Category Archives: EUROPE

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

9,000-Year-Old Cheddar Man Has Living Descendant Still Living in The Same Area

Leave a comment

9,000-Year-Old Cheddar Man Has Living Descendant Still Living in The Same Area

Cheddar Man is the name given to the remains of a man that was found in Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. Cheddar Man was discovered around the turn of the 20 th century, and has been dated to the Mesolithic period.

It seems that there was not much research done on Cheddar Man, and he was probably a set of prehistoric remain amongst many. It was, however, around the end of the same century that one of the most sensational findings related to this prehistoric individual was made – it was found that he had a living descendant living in the same area.

The Discovery

Cheddar Man’s discovery was made in 1903. The remains of this prehistoric man were found 20 m (65 ft.) inside Gough’s Cave, the largest of 100 caverns in Cheddar Gorge, under a layer of stalagmite, above which was another layer of more recent material.

Cheddar Man was found to have been buried alone near the mouth of a deep cave, and results from dating suggest that he lived 9000 years ago, during the Mesolithic period.

It looks as though little research has been done on Cheddar Man since his discovery, and it may be said that he was a relatively obscure figure.

Stalagmites and stalactites in Gough’s cave

An article was published in 1914, 11 years after Cheddar Man’s discovery, which was entitled “The Cheddar Man: A Skeleton of Late Paleolithic Date”.

One of the things in the title that may immediate strike a reader is the designation of Cheddar Man to the Late Paleolithic period, several thousand years prior to the Mesolithic period which he is today thought to have live in.

One of the analyses done by the authors of the paper was the measurement of Cheddar Man’s skull. These measurements were then compared with some other specimens of prehistoric skulls. Apart from that, the other remains, such as the teeth and limb bones, were also studied.

Cheddar Man’s DNA

In 1997, it was reported that a living descendant of Cheddar Man had been found. In the report, it was written that DNA had been found in the pulp cavity of one of Cheddar Man’s molars. The DNA was examined at Oxford University’s Institute of Molecular Medicine.

The results from the analysis were then compared with the DNA of 20 local individuals whose families were known to have been living in Cheddar for several generations. One of these individuals was identified as a descendant of Cheddar Man.

Skull found in Gough’s Cave

Cheddar Man’s Family

The DNA of Adrian Targett, who was 42 years old when that discovery was made, was found to match that belonging to Cheddar Man. According to science, this genetic fingerprint is said to have been passed down from mother to child.

In other words, Targett and Cheddar Man both share a common maternal ancestral. It may be added that Targett was not the only one from his family to have not moved away from his ancestral land.

It was reported that there were 46 individuals in his extended family, and most of them had remained in the Somerset area.

A Paleolithic human skull from Gough’s Cave

It may be pointed out that Cheddar Man, whilst arguably the most famous set of human remains to have been found in Cheddar Gorge, is not the only one. In one report, the site has been dubbed in as “Britain’s prime site for Paleolithic human remains”.

Another set of well-known human remains were discovered several decades ago. These are three cups, made from the skulls of two adults and a three-year-old child. These remains were re-examined several years ago, and it was found that the making of skull cups was a traditional craft, and that the skulls were obtained after their owners died naturally.

In addition, the other human bones were found to have shown signs of butchery, indicating that cannibalism was practiced by these prehistoric people.

DENMARK, EUROPE, WORLD

The Ill-fated Elling Woman: An Iron Age Sacrifice to Appease the Gods?

Leave a comment

The Ill-fated Elling Woman: An Iron Age Sacrifice to Appease the Gods?

Elling Woman is the name given to a well-preserved bog body that was discovered in Denmark during the first half of the 20th century. By then, this type of remains had already been found in Denmark’s bogs for at least a century.

For instance, one bog body, unearthed in 1835, was thought to have belonged to a legendary Viking queen from the 8th century AD by the name of Gundhilde. Subsequent research on bog bodies, however, have shown that this practice had existed at an earlier period of time. In the case of Elling Woman, for example, it was found that she had lived during the Iron Age of northwestern Europe.

Discovering the Elling Woman

Elling Woman was discovered in 1938, when a farmer by the name of Jens Zakariassen was in the process of digging peat. This occurred in a pit bog in Bjældskovdal, a bog area which lies to the west of the city of Silkeborg, in the central part of Denmark.

