EGYPT, WORLD

This Bread Was Made Using 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Yeast

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This Bread Was Made Using 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Yeast

Seamus Blackley, best known as one of the minds behind the Xbox, is a hardcore amateur baker and Egyptologist. Recently, he decided to combine his two hobbies. As Alix Kroeger at the BBC reports, along with University of Queensland archaeologist and ancient brewing expert Serena Love, he negotiated access to 4,500-year-old Old Kingdom vessels used to bake bread and make beer from the Peabody Essex Museum and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The result. On Twitter, Samus Blackley describes it as “much sweeter and more rich than the sourdough we are used to.”

Richard Bowman, a doctoral candidate in microbiology at the University of Iowa, helped in the process, injecting a nutrient solution into the ceramics, which reawakened dormant yeasts.

The team then extracted the yeasty liquid. While most of the yeast was sent off to a laboratory for study, Blackley took one sample home, setting out to recreate the taste of ancient Egypt by baking with its yeast.

“It’s such a magical thing, to think we can share food in a rather genuine way with our distant ancestors,” Blackley writes on Twitter.

Maximilian Blackley

While it’s possible that humans began making some form of bread as early as about 30,000 years ago, they didn’t begin using yeast to produce beer, wine and leavened bread until about 6,000 years ago. Since then, yeast used for producing food has undergone a lot of changes, with strains from around the world combining with one another, and picking up mutations along the way.

It’s likely that the yeast the team captured is the real deal. While previous experiments have scraped the interiors of the bowl, which could easily be contaminated, and other techniques destroy the bowls to gain access to the yeast, this method is non-invasive.

“You pump a fluid in carefully with a syringe and some sterile cotton in contact with the ceramics. It soaks in and you vacuum it back out,” Bowman tells Will Pavia at The Times.

Genomic sequencing will conclude whether the ancient yeast is the real deal or contaminated with modern microbes. In the meantime, Blackley couldn’t resist baking with his sample. He cultivated the yeast for a week using unfiltered olive oil, hand-milled barley and einkorn, one of the earliest forms of wheat, until he had a starter, like that used to make sourdough bread.

Sarah Cascone at artnet News reports he then mixed the starter with barley, einkorn and kamut, all of which would have been at an ancient Egyptian baker’s disposal. “Modern wheat was invented long after these organisms went to sleep,” he says. “The idea is to make a dough with identical ingredients to what the yeast ate 4,500 years ago.”

Blackley documented his bread-baking adventure on his Twitter profile. He noted that the scent as it baked was different from other loaves of bread he’s made with the same combination of ancient grains, but with modern yeast. “It’s much sweeter and more rich than the sourdough we are used to. It’s a big difference,” he wrote.

Describing the look and taste of it, Blackley noted that the crumb “is light and airy,” particularly for a 100 percent ancient grain loaf. “The aroma and flavor are incredible,” he added. “I’m emotional.

It’s really different, and you can easily tell even if you’re not a bread nerd. This is incredibly exciting, and I’m so amazed that it worked.”

That being said, Blackley was careful to note that this loaf was just for practice, and he’s sure some modern yeast likely contaminated the sample. He hopes to try again with a purer strain of Old Kingdom yeast and has future plans to work with Love to replicate the tools and baking methods, like cooking bread in ceramic pots, used by the ancient Egyptians.

He also wants to work with a ceramicist to recreate the cooking vessels. Already the team has secured permission to collect samples from cooking pots in other museums, and they hope to gather yeast from the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, each separated by 500 to 700 years, to understand if and how the yeasts changed over time.

Luckily, we have something to go along with the Pharaoh’s bread. Last year, the British Museum tasked a team with figuring out how to brew beer using ancient Egyptian methods, which produced suds similar to white wine.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Remarkable Paleolithic Sculpture Discovered in the Famous Cave of Foissac

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Remarkable Paleolithic Sculpture Discovered in the Famous Cave of Foissac

A fascinating and unique Paleolithic sculpture of a figurine carved from a large bovine bone and with unusual designs engraved in it was discovered in the well-known cave of Foissac in Aveyron, France.

According to Le Figaro , the cave, which is closed to the public from October to June, still contains many mysteries, including the newest discovery – the sculpture, which is one of the most mysterious findings of the last years.

