Archaeologists uncovered a series of giant stone troughs erected more than 10,000 years ago at Göbekli Tepe,

Archaeologists made an intriguing discovery recently at the neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey. They uncovered a series of giant stone troughs erected more than 10,000 years ago. And at the bottom of these huge vessels, they found traces of a chemical called calcium oxalate, typically produced during the soaking, mashing and fermenting of grain. It’s a by-product of brewing, in other words.

From this evidence, researchers conclude that Göbekli Tepe was a vast festival site where Stone Age men and women came to feast and to drink beer by the trough-load. Humans have known how to party for a very long time, it would seem. In fact, our love of alcohol can be traced even further into the past, according to scientists who now believe that social drinking played a key role in our evolution as we developed into big-brained, social primates.

It is a theory that will form the core of a major conference at the British Academy next week, Alcohol and Humans: A Long and Social Affair. Delegates will argue that our love of alcohol is deep-rooted and that drink – although harmful in excess – still has a role to play in generating happiness and wellbeing, as the broadcaster Adrian Chiles maintained in his TV film, Drinkers Like Me, last week.

“Studies clearly show that there are social and wellbeing benefits to be derived directly from drinking alcohol, especially in relaxed social environments,” said the evolutionary biologist Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University. “That is why the practice has persisted for so long.”

Dunbar, a fellow of the British Academy and one of the conference’s organisers, argues that our hunter-gatherer ancestors began to hold feasts at least 400,000 years ago after they learned how to use and control fire. Dinners round firesides helped us to cement relationships as fellow tribesfolk exchanged food, stories and gossip. Alcohol may not have been present at first but could still have become a key factor of feasts fairly quickly, and certainly long before the Neolithic arrived and we began to make brewing troughs.

“Archaic humans may have been very familiar with naturally fermented fruits and may well have consumed them avidly – much as chimpanzees and elephants do in Africa,” said Dunbar.

The crucial point is that all these activities – relating stories, exchanging gossip, telling jokes and singing – trigger the production of endorphins in the brain, he said. “Endorphins in turn generate a positive feeling in a person, similar to that of morphine. So we feel good. And crucially, alcohol also activates the endorphin system, which in itself will enhance social bonds among those who indulge together.”

In other words, alcohol was vital in helping to strengthen social bonding and break down inhibitions – and has done so since the early days of human evolution. Certainly, we had long mastered the art of making the stuff before we made those first stone troughs and pottery vessels 10,000 years ago. It continued to have a considerable influence on our history, however. Take the example of farming. It was once assumed we turned to agriculture and the growing of fields of wheat in order to make bread and so provide reliable sustenance for ourselves. Yet the kind of wheat grown then – known as einkorn – would have made a very poor bread, say researchers. But it would have made excellent beer.

“This leads to the great theory of human history: that we didn’t start farming because we wanted food – there was loads of food around,” says Mark Forsyth, in his book A Short History of Drunkenness. “We started farming because we wanted to booze.”

This idea is backed by others, including Dunbar, who believe beer-making was the initial attraction in turning ourselves from hunter-gatherers into farmers. And, ever since, alcohol has made its mark on our lives, from lubricating parties to complex state rituals.

“By the 17th century, after the [English] civil war, drinking had become a critically important social act,” said the historian Angela McShane, of the Wellcome Trust, who will also speak at the conference. “It was a way of demonstrating your loyalty to the state in terms of the toasts that you were expected to make. If you got them wrong, you could be killed.

“To not drink not only suggested that you were not much fun to be with but that you were dangerous or seditious, because you would not toast your allegiance. That attitude became so embedded in our culture that, even today, there is a feeling among some people that they don’t quite trust someone who does not drink.”

In our own day, excess alcoholic intake has been linked to a host of health problems, from increased risks of contracting liver disease and cancers to suffering serious accidents. As a result of medical campaigns, average intakes have declined from an annual high of 9.5 litres of alcohol per head in 2004 to 7.8 litres in 2015.

But McShane pointed out that there was no set medical opinion about whether or not alcohol was good for you. “Some doctors will say that whatever amount you drink, it will have an adverse impact on your body. But that is true of tea, coffee or even water. What we should also realise is that alcohol is a lubricant that can smooth the running of society.”

Dunbar agrees. He pointed to one analysis of 148 epidemiological studies of heart attack patients, which was then used to isolate what factors best predicted a patient’s survival 12 months after a heart attack. “The most important turned out to be the quality of their relationships with others,” he said. “Giving up smoking, obesity and exercise were less important than the number of good friends you had. In other words, our social networks play a central role in our ability to survive the worst traumas that life can throw at us. And those networks are very clearly enhanced by the use of alcohol.”

Other studies conducted by Dunbar show that those who regularly visit their local pub for moderate drinking tend to be more socially engaged, feel more contented and are more likely to trust other members of their community than those who do not drink at all.

“Most research that is carried out on alcohol and humans has concentrated on its excessive use – its abuse – by men and women,” said Dunbar. “Moderate social drinking has been ignored as subject of study until relatively recently. These latest studies suggest that the impact of moderate alcoholic intake is surprisingly beneficial.”

Archaeologists uncovered a series of giant stone troughs erected more than 10,000 years ago at Göbekli Tepe,

10,000 year-old spear found on historic Co Down hillside

A tiny spear dropped by a prehistoric "hunter gatherer" 10,000 years ago is the latest dramatic discovery on a famous Co Down hillside.

The needle, still sharp despite its Stone Age roots, has stunned archaeologists at an excavation dig in Downpatrick that is now expected to make its own history because of "significant findings".

The Queen’s University team has confirmed the "microlith" is “the earliest evidence” for people living in the historic area.

