seen on this fragment, the outsides of such tiaras are also often decorated with engravings or “complex ornaments,” Fedorchenko said.
Typically, tiara remains come in several pieces, making it difficult for scientists to know for sure if they came from an actual tiara, Fedorchenko said. However, in this case, “we can judge relatively confidently” that the new find is a tiara.
First of all, the length of the biggest fragment — 5.9 inches (15 centimeters) — is too long to be a bracelet. Second, the tiara has a bend that’s shaped to fit the temple of an adult man.
“If we assume that the part of the tiara that was not found so far continued to bend at the same angle as the preserved one, the dimensions of this product would be very suitable for a man with a relatively large head,” Fedorchenko said.
Finally, when they observed the find under a microscope, they found “use-wear traces” such as scratches, microscopic traces of damage, abrasion marks and polishing that would have happened because of contact with organic material, like skin.
They don’t know if this diadem was a mark of something “special,” like royalty, or just an everyday headband to keep the hair back. But most diadems that are found at archaeological sites in Siberia and Europe are often marked with lines, dots and zigzags, which “indicate the special role of these objects in the culture of Upper Palaeolithic people,” Fedorchenko said.
Perhaps, it could have also been a mark of a family or tribe, Fedorchenko said.
This year, the team also found other interesting artifacts in the Denisova Cave, such as an ivory ring, a bone needle and beads. “Together with the diadem, these new artifacts will allow us to more completely reconstruct the peculiarities of the life of the Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of the Denisova Cave,” he said.
Hiker stumbles upon 1,200-year-old Viking sword while walking an ancient trail in Norway
A hiker in Norway has discovered an ancient sword while walking an ancient route in the mountains of Haukeli. The well-preserved sword has been dated to the 8 th century and is typical of a sword belonging to the Viking Age.
The discovery was announced by Hordaland County Council , which described the weapon as a double-edged sword that is 30 inches (77 centimeters) long and made of wrought iron. Although in good condition, the sword is missing its handle. It is believed to date back to around 750 AD.
The sword was found by hiker Goran Olsen while walking on an old route that runs between western and eastern Norway. Olsen had stopped for a rest, when he spotted the weapon underneath some rocks.
Goran Olsen was walking in the mountains of Haukeli when he stumbled upon the old Viking sword
County Conservator Per Morten Ekerhovd said that the sword had been preserved by the frost and snow that covers the area for at least 6 months of the year.
A Status Symbol?
After its discovery, the sword was examined by archaeologist Jostein Aksdal of Hordaland County Council. Aksdal told the Mail Online that it was unusual to find a sword of its type today. He speculates that, due to the high cost of extracting iron, the sword likely belonged to a wealthy individual and would have been somewhat of a status symbol, to “show power”.
Viking swords often had handles that were richly decorated with intricate designs in silver, copper, and bronze. The higher the status of the individual that yielded the sword, the more elaborate the grip.
An elaborate Viking sword hilt, 9 th century, Museum of Scotland
While the sword discovery is rare and exciting, it does not bear the mark of a Viking Ulfberht sword. The superstrong Ulfberht swords, of which about 170 have been found, were made of metal so pure that scientists were long baffled as to how they mastered such advanced metallurgy eight centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.
An Ulfberht sword displayed at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany.
The newly discovered Viking Sword is currently undergoing preservation at the University Museum of Bergen and plans are underway to conduct a research expedition to explore the area further. It is hoped that the sword may be one of many artifacts at the site.
‘Lost’ Viking Village Artifacts Emerge From Norwegian Basement Archive
It isn’t rare for a once prosperous medieval town to be abandoned and slowly get side-lined in the annals of history. Nothing exemplifies this statement better than the lost Viking village of Borgund, on the west coast of southern Norway.
The Discovery of the Viking Village of Borgund, Norway
The Borgund Kaupang Project was launched in 2019 by the University of Bergen to re-examine the countless Viking village artifacts found in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, which have long been housed in a basement archive, according to Science Norway .
This picture shows the Borgund Viking village excavation site in 1954. The Borgund fjord, a rich source of cod, can be seen in the background.
At the time of discovery in 1953, a piece of land near Borgund church had been cleared, uncovering a lot of debris and objects that were immediately traced to the Norwegian Middle Ages . Over the course of that year and the following summer some 45,000 objects were painstakingly put away into storage after a cumbersome excavation.
