Two Viking Ships Unearthed Reveal Extremely Rare Viking Burial Practices
Incredibly revealing burials found inside two viking ships have been unearthed in Sweden. Archaeologists are never entirely certain what they will find when they begin digging in any given location.
History lends them clues, of course, about the settlements established nearby and what may be found deep within the earth. But it’s always something of a science-based lottery, one that sometimes rewards their dedication to discovery, but just as often does not.
That wasn’t the case for a team in Sweden recently, who knew precisely what they were going to find under a section of modern homes in this rural area. This past summer, a team of experts were thrilled to come upon unique Viking burial ships near the village of Gamla Uppsala.
When a nearby parish decided to build a new hall for the community, they discovered, instead, extremely rare Viking burial remains. Experts were called in, and a dig proceeded immediately.
Imprint of one of the Viking ships.
The team discovered two burial boats, a unique burial ritual used by the Vikings during the period from 550 — 1000 A.D. One boat was in remarkably good shape, although the other was less well preserved.
Nonetheless, Anton Seiler, a spokesman for the dig, was delighted by the items recovered. He told CNN that the folks buried belonged to a select few in the community, probably well-off individuals who were respected.
“It’s a small group of people who were buried in this way,” he explained in an interview last July. “You can (assume) that they were distinguished people in the society of the time, since burial ships in general are very rare.”
The horse skeleton.
The one boat that was in good shape contained within it — and beneath it — important objects from the period, including a spear and pieces of one shield. Also discovered in the boat were the remains of a dog, a horse, and other animals and birds, including falcons and pigs.
“This is a unique excavation,” said Anton Seiler of Swedish archaeology firm The Archaeologists. “The last excavation of this grave type in Old Uppsala was almost 50 years ago.”
Excavating the horse and dog skeletons.
These finds were even more striking, the experts said. Seiler told CNN, “It is exciting for us since boat burials are so rarely excavated. We can now use modern science and methods that will generate new results, hypotheses, and answers.”
The site was kept out of the news initially, said Johan Anund, a member of The Archaeologists, part of the state-run National Historical Museums, because the team was concerned about vandalism.
In a July interview with the New York Times, Anund confirmed that the find was highly significant in part, because the remains proved that the common custom at the time, cremation, wasn’t undertaken.
“Uncremated boat graves are extremely rare,” he stated in the interview, “and the chance to excavated them is even scarcer.” He added that the dig represents a “once in a lifetime opportunity for archaeologists.”
He added that Gamla Uppsala was an important place during the Viking era, one of political and economic importance.
Anund went on to explain why animal remains were buried. Although the burials were “very pagan,” he said, the fact that they were not cremated, demonstrates that the edicts of Christianity were taking hold.
“It was a message to the ‘other side’ about who was coming there,” he continued. Burying the man with his animals was a way of telling the ‘powers that be’ that a man of significance was resting there. (To strict Catholics, cremation is not an accepted practice even today.)
ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER THE BURIAL OF SCYTHIAN AMAZON WITH A HEAD DRESS ON DON
“Such head dresses have been found a bit more than two dozen and they all were in ‘tzar’ or not very rich barrows of the steppe zone of Scythia. We first found such head dress in the barrows of the forest steppe zone and what is more interesting the head dress was first found in the burial of an Amazon”, says Valerii Guliaev.
Cemetery Devitsa V which was called so after the name of the local village has been known since 2000s. It consists of 19 mounds part of which is almost hidden as this region is an agricultural zone which is currently plowed. Since 2010 the site has been studied by the specialists of the Don expedition of IA RAS.
By the time of the excavation works the barrow ¹ 9 of the cemetery Devitsa V was a small hill of 1 m height and 40 m in diameter. Under the center of the mound the archaeologists found the remains of the tomb where the narrow entrance-dromos from the eastern side led to.
In ancient times the tomb was covered by oak blocks which were laid crisscross and rested on 11 strong oak piles. The grave pit was surrounded by the clay earthwork taken from the ground during the construction of the grave.
Right: Details of calathos on the mistress’s skull. Left: Graphic calathos’s reconstruction.