The Upper body of the Elling Woman.

At least two other bog bodies have been found in this area, one having been discovered in 1927 (which was reburied when the peat bank collapsed over it), and another being the famous Tollund Man, which was discovered 12 years after Elling Woman was found, and separated from her by a distance of less than 100 meters (328 ft.).

Tollund Man on display at Silkeborg Museum.

Initially, the farmer thought that he had found the remains of an animal that had drowned in the bog. He only realized that these were human remains when he noticed the woolen belt around the body’s waist.

As he recognized that this may be of archaeological importance, he contacted the National Museum of Denmark. Subsequently, the body was removed from the bog, and was transported to Copenhagen to be analyzed.

Beginning to Decipher the Elling Woman’s Past

With the level of technology at that time, there was not very much that could be done to study Elling Woman. Nonetheless, it was observed that whilst the back of this bog body was well-preserved, its front was not, which made it difficult to identify whether the body belonged to a male or female.

Apart from that, the body was found to have been dressed in a skin cloak, and a blanket / cloak of cowhide was wrapped around her legs. Furthermore, the body’s hairstyle, which was a long pigtail formed by an intricate pattern of plaiting, and tied into a knot, was noted. A skin rope was also found with the body. Elling Woman was then kept in a storage room in the museum.

The Elling Woman’s hairstyle

New Details on the Elling Woman Emerge

It was only later, during the 1970s, that more information was extracted from Elling Woman, thanks to technological advancement. For example, the sex of the body was determined using x-ray and examination by a forensic dentist.

It was also determined that Elling Woman was about 25 years old at the time of her death. Radio carbon dating also suggested that Elling Woman lived during the Iron Age of northwestern Europe, between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC.

The Elling Woman on display at the Silkeborg Museum, along with the skin rope found with her body.

Based on the skin rope that was found with her, it has been established that Elling Woman was hanged to death. This rope has a sliding knot, which made it suitable for hanging. In addition, Elling Woman’s neck has got a furrow left from the hanging, further supporting this point of view.

Whilst some scholars have suggested that bog bodies belonged to executed criminals, others are more inclined to regard them as evidence of human sacrifice. In the case of Elling Woman, it is possible that she was living in an age when the climate was experiencing unusual changes.

This would have had a negative impact on the community she was living in, and they may have decided to offer her as a sacrifice to the gods in the hopes of appeasing them.

In more recent times, women around the world have taken an interest in the mystery of the Elling Woman and also found inspiration in her Iron Age hairstyle. Videos and tutorials on how to recreate her ancient hairstyle can be found across the internet.

Reconstruction of hairstyle and skin cape of the bog body Elling Woman near Silkeborg, Denmark.
ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

The Ribchester Helmet – An Ancient Roman artifact discovered by a 13-year-old boy while playing behind the house

Leave a comment

The Ribchester Helmet – An Ancient Roman artifact discovered by a 13-year-old boy while playing behind the house

Over the past centuries, archaeologists have unearthed some extraordinary artifacts that give us a glimpse into human history and help us understand the many secrets of the ancient world.

Numerous archaeological expeditions have been undertaken over the years, some of which resulted in historically significant discoveries. Yet some of the most exciting finds have been made by non-professionals who stumbled upon them purely by accident. Such is the case with the famous Ribchester Helmet, discovered by chance in 1796.

We are all aware that England is rich with archaeological sites, historical monuments, and important artifacts, especially from the Roman era. Ribchester in the county of Lancashire is a lesser-known site of a Roman fort and settlement. The most famous among the many artifacts discovered in the area is the Ribchester Helmet.

Discovered in the summer of 1796 by the son of Joseph Walton who was playing behind his father’s house in Ribchester, Lancashire.

What is today considered one of the most famous helmets from Ancient Rome was discovered by accident in 1796 by a 13-year-old clog maker’s son, who found it while playing behind his house.

The helmet was part of a small hoard of metal items, most probably belonging to a Roman soldier from about 120 AD.

This two-piece ceremonial helmet, worn by Roman cavalrymen during military exercises and during parades and other ceremonies, weighs nearly three pounds and was most likely of little or no practical use on the battlefield.

