Archaeologists in Jersey found this solid gold torc hidden in a Celtic coin hoard
The beautiful golden torcs found in a hoard of celtic coins in Jersey
This Celtic coin hoard found on Jersey has astounded archaeologists with a wealth of gold treasures.
Jersey Heritage’s conservation team were excavating an area known to contain gold jewellery when one end of a solid gold torc was uncovered.
The find followed the discovery of two other solid gold torcs – one gold-plated and one of an unknown alloy – along with a silver brooch and a crushed sheet gold tube. But the later artefact was considerably larger than anything previously unearthed on the island.
As well as a large, rigid neck ring, archaeologists say the torc has a massive decorative ‘terminal’ where it was likely to have been locked closed around the owner’s neck. The terminal is formed from two solid gold wheels, each about 4cm across and 1cm wide.
“It’s an incredible time here,” said conservator Neil Mahrer as they began the process of conservation. “Every hour or so we are finding a new gold object.
“We did see some gold jewellery on the surface of the hoard, but since we’ve started looking at this shoe-box sized area, we’ve uncovered a total of six torcs, five of which are gold and one which we believe to be gold-plated. This is the only one that we think is whole, though.”
Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, an Iron Age jewellery expert who has been involved in studying jewellery found in other Jersey hoards, assisted with the interpretation. He had already identified comparable features in examples found in 2nd century BC hoards at Bergien, Belgium and Niederzier, Germany.
A small stone was also uncovered, possibly of local granite. Archaeologists say it may be no more than a pebble in the field that fell into the treasure pit during the burial. But as it is an odd shape and size, its purpose will be investigated.
At the end of the clearing period the torc was scanned in place to record its position to fractions of a millimetre before being removed, along with some of the other jewellery surrounding it.
A week-long opening in November allowed the public to watch conservator Neil Mahrer and his team preserve the coins, which were been re-dated to between 30-40 BC.
The coins were found to be mainly French with a small number from the south coast of England, with torques, a “beautifully-crafted” silver ring, a small blue bead and a square centimetre fragment of woven cloth also emerging from the magnificent hoard.
With the British Museum providing advice on the conservation, the hoard was too thick to x-ray so the team literally found each piece one by one they removed the coins over a 12 month period, laser scanning them before removing them.
The laser scanner was incredibly accurate and enabled the team to incorporate the data from the jewellery into a bigger 3D computer model they are building.
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“The gold torques are important to us because they were important to the Celts,” said Olga Finch, Jersey Heritage’s Curator of Archaeology.
“They were the equivalent of royal jewellery to these people and would only have been worn by individuals of high status.
“The torques will be analysed for further clues about the lives of the Celts. As well as engravings on the jewellery, samples can be taken from their hollow cores to get organic material that might reveal more about what was going on at the time, why the hoard was buried and to study the materials used in their manufacture to identify where they came from, giving insights in to travel and trade.”
16,700-Year-Old Tools Found in Texas Change Known History
Archaeologists in Texas thought they’d made an important discovery in the 1990s, when they unearthed a trove of stone tools dating back 13,000 years, revealing traces of the oldest widespread culture on the continent.
But then, years later, they made an even more powerful find in the same place — another layer of artifacts that were older still.
About a half-hour north of Austin and a meter deep in water-logged silty clay, researchers have uncovered evidence of human occupation dating back as much as 16,700 years, including fragments of human teeth and more than 90 stone tools.
In addition to being some of the oldest yet found in the American West, the artifacts are rare traces of a culture that predated the culture known as Clovis, whose distinctively shaped stone tools found across North America have consistently been dated to about 13,000 years ago.
The pre-Clovis artifacts include more than 90 stone tools, such as bifaces and blades, and more than 16,700 flakes left over from the point-making process.
Indeed, an entire generation of anthropologists was taught that Clovis represented the continent’s first inhabitants.
But, along with a handful of other pre-Clovis finds, the Texas tools add to the mounting evidence that humans arrived on the continent longer ago than was once thought, said Dr. D. Clark Wernecke, director of the Gault School of Archaeological Research.
“The most important takeaway is that people were in the New World much earlier than we used to believe,” Wernecke said.
“We were all taught [North America was first populated] 13,500 years ago, and it appears that people arrived 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.” [See what may be the oldest known artifact in the West: “Stone Tool Unearthed in Oregon ‘Hints’ at Oldest Human Occupation in Western U.S.”
The location in Texas where the new finds were made, known as the Gault site, was first identified in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that archaeologists discovered the first tools, like tapered-oval spear heads, that were clear signs of the ancient Clovis culture.
It was those finds that Wernecke and his colleagues went to investigate further, when they began working at the Gault site in 2022.