It was only in 2019 that these items were taken out of storage to piece together the history of a thousand-year-old Norwegian Viking village that the world knows little about.
“The 45,000 objects from the 5,300 square meter excavation area in Borgund have just been lying here,” said Danish archaeologist and project manager Professor Gitte Hansen. “Hardly any researchers have looked at this material since the 1970s.”
What’s particularly interesting is that the town of Borgund is mentioned in Viking sagas and charters from the Middle Ages. Sagas mention the existence of the town as early as at least 985 AD, as this was where Håkon Jarl and his sons journeyed before the battle against the Jomsvikings in 985 AD, states the University of Bergen (UIB) press release . King Håkon was the de facto Norwegian ruler between 975 and 995 AD.
King Håkon the Good, who visited the Viking village of Borgund, during his reign, overseeing a peasant dispute in a painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo.
Reconstructing Borgund’s Viking History From Written Sources
From a historical point of view, sagas are always taken with a pinch of salt. The reasoning for this is twofold.
First, sagas are semi-legendary or legendary in nature, bordering on mythology, and have a tendency to conflate the king’s association with gods. For example, this saga associated King Håkon ’s lineage with Sæming, son of Odin.
Second, revisionist history writing is cautious in accepting verbatim sources that are issued from the perspective of those at the apex of society, who are never fair or judicious with their representations of reality. This is largely due to the assertion of power and prestige that comes with the burden of disparately designed social hierarchies.
Then there is a reference to Borgund in relation to the Battle of Bokn in 1027 AD, which has been accepted by this group of historians and researchers as the oldest written evidence for the existence of the Viking village.
The limited written sources about Borgund in the Middle Ages refer to it as one of the “small towns” ( smaa kapstader ) in Norway. “Borgund was probably built sometime during the Viking Age,” adds Professor Hansen, who is also head of the Department of Cultural History at UIB.
Here lie the remnants of the forgotten Viking village of Borgund.
Difficulty in Reconstruction and Moving Forward
Within a hundred odd years, Borgund became the most expansive Viking village on the western coast between Trondheim and Bergen. It flourished till the mid-14th century AD, when it was actually at its peak.
However, the plague defined Europe in the Middle Ages had a terrible impact on Borgund, to such an extent that by the end of the 14th century AD, Borgund disappears from the annals of history. This coincided with the Little Ice Age which left much of northern Europe much colder and snowier than before.
Unfortunately, the recovered Borgund Viking village textiles (250 pieces in total) have suffered as no conservation effort was made to preserve them, apart from leaving them in storage. Yet, Hansen admits that she is rather grateful for even having the tattered fabrics to hold onto. Credit for the excavation in 1953 and ’54 goes to Asbjørn Herteig, one of the pioneers of modern medieval archaeology.
Herteig’s strength lay in subverting historical interests from important buildings and centers of power like churches, monasteries, and castles. His method was to assemble a meticulous collection of seemingly trivial artifacts. This included shoes’ soles, pieces of cloth, slag, potsherds (ceramic and otherwise), to name a few, that helped piece together the lives of ordinary people.
The unfinished Borgund Viking village investigations indicate a dense settlement of houses and at least three marble churches . The nearby fjord, known as Borgundfjordfisket, was a rich cod fishery that harvested in late February and early March. The inhabitants ate a lot of fish, as proven by the countless fish bones, and fishing gear artifacts found at the site.
The Borgund Viking village was probably created in the 10th century AD, and there is evidence of trade and contact with the rest of Europe, particularly Western Europe. Numerous pieces of English, German, and French tableware were found at the site.
An exchange of art, music, and fashion also occurred. The last official mention of Borgund was from 1384 AD, in a royal decree which instructed the farmers of Sunnmøre to buy their goods in the market town of Borgund.
Financed by the Norwegian Research Council, the ambitious and historically crucial documentation of Borgund Viking village has been captured in detail on the official Facebook page of the BKP and the Per Storemyr Archaeology and Conservation Group page . A five-part documentary series has been prepared by the BKP and can be accessed here . The BKP team includes archaeologists, geologists, osteologists (bone experts), metal scientists, and art historians.
Oldest Ever Neanderthal Remains Found, Dating Back 116,000 Years!
In 2008 a team of archaeological excavators digging in the Stajnia Cave near Mirów in Poland, unearthed deeply-ancient tools among the remains of Neanderthal hunters. This discovery represented the first Neanderthal remains ever discovered in Poland.