During the prehistoric era, people created a unique style of art, which was also perhaps a way of expressing information. It was carved in a bone of an auroch or bison with a flint tool. One part of the sculpture was polished with an unidentified tool.

The figurine was analyzed by an expert from La Direction régionale des affaires culturelles. The researchers believe that it was made 20,000 years ago. It depicts a human who appears to be holding something, possibly a baby.

Most sculptures from this period depict animals, so to find a figurine is quite rare. The statue is very well preserved, which is surprising considering that it was submerged in water for many centuries.

The newly-discovered Paleolithic figurine

The major problem with the analysis of such artifacts is that there are no historical sources to explain the meaning behind the art of Paleolithic people. Researchers may only speculate.  Du Fayet de La Tour believes that the sculpture is a woman carrying a child or an animal.

 It has also been suggested that some of the patterned marks may represent prehistoric tattoos. However, more analysis is needed. They hope that future discoveries will bring answers to the most intriguing questions the sculpture poses.

It is similar to the case of another artifact discovered in the cave La Roche-Cotard in the territory of Langeais, France. It is a piece of flat flint that may have been shaped by the hands of a Neanderthal who once lived near.

Many people see a face in this artifact, which they call one of the oldest pieces of art on Earth. The Mask of la Roche-Cotard , also called the “Mousterian Proto-figurine”, was discovered in 1975 and re-examined in 2003 by Jean-Claude Marquet, curator of the Museum of Prehistory of Grand-Pressigny, and Michel Lorblanchet, a director of research in the French National Centre of Scientific Research, Roc des Monges, at Saint-Sozy.

The mask of La Roche-Cotard at Langeais in Indre-et-Loire (France).

The mask is about 10 cm (3.94 inches) tall, and not very well preserved. It is dated to about 35,000 years old, thus created during the Mousterian period. This was a time when Neanderthals seemed to be quite advanced and creative.

However, they still lived in caves and it is believed that their lives were primarily focused on daily survival. In fact, we don’t know what sources of entertainment they preferred, if they played games, or even how they sounded when they spoke.

The most useful messages for researchers today have been found painted and carved on stones.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Naked Servant Depicted in Newly Discovered 2,200-Year-Old Tomb Mural

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Naked Servant Depicted in Newly Discovered 2,200-Year-Old Tomb Mural

A naked man holding a wine jug and a vase is just one of many figures depicted in a 2,200-year-old mural of a banquet that’s decorating a newly discovered tomb in Italy.

A servant in his birthday suit holds a silver-colored jug and a vase for wine.

The painted tomb — discovered in the ancient city of Cumae — is a prize find. But its style was surprisingly retro at the time it was painted, between the second and third centuries B.C., said the archeologists who found it.

In fact, murals like this one were in vogue about 100 to 200 years earlier, making it quite “unfashionable” for its time, the archaeologists said in a statement.

Although a naked servant would be inappropriate (and extremely weird) by today’s standards, that wasn’t the case when the mural was painted.

During that period and the following Roman period, nudity was seen as the natural state of being, according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. For instance, condemned criminals and even female gladiators were known to fight naked in Rome’s Colosseum.

The city where the mural was discovered, Cumae, is located about 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Naples, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Founded in the second half of the eighth century B.C., it’s considered the oldest ancient Greek settlement in the Western world, the archaeologists said.

Since 2001, the archaeologists have focused on an area of Cumae that included a Greek sanctuary, roads and a necropolis. They found hundreds of sepulchers (small, rock-carved rooms holding the deceased), including a series of vaulted burial chambers made of tuff — a volcanic stone native to the area.

The new discovery, found in June 2018 and announced Sept. 25, includes a chamber with three funerary beds. People entered the ancient tomb by using a door in the facade, which was sealed with a large stone block, the archaeologists said.

This past summer, archaeologists excavated a painted burial chamber dating to the second to third centuries B.C. A mural on the walls depicts figures at a banquet

Tomb raiders pilfered the burials in the 19th century, but the archaeologists managed to find a few remaining traces of funerary artifacts that helped them date the chamber.

The lavish space and mural indicate that the people who were buried there had a high social status, the archaeologists said.

The mural itself is unusual for its vast array of colors. The other tombs excavated in the necropolis are decorated murals painted only in red or white, the archaeologists said.

But the mural with the naked servant has a number of colors, including brown and pink, painted on top of the white plaster background. Much of the mural has crumbled over the years, but the banquet’s guests were likely painted on the side walls of the tomb, the archaeologists said.