The tiny 10,000 year-old spear

This follows the recent sensational discovery of 12 medieval skeletons in the same grounds of Down Cathedral - within meters of St Patrick’s grave.

The tourist site has been a magnet for visitors over the summer as word has travelled about the historic treasure trove.

Dozens of artefacts, including 1,500 year-old glazed pottery, metalwork, oyster shells and a tiny ceramic shoe, have also been uncovered in the buried ruins of an ancient Benedictine monastery.

Excavation director Brian Sloan said they were stunned by their most recent discovery despite the long history associated with the site.

He said: “We know Cathedral Hill has substantial prehistoric remains waiting to be found but we didn't really expect something so early.

“All of this material will revolutionise our understanding of life in Downpatrick from the time of St Patrick onwards.

“The Mesolithic flint tool dates back to about 8000 BC, which represents the earliest evidence for people living here in Downpatrick 10,000 years ago."

Cathedral Dean Rev Henry Hull described the discovery of the flint as "quite remarkable".

In a further nod to the site's history, a replica of an ancient High Cross which would have been the original marking of St Patrick's grave, was erected during a ceremony today (Friday).

Three fragments of the original cross have been put on display in the entrance porch of the cathedral.

A Newry, Mourne and Down Council spokesman confirmed “significant findings” had been made during the excavation project, which is supported by the European Union’s PEACE IV Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).

Council chairman Mark Murnin said: “The unexpected discoveries have become a massive tourist attraction for the area with hundreds of visitors everyday from as far as USA, Australia, and Japan. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley MP even made time in her diary to stop by the dig.

“The discoveries from this excavation have inspired the interest and imagination of many.”

Queen’s University Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork will deliver a post-excavation lecture at Down Museum, Downpatrick, on Thursday, November 15.

Match-funding for the project was provided by the Northern Ireland Executive Office and the Department for Rural and Community Development in Ireland.

10,000 year-old spear found on historic Co Down hillside

Ancient Offspring Of Two Different Human Species Found - Climate change doomed Neanderthals, study says

Ancient Offspring Of Two Different Human Species Found

A piece of bone from a cave in Russia has yielded what may be the biggest archaeological find of the year, media reported on August 30.

The bone belonged to an ancient human who had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. Nicknamed "Denny," the specimen is the first scientists have found that is a first-generation offspring from such interbreeding.

Scientists said the find may provide evidence that hominins interbred more often than previously thought. It also suggests that extinct groups like Neanderthals may not have died out, but rather were absorbed by the human species.

In prehistory, members of our species interbred with at least two other ancient humans: the Neanderthals and the mysterious Denisovans, who are known only from fragments of bone and teeth discovered in the Denisova Cave in Russia.

These interbreeding events were thought to be rare. But a few years ago, archaeologists found a 90,000-year-old bone fragment in the Denisova Cave.

Samantha Brown, then at the University of Oxford, discovered that it came from a hominin by examining the proteins preserved inside it. Based on the structure of the bone, her team postulated that Denny died at about age 13.

A photo of the bone fragment found at the Denisova Cave

After examining Denny’s DNA, scientists discovered that the individual in question was female, and that she had astonishing parentage. Her DNA was almost half Neanderthal and half Denisovan.

Denny’s mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from mothers, is Neanderthal. Therefore, her mother was Neanderthal and her father Denisovan.

The significance of the find is that it shows "interbreeding among different human lineages was more common than previously thought," Katerina Harvati-Papatheodorou of the University of Tübingen, Germany, told New Scientist magazine.

A 40,000 year-old Homo sapiens with a Neanderthal ancestor recently found in Romania also bolsters this notion.

Climate change doomed Neanderthals, study says

The amount of information we have about the human family tree is steadily growing, but there are still plenty of unanswered questions. One of the biggest mysteries is why our particular branch of human history was able to endure, while others like the Neanderthals were snuffed out. A new study by a group of researchers from multiple institutions in the US and Europe suggests that plunging temperatures may have been too much for Neanderthals to handle.

The work, which was published in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, used observations of stalagmites that are tens of thousands of years old. The rocky formations can act as a sort of timeline of change, offering information on how climate patterns shifted over thousands and thousands of years.

In the paper, the scientists explain that a change appears to have taken place somewhere around 44,000 years ago. During this time, they believe the climate began to grow colder over a period of thousands of years and remained chilly for an extended period of time.

Temperatures eventually returned to where they were, but the archaeological record seems to indicate that many Neanderthals couldn’t push through the extended cold snap. These cold cycles repeated themselves, and each time they did things got worse for the Neanderthals.

“For many years we have wondered what could have caused their demise,” Dr. Vasile Ersek of Northumbria University explains in a statement. “Were they pushed ‘over the edge’ by the arrival of modern humans, or were other factors involved? Our study suggests that climate change may have had an important role in the Neanderthal extinction.”

The study is one of the first to draw a clear link between natural climate change and the effect it may have had on the Neanderthal population. The researchers note that the number of tools made by Neanderthals during the suspected cold periods seems to have been very low, hinting at the possibility that the ancient people were having a very hard time coping with the changing world. With a greatly diminished population, the race was ultimately doomed to extinction, especially when our own human ancestors began expanding into new areas.

Ancient Offspring Of Two Different Human Species Found - Climate change doomed Neanderthals, study says

Human Sacrifices At Massive Pyramid Along Great Wall Change Archaeologists' View Of Early China

A 4,300-year-old city, which has a massive step pyramid that is at least 230 feet (70 meters) high and spans 59 acres (24 hectares) at its base, has been excavated in China, archaeologists reported in the August issue of the journal Antiquity.