In the barrow four women of different age were buried: two young women of 20-29 years old and 25-35 years old, a teenage girl of 12-13 years old and a woman of 45-50 years old. The burial was made simultaneously as one of the piles supported the floor of the tomb was in the dromos and completely overlaid the entrance so that it would be absolutely impossible to overtake it during next burials.
The burial was robbed in ancient times. The robbers broke into the tomb from the north when the floor had already fallen and the sepulcher was buried i.e. in 100 or 200 years after the barrow was filled. However, only northern and eastern parts of the tomb had been robbed where there were the remains of the teenager and one of the young women.
Apart from the spread remains we found in the northern part of the pit more than 30 iron arrow heads, an iron hook in the shape of a bird, fragments of horse harness, iron hooks for hanging harness, iron knives, fragments of molded vessels, multiple animals’ bones. In filling the robbers’ passage the broken black lacquer lacythus with red figure palmette dated back to the second –third quarter of the 4th c BC was found.
At the southern and western wall there were two untouched skeletons laid on the wooden beds covered by grass beddings. One of them belonged to a young woman buried in a “position of a horseman”.
As the researches of the anthropologists have shown to lay her in such way the tendons of her legs had been cut. Under the left shoulder of a “horsewoman” there was a bronze mirror, on the left there were two spears and on the left hand there was a bracelet made of glass beads.
In the legs there were two vessels: a molded cassolette and a black lacquer one hand cantharos which was made in the second quarter of the 4th c BC.
The second buried was a woman of 45-50 years old. For the Scythian time it was a respectable age as the life expectancy of a woman was 30-35 years old.
She was buried in a ceremonial head dress, calathos, the plates of which were preserved decorated with the floral ornament and the rims with the pendants in the shape of amphorae.
As the researches have shown the jewelry was made from the alloy where approximately 65-70% was gold and the rest is the pollution of copper, silver and a small per cent of iron.
This is quite a high per cent of the gold for Scythian jewelry which was often made in the workshops of Panticapaeum from electrum, the alloy of gold and silver whereas the gold could be approximately of 30%.
“Found calathos is a unique find. This is the first head dress in the sites of Scythian epoch found on Middle Don and it was found in situ on the location on the skull. Of course, earlier similar head dresses were found in known rich barrows of Scythia.
However, only few were discovered by archaeologists. They were more often found by the peasants, they were taken by the police, landowners and the finds had been through many hands when they came to the specialists. That is why it is not known how well they have been preserved. Here we can be certain that the find has been well preserved”, noted Valerii Guliaev.
Along with the older woman an iron knife was laid wrapped into a piece of fabrique and an iron arrow head of quite a rare type, tanged with forked end.
These finds and also many details of the weapon and horse harness allow suggesting that the Amazons, women-warriors whose institution was in the Scythian epoch among Iranian nomadic and semi nomadic tribes of Eastern Europe, were buried in this barrow. Such horse women probably were cattle, belonging and dwelling guardians while the men went to long-term warpaths.
“The Amazons are common Scythian phenomenon and only on Middle Don during the last decade our expedition has discovered approximately 11 burials of young armed women.
Separate barrows were filled for them and all burial rites which were usually made for men were done for them. However, we come across burials with four Amazons of such different age for the first time”, said Valerii Guliaev.
The burial was made in autumn at the end of the warm period. The researches done by paleozoologists of IA RAS helped to figure it out. In the grave pit the bones of six-eight months old lamb were found which some time ago had been in a bronze cooking pot dag into the ground in the center of the grave.
The robbers took the pot which was of great value and the bones greened from being rested in a bronze dish for a long time had been thrown away. Since the sheep usually lamb in March-April it was concluded that the burial which the barrow had been filled for was done not later than November.
Remarkable ‘Sewn’ Roman Shipwreck is Croatia’s Biggest Find of 21st Century
The remarkably well-preserved wreck of a 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman ‘sewn ship’ that was stitched together using ropes and wooden nails has been found in Croatia.
The remarkably well-preserved wreck of a 2,000-year-old Ancient Roman ‘sewn ship’ that was stitched together using ropes and wooden nails, pictured, has been found in Croatia
The vessel was unearthed from the Porta de Mar archaeological site on the ancient waterfront of the town of Poreč, where it had sunk near an ancient pier.
Two thousand years ago, Poreč was part of the Roman province of Dalmatia and the town’s shielded harbour made it ideal for both defence and maritime trade.