To prevent further decay, the archaeologists opted to remove the fresco from the tomb, as well as painted fragments they found on the ground. Later, they plan to reassemble the pieces like a puzzle, they said.

ROMAN, WORLD

Researchers Finish Separating World’s Largest Celtic Coin Hoard

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Researchers Finish Separating World’s Largest Celtic Coin Hoard

Last Friday, conservators at Jersey Heritage finally completed separating and meticulously cleaning the largest hoard of Celtic coins and gold jewelry ever discovered. It took nearly three years of effort to go through the mass of treasure.

The Catillon II Hoard as it appeared before being separated
Some of the silver Celtic coins that made up the majority of the Catillon II Hoard
A piece of gold, believed to be a small ring, found in the Hoard
Some of the gold torcs, worn around the neck or as bracelets, discovered embedded inside the Catillon II Hoard
A gold torc found in the Catillon II Hoard

“This is a significant milestone for the team. It has been painstaking but thoroughly intriguing work, which has delivered some very unexpected and amazing finds along the way,” Neil Mahrer, who led the conservation effort says in a press release.

“There is still plenty to do and I am sure the Hoard will continue to surprise us as we clean and record the material.”

According to the BBC, the treasure was discovered in 2012 by amateur metal detector enthusiasts Reg Mead and Richard Miles. But it was no accidental discovery; the pair had been searching the area for 30 years looking for it.

They began their quest after a local woman told them that her father had discovered some silver Celtic coins in a pot in a field near her home in Jersey, a British island in the English Channel.

She did not recall the exact location, and the owner of the field only allowed the pair to search the area once a year after he harvested his crops.

Their patience paid off, and they did eventually find several coins in the field. “We then looked deeper into the ground to see if there was anything further.

We came down on a solid object and when Reg dug up a chunk of earth there was immediately five or six discs,” Miles tells the BBC. “We always said if we found anything significant it must remain in situ, it had to remain in its archaeological context so it could be studied.”

The hoard, dubbed Catillon II contained, at last count, at least 68,000 coins, approximately six times larger than any other Celtic hoard ever discovered, according to Jersey Heritage.

It also contained many gold neck torcs, glass beads, a leather purse and a bag with silver and gold decoration. Researchers estimate it was buried by French Celts known as the Coriosolitae around 30-50 B.C., around the time of Julius Caesar, likely as they fled a Roman invasion of the area.

According to the BBC, now that the contents of the hoard have been separated, the government of Jersey will vote on whether to pay to keep the treasure trove on the island or allow it to be sold off. At the time of its discovery, it was valued at 10 million pounds.

MEXICO, NORTH AMERICA, WORLD

800-year-old spiral rock carvings marked the solstices for Native Americans

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800-year-old spiral rock carvings marked the solstices for Native Americans

The Pueblo people created rock carvings in the Mesa Verde region of the Southwest United States about 800 years ago to mark the position of the sun on the longest and shortest days of the year, archaeologists now say.

The spiral patterns that appear prominently in the rock carvings are thought to be a symbol among ancestral Pueblo peoples for the sky or the sun.

Panels of ancient rock art, called petroglyphs, on canyon walls in the region show complex interactions of sunlight and shadows.These interactions can be seen in the days around the winter and summer solstices, when the sun reaches its southernmost and northernmost points, respectively, and, to a lesser extent, around the equinoxes — the “equal nights”— in spring and fall, the researchers said.

The carvings show scenes depicting the traditions of contemporary Hopi people — descendants of the ancestral Puebloans who lived in parts of the Southwest until the 13th century. The traditions describe important rituals at seasonal points in the yearly solar calendar tied to farming activities, such as planting and harvesting.

The rock carvings “probably marked the specific seasons,” archaeologist Radek Palonkaof Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. “It was not only to observe the phenomena.”

Since 2011, Palonka has led researchers from his university in investigations of ancient sites around Castle Rock Pueblo that date from the early 13th century. Their research is one of only a few European archaeological projects in the region. 

Castle Rock Pueblo is now part of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, near Colorado’s border with Utah and about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Mesa Verde National Park.

Archaeological investigations

Ethnographic studies in the 19th century suggested that rock carvings in the area may have been used as solar calendars, but Palonka’s team is the first to verify and document the phenomena. 