The pyramid was decorated with eye symbols and "anthropomorphic," or part-human, part-animal faces. Those figures "may have endowed the stepped pyramid with special religious power and further strengthened the general visual impression on its large audience," the archaeologists wrote in the article. 

For five centuries, a city flourished around the pyramid. At one time, the city encompassed an area of 988 acres (400 hectares), making it one of the largest in the world, the archaeologists wrote. Today, the ruins of the city are called "Shimao," but its name in ancient times is unknown.

The pyramid contains 11 steps, each of which was lined with stone. On the topmost step, there "were extensive palaces built of rammed earth, with wooden pillars and roofing tiles, a gigantic water reservoir, and domestic remains related to daily life," the researchers wrote.

The city's rulers lived in these palaces, and art and craft production were carried out nearby. "Evidence so far suggests that the stepped pyramid complex functioned not only as a residential space for ruling Shimao elites, but also as a space for artisanal or industrial craft production," the archaeologists wrote.

A series of stone walls with ramparts and gates was built around the pyramid and the city. "At the entrance to the stepped pyramid were sophisticated bulwarks [defensive walls] whose design suggests that they were intended to provide both defense and highly restricted access," the archaeologists wrote.

A sacrificial pit of human skulls discovered at Shimao. The people sacrificed may have been captives captured in war. This photo was first published in 2016 in an article in the Chinese language journal Kaogu yu wenwu.

Credit: Photo courtesy Zhouyong Sun and Jing Shao

The remains of numerous human sacrifices have been discovered at Shimao. "In the outer gateway of the eastern gate on the outer rampart alone, six pits containing decapitated human heads have been found," the archaeologists wrote.

Some of the victims may be from another archaeological site called Zhukaigou, which is located to the north of Shimao, and the people of Shimao may have conquered the neighboring site. "Morphological analysis of the human remains suggests that the victims may have been related to the residents of Zhukaigou, which could further suggest that they were taken to Shimao as captives during the expansion of the Shimao polity," the study said.

Additionally, jade artifacts were inserted into spaces between the blocks in all of Shimao's structures. "The jade objects and human sacrifice may have imbued the very walls of Shimao with ritual and religious potency," the archaeologists wrote.

While archaeologists have known about Shimao for many years, it was once thought to be part of the Great Wall of China, a section of which is located nearby. It wasn't until excavations were carried out in recent years that archaeologists realized that Shimao is far older than the Great Wall, which was built between 2,700 and 400 years ago.

The team of archaeologists that wrote the article includes Li Jaang, a professor at the School of History at Zhengzhou University; Zhouyong Sun and Jing Shao, who are both archaeologists at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology; and Min Li, an anthropology professor at UCLA.

Human Sacrifices At Massive Pyramid Along Great Wall Change Archaeologists' View Of Early China

Prehistoric to Islamic site discovered in western Iran

Layers of the prehistoric period, the Copper and Stone Period, the Old, Middle and New Bronze Age (Yaniq and Godin III Culture), Iron III (Probably the Medes), the Parthian and different Islamic period were discovered in the salvation exploration on the Tappeh Anuj (Anuj Hill) in Malayer, Hamedan Province.

The Public Relations Office of the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT)  of Iran quoted Ismail Hemmati Azandaryani, head of the salvation operations on Tappeh Anuj in Malayer, as saying on Sunday that the ancient Anuj Hill (also known as Qala Bolandeh), with a height of 21 meters from the surface, is located in a village of the same name in the city of Malayer.

He pointed to the leveling and excavation of a significant part of the hill in the course of construction of residential houses and said currently, residential houses have surrounded the hill.

Construction of houses on the southern side has been conducted to the surface of the hill, while the site was registered in the list of National Monuments of Iran in 1353 (1974-1975), he added.

Hemmati went on to sayt that with regard to the fact that on the northern side of the hill some parts which had been separated from the main center of the hill had created dangers for the inhabitants of the Anuj Village, therefore, explorations in that area began with the aim of eliminating the probable danger of the remains.

He noted that in order to gain access to the maximum information in the most dangerous and inconvenient part, in the section for stratigraphy scaffolding was applied and then the field research was launched.

He said in the stratigraphy operations valuable results were achieved such as layers dating back to the prehistoric era, Copper and Stone period, the Old, Middle and the New Bronze Age (Yaniq culture and Godin III), iron III (probably Medes), the Parthian and different Islamic periods.

Hemmati stated that with regard to the location of Anuj area in the southern part of Hamedan Province and in the vicinity of the linking corridor towards Boroujerd and Silakhor plain, as well as the connection with the plain leading to the mountain ranges of Green (Nahavand and Kangavar) in view of the archeological studies the site is regarded as being very important.

Prehistoric to Islamic site discovered in western Iran

Salt of the Alps: ancient Austrian mine holds Bronze Age secrets

All mines need regular reinforcement against collapse, and Hallstatt, the world's oldest salt mine perched in the Austrian Alps, is no exception.But Hallstatt isn't like other mines.Exploited for 7,000 years, the mine has yielded not only a steady supply of salt but also archaeological discoveries attesting to the existence of a rich civilisation dating back to the early part of the first millennium BC.So far less than two percent of the prehistoric tunnel network is thought to have been explored, with the new round of reinforcement work, which began this month, protecting the dig's achievements, according to chief archaeologist Hans Reschreiter."Like in all the mines, the mountain puts pressure on the tunnels and they could cave in if nothing is done," Reschreiter told AFP.Hallstatt was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 and the work aims to protect it for "future generations", said Thomas Stelzer, governor of Upper Austria state where the mine is located.Towering over a natural lake — today frequented by masses of tourists, particularly from Asia, who come to admire the picture-perfect Alpine scenery — the Hallstatt mine lies more than 800 metres (2,600 feet) above sea level.