Experts are calling the ship Croatia’s greatest archaeological discovery of the century — one that is shining light on ancient ship-building practices.
Found embedded in the mud, the 16 feet (5 metres) -long and 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) wide wreck of the sailboat retained many of its original timbers.
The vessel was unearthed from the Porta de Mar archaeological site on the ancient waterfront of the town of Poreč, where it had sunk near an ancient pier
‘It was well preserved because it was at a certain depth in the soil and could not be penetrated by oxygen,’ archaeologist Klaudia Bartolić Sirotić told Croatia Week.
Much of the ship’s ‘formwork, ribs, and keel’ have survived, Ms Bartolić Sirotić told Archaeology.org — and the researchers were able to observe the imprint that the rest of the vessel had left in the mud to determine the type of ship it was.
The team believe that the vessel had a single sail — and was likely a small private fishing boat.
So-called ‘sewn ships’ are characteristic of the boatwrights of the northern Adriatic back in the first century AD — and featured planks in the outer hull that were essentially stitched together, using ropes and wooden nails known as ‘spots’.
‘Every stitch that is made is recorded [in the wreck],’ Ms Bartolić Sirotić told Croatia Week.
Large wooden nails were then used to attach the outer hull to the inner frame.
The Porta de Mar find is not unique to Croatia — however, most of the sewn ships from the country date back to earlier periods and were unearthed by marine archaeologists underwater, making them much harder to study.
‘This specimen from Poreč is one of three boats found on land that are not part of an underwater archaeological survey,’ Ms Bartolić Sirotić added.
The vessel was unearthed as a result of a redevelopment project that will see the Poreč renovated and made more pedestrian-friendly.
The vessel was unearthed as a result of a redevelopment project that will see the Poreč renovated and made more pedestrian-friendly
In the meantime, the archaeologists are working to complete their study of the boat where it was found, before the remains are removed and conserved with a mind towards being displayed to the public at the Poreč museum.
Greek Farmer Stumbles Onto 3,400-Year-Old Tomb Hidden Below His Olive Grove
If you live in an environment where ancient cultures flourish, you often slip into fascinating bits of long-forgotten history. That’s what happened to one Greek farmer living in Crete, not far from the town of Ierapetra.
When the ground below him started to give way, the farmer parked his truck under some olive trees on his property. After the farmer moved his vehicle to a safer place, he saw a four-foot hole opening in the ground. He realized that this was not an ordinary hole when he looked inside.
The hole in the ground led to a Minoan Bronze Age tomb.
The farmer called archaeologists from the Ministry of Heritage to investigate, and began excavating an ancient Minoan grave, carved into the soft limestone pillar, which had been hidden for thousands of years.
Two adult Minoans had been set in high-embossed clay reefs called “larnakes,” common in the Minoan culture of the Bronze Age. These, in turn, were surrounded by funerary vases which indicated that the men had a high status.
The ancient chamber tomb was entirely intact and undamaged by looters.
The tomb was about 13 feet in length and eight feet deep, divided into three chambers that would have been accessed via a vertical tunnel that was sealed with clay after the tomb’s occupants were laid to rest. One larnax was found in the northernmost chamber, with a number of funerary vessels scattered around it.
The chamber at the southern end of the tomb held the other larnax coffin, along with 14 amphorae and a bowl. The tomb was estimated to be about 3,400 years old, and was preserved in near-perfect condition, making it a valuable find.
Two Minoan men were buried in the Crete tomb roughly 3,400 years ago
Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist, wrote for Forbes that the ornamentation on the artifacts found in the tomb suggest that its inhabitants were men of wealth. The fanciest tombs from the same period, however, had massive domed walls in a “beehive” style, which this tomb doesn’t, so they probably weren’t among the wealthiest.
The find dates from the Late Minoan Period, sometimes called the Late Palace Period. In the earlier part of that era, Minoan civilization was very rich, with impressive ceramics and art, but by the later part of the period there is an apparent decline in wealth and prestige, according to Killgrove.
It’s believed that the civilization was weakened by a combination of natural disasters, including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake, and the eruption of a nearby volcano. This made it easier for foreigners to come in and destroy the palaces.