“We used a lot of new technologies, like laser scanning and photogrammetry,” a method that uses detailed photographs to create a map or 3D model of a place or object, he said. “So we were able to see more stuff on the rocks than it is possible to see only with the naked eye.” 

At one of the sites studied so far, the petroglyphs are carved on a flat, south-racing rock wall that’s shaded by an overhanging rock. They consist of three carved spirals and smaller elements, including rectangles, grooves and hollows. 

At the time of sunset on days near the midwinter solstice, which happens around Dec. 22 each year, patterns of sunlight and shadow can be seen to move through the spirals, grooves and other parts of the petroglyphs, Palonka said.

The phenomenon is also visible around the spring and fall equinoxes, around March 20 and Sept. 22 each year, but it does not occur at other times of the year.

Similar petroglyphs at another ancestral Puebloan site, at nearby Sand Canyon, are lit by sunlight only in the late mornings and early afternoons around the summer solstice, he said.

The observations were made by archaeologists and students from Poland, mostly during the warmer months, and throughout the year by volunteers for the administration of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. The team has also discovered several panels of Pueblo rock art previously unknown to scientists, Palonka said. 

Pueblo peoples

The name Pueblo — which means “village” in Spanish — was given by Spanish colonists to several Native American peoples who lived in the American Southwest.

Unlike many nomadic Native Americans, the Pueblo peoples lived in large complexes of buildings they constructed from adobe and stone.

In the Mesa Verde region and elsewhere, the ancient villages of ancestral Puebloans are represented by sophisticated “cliff dwellings” in the sides of canyons and under rock overhangs. But the buildings are also found on valley floors, such as at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

Many ancient monuments throughout the world show signs of having been used, at least in part, to mark annual events of the solar calendar, such as the midwinter and midsummer solstices.

The importance of solar solstices is also found in several Native American traditions. “This collaboration with native people, in this case Hopi people from Arizona, is really important.” Palonka said.

Among other details, Palonka has learned that the spiral symbol, seen in many of the rock carvings related to the solstices and equinoxes, was often an emblem of the sun or sky — but not always. 

The symbol can also have other meanings — including water, physical migration or spiritual migration — such as moving between the physical world and a mythical or spiritual world, he said.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

1,700-Year-Old Sock Spins Yarn About Ancient Egyptian Fashion

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1,700-Year-Old Sock Spins Yarn About Ancient Egyptian Fashion

There are old socks, and then there are old socks. This stripy sock, discarded around the 3rd or 4th century, falls into the latter category. Fished out of a landfill during the 1913-1914 excavation of the Egyptian city of Antinooupolis led by English papyrologist John de Monins Johnson on behalf the Egypt Exploration Fund, the sock ended up in the collections of the British Museum in London.

Child’s left-foot sock

While previous research had pinpointed its age, not much else was known about the sock—or its partner, which presumably was lost to time (and did not succumb to whatever the late antiquity period equivalent is to being swallowed by the dryer).

Now, new research is unraveling the sock’s secrets. As Caroline Davies reports for the Guardian, a group of museum scientists hoping to better understand ancient Egyptian clothing manufacture and trade practices decided to analyze the dyes in the sock, along with several other textiles dating between about 250 and 800 A.D.

Avoiding older techniques that required an invasive approach, they utilized multispectral imaging, which only needs to scan the surface of artifacts to test for pigments.

Even if certain colors have degraded to the point that they’re not visible to the naked eye, multispectral imaging can detect minute color traces under different wavelengths of light. Think of it as a camera for invisible ink.

Sure enough, the analysis revealed that the sock contained seven hues of wool yarn woven together in a meticulous, stripy pattern. Just three natural, plant-based dyes—madder roots for red, woad leaves for blue and weld flowers for yellow—were used to create the different color combinations featured on the sock, according to Joanne Dyer, lead author of the study, which appears in the journal PLOS ONE.

In the paper, she and her co-authors explain that the imaging technique also revealed how the colors were mixed to create hues of green, purple and orange: In some cases, fibers of different colors were spun together; in others, individual yarns went through multiple dye baths.

Such intricacy is pretty impressive, considering that ancient sock is both “tiny” and “fragile,” as Dyer tells Davies. Given its size and orientation, the researchers believe it may have been worn on a child’s left foot.