However, the Romans, who are known for engaging in a variety of sporting competitions, also used this type of helmet during the cavalry sports events known by the name of “hippika gymnasia,” where these helmets were used to mark ranks and excellence in horsemanship.

Although Julius Caesar first paid a visit to Britain in 55 BC, it actually took almost 100 years before Romans landed on the beaches in Kent to conquer Britain in 43 AD.

The Roman occupation influenced almost every sphere of life in Britain, including culture, language, geography, and architecture. They built many new roads, numerous settlements, and countless forts, including the one at Ribchester.

The visor-mask and crown are covered with relief scenes of skirmishes between infantry and cavalry. Such helmets were impractical for actual fighting and were worn by Roman cavalrymen on the occasion of “cavalry sports‟ events.

What we know today about this type of Roman helmet is mostly thanks to the accounts left by Arrian of Nicomedia, who was a provincial governor and a close friend of Emperor Hadrian.

As written in his Techne Taktike, which focuses on the “hippika gymnasia,” the best soldiers wore these helmets in cavalry tournaments.

Only three Roman helmets with a covering over the face have been found in the UK.

Called Bremetennacum Veteranorum, the Roman settlement and fort in Ribchester was built during the reign of Emperor Vespasian in the early 70s AD.

Apart from the remains of Ribchester Roman Fort and the Roman bathhouse that can be seen today, there is also a Roman Museum where visitors can see a replica of the Ribchester Helmet.

The famous artifact is one of only three of its kind ever found in Britain, but it is considered to be the highest quality example. The second was found around 1905 and is now housed at the Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh.

The third, known as the Crosby Garrett Helmet, was found in a field in 2010 by a metal detectorist who wants to remain anonymous. It was sold at auction for $3.6 million.

Since 1814, the original helmet is on display at the British Museum, but the Roman Museum in Ribchester has a replica.

The Ribchester Helmet was clearly the most significant, but not the only artifact discovered back in 1796. The same hoard included many military and religious items, plates, pieces of a vase, and other items.

It is believed that the finds that were placed there for over 16 centuries were in such good condition because they were covered in sand.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Baby Buried With Care 10,000 Years Ago Found in Italian Cave

Leave a comment

Baby Buried With Care 10,000 Years Ago Found in Italian Cave

Archaeologists studying a cave in Liguria, Italy, have found the earliest known burial of a female infant in Europe. Surrounded by grave goods, the baby, whom the researchers dubbed “Neve” in honor of a nearby river, was 40 to 50 days old when she died about 10,000 years ago, reports Brian P. Dunleavy for United Press International (UPI).

Archaeologists unearthed the body of a female infant at a 10,000-year-old burial site in the Arma Veirana cave in Italy.

The child’s remains were wrapped in a shroud adorned with more than 60 beads and four pendants, all of which were made out of shells. An eagle-owl talon that may have been a gift was discovered nearby. 

As the team argues in the journal Scientific Reports, the burial reflects the infant’s treatment as a full person by an early Mesolithic hunter-gatherer culture, with the items buried alongside her indicating significant emotional investment.

Finding the bones of babies from prehistoric or ancient times is rare because they’re extremely fragile, reports Tom Metcalfe for National Geographic. The new discovery is especially unusual because the remains were preserved well enough to extract DNA. In most cases, infants’ bone DNA has deteriorated too much to determine sex.

Adult burials dated to more than 14,000 years ago are somewhat common archaeological finds. But examples from the early Mesolithic (around 10,000 B.C.E.) are few and far between.

The remains of the infant, nicknamed “Neve” after a nearby river, were found together with grave goods. The intricate style of burial marks the full personhood afforded to the baby by her hunter-gatherer community.

“The number of burials at this time, between about 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, is very, very rare,” lead author Jamie Hodgkins, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, tells National Geographic. “… [I]t’s in a gap where we don’t have much of anything at all.”

Neve’s grave is located in the Arma Veirana cave in the mountains of Liguria, a region in northwestern Italy. A popular spot for visitors, the site is also a target for thieves. The researchers began studying the cave in 2015 after looters exposed late Ice Age tools there, writes Ian Randall for the Daily Mail.