Locals don’t anticipate the discovery of any more tombs of this type, but the area is known to be the home of a number of antiquities, and a great deal of them have been found by coincidence, as with this find.
The Deputy Mayor of Local Communities, Agrarian and Tourism of Ierapetra pointed out that the tomb had never been found by thieves, and went on to say that it would probably have remained undiscovered forever, except for the broken irrigation pipe that was responsible for the softened and eroded soil in the farmer’s olive grove.
He went on to say how pleased they were with having the tomb to further enrich their understanding of their ancient culture and history, and that the tomb was proof for those historians who didn’t think that there had been Minoans in that part of Crete.
Previously, it had been thought that the Minoans only settled in the lowlands and plains of the island, not in the mountains that surround Ierapetra, although there was an excavation in 2012 that uncovered a Minoan mansion in the same area.
The 5,000-year-old Pavlopetri, Greece, is considered to be the oldest submerged Lost city in the world
The city of Pavlopetri, underwater off the coast of southern Laconia in Peloponnese, Greece, is about 5,000 years old, and one of the oldest submerged Lost city (oldest in Mediterranean sea).
The name Pavlopetri (“Paul’s and Peter’s”, or “Paul’s stone”) is the modern name for the islet and beach, apparently named for the two Christian saints that are celebrated together; the ancient name or names are unknown.
Discovered in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming and mapped in 1968 by a team of archaeologists from Cambridge, Pavlopetri is located between the Pavlopetri islet across the Elafonisos village and the Pounta coast.
The coast, the archaeological site as well as the islet and the surrounding sea area are within the region of the Elafonisos Municipality, the old “Onou Gnathos” peninsula (according to Pausanias). It is unique in having an almost complete town plan, including streets, buildings, and tombs.
Originally, the ruins were dated to the Mycenaean period, 1600–1100 BC but later studies showed an older occupation date starting no later than 2800 BC, so it also includes early Bronze Age middle Minoan and transitional material.
It is now believed that the town was submerged around 1000 BC by the first of three earthquakes that the area suffered. The area never re-emerged, so it was neither built-over nor disrupted by agriculture.
Although eroded over the centuries, the town layout is as it was thousands of years ago. The site is under threat of damage by boats dragging anchors, as well as by tourists and souvenir hunters.
Overview of Pavlopetri.
The fieldwork of 2022was largely to map the site. It is the first submerged town digitally surveyed in three dimensions.Sonar mapping techniques developed by military and oil prospecting organisations have aided recent work.
The city has at least 15 buildings submerged in 3 to 4 metres (9.8–13.1 ft) of water. The newest discoveries in 2009 alone cover 9,000 m2 (2.2 acres).
Position of Pavlopetri.
As of October 2009, four more fieldwork sessions are planned, also in collaboration with the Greek government as a joint project. Those sessions will do excavations.
Also working alongside the archaeologists (from the University of Nottingham) are a team from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, who aim to take underwater archaeology into the 21st century.
They have developed several unique robots to survey the site in various ways. One of the results of the survey was to establish that the town was the centre of a thriving textile industry (from the many loom weights found in the site). Also many large pitharis pots (from Crete) were excavated, also indicating a major trading port.
Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Snacks in Sewers Beneath the Colosseum
Spectators at Rome’s ancient amphitheater enjoyed olives, figs, nuts and more.
Archaeologists found fruit, nuts and other snacks in the sewers beneath the Colosseum.
In the sewers and passageways beneath the Colosseum, archaeologists have found new evidence of what attending events at the ancient amphitheater may have been like—and even what snacks spectators may have preferred.
During a yearlong study, scientists unearthed traces of olives, nuts, meats, cherries, grapes, figs, blackberries and peaches from 1,900 years ago. Attendees at the famous amphitheater likely munched on these snacks while watching events like plays and gladiator fights.
The discoveries “deepen our understanding of the experience and habits of those who came to this place during the long days dedicated to the performances,” says Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, according to Reuters.
Also among the findings: bones from lions, bears, dogs and other animals. The researchers hypothesize that these animals may have been forced to fight each other in front of audiences, or perhaps used as prey as part of hunting demonstrations, reports Reuters.
They also found 50 bronze coins that date back to between the third and seventh centuries, in addition to a rare silver coin from around 171 marking ten years of Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ rule.