The sock offers insight beyond what was all the rage among youth fashion approximately 1,700 years ago. Analyzing its construction yields a lot of insight into the time period in which it warmed tiny feet.

The period that comprised Egypt’s late antiquity is rich with history: During this time, Egypt experienced an enormous upheaval that ended with the Muslim conquest of the region in 641 A.D.

“These events affect the economy, trade, access to materials,” Dyer tells Davies, “Which is all reflected in the technical makeup of what people were wearing and how they were making these objects.”

As it happens, socks are believed to have been a mainstay for humans since the Stone Age—though the earliest versions, which were just animal pelts or skins meant to be wrapped around feet, may not bear much resemblance to that Fruit of the Loom six-pack you have in your sock drawer.

The ancient Egyptians employed a single-needle looping technique, often referred to as nålbindning, to create their socks. Notably, the approach could be used to separate the big toe and four other toes in the sock—which just may have given life to the ever-controversial socks-nd-sandals trend.

EUROPE, GEORGIA, WORLD

Oldest Evidence of Wine Making Found in Georgia

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Oldest Evidence of Wine Making Found in Georgia

While excavating two Stone Age villages in Georgia, researchers discovered 8,000-year old jars containing what they believe are traces of grape wine. It is the oldest evidence of wine production yet discovered, report Ashifa Kassam and Nicola Davis at The Guardian.

This is base of Neolithic jar being prepared for sampling for residue analysis.

The discovery, detailed in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was made as part of an international collaboration of archaeologists and botanists who were studying the neolithic villages Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora. 

Positioned roughly 20 miles south of the city of Tbilisi, these sites host circular mud-brick homes and a smattering of the stone and bone tools commonly used by people of that age. The region is also home to what are likely among the first clay-fired pots found in the Near East.

The latest find came from large clay jars that were stuck in the floor of the circular dwellings, Andrew Curry at National Geographic reports. One jar found was three feet tall and decorated with what researchers suspected might represent clusters of grapes.

To investigate the purpose of the container, the team sent 30 pottery fragments and 26 soil samples of the surrounding region to be analyzed for evidence of wine-making. The result of this analysis revealed traces of tartaric acid, a compound found in high concentrations in grapes, stuck to the insides of the pots.

The soil collected near the pottery had much lower levels of the compound, which suggests that it wasn’t naturally occurring, report Kassam and Davis.

Three other grape-related compounds, malic, succinic and citric acid, were also found on the pottery. Other evidence discovered at the site includes grape pollen found in the soil, the remains of a fruit fly, grape starch and cells that may be from a grape vine, according to the Guardian.

“We believe this is the oldest example of the domestication of a wild-growing Eurasian grapevine solely for the production of wine,” co-author Stephen Batiuk of the University of Toronto says in a press release.

Gadachrili Gora site

As Nicholas St. Fleur at The New York Times reports, prior to this find, the oldest known evidence for grape wine came from the Zagros Mountains of Iran. The Georgian wine, however, pushes back the history of wine 600 to 1,000 years.

This latest analysis did not show the presence of pine resin, which later wine makers used to preserve the beverage, Patrick McGovern, lead author of the study and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, tells Curry.

Because of that, McGovern says it was likely that wine was a seasonal beverage for the people of these villages, and needed to be produced and consumed relatively quickly before it turned to vinegar. The lack of seeds or stems at the site leads McGovern to think the Stone Age people in this region produced wine offsite in cooler areas then brought it to the villages in jugs.

While modern people often look at life in the Neolithic as a somewhat brutal, constant struggle to survive. This latest discovery along with other recent finds suggest that early human communities had the resources to focus not only on survival, but things like culture, spirituality, booze and more.

“Wine fermentation isn’t a survival necessity. It shows that human beings back then were about more than utilitarian activity,” Stanford archaeologist Patrick Hunt, who was not involved in the study, tells Curry. “There’s far greater sophistication even in the transitional Neolithic than we had any clue about.”

A Neolithic jar — possibly a Neolithic qvevri used for brewing wine — from the site of Khramis Didi Gora, on display at the Georgian National Museum.

While this is the earliest evidence of alcohol made from grapes, it’s far from the earliest evidence of alcohol consumption by humans. Evidence suggests that people in China were making a fermented-honey, rice and hawthorn concoctions 9,000 years ago. But McGovern thinks humans may have been imbibing much, much longer than that—an idea he explores in a book released over the summer entitled Ancient Brews.

