Archaeological News

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‘Unusual’ ancient graves found near Arctic, but no remains discovered inside, study says

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Just south of the Arctic Circle, within the vast forests of northern Finland, lies a sandy field dotted with dozens of “unusual” pits.

Workers stumbled upon the site, known as Tainiaro, six decades ago, and since then, its origins have remained elusive.

But now, upon conducting a comprehensive analysis of the site, researchers have determined it is likely a sprawling hunter-gatherer cemetery dating back some 6,500 years, according to a study published on Dec. 1 in the journal Antiquity.

“Such a large cemetery at such a high northerly latitude does not necessarily fit preconceptions about prehistoric foragers in this region,” researchers affiliated with Finland’s University of Oulu said, adding it may be time to “recalibrate our expectations.” Read more.

archaeology  artic circle  archeology  finland  tainiaro  cemetery 


Archaeologists discover 5,000-year-old wine at the tomb of Meret-Neith in Abydos

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A German-Austrian team led by archaeologist Christiana Köhler from the University of Vienna is investigating the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith in Abydos, Egypt. She was the most powerful woman in the period around 3,000 BC. Recent excavations prove her special historical significance: the researchers found 5,000-year-old wine and other grave goods. This fuels speculation that Meret-Neith was the first pharaoh of ancient Egypt and predecessor of the later Queen Hatshepsut.

The team recently began archaeological excavations in the tomb of Queen Meret-Neith of the 1st Dynasty (c. 3,000 BCE) in Abydos and discovered significant new information about this important historical woman.

Queen Meret-Neith was the only woman to have her own monumental tomb in Egypt’s first royal cemetery at Abydos. Read more.

archaeology  archeology  queen meret-neith  egypt  wine  abydos 


The burials that could challenge historians’ ideas about Anglo-Saxon gender

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There are a significant number of Anglo-Saxon burials where the estimated anatomical sex of the skeleton does not align with the gender implied by the items they were buried with. Some bodies identified as male have been buried with feminine clothing, and some bodies identified as female have been found in the sorts of “warrior graves” typically associated with men.

In the archaeology of early Anglo-Saxon England, weaponry, horse-riding equipment and tools are thought to signal masculinity, while jewelry, sewing equipment and beads signal femininity. And, for the most part, this pattern fits.

So far though, no convincing explanation has been put forward for the burials which appear to invert the pattern. My Ph.D. research asks whether looking at these atypically gendered burials through the lens of trans theory and the 21st-century language of “transness” has the potential to improve historians’ understanding of early Anglo-Saxon gender. Read more.

archaeology  archeology  burials  gender  trans  anglo saxon 


476,000-Year-Old Wooden Structure Unearthed in Zambia

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Archaeologists have found an ancient wooden structure at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls in Zambia. This structure — dated to about 476,000 years ago — has no known parallels in the African or Eurasian Paleolithic and may represent the earliest use of wood in construction.

Wooden artifacts rarely survive from the Early Paleolithic as they require exceptional conditions for preservation.

Therefore, archaeologists have limited information about when and how hominins used this basic raw material or how Paleolithic humans structured their environments.

“Our find has changed how I think about our early ancestors,” said University of Liverpool’s Professor Larry Barham.

“Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood.” Read more.

archaeology  archeology  zambia  wood  africa  kalambo falls 


Ancient human remains buried in Spanish caves were subsequently manipulated and utilized

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Caves served as sites for burial and later modification of human remains for thousands of years in the Iberian Peninsula, according to a study published September 20, 2023, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Zita Laffranchi and Marco Milella of the University of Bern, Switzerland, and Rafael Martinez Sanchez, Universidad de Córdoba, Spain, and colleagues.

The use of caves as burial sites is a cultural phenomenon with a broad distribution in both space and time. In the southern Iberian Peninsula, this practice became particularly common starting around the 4th millennium BCE. Also common in the archaeological sites of this region is evidence of manipulation of buried human remains, although the cultural meaning behind this is largely unclear. Read more.

archaeology  archeology  spain  caves 


Lavish tomb in ancient Spain belonged to a woman, not a man, new research shows

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When archaeologists first discovered the 5,000-year-old ornate tomb in Spain, they assumed it was for a man. It held a rock crystal dagger, ivory tusks and other lavish items. But now they’ve determined the remains are those of a woman, and all it took was two teeth.

The researchers used a new method of determining sex that analyzes tooth enamel. This technique, developed about five years ago, is more reliable than analyzing skeletal remains in poor condition, according to their study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

Most details about the life of the “Ivory Lady,” as researchers dubbed her, remain a mystery but there are some clues. 

“She was buried alone in a tomb with very special artifacts,” said Leonardo Garcia Sanjuan, a co-author and archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain. “That shows that she was a special person." Read more.

archaeology  spain  archeology  tomb  ivory lady  burial 


Oldest ever Homo sapiens footprint is found, pushing the record back by 30,000 years

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Just over two decades ago, as the new millennium began, it seemed that tracks left by our ancient human ancestors dating back more than about 50,000 years were excessively rare.

Only four sites had been reported in the whole of Africa at that time. Two were from East Africa: Laetoli in Tanzania and Koobi Fora in Kenya; two were from South Africa (Nahoon and Langebaan). In fact the Nahoon site, reported in 1966, was the first hominin tracksite ever to be described.

In 2023 the situation is very different. It appears that people were not looking hard enough or were not looking in the right places. Today the African tally for dated hominin ichnosites (a term that includes both tracks and other traces) older than 50,000 years stands at 14. Read more.

archaeology  africa  archeology  footprint  homo sapiens