“At the time, we were interested in Clovis, and we had no idea of anything earlier there,” he said.
After several years of digging test pits and making chance finds, the team ended up focusing on two of the most striking parts of the site.
The first part, known as Area 12, revealed an unusual “pavement” constructed out of cobbles buried deep beneath the surface.
“[It’s] a roughly two-by-three-meter rectangular gravel pad about 10 centimeters thick of rounded river gravels in a narrow range of sizes, with artifacts of at least Clovis age on and around it,” Wernecke said.
“The indications from the surrounding data are that it had a structure on it.”
The presence of Clovis-era stone tools suggested that the paved floor dated to about 13,000 years ago.
The team kept digging, and about 1 meter below the pavement and the Clovis tools, they found nine more flakes of shaped stone, along with a scattering of animal bones.
Assuming that material found below the Clovis pavement must be older than Clovis, the researchers were intrigued. But there was not much to go on.
“In Area 12, you have the pavement, lithics and bone, and not much else,” Wernecke said.
Among a pile of limestone rocks, the team discovered the enamel caps of four adjacent teeth from a young adult female.
No human bones were found, and enamel can’t be radiocarbon dated, Wernecke noted, so details about the woman — like how and when she lived and died — remain a mystery for now.
However, within this same, deep, older-than-Clovis layer of sediment, the researchers unearthed yet another compelling find — more than 90 stone tools, fashioned in a style that clearly wasn’t Clovis.
Clovis projectile points can be identified by their long parallel-sided shape — a form known as lanceolate — as well as by their thin bases, and notches where a shaft could be hafted onto the stone. [See a clear-crystal Clovis point recently found in Mexico.But many of the newly found, deeper artifacts didn’t fit that description.
“The morphology is completely different,” Wernecke said. “They are not lanceolate points with basal thinning.
“Three of them are very small stemmed points, and the fourth is a somewhat thick sort of lanceolate point.
In addition to the 90 tools, the artifacts include more than 160,000 stone flakes left over from the tool-making process. And they, too, are different from the flakes found with Clovis tools, Wernecke said.
“The flaking patterns are also completely different,” he said.
“These were not made using Clovis technology.”
But the fact that these artifacts were different from, and deeper than, the Clovis points didn’t necessarily prove that they were older.
To establish their age, Wernecke and his colleagues submitted 18 of the artifacts to a lab for optically stimulated luminescence dating — a process that analyzes tiny grains in the soils to reveal when they were last exposed to sunlight, thereby giving a sense of how long they’ve been buried.The results showed that the artifacts were between 13,200 to 16,700 years old.
At their most ancient, that’s some 3,000 years older than the earliest known signs of Clovis culture anywhere in North America.
“We compared these [dates] with relative dating of artifacts and radiocarbon dates wherever possible,” Wernecke added. “All seem to agree well.”
The discovery of all of these older-than-Clovis artifacts raises tantalizing questions about what that earlier culture was like, and how it compared to the Clovis culture.According to Wernecke, the pre-Clovis tools suggest that their makers were likely direct predecessors of the Clovis.
Many aspects of their technology — like how they made biface blades — were similar but not identical, he said.
A comparison of a Clovis point found at the Gault site (left) with the bases of older points found below the Clovis layer.
“Blade technology does not seem to have changed a lot — a little bit in technique, but both cultures were making similar blades,” he said.
“Likewise, many of the tools are the same basic tools — easily recognizable to either technological culture but made in a different fashion. A different set of technological tools and instructions were used to arrive at similar tool types.”
This continuity in technology might indicate a similar continuity of culture, Wernecke added, a gradual transition from one culture to the next.
“You would logically expect some similarity,” he said. “If people adopted a new technology, some of the old would hang around.
“If [the tools] were completely different, you would expect to find another culture in between [the Clovis and older-than-Clovis layers], or evidence for total replacement of the population.”
Much more work remains to be done at the Gault site, Wernecke said.But the discoveries made there so far have enormous implications for our understanding of the history of human migration and the peopling of the Americas, Wernecke said. [Learn why human feces found in Oregon has experts arguing: “Ancient Feces From Oregon Cave Aren’t Human, Study Says, Adding to Debate on First Americans“]
“In 1590, [Spanish missionary and naturalist] Jose de Acosta wrote that the people in the New World were primitive humans who must have walked here, and we have built on that premise ever since,” he said.
“But it was not possible to walk here until much later, with 3-mile-high glaciers in the way.
“If people got here 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, they had to have come along the coast in boats.” [See what DNA has revealed about Clovis culture: “Genome of America’s Only Clovis Skeleton Reveals Origins of Native Americans“]
Moreover, he added, the diversity of artifacts uncovered at the Gault site also shows that the continent’s earliest peoples were not a static or monolithic group.