Humans have enzymes in their mouth and digestive system that specialize in breaking down alcohol, suggesting that our early ancestors were consuming fermented fruit, he told Lorraine Boissoneault at Smithsonian.com earlier this year. This means it’s possible humans were brewing up their own alcohol long before the Stone Age, though little evidence of this has yet been discovered.

For Georgia, the discovery did not come as a surprise. “Georgia had always suspected it had a Neolithic wine, there were several claims,” David Lordkipanidze, the general director of the Georgian National Museum and co- author of the paper tells St. Fleur.

“But now there is real evidence.” Today, the wine culture has blossomed with some 500 varieties of wine grapes and unique wine-producing traditions.

As Curry reports, McGovern and his team hope to see if they can find an existing grape variety that is closely related to the Neolithic variety so they can plant a vineyard to learn more about how the villagers produced their wine. There is still more excavation to be done at the sites, too, which could push the story of wine back even further.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

Iron Age skis buried under ice reunited after 1,300 years apart

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Iron Age skis buried under ice reunited after 1,300 years apart

Two Iron Age skis are set for a happy reunion after 1,300 years apart, following the discovery of a second ski on an icy mountain in Norway by glacier archaeologists.

In 2014, the glacier archaeology group Secrets of the Ice uncovered a lone ski at the Digervarden ice patch in Reinheimen National Park in southern Norway.

Despite the ski’s age, its icy burial kept it well preserved, and even its original binding — where the skier placed their foot — remained intact. At the time, it was only one of two skis dating to more than 1,000 years ago with preserved binding, Secrets of the Ice reported in an Oct. 5 post.

The team monitored the ice patch for the next seven years, hoping that the melting ice would reveal the ski’s missing partner. Their patience paid off; in September, they spotted the second ski just 16 feet (5 meters) from the spot where the first one was found.

“The new ski is even better preserved than the first one!” Lars Pilø, a glacial archaeologist and the editor of the Secrets of the Ice website, wrote in the post. “It is an unbelievable find.”

Getting the second Iron Age ski to the lab for analysis was not an easy task. After satellite data suggested substantial ice melt at the ski-discovery spot on the mountain, the team hiked up and found the second ski on Sept. 20.

But they didn’t have the right tools to safely free it from the ice, so they left it there. Then, an autumn storm complicated the recovery effort by dumping a lot of snow, burying the ski again. 

When the researchers returned on Sept. 26, they were ready — carrying ice axes, gas cookers and packing materials they could wrap the ski in for the hike back.

After a three-hour hike, they finally found the ski under 12 inches (30 centimeters) of snow, thanks to their GPS tracker. Brushing off the snow was easy enough, but the ice had an “iron grip” on the ski, so the team used ice picks and lukewarm water heated on gas cookers to free the ski, Pilø wrote in the post. 

Skiing mystery

Both skis predate the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066), and both are broad with a raised foothold and preserved binding. The skis are roughly the same size — the newfound one is 6.1 feet (1.87 m) long and 6.6 inches (17 cm) wide, slightly longer and wider than the first ski.

However, the new ski was buried about 16 feet (5 m) deeper than the previously found one, so it was better preserved, and that may account for the size differences, according to the post.

The bindings of the newfound ski are made from three twisted birch pieces, a leather strap and a wooden plug that fits through a hole in the foothold area. In contrast, the previously found ski had only one preserved twisted birch binding and a leather strap.

“There are subtle differences in the carvings at the front of the skis,” Pilø added. “The back end of the new ski is pointed, while the back end of [the] 2014 ski is straight.”

But archaeologists didn’t expect the skis to be identical. “The skis are handmade, not mass-produced,” Pilø wrote. “They have a long and individual history of wear and repair before an Iron Age skier used them together and they ended up in the ice 1,300 years ago.”

What’s more, the foothold of the new ski shows signs of repair, indicating it was well used. The back of the ski is missing, but it’s possible that this piece is still hiding under the ice, they said. On both skis, the upper part of the toe bindings, made of twisted birch, is missing.

The new ski also answers an important question: Did the skis have fur on their undersides? The 2014 ski didn’t have any nail holes along its sides that could have fastened a fur, the team said. Moreover, the newfound ski has a furrow on its underside, which would have been useless if fur was on it, so these skis were probably not fur-lined, the archaeologists noted.