The vast deposit of sea salt inside was left by the ocean that covered the region some 250 million years ago.3,000-year-old stairs

Among the most striking archaeological discoveries was that of an eight-metre-long wooden staircase dating back to 1100 BC, the oldest such staircase found in Europe."It was so well preserved that we could take it apart and reassemble it," Reschreiter said.Other items date back much further. Excavated in 1838, an axe made from staghorn dating from 5,000 BC showed that as early as then, miners "tried hard to extract salt from here," Reschreiter said.In the mid-19th century, excavations revealed a necropolis that showed the site's prominence during the early Iron Age.The civilisation became known as "Hallstatt culture", ensuring the site's fame."Thousands of bodies have been excavated, almost all flaunting rich bronze ornaments, typically worn by only the wealthiest," Reschreiter said. "The remains bore the marks of hard physical labour from childhood, while also showing signs of unequalled prosperity."Priceless 'white gold'

Salt — long known as "white gold" — was priceless at the time. And Hallstatt produced up to a tonne every day, supplying "half of Europe", he said, adding that the difficult-to-access location "became the continent's richest, and a major platform for trading in 800 BC".Testifying to this are sword handles made of African ivory and Mediterranean wine bowls found at the site.A second series of excavations — started by Vienna's Museum of Natural History some 60 years ago — produced more surprises.In tunnels more than 100 metres below the surface, archaeologists discovered "unique evidence" of mining activity at an "industrial" scale during the Bronze Age, Reschreiter said.As well as revealing wooden retaining structures more than 3,000 years old which were perfectly preserved by the salt, the excavation unearthed numerous tools, leather gloves and a rope — thick as a fist — as well as the remains of millions of wooden torches.Continuously active

Also used by Celts and during the Roman era when salt was used to pay legions stationed along the Danube River — it is the origin of the word "salary" — the mine has never stopped working since prehistoric times.

Today, about 40 people still work there, using high-pressure water to extract the equivalent of 250,000 tonnes of salt per year.

"Salt doesn't have the same value as in antiquity anymore. But some of its new uses, such as in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, are still highly profitable," said Kurt Thomanek, technical director of salt supplier Salinen Austria.Tourism linked to the archaeological discoveries is also "a pillar of our activities", Thomanek added.Last year, some 200,000 people visited the Hallstatt mine.

Salt of the Alps: ancient Austrian mine holds Bronze Age secrets

Ancient Stone Monument in Kenya Held Extra Than 500 bodies

Lothagam North Pillar Web site was constructed by jap Africa’s earliest herders some 5,000 to 4,300 years in the past, and should have taken 900 years to finish. 

The central burial mound (entrance) contained an estimated 580 people, buried side-by-side with out regard for age, gender or class. 

Grillo About 5,000 years in the past, a tribe of roving herders paused by a lake in what’s now Kenya to bury their lifeless. 

Their endeavor (no pun supposed) developed into probably the most large and monumental building initiatives Africa had ever seen. 

After greater than 450 years of digging into bedrock, piling up sandstone slabs and ritually burying era after era of the deceased, the tribe accomplished what researchers now contemplate the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in jap Africa: a sprawling subject of rocky rings, stone columns and burial mounds generally known as the 

LothagamNorth Pillar Web site. At only some ft excessive apiece, the location’s eponymous pillars may not stand as tall or as opulent as different burial monuments of antiquity, just like the Nice Pyramid of Giza in Egypt or the Mausoleum of Maussollos in what’s now Turkey — and that is what makes them exceptional. In accordance with a brand new research revealed yesterday (Aug. 20) within the journal Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, Lothagam North was a monument constructed for the individuals, by the individuals. Right here, the honored lifeless usually are not merely emperors and elites, however moderately tribe members of all ages and gender, buried aspect by aspect with out discrimination. [Album: The 7 Ancient Wonders of the World] “The Lothagam North Pillar Web site is the earliest identified monumental web site in jap Africa, constructed by the area’s first herders,” lead research creator Elisabeth Hildebrand, an affiliate professor at Stony Brook College in New York, stated in an announcement. “This discovering makes us rethink how we outline social complexity and the sorts of motives that lead teams of individuals to create public structure.” 

The primary herders in east Africa 

The Lothagam North Pillar Web site is the oldest of six identified monument websites constructed close to Lake Turkana, in Kenya, between 4,000 and 5,000 years in the past — a time when diminished rainfall led to retreating shorelines that exposed new, fertile plains for herbivores to feed on. Within the midst of this environmental shift, tradition modified as nicely. 

The primary herding tribes had simply begun spreading into jap Africa, the researchers wrote within the research. Right here, the tribes have been compelled to develop new applied sciences, new methods for survival and new types of cultural expression. 

The development of the Lothagam North Pillar Web site — primarily a public cemetery — was doubtless one type that expression took. 

The centerpiece of the location is a raised stone platform roughly 100 ft (30 meters) in diameter, capped with monolithic basalt and sandstone columns hauled from practically 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away. Inside this platform is a burial chamber that will have as soon as held as much as 580 people in tightly packed graves, the researchers wrote. 

Underneath the stones 

Lothagam North has been studied as an archaeological marvel because the 1960s, however this new research marks the primary time researchers have taken an in-depth take a look at the social hierarchy (or lack thereof) of the location’s lifeless. In accordance with the researchers, the deceased at Lothagam North weren’t buried based on any obvious class or caste system. 

Elders have been buried alongside infants, ladies have been buried alongside males and no particular person stays got particular remedy that signified them as better than their deceased friends. 

Practically the entire skeletons discovered within the burial pit have been ornamented with colourful jewellery. 