“We are beginning to understand that the first peoples in the new world were just like us,” Wernecke said, “intelligent, inventive, creative — and they found ways to adapt to a rapidly changing world.”
Mystery of ‘feminine’ skeleton found in the royal Celtic tomb
The remains of an ancient Celtic prince or princess, still found in a tomb with wealth, with a solid gold torque and sumptuous bracelets left archeologists confused.
In the Lavau district, near Troyes, the 2500-year-old royal grave, which is supposed to date to the fifth century BC, is said to have belonged to a Celtic royal family.
French tomb sheds light on Iron Age European trade
At the center of the tomb, in an ornate two-wheled chariot with a 580 g (1.2 lbs) golden tour decorated with elaborate winged monsters in the neck, the skeleton had been placed to rest. Also on the skeleton’s wrists were two gold bracelets and a jet bracelet around the left bicep.
But a sword was still found in the grave and indicated that the individual may have been a warrior of some sort. The body also featured delicately carved Greek vases and massive three-foot high Etruscan bronze chaudron.
However, French archeologists who carried out the excavation still have to establish the sex of the person in the grave, but believe he could have been a Celtic prince or Princess of Lavau.The unusual array of papers found next to the body has contributed to the mystery of who the belonged to.
There have been several tombs of princesses from fifth century BC found in north east France, including the Lady of Vix, which was discovered in northern Burgundy in 1953.
Archaeologists have described the latest tomb as an ‘exceptional discovery’ that resembled another found in Reinheim in Germany.
Bastien Dubuis, chief archaeologist on the dig, said:’The presence of a chariot, a cauldron and bronze crockery are three typical characteristics of a princely tomb from this period.
‘They’re well-documented funerary objects, objects of prestige. They were used in religious ceremonies and as a way to show off the power of the elite.’
Two gold bracelets, still on the wrists of the dead Celtic royal can be seen
A bronze cauldron which forms one of the centre pieces of the tomb had several large rings around its edge, each adorned with the horned, bearded head of Acheloos, the Greek river god
The tomb was first discovered in October 2014 and made public in March 2015, but following further excavations, experts have now released more details of the riches inside the grave.
In a statement released by the National Archaeological Research Insitute in France,INRAP, it said: ‘Lying at the centre of the tomb, at the south end, the deceased rests with its two-wheeled chariot.
‘The prince is dressed in his jewellery. It sports a solid gold torque heavier than even that of the Princess of Vix’s rigid collar.
‘In his wrists, a gold bracelet, while his left bicep was girded with a lignite [jet] armband. This furniture has similarities with that of the tomb of Reinheim in Germany.
Ceramics, including this finely decorated Greek wine pitcher inlaid with gold, were also found in the grave
It is richly decorated with a double winged monster patter. Archaeologists found several amber beads, finely worked into a necklace or hair jewellery.
‘The tomb contains funerary deposits worthy of the highest wealthy Hallstatt elites.’ The Hallstatt Celts were a early Iron age culture that spread across most of northern Europe.
However, INRAP added: ‘The poor state of preservation of the bones means it is not yet possible to determine with certainty the sex of the individual.’
The position of the skeleton in the tomb – lying slightly on its side – has meant archaeologists have been unable to examine the pelvis without damaging the remains.
Funeral deposits including bronze and ceramic dishes were found in the tomb, which is dated to the early fifth century BC
Even archaeologists involved in the dig are split over the sex of the remains. They say some of the evidence found in the grave, such as the chariot, have a distinctly masculine feel, but the skeleton itself appears more feminine.
INRAP said it appeared the prince or princess had been buried in their finest clothing, possibly a costume that had been worn for special occasions or parties.
Iron clasps and coral that perhaps held the garment together were also found and the remains of some leather along with iron rivets that sat around the neck. Lace eyelets and bronze clasps from the person’s shoes also remain.Archaeologists say it appears the person had been lavishly clothed when they were buried suggesting they were of extremely high standing.
One of the most intriguing items in the grave, however, was the enormous bronze cauldron cast in the Meditteranean style. It is not clear whether it was buried with anything inside but experts say at some point it may have been used to hold wine.The cauldron has four circular handles, each decorated with the horned, bearded head of Acheloos, the Greek river god.
The edge of the pot is decorated with eight heads of lionesses. Experts believe it may have been made either in Greece or by the Etruscan civilisation that lived in Tuscany in Italy at the time.
In some Celtic cultures warriors were buried with cauldrons for use in the afterlife. It is hoped the tomb may help to shed fresh light on the trade links between the Celts in northern Europe and the emerging civilisations around the Mediterranean at the time.
The Celtic prince or princess is thought to have died around 500BC – about the time when the ancient Greeks were beginning to flourish.