The team is thrilled with the find — after all, this is the “best-preserved prehistoric pair of skis in the world,” Pilø wrote — but the skis’ discovery brings up more questions than answers; mainly, what happened to their owner?

Hunting artifacts and monuments on the mountain suggest that it was a prehistoric reindeer-hunting location. Moreover, several rock cairns may have been part of a mountain trail crossing, the team said. So, perhaps the owner was a hunter, traveler or both, Pilø wrote in the post. It’s possible that the owner was hit by an avalanche, or suffered from another accident. Or maybe the owner left the skis behind after the toe bindings broke.

“Is the skier still inside the ice at Mount Digervarden? This is probably hoping for too much,” Pilø wrote. “What we can say for sure is that we have not seen the last finds from the Digervarden ice patch. We will be back.”

EUROPE, GREECE, WORLD

The human skull that challenges the Out of Africa theory

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The human skull that challenges the Out of Africa theory

This is the account of the discovery of a skull that has the potential to change what we know about human evolution, and a suppression and cover-up which followed.   

In 1959, in an area called Chalkidiki in Petralona, Northern Greece, a shepherd came across a small opening to a cave, which became visible when a thick covering of snow finally melted.  He gathered a group of villagers to help him clear the entrance so they could go inside and explore. 

They found a cave rich in stalactites and stalagmites. But they also found something surprising – a human skull embedded in the wall (later research also uncovered a huge number of fossils including pre-human species, animal hair, fossilized wood, and stone and bone tools).   

The skull was given to the University of Thessaloniki in Greece by the President of the Petralona Community. The agreement was that once the research was done, a museum would be opened featuring the findings from the Petralona cave, and the skull would be returned to be displayed in the museum – something that never happened.

Dr Aris Poulianos, member of the UNESCO’s IUAES (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), later founder of the Anthropological Association of Greece , and an expert anthropologist who was working at the University of Moscow at the time, was invited by the Prime Minister of Greece to return to Greece to take a position of a University Chair in Athens.  

This was due to the publication of his book, ‘The Origins of the Greeks’, which provides excellent research showing that Greek people didn’t originate from the Slavic nations but were indigenous to Greece.  Upon his return to Greece, Dr Poulianos was made aware of the discovery of the skull at Petralona, and immediately started studying the Petralona cave and skull.

The ‘Petralona man’, or Archanthropus of Petralona, as it has since been called, was found to be 700,000 years old, making it the oldest human europeoid (presenting European traits) of that age ever discovered in Europe. Dr Poulianos’ research showed that the Petralona man evolved separately in Europe and was not an ancestor of a species that came out of Africa. 

In 1964, independent German researchers, Breitinger and Sickenberg, tried to dismiss Dr Poulianos’ findings, arguing that the skull was only 50,000 years old and was indeed an ancestor that came from Africa. 

However, research published in the US in 1971 in the prestigious Archaeology magazine, backed up the findings that the skull was indeed 700,000 years old. 

This was based on an analysis of the cave’s stratigraphy and the sediment in which the skull was embedded.  Further research in the cave discovered isolated teeth and two pre-human skeletons dating back 800,000 years, as well as other fossils of various species.

Today, most academics who have analyzed the Petralona remains say that the cranium of the Archanthropus of Petralona belongs to an archaic hominid distinguished from Homo erectus, and from both the classic Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, but showing characterists of all those species and presenting strong European traits.  A skull dating back 700,000 which is either Homo sapien or part Homo sapien is in direct conflict with the Out of Africa theory of human evolution.  

continued in the cave of Petralona with the participation of international researchers (46 specialists from 12 separate countries), which provided further proof of Dr Poulianos’ claims, including remarkable findings like fossilized pieces of wood, an oak leaf, animal hair and coprolites, which enabled accurate dating, as well as the almost continuous presence of stone and bone tools of the Archanthropus evolutionary stage, from the lower (750,000 years) to the upper (550,000 years) layers of sediment within the cave.

The research, after an interruption due to the dictatorship in Greece, continued up to 1983. It was then ordered by the government that all excavations at the site were forbidden to anyone, including the original archaeological team, and for 15 years nobody had access to the site or to the findings – no reason was provided by the government.  

Was this denial of access to prevent the extraction of whatever new scientific conclusions remained hidden within the incredible fossils embedded within the layers of the caves’ walls? 