Signs of activity in the cave date back more than 50,000 years, to a time when its most likely inhabitants would have been Neanderthals. Archaeologists found boar and elk bones that showed signs of butchering, as well as charred animal fat. After digging deeper into the cave in 2017, the team found the infant’s burial site.

“I was excavating in the adjacent square and remember looking over and thinking, ‘That’s a weird bone,’” says study co-author Claudine Gravel-Miguel, an archaeologist at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, in a statement.

The team fully excavated the gravesite in 2018. The ornaments buried with Neve were made with care; judging from patterns of wear, they were probably passed down to the child by other members of her community.

“The presence of perforated shells with traces of prolonged use means that these have been worn for a long time by the adults,” study co-author Fabio Negrino, an archaeologist at the University of Genoa, tells Rachel Elbaum of NBC News. “These shells were perhaps sewn to her dress.”  

Neve’s remains were wrapped in a shroud adorned with beads and pendants made of shells. The talon of an eagle-owl was buried along side her as a supposed gift.

Tests conducted on the infant’s teeth revealed details of her short life. According to the study, carbon and nitrogen analysis found that before she was born, her mother ate a land-based diet. Neve experienced stress in the womb that led her teeth to temporarily stop growing. DNA and protein tests showed that she belonged to a European lineage known as the U5b2b haplogroup.

Researchers compared the find to the remains of two infants buried at Upward Sun River in Alaska some 11,500 years ago and rediscovered in 2013. In both cases, the infant girls appear to have been recognized as people in their own right.

This acknowledgement of personhood may have stemmed from a common ancestral culture, write the authors in the study. Alternatively, it could have arisen independently.

María Martinón-Torres, a paleoanthropologist who was not involved in the study, tells National Geographic that evidence of children’s personhood dates back to the early Homo sapiens and Neanderthal periods.

She adds, “The earliest documented burials in Africa … involve children and a deliberate dedication to the way the body is disposed.”

In a separate statement, Hodgkins says, “Archaeological reports have tended to focus on male stories and roles, and in doing so have left many people out of the narrative. … Without DNA analysis, this highly decorated infant burial could possibly have been assumed male.”

EUROPE, SCOTLAND, WORLD

The oldest house in the UK is nearly 6000 years old and has stone furniture that is still intact today

Leave a comment

The oldest house in the UK is nearly 6000 years old and has stone furniture that is still intact today

At Knap of Howar on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney, Scotland, a Neolithic farmstead may be the oldest preserved stone house in northern Europe.

Radiocarbon dating shows that it was occupied from 3700 BC to 2800 BC, earlier than the similar houses in the settlement at Skara Brae on the Orkney Mainland.

The front of the structures.

The farmstead consists of two adjacent rounded rectangular thick-walled buildings with very low doorways facing the sea. The larger and older structure is linked by a low passageway to the other building, which has been interpreted as a workshop or a second house.

They were constructed on an earlier midden, and were surrounded by midden material which has protected them. There are no windows; the structures were presumably lit by fire, with a hole in the roof to let out smoke.

Though they now stand close to the shore, they would have originally lain inland. The shore shows how the local stone splits into thin slabs, giving a ready source of construction material.

The main house now looks out over the sea.

The walls still stand to an eaves height of 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 in), and the stone furniture is intact giving a vivid impression of life in the house. Fireplaces, partition screens, beds and storage shelves are almost intact, and post holes were found indicating the roof structure.

Looking back through the low entrance doorway into the main house, a visitor’s backpack gives an idea of scale.

Evidence from the middens shows that the inhabitants were keeping cattle, sheep and pigs, cultivating barley and wheat and gathering shellfish as well as fishing for species which have to be line caught using boats.

EUROPE, ROMAN, WORLD

Skeletons Found Near Dead Sea Scrolls Likely Belonged to an Enigmatic Religious Group

Leave a comment

Skeletons Found Near Dead Sea Scrolls Likely Belonged to an Enigmatic Religious Group

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is regarded as one of the greatest archaeological finds in history. Almost as interesting as the content of the texts themselves has been the question of who created and cared for them.

A recent analysis of skeletons found near the site and dating to the same time period suggests the common assumption of an enigmatic religious group known as the Essenes may be correct.

The belief that people living in Qumran at the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls creation were members of a celibate Jewish sect called the Essenes is one of the earliest and also the most popular.