“The only places where such discoveries can be made are the sewers,” Federica Rinaldi, the Colosseum’s lead archaeologist, tells Popular Mechanics’ Tim Newcomb. “The importance of this discovery is in the type of animals. Besides lions and bears used in the shows, remains of small dogs, chickens and pigs were found.
There are also many plant remains that illustrate the biodiversity of Roman times and the presence of evergreen plants used for ornamental purposes in the arena during the shows [and possibly] in the area surrounding the Colosseum.”
Researchers began the immense project of clearing out the 2,000-year-old landmark’s sewers and lower passages in 2022. Per Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine, experts are using “wire-guided robots” to navigate the arena’s complex drainage system, hoping to “learn more about hydraulics systems that the Colosseum’s showrunners devised to flood its tunnels and produce water spectacles.”
“In particular we wanted to excavate the southern sewer because it was full of earth and many archaeological remains,” Rinaldi tells Artnet.
The famous Roman Colosseum is one of Europe’s most-visited landmarks. Though many associate the amphitheater, which was the largest in the ancient world, with gladiator fights, it was also used for extravagant theatrical productions, sometimes featuring fire displays, or even mock naval battles playing out on the flooded grounds in front of tens of thousands of spectators. The structure fell into disuse after around 523, when the last recorded games took place.
“The Colosseum continues to tell us its stories, clearly emerging in the wider flow of great history,” writes the Colosseum Archaeological Park in a statement, per Google Translate.
“Exploring the underground sewers, recovering the precious data of older investigations, we are studying to better understand the functioning of the ancient sewers and the hydraulics of the Flavian Amphitheater.”
Malta’s Hypogeum, One of the World’s Best Preserved Prehistoric Sites, Reopens to the Public
The complex of excavated cave chambers includes a temple, cemetery and funeral hall.
Main chamber
Chambers inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Main chamber.
Passageways inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Chambers inside Malta’s Hypogeum.
Red ochre spiral paintings inside the Hypogeum.
This month, one of the world’s best preserved prehistoric sites — a 6,000-year-old underground burial chamber on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta — reopened to the public.
Last June, Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, one of Europe’s only known neolithic necropolises, closed for a series of improvements to its environmental management system. Its reopening brings updates that will enhance conservation and ongoing data collection while improving visitor access and experience.
Archaeological evidence suggests that around 4,000 BCE, the people of Malta and Gozo began building with the purpose of ritualizing life and death. The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, one of the first and most famous of such complexes, is an underground network of alcoves and corridors carved into soft Globigerina limestone just three miles from what is now the capital city of Valletta.
The builders expanded existing caves and over the centuries excavated deeper, creating a temple, cemetery and funeral hall that would be used throughout the Żebbuġ, Ġgantija and Tarxien periods.
Over the next 1,500 years, known as the Temple Period, above-ground megalith structures cropped up throughout the archipelago, many with features that mirror their subterranean counterparts.
Whatever remained of the above-ground megalithic enclosure that once marked the Hypogeum’s entrance was destroyed by industrialization during the late 1800s. Now, visitors enter through a modernized lobby, then descend a railed walkway and move chronologically through two of the site’s three tiers, glimpsing along the way evidence of the structure’s dual role as worship and burial place.
The Hypogeum’s oldest and uppermost level consists of a passageway, access to a cistern below, a courtyard-like space dug into the promontory and five low-roofed burial chambers carved out of pre-existing caves.
Archaeologists believe this is where funerary processions likely began, and Heritage Malta has kept an original grave intact. The middle level is the most ornate. It is also where archaeologists believe the bulk of ritual activity took place. In the “Oracle Room,” an oblong chamber measuring more than five meters long, niches in the walls create amplified and echoing acoustic effects, much like those at the Oracle of Delphi.
The “Holy of Holies” is carved to look like many of the Hypogeum’s contemporary above-ground temples. In front of its entrance, two linked holes in the ground may have been used to collect libations or solid offerings. Visitors exit via a spiral staircase before entering the Hypogeum’s youngest and deepest level.
The third tier reaches 10 meters into the earth and consists of five spaces, each less than five meters in diameter, that give access to smaller rooms that served as mass graves.