It has been widely assumed that the Greeks and Etrucans saw the cultures living in the north as barbarians, but the new discovery shows they may have enjoyed a close relationship.
Also found in the tomb was a black ceramic Greek wine pitcher inlade with gold, described as being ‘without equivalent’. The pitcher depicts Dionysius at a banquet lying under a vine opposite a female figure.
Archaeologists also found gold and silver sieved spoon for separating wine from herbs and spices. INRAP president Dominique Garcia said: ‘They are evidence of the exchanges that happened between the Mediterranean and the Celts. ‘Even in the rich Greek tombs you don’t find such objects.’
Skeletal damage hints some hunter-gatherer women fought in battles
Women’s reputation as nurturing homebodies who left warfare to men in long-ago societies is under attack. Skeletal evidence from hunter-gatherers in what’s now California and from herders in Mongolia suggests that women warriors once existed in those populations.
Skeletons of two people buried in an ancient tomb in Mongolia include a woman (left) who may have been a horse-riding, bow-and-arrow-wielding warrior, scientists say.
Two research teams had planned to present these findings April 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. That meeting was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The results have been provided to Science News by the scientists.
Sexual divisions of labor characterized ancient societies, but were not as rigidly enforced as has often been assumed, the new studies suggest. “The traditional view [in anthropology] of ‘man the hunter and woman the gatherer’ is likely flawed and overly simplistic,” says forensic anthropologist Marin Pilloud of the University of Nevada, Reno.
Consider hunter-gatherers who lived in central California as early as around 5,000 years ago as well as more recent Native Americans groups in that region, such as Coast Miwok and Yana. Some archaeological evidence as well as historical accounts and 20th century anthropologists’ descriptions generally portray men in those groups as hunters, fishers and fighters in tribal feuds and conflicts with outside armies. Women are presented as focused on gathering and preparing plant foods, weaving and child care.
But skeletons of 128 of those hunter-gatherer women display damage from arrows and sharp objects such as knives comparable to skeletal injuries of 289 presumed male warriors, Pilloud and her colleagues found. Whether those women fought alongside men or carried out other dangerous battle duties, such as sneaking up on enemies to cut their bow strings, can’t be determined from their bones.
Individuals in this sample came from 19 Native American groups in central California, and had lived in any of five time periods between around 5,000 and 200 years ago.
Evidence analyzed by Pilloud’s team was part of a database of excavated skeletal remains from more than 18,000 central California hunter-gatherers assembled by study coauthor Al Schwitalla of Millennia Archaeological Consulting in Sacramento.
A study directed by Schwitalla determined that 10.7 percent of males in the database had suffered injuries from sharp objects and projectile points, versus 4.5 percent of females. The new study finds similar patterns of those injuries on the skeletons of men and women.
In wars between Native American tribes in California, women were often killed in surprise raids and other attacks, which may partly explain female injuries reported in the new study, says biological anthropologist Patricia Lambert of Utah State University in Logan.
Some women may have fought in battles, either to defend their children or village or as warriors, suggests Lambert, who was not part of Pilloud’s team. But further evidence of female fighters, such as Native American women in California buried with weapons and other battle artifacts, is needed, she says.
A second skeletal analysis suggests that nomadic herders in ancient Mongolia, bordering northern China, trained some women to be warriors during a time of political turbulence and frequent conflicts known as the Xianbei period, says anthropologist Christine Lee of California State University, Los Angeles. The Xianbei period ran from 147 to 552.
In a study of nine individuals buried in a high-status Mongolian tomb from the Xianbei period, conducted by Lee and Cal State colleague Yahaira Gonzalez, two of three women and all six men displayed signs of having ridden horses in combat.
That conclusion rests on three lines of evidence: bone alterations caused by frequent horse riding and damage from falls off horses; upper-body signatures of having regularly used bows to shoot arrows, including alterations of spots where shoulder and chest muscles attach to bone; and arrowhead injuries to the face and head. Because the tomb was previously looted, any war-related objects that may have been interred with the bodies are gone.
In western Asia, archaeologists have uncovered potential graves of women warriors that include weapons and war gear.
By around 900, written documents refer to Mongolian women who fought in wars, held political power and had diplomatic credentials, Lee says. Freedom for Mongolian women to pursue a variety of activities goes back at least to the Xianbei period, she suspects.
Lee now plans to look for skeletal evidence of female warriors in more Mongolian tombs dating to as early as around 2,200 years ago.
“Badass women may go back a long way in northern Asian nomadic groups,” she says.
Ancient Untouched Royal Tomb Found in Peru – ROBERT SEPEHR
An ancient royal tomb, older than the Inca civilization, and filled with treasures and mummified women dating back over 1,200 years, has been found in Peru. This is the first such tomb belonging to South America’s Wari civilization found untouched by vandals, the National Geographic said.