However, a recent shift in the scientific molecular clock indicates that these discoveries are not “55,000 years old,” as was believed, but they are in fact “the oldest remains of Neanderthals in Central Europe,” possibly dating back as far as 116,000 years.
Aerial view of Stajnia Cave in Poland, where the Neanderthal remains were originally discovered.
Doubling Dates in a Heartbeat
When conducting the fieldwork directed by Mikolaj Urbanowski, the archaeologists at Stajnia Cave located north of the Carpathians in Poland discovered a Neanderthal molar in 2007.
At the time, scientists extracted its mitochondrial DNA and dated it to somewhere between 42 and 52 thousand years old. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature demonstrates how this ancient tooth is much older, twice as old in fact.
The new research was conducted by a international team of scientists from the University of Wrocław, the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Geological Institute , who together analyzed the Neanderthal DNA gathered from the Stajnia Cave tooth sample, comparing it with DNA samples found in other caves, such as Scladina Cave in Belgium and Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany.
The Stajnia Cave DNA was found to be more closely related to the North Caucasus population than with that of Western Europe, which according to the researchers was hard evidence of the “mobility of Neanderthals.”
Furthermore, this new DNA research showed that the Stajnia Cave molar was far older than other Central European Neanderthal remains, and having been recovered in a “Micoquian context” it has been re-dated to “approximately 80,000 – 116,000 years old.” Yup, you read that right. These remains could possibly be “116 thousand years old,” which makes it the oldest Neanderthal remains ever discovered in Central Europe.
Map showing the location of Micoquian (red circles) sites in Europe and indicating specifically the location of the Stajnia Cave in Poland.
Descending Ice Giants: Migration Caused by Climate Change
The initial dates given to the Neanderthal molar, and associated remains and tool, was “approximately 52-42 thousand years ago,” but this new study has now proposed that they date back to around 116 thousand years ago.
At this time, according to an article on PHYS, the climate changed abruptly and caused the Central-Eastern European environment to shift from forested, to open steppe and taiga habitat. These changes also caused the southward dispersal of Arctic wooly mammoths and wooly rhinos .
During this time of great ecological shifts, known to geologists as the “Micoquian,” bifacial stone tools emerged in Central-Eastern Europe across eastern France, Poland and the Caucasus.
These tools were slowly developed until the demise of the Neanderthals. Professor Mateja Hajdinjak, a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and co-author of the paper published in Nature, said the team used “the molecular genetic clock” to place the fossilized tooth at the beginning of the Last Glacial , when the site could have been “a logistical location settled during forays into the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland.”
3D digital model of the Neanderthal molar found at Stajnia Cave in Poland.
A Thrilling Breakthrough: The Oldest Neanderthal Remains in Central Europe
Scientists generally tend to be ultra-careful when describing any emotional responses to big discoveries, and rightfully so, for there should be no room for such subjective vagaries in logical processes.
But on this occasion, Wioletta Nowaczewska of Wroclaw University, a co-author of the paper, said the team were “thrilled” when the results of their genetic analysis revealed the tooth was “at least 80,000 years old” and maybe even 116,000 years old.
Exemplifying how rare this Neanderthal molar discovered in Poland is within a European context, a July 2016 paper published in Science Daily by a team of scientists from the University of Cologne explains that in Germany there are only “four known settlement sites for the time period between 110,000 to 70,000 years ago.”
Meanwhile, there are “ninety-four” sites dated between 70,000 to 43,000 years ago, with most dating to the later date around the time the Neanderthals disappeared.
Stone tools found at Stajnia Cave in Poland.
The Molecular Clock and Archaeological Paradigm Shifts
Precisely why the Neanderthal species died out is still unclear and it continues to be a hot topic for debate within the scientific community who are currently split between several contrasting models demonstrating how their extinction came about.
In the last decade several papers from leading institutions have claimed: low genetic diversity , decreases in fertility , the rise of Homo sapiens and the current favorite is climate change. All of these, and more, have all been blamed for having bought about the demise of the Neanderthals.
At a molecular level, the tools and human remains discovered in Stajnia Cave are very similar to those discovered at sites in Germany, Crimea, Northern Caucasus and Altai.
This is presented in the new study as further evidence of “increasing mobility” among Neanderthal groups who hunted across the Northern and Eastern European plains, stalking slow moving “cold adapted migratory animals,” according to the scientists.