Lots of the lifeless wore stone beads or jewellery manufactured from ostrich eggshells. Some wore rings and bangles manufactured from hippo ivory, whereas others wore headdresses manufactured from animal incisors. One corpse wore a headpiece manufactured from 405 gerbil enamel sourced from greater than 100 particular person gerbils. 

 Many of the estimated 500-or-so residents of Lothagam North Pillar Site were buried in colorful ornamental jewelry. Archaeologists found more than 300 stones and beads in the central burial mound. Lots of the estimated 500-or-so residents of Lothagam North Pillar Web site have been buried in colourful decorative jewellery. Archaeologists discovered greater than 300 stones and beads within the central burial mound. 

Arrayed across the platform, a cluster of enormous stone circles and cairns (tough burial mounds manufactured from rocks) gave the entire web site a monumental footprint that encompassed greater than 15,000 sq. ft (1,400 sq. meters) of terrain. Radiocarbon courting of the stones within the central platform revealed that the monument took wherever from 450 to 900 years to finish. 

Throughout these centuries of building, numerous mates and neighbors would have gathered at Lothagam North to witnesshundreds of formality burial ceremonies, the researchers wrote. “The monuments might have served as a spot for individuals to congregate, renew social ties, and reinforce group id,” research co-author Anneke Janzen, an archaeologist on the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human Historical past in Germany, stated within the assertion. “Info change and interplay via shared ritual might have helped cell herders navigate a quickly altering bodily panorama.” In accordance with the researchers, Kenya’s herder monuments may assist reshape historic perceptions of social change and the emergence of complicated societies.

Lothagam North could also be proof that the development of large, long-lasting public monuments don’t require the crack of a whip or crowning of a king to carve out a foothold in historical past, they stated. Maybe all that’s required is a powerful communal will … and some hundred gerbil enamel.

Ancient Stone Monument in Kenya Held Extra Than 500 bodies

14,000-Year-Old Piece Of Bread Rewrites The History Of Baking And Farming

When an archaeologist working on an excavation site in Jordan first swept up the tiny black particles scattered around an ancient fireplace, she had no idea they were going to change the history of food and agriculture.

Amaia Arranz-Otaegui is an archaeobotanist from the University of Copenhagen. She was collecting dinner leftovers of the Natufians, a hunter-gatherer tribe that lived in the area more than 14,000 years ago during the Epipaleolithic time — a period between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras.

Natufians were hunters, which one could clearly tell from the bones of gazelles, sheep and hares that littered the cooking pit. But it turns out the Natufians were bakers, too --at a time well before scientists thought it was possible.

When Arranz-Otaegui sifted through the swept-up silt, the black particles appeared to be charred food remains. "They looked like what we find in our toasters," she says — except no one ever heard of people making bread so early in human history. "I could tell they were processed plants," Arranz-Otaegui says, "but I didn't really know what they were."

So she took her burnt findings to a colleague, Lara Gonzalez Carretero at University College London Institute of Archaeology, whose specialty is identifying prehistoric food remains, bread in particular. She concluded that what Arranz-Otaegui had unearthed was a handful of truly primordial breadcrumbs.

"We both realized we were looking at the oldest bread remains in the world," says Gonzalez Carretero. They were both quite surprised — with good reason.

The established archaeological doctrine states that humans first began baking bread about 10,000 years ago. That was a pivotal time in our evolution. Humans gave up their nomadic way of life, settled down and began farming and growing cereals. Once they had various grains handy, they began milling them into flour and making bread. In other words, until now we thought that our ancestors were farmers first and bakers second. But Arranz-Otaegui's breadcrumbs predate the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. That means that our ancestors were bakers first —and learned to farm afterwards.

"Finding bread in this Epipaleolithic site was the last thing we expected!" says Arranz-Otaegui. "We used to think that the first bread appeared during the Neolithic times, when people started to cultivate cereal, but it now seems they learned to make bread earlier."

When you think about it, the idea that early humans learned to bake before settling down to farm is logical, the researchers behind the finding say. Making bread is a labor-intensive process that involves removing husks, grinding cereals, kneading the dough and then baking it. The fact that our ancestors were willing to invest so much effort into the prehistoric pastry suggests that they considered bread a special treat. Baking bread could have been reserved for special occasions or to impress important guests. The people's desire to indulge more often may have prompted them to begin cultivating cereals.

"In our opinion, instead of domesticating cereals first, the bread-making culture could have been something that actually fueled the domestication of cereal," says Gonzalez Carretero. "So maybe it was the other way around [from what we previously thought.]" The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Andreas Heiss, an archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Science who is familiar with the project but not directly involved in the study, finds the discovery "thrilling." He says it shows that ancient tribes were quite adept at food-making techniques, and developed them earlier than we had given them credit for.

"It tells us that our ancestors were smart people who knew how to use their environment well," Heiss says. "It also tells us that processing food is a much more basic technique in human history than we thought — maybe as old as hunting and gathering."

As the team analyzed the crumbs further, they found out that the Natufians were sophisticated cooks. Their flour was made from two different types of ingredients — wild wheat called einkorn and the roots of club-rush tubers, a type of a flowering plant. That particular combination allowed them to make pliable elastic dough that could be pressed onto the walls of their fireplace pits, much like flatbreads are baked today in tandoori ovens — and baked to perfection. Besides the einkorn and tubers, the team also found traces of barley and oats.

The Natufians may have had rather developed taste buds, too. They liked to toss some spices and condiments into their dishes, particularly mustard seeds. "We found a lot of wild mustard seeds, not in the bread but in the overall assemblage," says Gonzalez Carretero.

