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archaeologicalnews · 17 days
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Prehistoric piercings may have been coming-of-age ritual
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Archaeologists have discovered more than 100 ornaments for use in piercings in ~11,000-year-old adult burials in Türkiye, providing the earliest conclusive evidence for body perforation and suggesting that piercing may have been a coming-of-age ritual.
Earring-like objects have been found at Neolithic sites in South-west Asia before, but there was no clear evidence for their use in piercings.
"We knew that there were earring-like artifacts in the Neolithic, they have been found at many sites," says co-author of the research, Dr. Emma Baysal from Ankara University. "But we were lacking in situ finds confirming their use on the human body before the late Neolithic." Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 24 days
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1,200-year-old lord's tomb laden with gold unearthed in Panama
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Archaeologists in Panama have discovered a 1,200-year-old tomb belonging to pre-Hispanic royalty that also contains a sizable gold collection.
The tomb is located in El Caño, an archaeological park in the Coclé province of central Panama. It is the final resting place of an "important Coclé lord," according to a translated statement from Panama's Ministry of Culture.
The lord likely lived during the late 700s and would have been in his 30s when he died, according to an El Caño Foundation Facebook post.
The tomb contained an impressive amount of grave goods belonging to the unnamed royal, such as ceramic artifacts and gold pieces from a funerary trousseau — a collection of an individual's personal possessions. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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3,500-year-old burial of Nubian woman reveals 1 of world's earliest known cases of rheumatoid arthritis
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The 3,500-year-old pockmarked skeleton of an ancient Nubian woman could be one of the earliest known cases of rheumatoid arthritis in the world, scientists say.
Archaeologists discovered the woman's skeletal remains in 2018 while conducting excavations at a cemetery located along the bank of the Nile near Aswan, in southern Egypt. Analyses revealed that she would have stood around 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, been around 25 to 30 years old when she died and lived sometime between 1750 and 1550 B.C. The researchers published their case study in the March issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology.
Because the skeleton was so well preserved and contained most of its bones, including its hands and feet, the researchers were able to conduct a thorough osteological analysis of the remains. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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1st known tuberculosis cases in Neanderthals revealed in prehistoric bone anaylsis
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Neanderthals living in Central Europe around 35,000 years ago suffered from tuberculosis (TB), a new DNA analysis of their bones reveals. This is the first time this disease has been identified in Neanderthals, raising questions about whether tuberculosis contributed to their extinction.
In two research studies published in the journal Tuberculosis in December 2023, one international team of researchers reanalyzed the skeletal remains of two Neanderthals discovered in a cave in Hungary in 1932 and another tested them for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB.
Subalyuk Cave, located in the Bükk Mountains of northern Hungary, was used for shelter by animals and humans numerous times over the centuries and is considered an extremely important Middle to Late Paleolithic site. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Roman-era silver 'toilet spoon' discovered in Wales
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A Roman-era silver "toilet spoon" discovered by a metal detectorist in the U.K. has been declared a "treasure" by experts.
Valentinas Avdejevas made the peculiar finding in 2020 while exploring Vale of Glamorgan, a county in Wales. He surrendered the metal artifact to the Portable Antiquities Scheme for Wales, a local authority that works directly with metal detectorists who have unearthed artifacts. The utensil is currently in the possession of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales, according to a statement.
The narrow silver spoon (also known as a Roman ligula) contains a shallow, circular bowl attached to a thin, bent handle and would have been used to scoop out cosmetics and perfume from long-necked bottles. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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45,000-year-old bones unearthed in cave are oldest modern-human remains in Central Europe
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Modern humans crossed the Alps into chilly Northern Europe about 45,000 years ago, meaning they may have coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for thousands of years longer than experts previously thought, according to new research.
The discovery — of 13 bone fragments belonging to Homo sapiens who occupied a cave in Germany between about 44,000 and 47,500 years ago — catalogs the oldest known H. sapiens remains from Central and Northwest Europe, the researchers said. The finding also surprised the team because, as they found, the climate in the region was frigid at that time.
"This shows that even these earlier groups of Homo sapiens dispersing across Eurasia already had some capacity to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions," Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Jade mask depicting Maya storm god unearthed in royal tomb in Guatemala
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Archaeologists have discovered a 1,700-year-old royal tomb in Guatemala that's overflowing with funeral offerings, including an intricately designed jade mask depicting a Maya deity.
The tomb, which is located at an archaeological site known as Chochkitam near the borders of what are now Mexico and Belize, was the burial site for a previously unknown Maya king, according to a statement from Tulane University.
Along with the mosaic mask designed to resemble the Maya storm god, researchers found 16 mollusk shells and hieroglyphs carved into human femurs (thigh bones), including one drawing depicting a man holding a jade mask similar to the artifact tucked inside the tomb. Researchers think the hieroglyphs identify the king's father and grandfather and serve as a link to the ruler of the Maya states of Tikal and Teotihuacan. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Nearly 400 ancient medical tools from Turkey hint at rare Roman doctors' offices
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Hundreds of Roman-era medical instruments now being examined by scientists may come from one of the earliest known examples of a group medical practice, or at least a place where health care workers congregated to treat people.