These men were said to be the creators or caretakers of the famed scrolls. However, IBTimes notes Bedouin herders, craftsmen, and Roman soldiers have also been proposed as possible inhabitants of Qumran at that time.

ScienceNews reports that a recent evaluation of 33 skeletons buried at Qumran supports the popular belief that the community was comprised of religious men. The analysis focused on examining physical factors, including pelvic shape and body sizes, and concluded that it is highly probable only men and children were present at the site.

Three of the skeletons could not be identified as male or female. This is a change from the previous assessment that seven of the skeletons were female.

Skulls found at Qumran.

Radiocarbon dating of one of the Qumran skeleton’s bones places the body at approximately 2,200 years old. This is close to the time when the Dead Sea Scrolls are estimated to have been written – 150 BC to 70 AD.

The estimated age of death for the men ranged from around 20 to 50 years old. The lack of war-related injuries goes against the soldier hypothesis. Anthropologist Yossi Nagar of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem said that the men cannot be confirmed as Essenes, but the belief is probable.

Section of the Qumran cemetery.

Judaism that left Jerusalem in protest against the Romans and the way things were happening at the Temple. They apparently went into the desert to follow the orders of the prophet Isaiah. This religious group has often been linked to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Small samples of bone were removed from some of the Qumran skeletons, so there is a chance that researchers could try to complete DNA analysis and perhaps find more clear evidence of who the people living near the Dead Sea Scrolls were. However, Nagar is uncertain if this type of study will be completed.

Remains of living quarters at Qumran.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 11 caves at Qumran between 1947 and 1956. The set of nearly 1000 manuscripts provide some of the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible. 

A 12th cave was discovered in February 2017, but only scroll jars, fragments of scroll wrappings, and a piece of worked leather were discovered.

View of the Dead Sea from a Cave at Qumran.

The first Dead Sea Scrolls were found unintentionally by a Bedouin shepherd at a cave in the vicinity of Qumran. As more texts surfaced over the years, several were put on sale on the black market to private buyers.

This issue led the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Heritage Project to excavate in the Judean Desert Caves in 2016 at the Cave of Skulls – a difficult location to reach. Israel Hasson, director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority, explained the urgency to find the last Dead Sea Scrolls.

A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection known as the Damascus document.
EUROPE, WORLD

Incredible sophistication of 5,000-year-old temple complex on Orkney Island

Leave a comment

Incredible sophistication of 5,000-year-old temple complex on Orkney Island

In 2014, a groundbreaking excavation of a prehistoric temple complex on the Scottish island of Orkney revealed that the Neolithic inhabitants of the island were far more advanced than initially realised.

As well as a large collection of ancient artifacts that reflect a complex and culturally-rich society, archaeologists also discovered that the three major monumental structures on the island – the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stennes, and the Maes Howe tomb – were “inextricably linked in some grand theme”.

The archaeological site, known as the Ness of Brodgar, covers an area of over 6 acres and consists of the remains of housing, remnants of slate roofs, paved walkways, coloured facades, decorated stone slabs, a massive stone wall with foundations, and a large building described as a Neolithic ‘cathedra’ or ‘palace’, inhabited from at least 3,500 BC to the close of the Neolithic period more than a millennium and a half later.

“Their workmanship was impeccable. The imposing walls they built would have done credit to the Roman centurions who, some 30 centuries later, would erect Hadrian’s Wall in another part of Britain.

Cloistered within those walls were dozens of buildings, among them one of the largest roofed structures built in prehistoric northern Europe. It was more than 80ft long and 60ft wide, with walls 13ft thick,” said Roff Smith, author of an article on the Ness of Brodgar to be released in the August edition of National Geographic.

The archaeological site at the Ness of Brodgar.
A reconstruction of what the site once looked like.

The archaeological excavation, which has so far only unearthed around 10 per cent of the original site, has yielded thousands of incredible artifacts including ceremonial mace heads, polished stone axes, flint knives, a human figurine, miniature thumb pots, beautifully crafted stone spatulas, highly-refined coloured pottery, and more than 650 pieces of Neolithic art, by far the largest collection ever found in Britain.  

An engraved stone from the Ness of Brodgar.