The “Holy of Holies” room in Malta’s Hypogeum.
Like other megalith structures in Malta, the Hypogeum fell out of use by 2,500 BCE. The ancient necropolis wasn’t rediscovered until 1902, when construction workers accidentally found one of the chambers while excavating a well for a housing subdivision. It would be two more years before formal excavation took place and another four until the site opened to the public.
The Hypogeum provides insights into Malta’s Temple Culture and its contemporary above-ground structures. Archaeologists estimate over 6,000 people were buried at the site and have found beads, amulets, intricate pottery and carved figurines alongside the bones.
Several chambers are still decorated with black and white checkerboards and red ochre spirals and honey-combs, the only prehistoric paintings found on the island. Corbeled ceilings hint at how the ancient people of Malta supported roofs on the abundant above-ground buildings, now in ruins, found throughout the islands. “[It] gives us a chance to see what [the Hypogeum’s] contemporary temple structures might have looked like on the inside,” says Heritage Malta curator MariaElena Zammit.
According to Zammit, the Hypogeum and its artifacts held up over the millennia largely thanks to its encapsulation. “The Hypogeum is completely underground, completely closed, so it’s humid,” she says.
That moisture “keeps the salt in the stone soluble, preventing flaking. In other [temples throughout Malta], the surface is dissolving in places… [The Hypogeum] is held together by humidity.”
Without Heritage Malta’s careful control, the very presence of visitors to the ancient site would endanger its preservation. Curious fingertips leave behind visible oils that degrade any coloring and even the limestone itself.
Pathway-illuminating artificial lights encourage the growth of microorganisms, and the daily succession of warm, breathing bodies alters CO2 levels, airflow, temperature and humidity. So, while guides encourage tourists to play with the acoustics in the “Oracle Chamber,” visitors are prohibited from speaking directly into the echoing niche.
Preservation efforts first began in earnest in 1991, when the site closed for nearly a decade. The project resulted in walkways, visitor limitations, regulation of artificial light levels and an early but now outdated environmental control system.
More intensive monitoring began in 2022, as part of a grant from the European Economic Area to preserve the Unesco site for future generations, and those data, collected over a period of six years, provided the basis for the new environmental management system.
The Hypogeum’s newest preservation efforts include both passive and active measures, from improved insulation to better control humidity and temperature to modernized technology for studying microorganism growth and tracking real-time changes to the site’s microclimate. “Data will continue to be gathered and analyzed to continually assess the performance of the system installed, as well as [to] monitor the behavior of the site,” says Zammit.
Many of the changes won’t be visible to visitors: Ducts hide behind walls and the air handling units and chillers sit atop the visitor’s center roof. However, tourists will find a cleaner, more modern visitor center with high-pressure laminate panels, replacing mold-prone carpeting, and a new buffer system that gradually increases humidity between the welcome area and the main site.
The most exciting change for visitors will be the enhanced interpretation and virtual tour option. In 2000 after its first major preservation efforts, Heritage Malta limited site tours to 80 individuals per day. That number still stands, so visitors must book weeks or even months in advance to tour the Hypogeum in person.
Furthermore, low lighting and slick walkways render the site inaccessible to people in wheelchairs or with limited mobility. To help meet demand, the visitor’s center is now equipped with audiovisual technology that allows an additional 70 people to virtually tour the site daily from its lobby.
“Thus,” says Zammit, “Heritage Malta will be implementing its mission by making the site more accessible to more members of the community.”
2,000-Year-Old Grave of Child and Puppy Found in France
The dog, outfitted in a collar with a bell, was placed next to the 1-year-old’s feet.
A bent metal rod discovered in the grave was likely a dog toy.
Some 2,000 years ago, a small child in Roman Gaul—now France—died and was buried alongside what archaeologists say was probably a pet puppy.
As Kim Willsher reports for the Guardian, researchers from the National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research (INRAP) found an iron ring attached to a bent metal rod—likely a toy—between the legs of the dog, which was placed at the child’s feet outside of the coffin. The canine sported a collar with a bell and bronze decorations.
The child, who died when they were about 1 year old, was buried with an array of objects, including terracotta vases, half a pig and two headless chickens, as well as glass pots believed to have contained oils and medicines. The researchers are testing the receptacles to discover exactly what they held.