Long before the Inca built Machu Picchu, the Wari empire flourished throughout much of present-day Peru. At a time when Paris had just 25,000 residents, the Wari capital Huari was home to 40,000 people at its height, according to National Geographic, which reported the find.
Though the surrounding site has been looted many times, this mausoleum has managed to evade grave robbers for hundreds of years, archaeologists say.
The fact that most of the skeletons were of women and the very rich grave goods, leads archeologists to the interpretation that this was a tomb of the royal elite.
Protected from looters by 30 tons of stone, those interred in the mausoleum lay exactly where Wari attendants left them long ago. It is very likely that the children’s bodies found inside were placed there as an offering, and to accompany the prominent person.
“The adult was likely a master weaver”, said Isabel Flores, an archaeologist at Pucllana. “The infant”, she added, “was probably killed and buried in the tomb as an offering in the adult’s honor. When we unwrap the bodies, we will be able to determine the adult’s age, position in society and gender,” said Ms Flores.
The Wari civilisation was active in an area that now contains Lima from approximately 600 to 1,000 AD, some 500 years before the Inca empire emerged.
Seventy Wari tombs have been unearthed at the Pucllana site, which is nestled in a residential neighbourhood in central Lima. The funerary bundles are large textile wrapped individuals.
The bundles themselves appear like individuals, with a large circular body and a false head made of textile or wood.
Ms Flores and Gladys Paz, the head archaeologist of the team that made the discovery, both said that this most recent find is among the site’s richest treasures yet.
“This is the most important find in decades of excavation, because the mummies are intact,” said Ms Paz.
Piercing blue eyes undimmed by the passing of 1,300 years, this is the Lady of the Mask – a mummy whose discovery could reveal the secrets of a lost culture. She was found by archaeologists excavating a pyramid in Peru’s capital city.
It is the first time a tomb from the region’s Wari culture has been discovered intact and gives historians the chance to pin down exactly how the pre-Incas buried their dead.
Archaeologists have uncovered this mummy and three others belonging to the ancient Wari culture in Peru
The mummy – assumed to be a noblewoman because of the ornate mask – was found in a crouching position surrounded by ceramics and textiles associated with female weavers.
“Her face startled me at first,” said 19-year-old Miguel Angel, one of the workers who carried her body out of the tomb. “I wasn’t expecting to find anything like that.” Earlier the workers at the site removed other adult mummies found lying near the lady of the mask.
Jug With 870 Silver Coins From The 17th And 18th Centuries Found In Slovakia
Archaeologists in Lučivná, a village under the Tatras, dug out a small earthenware jug with 870 pieces of silver coins.
“We cleaned two-thirds of the coins, so far the oldest one is from 1665 and the youngest from 1733. Hungarian mintage dominates but there are also Silesian, Tyrolean, Moravian, Lower-Austrian and mintage from the Olomouc archbishopric,” said archaeologists from the Archaeological Institute of Slovak Academy of Sciences in Spišská Nová Ves, Marián Soják, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
Archaeologists have researched systematically in Lučivná; in the past, they found unique discoveries from modern times, according to Soják.
“Some modern coin, spur or badge appeared here and there, however, this was a big surprise for us,” stated Soják for SITA.
The treasure was found in the western part of the cadastre.
“It was buried on a ridge above caves located about 15 metres from a group of rocks. The person knew where to bury it to be able to find it, even though he or she apparently did not come back,” the archaeologist noted for SITA. He added that it is hard to say what the circumstances were that led to burying the treasure.
“Maybe the person hid it because of disturbances, maybe he was attacked on a well-known postal road that leads through the village,” Soják continued for SITA.
The owner of the coins was a medium wealthy person, probably from the lower middle class.
“The nominal value is rather low; the highest value is 15 Kreutzer of Leopold I. Among all the silver coins is also a copper one, a mining emblem from Špania Dolina, that one is really precious,” the archaeologist summed up for SITA.
The geoglyph of a 10-foot-tall Bronze Age bull in Russia is 2,000 years older than the Nazca Lines
Archaeologists have discovered a 2,000-year-old etching of a cat carved into a hillside some 250 miles southeast of Lima, Peru, reports Spanish news agency EFE. The feline, which measures about 120 feet long, has wide, orb-like eyes and appears to be sunning itself.
The newly identified likeness is a Nazca Line—one of hundreds of ancient drawings created in the Peruvian desert by removing rock and soil to produce a “negative” , writes Jason Golomb for National Geographic. Other Nazca Lines depict animals including orcas, monkeys, hummingbirds and spiders, as well as geometric shapes and humanoid figures.