The monumental sites of the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, and the Maes Howe tomb, all located within several miles of the Ness, used to be seen as isolated monuments with separate histories, but as excavations at the Ness have progressed, archaeologists have come to believe that the megalithic sites in the surrounding region were all connected in some way with the Ness of Brodgar, although its purpose remains unknown. 

“What the Ness is telling us is that this was a much more integrated landscape than anyone ever suspected,” said archaeologist Nick Card, excavation director with the Archaeology Institute at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

“All these monuments are inextricably linked in some grand theme we can only guess at. The people who built all this were a far more complex and capable society than has usually been portrayed.”

The Ring of Brodgar.

“Stand at the Ness today and several iconic Stone Age structures are within easy view, forming the core of a World Heritage site called the Heart of Neolithic Orkney,” said Smith.

“The Ness of Brodgar appears to be the anchor piece – the showpiece, if you will – that links these other great monuments into one great monumental landscape of a sort nobody had dreamed existed. And to have had it ­lying underfoot, unsuspected, for so many centuries only adds to the sense of wonder surrounding its discovery.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Roman-Era ‘Mega Villa’ Bigger than the Taj Mahal Discovered in England

Leave a comment

Roman-Era ‘Mega Villa’ Bigger than the Taj Mahal Discovered in England

The remains of a huge Roman villa dated to 99 AD have been discovered in Oxfordshire, the second largest Roman villa that has ever been found in England.

Archaeologists excavated the remains of the historic building, which is believed to be bigger than the mausoleum at the Taj Mahal, as part of a four-month-long excavation project.

The foundation measures 278 feet by 278 feet. The findings so far include coins and boar tusks alongside a sarcophagus that contains the skeletal remains of an unnamed woman.

Oxfordshire, UK.

“Amateur detectorist and historian Keith Westcott discovered the ancient remains beneath a crop in a field near Broughton Castle near Banbury,” according to HisTech.

Westcott, 55, decided to investigate the site after hearing that a local farmer, John Taylor, had plowed his tractor into a large stone in 1963. Taylor said he saw a hole had been made in the stone and when he reached inside, he pulled out a human bone.

Broughton Castle.

This was the woman’s body — experts believe she died in the 3rd century. The land previously belonged to Lord and Lady Saye and Sele, the parents of Martin Fiennes, who now owns the land.

The Daily Mail reports that Martin Fiennes “works as a principal at Oxford Sciences Innovation and is second cousin of British explorer Ranulph Fiennes and third cousin of actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.”

Excavation site

According to the Daily Mail, Westcott had a “eureka moment” when he found “a 1,800 year-old tile from a hypocaust system, which was an early form of central heating used in high-status Roman buildings.”

Using X-ray technology such as magnetometry, the walls, room outlines, ditches, and other infrastructures were revealed. The villa’s accommodation would have included a bath-house with a domed roof, mosaics, a grand dining room, and kitchens.

The largest Roman villa previously found in England is the Fishbourne Palace in West Sussex, which dates back to 75 AD.

Archaeological excavation

The palace at Fishbourne was one of the most noteworthy structures in Roman Britain. Only discovered in the 1960s, the site has been extensively excavated, revealing that it was originally a military site. Lying close to the sea, Fishbourne was ideal as a depot to support Roman campaigns in the area.

Built on four sides around a central garden, the site covered about two hectares, which is the size of two soccer fields. The building itself had about 100 rooms, many with mosaics.

The best known mosaic is the Cupid on a Dolphin. Some of the red stones are made from pieces of red gloss pottery, most likely imported from Gaul.

The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD, during the reign of Claudius. For the Claudian invasion, an army of 40,000 professional soldiers — half citizen-legionaries, half auxiliaries recruited on the wilder fringes of the empire — were landed in Britain under the command of Aulus Plautius.

Archaeologists debate where they landed. It could have been Richborough in Kent, Chichester in Sussex, or perhaps both. Somewhere, perhaps on the River Medway, they fought a great battle and defeated the Catuvellauni, the tribe that dominated the southeast.

EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

Incredible amount of WWII battlefield relics still being found on the Eastern Front

Leave a comment

Incredible amount of WWII battlefield relics still being found on the Eastern Front

The war on the Eastern Front, known to Russians as the “Great Patriotic War”, was the scene of the largest military confrontation in history.