But, she adds, mustard seeds had also been found in some bread remains excavated from other sites, so it's possible that Natufians sprinkled a few on their own pastries. So far, the team has analyzed only 25 breadcrumbs with about 600 more to go, so they think chances are good that some charred pieces with mustard seeds might turn up. Arranz-Otaegui thinks it's possible. "The seeds have [a] very particular taste, so why not use them?"

Exactly how delicious was this special Natufian treat? It's hard to tell. Modern-day bread recipes don't include ancient wheat or roots of tuberous plants. But Arranz-Otaegui does want to find out how the Epipaleolithic bread played on the palate. She has been gathering the einkorn seeds, as well as peeling and grinding the tubers. She plans to partner up with a skilled chef and baker to reconstruct the exact mixture in correct proportions.

It will be the oldest bread recipe ever created by mankind.

14,000-Year-Old Piece Of Bread Rewrites The History Of Baking And Farming

Ancient Humans Lived in China 2.1 Million Years Ago

For hundreds of thousands of years, small bands of ancient humans ranged across a sandy, hilly grassland. They survived on the mammals around them—perhaps hunting them, perhaps scavenging for their carcasses—and their tools were rudimentary, razor-sharp blades formed from chipped stone. They lived in fear of the big cats and large predators that stalked their children.

And they were isolated. They likely rarely encountered other creatures who looked like them, beyond the 25 or 50 with whom they lived.

This was the strange existence of early-human ancestors on the savannah. It’s a classic scene—the image of hunter-gatherers roaming grasslands is just as at home in a biology textbook as it was in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But according to new research, this scene did not play out only in Africa.

Our ancient ancestors lived in China, too.

Ancient humans appear to have reached northwestern China about 2.1 million years ago, and they lived there for hundreds of thousands of years, according to a new study published Wednesday in Nature. It suggests that hominins migrated out of Africa much earlier, and spread much farther east, than once thought.

The earliest ancient-human presence is  Homo erectus fossil found in a cave Petralona, Greece. This newly discovered community of early humans lived roughly 250,000 years earlier than that group, and did so 3,500 miles to the east.

“We need to rethink when hominins first left Africa,” said Robin Dennell, an archeologist at the University of Sheffield and one of the authors of the paper. “We have shown that the earliest evidence from outside Africa is at least 2.1 million years old, and therefore 250,000 years—or 10,000 generations—older than Dmanisi in Georgia.”

“It’s so old that the earliest members of our own genus, the genus Homo, may have migrated out of Africa,” said Michael Petraglia, a professor of anthropology at the Max Planck Institute who was not involved in the new study. These creatures would have likely been Homo erectus; or possibly even Homo habilis, the first ancient primate to be called Homo.

Petraglia emphasized that the discovery also changes our understanding of Ice Age China. “They’ve added on something like 400,000 years of prehistory [in East Asia]—and it’s not every day you get to do that,” he told me. “Some of the oldest sites in China were previously only 1.6 or 1.7 million years old. They’re now saying the oldest sites are 2.1 million years old.

The research was led by Zhaoyu Zhu, an archeologist and climatologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Zhu and his team have spent the past 13 years excavating a unique site on China’s Loess Plateau, a rare spot protected from erosion and glaciation, and continually buried in wind-blown sand over the past several million years.

While the new paper identifies a human presence, the researchers have not yet found any early-human fossils at the site. They have unearthed a wealth of early stone tools left behind by our ancestors, buried under many layers of solidified sand. These artifacts are mostly chipped flakes of stone, a type of primitive blade created by smashing two river-smoothed cobbles together. Hominins in Africa are known to have used this technology during the same period.

Claiming an ancient-human presence from a bunch of stone flakes could prove controversial among some researchers, who only feel confident dating an ancient-human presence when they find the remains of an early human, like teeth, a jaw bone, or ancient DNA.

But both the paper’s authors and outside experts told me they felt comfortable asserting that ancient humans lived on this site.

“It comes down to two general points,” said John Kappelman, a professor of anthropology and geology at the University of Texas at Austin who was not connected to the research. First, the stone tools “look like they were produced by humans,” he told me. They also show evidence of manufacture and maintenance. Some flakes have an almost serrated edge, suggesting that their creator smashed them against a cobble multiple times in order to improve them. Others “appear to show resharpening or sharpening,” he said, meaning their users attended to their tools and tried to improve them.

Second, the flakes are the most substantial feature found in this geological layer. “These are the largest pieces of stones—either the flakes themselves or the cores from which flakes were removed—in a very fine-grained sedimentary sequence,” Kappelman said. This supports the idea that they have a human, not a natural geological, origin.

Dennell, one of the authors of the paper, agreed. “Very importantly here, there are no geological processes that could have flaked these stones. The Loess Plateau is a stone free landscape—it is basically an enormous deposit of wind-blown dust, deposited year upon year by the winter monsoonal winds for the last 2.5 million years,” he told me in an email.

“Hominin remains are incredibly scarce,” he continued. “Their skeletons are very fragile, preservation is very rare, and they were not very common. In contrast, a single hominin can generate thousands of stone tools in a lifetime. Additionally, fossils will never indicate the first actual appearance of an animal—the first recorded appearance is always later than the first actual appearance, no matter whether it’s a hominin or a hippopotamus.”

“As an archaeologist, I have always found it strange that some refuse to accept artifacts unless found with hominin remains when the antiquity of humankind was first established in the early 19th century from stone artifacts in France and Britain, and not from skeletal evidence,” Dennell added.

Petraglia, the Max Planck professor who was not connected to the study, told me that the paper’s findings were “very strong.”

“I think it’s excellent,” he said. “I’m very excited about the work. It’s such a major finding, and it changes a lot of our views about the migration of early humans out of Africa, and when they got into Asia.”