Dated to between 200 and 100 B.C., the geoglyph is thought to be older than any others previously discovered in the region. Workers identified the etching while remodeling a portion of the Nazca Lines Unesco World Heritage Site, reports Tiffany .
“The discovery shows, once again, the rich and varied cultural legacy of this site,” says Peru’s Ministry of Culture in a statement.
Per the statement, the image of the lounging cat was “barely visible” prior to cleaning and conservation. As the Times notes, researchers only found it after spotting signs of “something intriguing” near the Mirador Natural lookout point.
“[It] was about to disappear because it’s situated on quite a steep slope that’s prone to the effects of natural erosion,” the ministry explains.
A spider-shaped Nazca Line
Famed for their impressive scale and complexity, the Nazca Lines have fascinated researchers since their modern rediscovery in the 20th century.
But experts remain divided over why the Nazca civilization, which flourished in southern Peru between 200 B.C. and 600 A.D., dedicated so much time and energy to creating the massive figures.
Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe was the first to systematically study the lines, examining them from the ground in 1926. The following decade, commercial pilots provided a fuller aerial view of the glyphs; between the 1940s and ’70s, Nazca experts Paul Kosok and Maria Reiche argued that the lines fulfilled “astronomical and calendrical purposes,” per National Geographic.
More recent investigations have shifted away from Kosok and Reiche’s theories, instead positing that the lines relate to religious rituals designed to encourage rainfall and fertility. Increasingly, wrote Stephen S. Hall for National Geographic in 2022, researchers are starting to agree that “[t]hey were not made at one time, in one place, for one purpose.”
Last year, archaeologists from Japan’s Yamagata University drew on satellite imagery, fieldwork and artificial intelligence analysis to identify 143 new Nazca Lines.
According to a statement, the findings suggested that larger glyphs served as ritual sites, while smaller ones acted as location markers for travelers.
“It’s quite striking that we’re still finding new figures, but we also know that there are more to be found,” Johny Isla, Peru’s chief archaeologist for the Nazca Lines,
The Peruvian desert’s arid climate has preserved the Nazca Lines for millennia. But erosion and human activity pose significant threats to the glyphs’ survival. A single footprint or tire mark could permanently destroy the surface of these ancient lines—and, in recent years, such damage has become increasingly common.
In , Greenpeace activists smudged the surface of a Nazca Line during a demonstration calling for action on climate change, and in , a truck driver was arrested after he intentionally drove a tractor across a condor-shaped glyph.
A 40,000 year-old sculpture made entirely from mammoth ivory
The excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany recovered a female figurine carved from mammoth ivory from the basal Aurignacian deposit. This figurine, which is the earliest depiction of a human, and one of the oldest known examples of figurative art worldwide, was made at least 35,000 years ago. This discovery radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Paleolithic art.
Between September 5 and 15, excavators at Hohle Fels near the town of Schelklingen recovered the six fragments of carved ivory that form the Venus. The importance of the discovery became apparent on September 9 when an excavator recovered the main piece of the sculpture that represents the majority of the torso. The figurine lay about 3 meters below the current surface of the cave in an area about 20 meters from the cave’s entrance.
The finds come from a single quarter meter and were recovered from within 8 cm in the vertical dimension. The Venus from Hohle Fels is nearly complete with only the left arm and shoulder missing. The excellent preservation and the close stratigraphic association of the pieces of the figurine indicate that the Venus experienced little disturbance after deposition.
The figurine originates from a red-brown, clayey silt at the base of about one meter of Aurignacian deposits.The Venus lay in pieces next to a number of limestone blocks with dimension of several decimeters. The find density in the area of the Venus is moderately high with much flint knapping debris, worked bone and ivory, bones of horse, reindeer, cave bear, mammoth, ibex, as well as burnt bone.
Radiocarbon dates from this horizon span the entire range from 31,000 – 40,000 years ago. The fact that the venus is overlain by five Aurignacian horizons that contain a dozen stratigraphically intact anthropogenic features with a total thickness of 70 – 120 cm, suggests that figurine is indeed of an age corresponding to the start of the Aurignacian around 40,000 years ago.
Although much ivory working debris has been recovered from the basal Aurignacian deposits at Hohle Fels and the nearby site of Geißenklösterle, this sculpture is the first example of figurative art recovered from the basal Aurignacian in Swabia. The discovery of the Venus of Hohle Fels refutes claims that figurative representations and other symbolic artifacts first appear the later phases of the Swabian Aurignacian.
The Venus shows a range of entirely unique features as well as a number of characteristics present in later female figurines. The Venus of Hohle Fels lacks a head. Instead an off-centered, but carefully carved ring is located above the broad shoulders of the figurine. This ring, despite being weathered, preserves polish suggesting that the figurine was worn as a pendant.