Over the course of four years, more than 400 Red Army and German divisions clashed in a series of operations along a front that extended more than 1,000 miles.

Some 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians and nearly 4 million German troops lost their lives along the Eastern Front during those years of brutality.

The warfare there was total and ferocious, encompassing the largest armored clash in history (Battle of Kursk) and the most costly siege on a modern city (nearly 900 days in Leningrad), as well as scorched earth policies, utter devastation of thousands of villages, mass deportations, mass executions, and countless atrocities attributed to both sides.

The war was fought between Nazi Germany, its allies and Finland, against the Soviet Union.The conflict began on 22 June 1941 with the Operation Barbarossa offensive, whenAxis forces crossed the borders described in the German–Soviet Nonaggression Pact, thereby invading the Soviet Union.

The war ended on 9 May 1945, when Germany’s armed forces surrendered unconditionally following the Battle of Berlin (also known as the Berlin Offensive), a strategic operation executed by the Red Army.

The states that provided forces and other resources for the German war effort included the Axis Powers – primarily Romania, Hungary, Italy, pro-Nazi Slovakia, and Croatia.

The anti-Soviet Finland, which had fought the Winter War against the Soviet Union, also joined the offensive. The Wehrmacht forces were also assisted by anti-Communist partisans in places like Western Ukraine, the Baltic states, and later by Crimean Tatars.

Among the most prominent volunteer army formations was the Spanish Blue Division, sent by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to keep his ties to the Axis intact.

The Eastern Front was a gigantic battlefield and comes as no surprise as to the amount of relics lost and buried on this battlefield. The images below are just a ‘few’ from the Facebook page The Ghosts of the Eastern Front.

There is always a debate to the digging of battlefields and that will continue forever. If you are a collector then you can buy relics from their website.

The Soviet Union offered support to the partisans in many Wehrmacht-occupied countries in Central Europe, notably those in Slovakia, Poland and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In addition, the Polish Armed Forces in the East, particularly the First and Second Polish armies, were armed and trained, and would eventually fight alongside the Red Army.

TheFree French forces also contributed to the Red Army by the formation of the GC3 (Groupe de Chasse 3 or 3rd Fighter Group) unit to fulfill the commitment of Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, who thought that it was important for French servicemen to serve on all fronts.

British and Commonwealth forces contributed directly to the fighting on the Eastern Front through their service in the Arctic convoys and training Red Air Force pilots, as well as in the provision of early material and intelligence support.

The later massive material support of the Lend-Lease agreement by the United States and Canada played a significant part particularly in the logistics of the war. Among other goods, Lend-Lease supplied.

DENMARK, EUROPE, WORLD

The Surprising and Iconic Bronze Age Egtved Girl: Teenage Remains Tell a Story of Trade and Travel

Leave a comment

The Surprising and Iconic Bronze Age Egtved Girl: Teenage Remains Tell a Story of Trade and Travel

One of the best-known Danish Bronze Age burials, the well preserved Egtved Girl was found in a barrow in 1921. Her woolen clothing, hair, and nails were perfectly preserved, but all her bones were missing. Scientists studying the ancient teenager’s remains in 2015 made the surprising discovery that the Egtved Girl traveled great distances before her death, and wasn’t from Denmark at all.

A study published in the journal Nature details the results of modern tests done by scientists. Strontium isotope analysis on Egtved Girl’s molar, hair, and fingernails, combined with examination of her distinctive woolen clothing, have revealed she was born and raised hundreds of miles from her burial site in Egtved, in modern Denmark.

Findings show she likely came from The Black Forest of South West Germany, and she traveled between the two locations via ship frequently in the last two years of her life.

The Egtved Girl

According to LiveScience, the Egtved Girl’s oak coffin was uncovered in 1921 from a Bronze Age archaeological site near Egtved, Denmark. The grave was found within a burial mound of dense peat bog, and has been dated to 1370 BC. 

The clothing worn by the Bronze Age teenager, Egtved Girl. Credit: National Museum of Denmark

Inside the coffin, the 16 to 18-year-old girl was buried. She is believed to have been of high status. The teenager had been laid on an ox hide and covered by a rough woolen blanket. The contours of where her dead body had lain are still visible, pressed into the ox hide beneath her.