Given the wealth of grave goods found at the site, the team suggests that the child belonged to an elite family.
“The items that accompany this deceased are absolutely exceptional, both in terms of quantity and quality,” says an INRAP statement, per a translation by the Guardian.
“Such a profusion of crockery and butchered items, as well as the personal effects that followed the child to [their] grave, underline the privileged rank to which [their] family belonged.
A dog’s association with a young child is well documented in a funeral context, but here it is the collar and bell that are unusual.”
Dated to sometime during the first three decades A.D., more than 50 years after Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the burial is the “oldest and most important” child’s grave unearthed in France to date, according to the Guardian. At the time of the infant’s death, Gaul was becoming increasingly assimilated into the Greco-Roman world.
The wealth of goods buried with the child suggests they hailed from an elite family.
Laurence Lautier, head of the research team, tells Agence France-Presse that the burial is “unusual because of the profusion of vases and offerings. In this type of tomb we often find one or two pots placed at the foot. Here there are around 20 as well as many food offerings.”
Lautier adds that the vessels probably contained “the child’s part of the food and drink from the funeral banquet.”
Also found in the grave was an older child’s baby tooth, which was placed on a fragment of shell. The researchers say that the tooth may have been left by a sibling of the deceased.
Though the bodies of adults were normally cremated during this period, small children were often buried, reports Clyde Hughes for UPI.
The research team conducted the dig ahead of a development project at the Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport in central France. Since November, the group has excavated a 7.4-acre area of the site.
In addition to the Roman-era grave, the archaeologists have found artifacts spanning the Iron Age through the Middle Ages. Highlight include pits and structures dated to as early as 800 B.C., as well as medieval-era buildings containing equine and bovine remains that indicate they may have housed a butchery operation.
The entire site is covered by a network of ditches, suggesting that locals made multiple efforts to drain the area’s marshland over the millennia.
3,000-Year-Old Submerged Settlement Discovered in Switzerland
Traces of a prehistoric pile dwelling suggest humans inhabited the Lake Lucerne area 2,000 years earlier than previously thought
Underwater archaeologists recovered 30 wooden poles used as supports for prehistoric pile dwellings.
Archaeologists surveying Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne have discovered the remains of a submerged Bronze Age village.
As Swissinfo.ch reports, the new finds suggest that the area around the lake was settled 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. Though researchers have long searched for proof of early habitation in the Lucerne region, a thick layer of mud had obscured traces of the village until recently.
Per a statement from the local government, construction of a pipeline at Lake Lucerne offered underwater archaeologists the chance to examine the lakebed up close. The first dive took place in December ; between March 2022 and February 2022, reports Swissinfo.ch, the team recovered about 30 wooden poles and 5 ceramic fragments at depths of roughly 10 to 13 feet.
“These new finds from the Lucerne lake basin confirm that people settled here as early as 3,000 years ago,” says the statement, per Google Translate. “[W]ith this evidence, the city of Lucerne suddenly becomes around 2,000 years older than has been previously proven.”
Experts used radiocarbon analysis to date the artifacts to about 1000 B.C., when the lake level was more than 16 feet lower than it is today, writes Garry Shaw for the Art Newspaper. According to the statement, these conditions “formed an ideal, easily accessible settlement area” around the lake basin.
The team identified the wooden sticks found at the site as supports used in pile dwellings, or prehistoric coastal houses that stood on stilts. Dwellings of this kind were common in and around the Alps between 5000 and 500 B.C., notes Unesco, and can provide researchers with useful insights into Europe’s Neolithic period and Bronze Age.
Researchers surveyed the lakebed between December 2022 and February 2022.
“The wood is very soft on the outside and hard on the inside,” archaeologist Andreas Mäder tells Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), per Google Translate. “Something like that is typical of prehistoric piles.”
For now, the scholars’ research is limited to the trench surrounding the underwater pipeline. Traces of other submerged settlements are likely hidden nearby, but the team will need additional funding to investigate the area further.
As Heritage Daily reports, Lake Lucerne is a 44-square-mile body of water that reaches depths of up to 1,424 feet. Per a second government statement, the city of Lucerne itself was established 800 years ago.
Written records indicate that humans had settled in the area by the eighth century A.D., but until now, archaeological evidence of earlier habitation was scant.