Thanks to the shift in the molecular clock, this increased mobility has now been identified as having occurred around 100,000 years ago, which is double the previously accepted dates of occupation at Stajnia Cave. What else could the molecular clock technique reveal about our ancient origins?
Sweden’s Mysterious Shipwrecks Found Full of Medieval Household Goods
When underwater archaeologists discovered the sunken ruins of two medieval-era ships in Sweden’s Baltic Sea coastal waters last spring, they knew it would take some time to find answers explaining what the ships were and where they’d come from.
Those answers have perhaps come more quickly than expected, as the researchers examining the remains of the ships have now determined the ages of the vessels. These ships date to the 14th century, a time when the maritime-oriented Hanseatic League dominated the region commercially and politically.
According to a press release from the Scandinavian archaeological consulting company Arkeologerna, the key factor allowing for the discovery of this information was an analysis of wood samples taken from the wreck.
Dating procedures have revealed that the largest of the two vessels, which has been labeled Varbergskoggen 1, was constructed from wood that was harvested in the year 1346, or 676 years before the present.
The timber used to make the vessel was collected from quite a distance away, having been sourced from forests in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
Why did the medieval ships sink?
Meanwhile, the second and smaller of the two ships, labeled the Varbergskoggen 2, was built from wood harvested in northern Poland sometime between the years 1355 and 1357.
Needless to say, the archaeologists were quite intrigued to find two ships sunk side by side that had come from entirely different places. It seems they sunk at the same time, victims of what at this time is an unknown event.
Why Did the Ships Sink? The Mystery is Still Open
The two merchant vessels were discovered during the construction of a rail tunnel near Varberg, approximately 120 miles (193 kilometers) north of Copenhagen, Denmark.
They are a common type of medieval ship known as cogs, which the Estonian Mere Museum website identifies as “large, with a spacious cargo space, and were mostly equipped with one mast and one large square sail.”
The Varbergskoggens 1 and 2 were located only 30 feet (nine meters) apart on the shallow coastal sea bottom, and that is something that archaeologists say almost never occurs. One of the wrecked ships had a nearly intact port site, and as of now is the most complete cog wreck ever found in Swedish waters.
Inside the wrecked ships underwater explorers found significant quantities of household goods. Among these discoveries were wooden spoons, engraved wooden kegs, and pairs of leather shoes.
All the items would have been moved to be sold or traded, and the researchers involved in studying the wrecks are hoping these goods will provide some clues to the ships’ destinations and missions.
Figurine, wooden spoon, and sheave recovered from the cogs.
Soil samples taken from the wrecked vessel may show what types of food were stored on the vessel. This information could also help researchers pin down the exact location where the ships were before they met their tragic demise.
Up to this point, the Arkeologerna archaeologists have been unable to determine exactly why the two ships sunk from examining their remains. Presumably both ships went down at the same time, if indeed they were traveling together at the time of the disaster.
The primary reasons why medieval ships sank would have been bad weather accompanied by high seas, collisions with other vessels or with submerged rocks along shorelines, flooding and shifting of poorly stored cargo, and possibly attacks by pirates (the latter was unlikely to have occurred in this instance).
In Swedish Waters, Shipwrecks Abound
This is just one of several ancient shipwrecks recovered off the coast of Sweden.
In 2012 in southern Swedish waters explorers found the remains of a 500-year-old ship that had been carrying soldiers and the Danish nobles they were guarding.
In October of this year, archaeologists announced that scuba divers had discovered yet another Swedish shipwreck. Timber samples revealed this to be the wreck of a 17th century warship known as the Äpplet, commissioned for battle by the king of Sweden.
Many of the sunken ships still undiscovered in this region are likely cogs, which adds to the urgency to find the ones that remain. From the 13th through the 17th centuries, the Hanseatic League, which consisted of cities from Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, and Livonia, was active in trade throughout the Baltic Sea region.
Trading ships moved back and forth across the Baltic, connecting Hanseatic cities and settlements, and cogs were frequently the ship of choice for the members of the League.
Examining Varbergskoggen 1, one of the medieval Swedish ships.
Were flexible enough to be used as cargo vessels or warships. These sailboats were distinctive in appearance, with their giant square sales and single mast styling. They featured multiple structural anomalies that set them apart from other medieval sailing vessels.
Unfortunately, medieval vessels of this type were seldom preserved for long once they were off the water. That is why the shipwrecks found off the coast of Sweden have generated so much attention among archaeologists and historians who specialize in medieval Scandinavian history.