But the study’s importance relies on another claim, too: that the authors know the stones are 2.1 million years old. To reach this conclusion, researchers deployed a technique known as paleomagnetism.

Paleomagnetism relies on a simple planetary fact: The Earth’s magnetic field seems to reverse every 800,000 years. As rocks harden, they record the planet’s magnetic field in their structure: Lava now cooling on the surface of Hawaii, for instance, will retain the Earth’s current North Pole–facing orientation for millions of years. Researchers can sample the surface of a vertical rock face and track these changes in magnetic polarity, matching the reversals they detect with well-dated reversal events recorded elsewhere in the world. The Loess Plateau rock turned out to align to two reversals captured elsewhere in the world, including one switch, 2.1 million years ago, first observed on distant Reunion Island.

Over the past decade, a more cosmopolitan notion of human evolution has emerged. Homo sapiens do not seem to have been the only advanced hominin to stalk the Earth, and they did not evolve in a single spot in Africa. (My colleague Ed Yong recently detailed an aspect of this idea.) Instead, Homo sapiens shared Earth with at least two other types of ancient human: Neanderthals, who occupied much of Eurasia; and the more mysterious Denisovans, who may have ranged throughout Southeast Asia.

But this new find suggests that some early humans ranged much of the Earth well before that late date. “This is way earlier than Neanderthals—way, way earlier,” Petraglia told me.

The finding suggests that ancient humans migrated out of Africa many times, though these migrations were not always successful, he argued. “Some populations got all the way over to eastern Asia, but we have to imagine that these were small, sort of hunting-and-gathering populations. And while they may have mated across East Asia, it doesn’t mean they survived for a long period of time. Some populations might have become isolated, and some might have become extinct.”

These migrations may even have predated the worst of the modern Ice Ages. While the Earth endured some large swings in temperature about 2 million years ago, the mighty, continent-churning glaciations of the past million years had yet to parade down from the North Pole.

The Loess Plateau likely alternated between arid steppe and moist grassland every 40,000 years. Tools also appear to grow more scarce in the site during these cold and dry intervals, suggesting that ancient humans could only adapt so much to life out of the tropics. And it’s worth noting that the new study does not claim that hominins have continuously inhabited Asia for the past 2 million years.

Kappelman, the University of Texas professor, took a more robust view of this ancient-human community. He noted that different types of australopithecus—a hominin that briefly shared Africa with Homo habilis for 500,000 years—lived for millions of years without ever appearing to leave Africa. But 2.1 million years ago, as the first fossils from our genus, Homo, appear—scientists suddenly find evidence of an ancient-human presence across much of the Old World.

“What this paper suggests is: Boom! You get this dispersal, all the way across what was then the known Earth. The pieces were being filled in there very early on,” Kappelman told me. “It’s the kind of thing where, if we saw this for some other species, it would be remarkable.”

He could recall only one other mammal that moved into a new territory and immediately dispersed across it: ancient horses. “They originated in North America, then migrated into the Old World about 11 million years ago. And then, boom, it’s like gangbusters. They’re everywhere,” he said.

Ancient humans might have gone through a similar expansion, even before they gained all the traits that define a modern Homo sapiens. We just have less evidence of this explosion: Since ancient humans were carnivores, they never would have been as abundant as horses, which are lower on the food chain.

“The world is overrun with people today,” Kappelman said. “There was a period in time when it wasn’t.” The challenge is trying to piece together how humans went from scarce to ubiquitous. “What was it about their behavior? Because we don’t see australopithecus going out, even though they are around at the same time. We just don’t find other hominins in Eurasia until the rise of Homo.”

Ancient Humans Lived in China 2.1 Million Years Ago

Ancient Cave Bears From Europe Were Vegetarians

The Pleistocene epoch, a period famed for terrifying creatures like cave lions, dire wolves and saber-toothed cats and other weird animals during the last ice age has a very different creature: vegetarian cave bears.

Yes, you read that right. There was once a huge bear known as Ursus spelaeus, which roamed Europe and snacked on fruits and nuts instead of meat!

Except for the cuddly panda, we don’t see bears as not having humans on their menu. But researchers long believed that cave bears also ate some plants because they had the dentition for it. Their teeth were suited for grinding plants and not slashing meat.

Checking out the dentition of the cave bear, researchers from Germany and Spain found out that the direct ancestor of the cave bear – the Deninger’s bear “had very similarly shaped mandibles and skull to the classic cave bear,” said the lead author of the study, Anneke van Heteren.

Over 500 Thousand Years Ago, Cave Bears Had a Different Diet

The Deninger’s bear adapted long ago to a new diet explained the co-author of the study, Mikel Arlegi:

“There is an ongoing discussion on the extent to which the classic cave bear was a vegetarian. And, this is especially why the new information on the diet of its direct ancestor is so important, because it teaches us that a differentiation between the diet of cave bears and brown bears was already established by 500 thousand years ago and likely earlier.”

However, even if this bear didn’t enjoy munching on meat, this doesn’t mean that you could freely enter his cave! They might have preferred fruits or nuts, but they could also defend their territory – his huge frame would be terrifying enough! Nonetheless, it’s good to know that the Pleistocene epoch had a gigantic vegetarian among so many giant predators.

Ancient Cave Bears From Europe Were Vegetarians

Russian Scientists Claim to Have Resurrected 40,000-Year-Old Worms Buried in Ice

A team of Russian scientists is lining themselves up to be the opening cast of a John Carpenter film. Earlier this month, in the journal Doklady Biological Sciences, they announced they had apparently discovered ancient nematode worms that were able to resurrect themselves after spending at least 32,000 years buried in permafrost. The discovery, if legitimate, would represent the longest-surviving return from the cold ever seen in a complex, multi-celled organism, dwarfing even the tardigrade.