Lake Lucerne’s water level rose significantly in the millennia following the submerged village’s peak, with a weather-driven increase in rubble and debris buildup exacerbated by medieval residents’ construction of water mills and other buildings. The lake likely reached its current level during the 15th century, according to the statement.
The archaeologists’ announcement coincides with the tenth anniversary of Unesco adding “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps” to its World Heritage List. In total, wrote Caroline Bishop for the Local Switzerland in 2017, the listing includes 111 sites across Europe, including 56 in Switzerland.
As Unesco noted in a 2011 statement, “The settlements are a unique group of exceptionally well-preserved and culturally rich archaeological sites, which constitute one of the most important sources for the study of early agrarian societies in the region.”
5,000-year-old ‘bog body’ found in Denmark may be a human sacrifice victim
The bones of a possible ancient human sacrifice victim have been found in a bog in Denmark.
The archaeologists first found the bones from a human leg, and then a pelvis and a lower jaw with some teeth still attached.
Archaeologists have discovered the ancient skeletal remains of a so-called bog body in Denmark near the remnants of a flint ax and animal bones, clues that suggest this person was ritually sacrificed more than 5,000 years ago.
Little is known so far about the supposed victim, including the person’s sex and age at the time of death. But the researchers think the body was deliberately placed in the bog during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.
“That’s the early phase of the Danish Neolithic,” said excavation leader Emil Struve(opens in new tab), an archaeologist and curator at the ROMU museums in Roskilde. “We know that traditions of human sacrifices date back that far — we have other examples of it.”
Dozens of so-called bog bodies have been found throughout northwestern Europe — particularly in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, where human sacrifices in bogs seem to have persisted for several thousand years.
“In our area here, we have several different bog bodies,” Struve told Live Science. “It’s an ongoing tradition that goes back all the way to the Neolithic.”
The archaeologists hope that wear on the teeth could indicate the person’s age when they died, and that the teeth themselves may contain ancient DNA.
Ancient bones
The ROMU archaeological team found the latest set of bones in October ahead of the construction of a housing development. The site, which has now been drained, had been a bog near the town of Stenløse, on the large island of Zealand and just northwest of the Danish capital Copenhagen.
Danish law requires archaeologists to examine all land that’s to be built on, and the first bones of the Stenløse bog body were found during a test excavation at the site, Struve said.
The site near Stenløse was originally a bog, but it’s been drained for use as farmland. A housing development is due to be built there next year
The archaeologists will now fully excavate the site in the spring, when the ground has thawed after winter. But the initial excavations have revealed leg bones, a pelvis and part of a lower jaw with some teeth still attached. The other parts of the body lay outside a protective layer of peat in the bog and were not preserved, he noted.
Several animal bones found near the human remains indicate this was an area of the bog used for rituals.
Struve hopes that the sex of the body can be determined based on the pelvis and that wear on the teeth may indicate the individual’s age. In addition, the teeth could be sources of ancient DNA, which might reveal even more about the person’s identity, he said.
Archaeologists from the ROMU museums supervised the digger making the initial test trench at the site near Stenløse
Bog bodies
Struve said the flint ax-head found near the body was not polished after it was made and may have never been used, and so it seems likely that this, too, was a deliberate offering.
A flint axe head found next to the human remains seems never to have been used; its in a style that dates to about 3600 B.C.
The oldest bog body in the world, known as Koelbjerg Man, was found in Denmark in the 1940s and may date to 10,000 years ago, while others date to the Iron Age in the region from about 2,500 years ago.
One of the most famous and best preserved bog bodies is Tollund Man, who was found on Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula in 1950 and is thought to have been sacrificed in about 400 B.C.
A few of the bog bodies seem to have been accident victims who drowned after they fell in the water, but archaeologists think most were killed deliberately, perhaps as human sacrifices at times of famines or other disasters.
Miranda Aldhouse-Green(opens in new tab), a professor emeritus of history, archaeology and religion at Cardiff University in the U.K. and the author of the book “Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery”(opens in new tab) (Thames & Hudson, 2015), said ancient people were likely well aware that bogs could preserve bodies.
“If you put a body in the bog, it would not decay — it would stay between the worlds of the living and the dead.”