Beneath the shoulders, which are roughly as thick as they are wide, large breasts project forward. The figurine has two short arms with two carefully carved hands with visible fingers resting on the upper part of the stomach below the breasts.
The Venus has a short and squat form with a waist that is slightly narrower than the broad shoulders and wide hips. Multiple deeply incised horizontal lines cover the abdomen from the area below the breast to the pubic triangle. Several of these horizontal lines extend to the back of the figurine and are suggestive of clothing or a wrap of some sort. Microscopic images show that these incisions were created by repeatedly cutting along the same lines with sharp stone tools.
The legs of the Venus are short and pointy. The buttocks and genitals are depicted in more details. The split between the two halves of the buttocks is deep and continues without interruption to the front of the figurine where the vulva is visible between the open legs.
There can be no doubt that the depiction of oversized breast, exentuated buttocks and genetalia result from the deliberate exaggeration of the sexual features of the figurine. In addition to the many carefully depicted anatomical features, the surface of the Venus preserves numerous lines and deliberate markings.
Many of the features, including the emphasis on sexual attributes and lack of emphasis on the head, face and arms and legs, call to mind aspects of the numerous Venus figurines well known from the European Gravettien, which typically date between 22 and 27 ka BP. The careful depiction of the hands is reminiscent of those of Venuses including that of archetypal Venus of Willendorf, which was discovered 100 years earlier in summer of 1908. Despite the far greater age of the Venus of Hohle Fels, many of its attributes occur in various forms throughout the rich tradition of Paleolithic female representations.
The new figurine from Hohle Fels radically changes our view of origins of Paleolithic art. Prior to this discovery, animals and therianthropic imagry dominated the over two dozen figurines from the Swabian Aurignacian. Female imagry was entirely unknown. With this discovery, the notion that three dimensional female imagry developed in the Gravettian can be rejected.
Also the interpretations suggesting that strong, aggressive animals or shamanic depictions dominate the Aurignacian art of Swabia, or even Europe as a whole, need to be reconsidered. Although there is a long history of debate over the meaning of Paleolithic Venuses, their clear sexual attributes suggest that they are a direct or indirect expression of fertility.
The Venus of Hohle Fels provides an entirely new view of the art from the early Upper Paleolithic and reinforces the arguments that have been made for innovative cultural manifestations accompanying the rise of the Swabian Aurignacian.
While many researchers, including Nicholas Conard, assume that the Aurignacian artworks were made by early modern humans shortly after their migration into Europe, this assumption can neither be confirmed or refuted based on the available skeletal data from the Swabian caves.
The Venus of Hohle Fels forms a center piece for a major exhibit in Stuttgart, Germany, entitled Ice Age Art and Culture, which will run from September 18, – January 10, .
More information: The author of the paper: A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian deposits of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany.
ARCHAEOLOGY DIG IN SPAIN YIELDS PREHISTORIC ‘CRYSTAL WEAPONS’
When you see a beautiful crystal how do you feel? Perhaps the perfection of the diamond, or the vivid colors of the different gems are your thing? The fact is that people have been fascinated by crystals ever since they had first discovered them.
The gems ‘ names come from ancient cultures that were obsessed with them pretty much, adding them to their jewelry, kitchenware, and weapons.
Do you know that even the Bible describes the new Jerusalem after the apocalypse built all in gems and crystals?
An archeological excavation in Spain reveals that even in the 3rd millennium BC, crystals were an object of fascination and ritual
Archeologists discovered a number of shrouds decorated with amber beads at the Valencina de la Concepción site, and they also found a “remarkable set of “crystal weapons
The Monterilio tholos, excavated between 2007 and 2010, is “a great megalithic construction…which extends over 43.75 m in total.” It has been constructed out of large slabs of slate and served as a burial site.
The period in which this site was built was well known for the excavation of metals from the ground, and where there is excavation – there can also be crystals.
In the case with the Monterilio tholos, the people there found a way to shape the quartz crystals into weapons.
However, the spot where these crystals were uncovered is not associated with rock crystal deposits, so it means that these crystals were imported from somewhere else.
The rock crystal source used in creating these weapons has not been pinpointed, but two potential sources have been suggested, “both located several kilometers away from Valencina.”
As the academic paper which focuses on these crystal weapons states, the manufacture of the crystal dagger “must have been based on the accumulation of transmitted empirical knowledge and skill taken from the production of flint dagger blades as well from the know-how of rock-crystal smaller foliaceous bifacial objects, such as Ontiveros and Monterilio arrowheads.”
The exact number of ‘crystal weapons’ found in the site has been estimated to “10 crystal arrowheads, 4 blades and the rock crystal core of the Monterilio tholos.”