After the Anthropological Society of Greece took the case to the courts, 15 years later they were again allowed access to the cave.  Since then the Ministry of Culture is trying in any way to overcome the Courts decision and further trials proceed.

Dr Poulianos’ findings contradicted conventional views regarding human evolution and his research was suppressed.  Dr Poulianos and his wife were physically attacked and injured in their home in 2012 and the culprits were never found.

He and his team have been denied further access to the cave to complete their research and study, and the whereabouts of the skull is now unknown.  

Today a sign sits outside the cave of Petralona stating that the skull found in the cave was 300,000 years old, and on Wikipedia today you will see references dismissing the evidence and trying to date the Petralona skull within acceptable parameters – between 160,000 and 240,000 years old.  

Recently, Professor C.G. Nicholas Mascie-Taylor of the University of Cambridge sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture in Greece saying that the correct date of the skull is 700,000 years old and not 300,000. He has also challenged the government’s suppression of information regarding this incredible discovery. 

AFRICA, ASIA, EGYPT, WORLD

Untouched and Unlooted 4,400-yr-old Tomb of Egyptian High Priest Discovered

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Untouched and Unlooted 4,400-yr-old Tomb of Egyptian High Priest Discovered

Archaeologists in Egypt have made a new tomb discovery — the final resting place of a high priest, untouched for 4,400 years, decorated with hieroglyphics.

The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, described the find as “one of a kind in the last decades.”

The tomb was found buried in a ridge at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara. It was untouched and unlooted.

Officials say they expect more discoveries when archaeologists further excavate the site in the months to come.

The well-preserved tomb is decorated with scenes showing the royal priest alongside his mother, wife and other members of his family, the ministry said in a statement.

The high priest was devoted to his mother, evidence shows. “He mentions the name of his mother almost everywhere here,” said Waziri in an interview, pointing to the dozens of hieroglyphics, statues, and drawings.

“The color is almost intact even though the tomb is almost 4,400 years old,” he added.

The high priest “Wahtye” served during the Fifth Dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis in Egypt. In addition to the name of the deceased, hieroglyphs carved into the stone above the tomb’s door reveal his multiple titles.

Saqqara pyramid of Djoser in Egypt.

The grave’s rectangular gallery is said to be covered in painted reliefs, sculptures, and inscriptions, all in excellent shape considering how much time has passed.

The reliefs depict Wahtye himself, his wife Weret Ptah, and his mother Merit Meen, as well as everyday activities that include hunting and sailing and manufacturing goods such as pottery, according to National Geographic.

The team of Egyptian archaeologists found five shafts in the tombs. They had removed a last layer of debris from the tomb on December 13, 2018, and found five shafts inside, Waziri said.

Pyramid of Djoser (Stepped pyramid), an archeological remain in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt. UNESCO World Heritage

One of the shafts was unsealed with nothing inside, but the other four were sealed. They are expecting to make discoveries when they excavate those shafts. He was hopeful about one shaft in particular.

“I can imagine that all of the objects can be found in this area,” he said in an interview, pointing at one of the sealed shafts. “This shaft should lead to a coffin or a sarcophagus of the owner of the tomb.”

The tomb is 33 feet long, 9 feet wide, and just under 10 feet high, Waziri said.

This picture taken on December 15, 2018 shows a general view of a newly-discovered tomb belonging to the high priest ‘Wahtye’ who served during the 5th dynasty reign of King Neferirkare (between 2500-2300 BC), at the Saqqara necropolis, 30 kilometres south of the Egyptian capital Cairo.

Various drawings depict “the manufacturing of pottery and wine, making religious offering, musical performances, boats sailing, the manufacturing of the funerary furniture, and hunting,” according to the site Egypt Today.

Also NPR is reporting that the Saqqara site is part of a larger complex where archaeologists have discovered art and architecture that yield insight into daily life in ancient Egypt.

Giza pyramids.

Ancient Egyptians mummified humans to preserve their bodies for the afterlife, and animal mummies were used as religious offerings.

The rate of discoveries seems to be increasing. In November 2018, archaeologists unearthed eight new limestone sarcophagi containing mummies at a site that is 25 miles south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry said the mummies were dated to the Late Period (664-332 BC) and have an outer layer of cartonnage — papyrus or linen which is covered in plaster — decorated with a painted human form. Three of the mummies are well-preserved.