She was of slim build, with mid-length blonde hair, and her clothing—a short string skirt and small, midriff-baring, sleeved top—caused a sensation when revealed in the 20s. Around her waist she had worn a large, spiked bronze disc decorated with spirals. Even now people recreate the stylish Bronze Age fashion .

Other grave goods included bronze pins, a sewing awl, and a hair net. Local flowers decorated the top of the coffin (indicating a summertime burial), as did a small bucket of beer made of honey, wheat, and cowberries.

The Egtved Girl’s coffin during excavations in 1921. Credit: National Museum of Denmark

Another body was found with Egtved Girl in her coffin. Ashes and bones comprised the cremated remains of a small child recovered near Egtved Girl’s head. The identity of the child, who was about five or six years old when he or she died, is not known. No DNA could be recovered from either sets of remains, so their relationship is a mystery.

Well-Preserved Remains

Scientists found that the soil composition of the grave worked as a microclimate, preserving some items and destroying others. Rainwater seeped in to the hollowed-out, oak-trunk coffin, but it was starved of oxygen. These conditions decayed the bones completely away, but left behind excellently-preserved fingernails, hair, scalp, a small part of her brain, and clothing.

Senior researcher Karin Margarita Frei, from the National Museum of Denmark and Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen analyzed the Bronze Age girl’s remains, according to Science Daily .

Hair and clothing found in the coffin of the Egtved Girl. Credit: Karin Margarita Frei, National Museum of Denmark

Trade and Travel

Analysis of the high-status teenager’s remains, as well as the cremated bones of the young child, showed that the pair had spent much of their lives in a distant land, thought to be Schwarzwald (the Black Forest) in Germany.

“If we consider the last two years of the girl’s life, we can see that, 13 to 15 months before her death, she stayed in a place with a strontium isotope signature very similar to the one that characterizes the area where she was born.

Then she moved to an area that may well have been Jutland. After a period of c. 9 to 10 months there, she went back to the region she originally came from and stayed there for four to six months before she travelled to her final resting place, Egtved. Neither her hair nor her thumb nail contains a strontium isotopic signatures which indicates that she returned to Scandinavia until very shortly before she died.

As an area’s strontium isotopic signature is only detectable in human hair and nails after a month, she must have come to ‘Denmark’ and ‘Egtved’ about a month before she passed away,” Karin Margarita Frei told Science Daily.

The exceptionally-preserved hair of the Egtved Girl. Her burial dates to 1370 BC. Credit: Karin Margarita Frei, National Museum of Denmark

This movement makes sense to researchers. Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg told Science Daily, “In Bronze Age Western Europe, Southern Germany and Denmark were the two dominant centers of power, very similar to kingdoms.

We find many direct connections between the two in the archaeological evidence, and my guess is that the Egtved Girl was a Southern German girl who was given in marriage to a man in Jutland so as to forge an alliance between two powerful families.”

The bronze belt disc found on Egtved Girl may have come to the area via the busy trade routes of the day.  The spiral decorations are said to be related to a Nordic solar cult, and the bronze is thought to have originated somewhere in the Alps.

Further, the wool that made up her clothing came from sheep outside of Denmark. The ‘fashionable’ Egtved Girl and her mysterious tiny companion have captivated people since their discovery in 1921. Modern research brings the life and death of the prehistoric girl to light in amazing detail, and gives us a better understanding of early European people.

But she is not the only teenage girl found in Denmark that has created a stir in the last few years. In 2017, it was announced that another famous Bronze Age burial of a teenage girl, this time found in Jutland, Denmark was also a traveler from faraway lands. Strontium analysis of the 16- to 18-year-old Skrydstrup woman suggests she originally came from Germany, the Czech Republic, France, or Sweden.

As archaeologist Karin Frei of the National Museum of Denmark told ScienceNordic, “We can’t say with 100 per cent certainty where she [the Skrydstrup woman] came from, and we may never be able to, but she definitely wasn’t Danish.

It gives us so many new perspectives. Now we know that Egtved Girl was not an isolated case.” These studies show that early European mobility was more dynamic that previously believed; Bronze Age people were trading and traveling long distances, quicky.