Interestingly enough, although the bones of 20 individuals were found in the main chamber, none of the crystal weapons can be ascribed to them.
The individuals had been buried with flint daggers, ivory, beads, and other items, but the crystal weapons were kept in separate chambers.
These crystal weapons could have had ritualistic significance and were most probably kept for the elite. Their use was perhaps closely connected to the spiritual significance they possessed. Indeed, many civilizations have found crystals as having a highly spiritual and symbolical significance.
The paper states that “they probably represent funerary paraphernalia only accessible to the elite of this time period.
The association of the dagger blade to a handle made of ivory, also a non-local raw material that must have been of great value, strongly suggests the high-ranking status of the people making use of such objects.”
Museum teams unearth 4,000-year-old home in Sheffield
Museum teams unearth 4,000-year-old home in Sheffield
They left only fragments of evidence, buried by time, that yield their secrets only to patient exploration and trained eyes.
Patience, hard work and study paid off this summer for Dr. Brian Redmond, curator of archaeology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and his team of dedicated diggers.
In a clearing that once was farmland and now is part of the Lorain County Metroparks, they uncovered the floor of a dwelling built 4,000 years ago.
“There’s nothing like this anywhere in Ohio. It’s very significant, a much more significant site than we previously thought,” Redmond said. “These are house structures. This was like a village site.”
The builders lived in what archaeologists classify as the Late Archaic period in North America, so far back that they don’t have a tribal name.
”We have no idea what they called themselves or what language they spoke,” Redmond said. “The only reason we know anything about them is archaeology.”
The excavation in the Metroparks, he said, delivers “direct evidence of what they did and how they lived.”
Redmond prefers to keep the specific location of the dig confidential, because of the potential for vandalism and illegal digging. Farmers plowed up arrowheads and other artifacts on the land over the years, and smaller digs explored the site as far back as 1971.Systematic test holes over several acres led to the current dig, in square grids ranging from a depth of about 10 inches to almost three feet.
The uncovered floor, which is about 3 inches thick, is built of layers of yellow clay that was carried from nearby areas. An unmistakable basin is built into it, as are cooking pits and storage holes that held hickory nuts, which were an important source of nutrition.
Dark spots in the clay around the edges of the floor are the remains of organic material. They are “post molds” from the post holes that would have anchored hickory saplings. The saplings would have been tied together, wigwam-style, in a framework for the prehistoric house. Layers of cattail mats would have covered the framing.
“A small family would be very comfortable. They were well insulated, and sheltered under the tree canopy of oaks,” Redmond said. “Unlike at other sites, they’re going to the trouble to make floors. They’re here for months at a time.”
They were not people indigenous to Northeast Ohio, he said, but migrants from the southeast, most similar to tribes found in northwest Kentucky and southern Illinois. Every few years, if not annually, for 200 or 300 years, their travels would bring them to the site in Lorain County to spend the fall and winter.
They were hunters and gatherers who lived before the advent of pottery or farming, and 2,000 years before moundbuilding.They ate fish from the nearby Black River and Lake Erie, small game such as squirrels and muskrat, and they specialized in deer. “We find a lot of butchered deer bones,” Redmond said.
He and Brian Scanlan, supervisor of archaeology field programs at the Natural History Museum, lead the “Archaeology in Action” digging crews, whose members have ranged in age from 18 to beyond 80.
Paying for the privilege of learning and using excavation techniques, they include college students earning credits or experience and museum members who use their vacation time to dig into the past.
“These folks really want to be out here and learn,” Redmond said. “They do a great job.”
He’s been doing summer field work since coming to the museum more than 21 years ago. It’s something he started at Indiana University, where he earned his doctorate.
This summer’s crew also included two archaeologists from Libya’s official department of antiquities. Under sponsorship of Oberlin College, they’re learning excavation and documentation best practices from Redmond.
“It’s a little different for them here,” he said with a nod to the pools and puddles in and around the excavation. “They’ve never worked in the rain.” They have, however, worked with sites dating back 100,000 years.
Redmond recently published research about one of the oldest sites in Ohio — an artifact-rich in Medina County whose inhabitants were among the first to colonize the lower Great Lakes at the close of the Ice Age. It dates back about 13,000 years.
Artifacts from that site, the Lorain County dig and other excavations will be featured with video documentation at the Museum of Natural History in its recently launched $150 million expansion and renovation.The exhibits will demonstrate “we’re not just studying books. we go out and do the science. we do the field work,” Redmond said.
Work at the Lorain County site will continue this year on weekends as weather allows. When the season ends, Redmond said, the archaeologists will probably preserve it by covering it with plastic and filling the dig with dirt.