A total of 348 artifacts linked to medicine were found at the site of Allianoi, an ancient town that also hosted a large spa-like bath in what is now Turkey. The vast number of the 1,800-year-old artifacts may indicate the site once featured an ancient medical center. The instruments were discovered during rescue excavations that were carried out between 1998 and 2006, before the construction of a dam that flooded the site. Most of the artifacts, which have been studied over the years, were found within two buildings in a larger complex. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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90,000-year-old human footprints found on a Moroccan beach are some of the oldest and best preserved in the world
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Two trails of ancient human footprints pressed into a beach in Morocco form one of the largest and best-preserved trackways in the world.
Researchers happened upon the footprint site near the northern tip of North Africa in 2022 while studying boulders at a nearby pocket beach, according to a study published Jan. 23 in the journal Scientific Reports.
"Between tides, I said to my team that we should go north to explore another beach," study lead author Mouncef Sedrati, an associate professor of coastal dynamics and geomorphology at the University of Southern Brittany in France, told Live Science. "We were surprised to find the first print. At first, we weren't convinced it was a footprint, but then we found more of the trackway." Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Hoard of Bronze Age jewelry discovered in Poland was part of ancient water burial ritual, study finds
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Archaeologists in Poland have discovered a collection of more than 550 pieces of Bronze Age jewelry that were once part of an ancient burial ritual.
Known as Papowo Biskupie, the dried-out lake bed site was occupied from roughly 1200 to 450 B.C. by the Chełmno group, a community from the larger Lusatian culture that lived in northern Europe during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, according to a study published Wednesday (Jan. 24) in the journal Antiquity.
The Lusatians are best known for their ritual depositions of metal hoards in bodies of water. However, the Chełmno group was not known for engaging in this practice.
But the new jewelry finding, made by metal detectorists in 2023, upends that perception. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Roman-era wine shop, possibly destroyed in an earthquake, discovered in Greece
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Archaeologists in Greece have discovered a 1,600-year-old wine shop that was destroyed and abandoned after a "sudden event," possibly an earthquake or building collapse, left broken vessels and 60 coins scattered on the floor, according to new research.
The shop operated at a time when the Roman Empire controlled the region. It was found in the ancient city of Sikyon (also spelled Sicyon), which is located on the northern coast of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. Within the wine shop, archaeologists found the scattered coins, as well as the remains of marble tabletops and vessels made of bronze, glass and ceramic. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 2 months
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Mysterious skeleton found in Hernán Cortés' palace revealed to be Indigenous woman, not Spanish monk
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A skeleton visible within a burial at the entrance of the palace of Hernán Cortés —the Spanish conquistador who caused the fall of the Aztec Empire — is not the remains of a Spanish monk as was long thought. Instead, a new analysis reveals that the bones belonged to a middle-aged Indigenous woman.
When a powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake rattled the Mexican states of Puebla and Morelos as well as Mexico City in 2017, buildings collapsed and thousands of people were injured. The Palace of Cortés, which was built by 1535 and now serves as a museum, was severely damaged, requiring extensive repair work that was completed in early 2023. During this work, researchers took stock of all objects within the museum, including an open burial exhibited at the entrance to the palace. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 3 months
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2 golden tongues symbolizing 'flesh of the gods' unearthed in ancient Egyptian mummies
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Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered two mummies outfitted with golden tongues at the ancient town of Oxyrhynchus, bringing the total number of golden tongues found at the location to 16, archaeologists say.
During the Roman period (29 B.C. to A.D. 641), the Egyptians put golden tongues inside the mouths of some mummies so that the mummy would be able to use their tongue in the afterlife and because the ancient Egyptians believed that gold was the "flesh of the gods," Esther Pons Mellado and Maite Mascort, co-directors of the archaeological mission of Oxyrhynchus, told Live Science in an email. Mummies with gold tongues were thought to have the ability to speak with Osiris in the underworld of the afterlife. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 3 months
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Ancient Egyptian mummy masks, tombs and 'god of silence' statue discovered at Saqqara
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Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a series of tombs dating from about 1,800 to 4,800 years ago, some of which contain colorful mummy masks and even the childlike statue of the god of silence, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The colorful mummy masks, which would have been worn by the dead, date to the Ptolemaic period (304 to 30 B.C.) and Roman period (29 B.C. to A.D. 641), according to Nozomu Kawai, the director of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Civilizations and Cultural Resources at Kanazawa University in Japan, who led the excavations.
The archaeologists also found a small statue showing Harpocrates, a Greek god that looks like a child who is associated with silence, riding a goose. The goose represents "an evil spirit over which the Divine Child triumphs," Kawai told Live Science in an email. Read more.
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archaeologicalnews · 4 months
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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.
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archaeologicalnews · 6 months
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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.
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archaeologicalnews · 6 months
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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.
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