The worms were found among more than 300 samples of frozen soil pulled from the Kolyma River Lowlands in Northeastern Siberia by the researchers. Two of the samples held the worms, with one from a buried squirrel burrow dating back 32,000 years and one from a glacier dating back 40,000 years.

After isolating intact nematodes, the scientists kept the samples at 68 degrees Fahrenheit and left them surrounded by food in a petri dish, just to see what would happen. Over the next few weeks, they gradually spotted flickers of life as the worms ate the food and even cloned new family members. These cloned worms were then cultured separately, and they too thrived.

It’s definitely not out of the question that these worms could have been revived after so long, according to Robin M. Giblin-Davis, a nematologist and acting director of the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center at the University of Florida.

“Theoretically, it is possible that if the organisms are protected from physical damage that would compromise their structural integrity during their frozen internment, they should be able to revive upon thawing/rehydration for very long periods of time,” he told Gizmodo via email.

At the same time, the team’s findings could still be a dud. “The biggest issue is the potential for contamination of ‘ancient samples’ with ‘contemporary’ organisms,” he said.

While the researchers do admit the possibility of contamination in the paper, they say it’s unlikely. They cited strict procedures to ensure complete sterility. And given that the ice samples were buried 100 feet and 15 feet down, respectively, they argue it’s implausible modern day nematodes could have wormed their way that deep.

The researchers identified some of the worms in the 32,000-year-old sample as belonging to the genus Panagrolaimus, and some of the worms in the 40,000-year-old as part of the genus Plectus. Byron J. Adams, a nematologist at Brigham Young University who has studied nematode species capable of surviving extreme conditions, said the researchers’ claims seem credible, based on what we know about the biology of some modern-day nematodes.

“I’d love for it to be true,” Adams told Gizmodo. “We see what we think are prolonged stasis in Plectus and Panagrolaimus in Antarctica but have difficulty carbon dating them.”

The discovery of such long-lived creatures would be an astounding record-breaker. Ancient bacteria buried in salt crystals over 250 million years ago supposedly have been brought back to life, but the oldest thawed-out animals only date back decades at most, such as a group of tardigrades, otherwise known as the water bear, that were resurrected after 30 years on ice.

The more complex nature of these allegedly ancient nematodes could reveal more insights about the feasibility of cryostasis or how to survive in extreme conditions like space, the researchers speculated. And at the very least, they might provide clues as how these worms have evolved over time.

“After 40 thousand years, we should expect to detect significant differences in evolutionary divergence between ancient and contemporary populations,” Adams said.

Adams was careful to point out that because we know so little about the genetics of these modern cold-loving worms, even a genetic comparison that finds substantial differences between the thawed-out worms and other present-day populations wouldn’t necessarily confirm their longevity. He believes it will take very sophisticated tests, akin to those that confirmed the existence of nematode species that can survive deep inside the crust of the Earth, to know whether these worms are actually ancient.

Russian Scientists Claim to Have Resurrected 40,000-Year-Old Worms Buried in Ice

Ancient Egyptian graffiti, burial sites discovered by Yale archaeologists

A team of archaeologists — led by Yale Egyptologist John Darnell — has uncovered a “lost oasis” of archaeological activity in the eastern Egyptian desert of Elkab.

The researchers from the Elkab Desert Survey Project — a joint mission of Yale and the Royal Museums of Art and History Brussels working in collaboration with the Ministry of Antiquities and the Inspectorate of Edfu — surveyed the area of Bir Umm Tineidba, once thought to be devoid of any major archaeological remains. Instead, the team unearthed “a wealth of archaeological and epigraphic material,” says Darnell, including a number of examples of ancient rock art or “graffiti,” the burial site of an Egyptian woman, and a previously unrecorded, enigmatic Late Roman settlement.

John Darnell, professor of Egyptology at Yale, along with a team of researchers, uncovered a “lost oasis” in the eastern Egyptian desert. One image dates back to about 3,300 B.C.E. and includes large depictions of animals, including an addax, or antelope. “The large addax in particular deserves to be added to the artistic achievements of early Egypt,” says Darnell.

One particularly impressive image identified during the field season, says Darnell, dates back to about 3,300 B.C.E. and includes large depictions of animals, including a bull, a giraffe, an addax (antelope), a barbary sheep, and donkeys. Other tableaux depict long lines of boats, revealing an “interesting mixture of Eastern Desert and closer, Nile Valley-oriented styles,” notes Darnell.

“At a time immediately before the invention of the hieroglyphic script, rock art such as this provides important clues to the religion and symbolic communication of Predynastic Egyptians,” says Darnell. “The large addax in particular deserves to be added to the artistic achievements of early Egypt.

Darnell says that this ancient graffiti was created for other people who would visit the site or who might pass along the road. “The ancient Egyptians just loved to write and draw,” he says. “And this general desire to express and memorialize yourself graphically seems to be one of the real hallmarks of Egyptian culture; it seems to be one of the things that you pick up when you are Egyptianized: that you just can't pass one of these surfaces without memorializing yourself.”

Egyptians chose a meaningful spot to carve these images, explains Darnell, usually at a habitation site or, as in this case, a crossroad of tracks going east to west. 

I think this discovery will influence how we see the development of the early state in Egypt.

-john darnell

“This is imagery and style that you would expect in the Nile Valley, but it's out here in the Eastern Desert at this site,” says Darnell, explaining that the drawings suggest a cultural mix and demonstrate that desert people were almost certainly interacting with Nile Valley people. “It shows a greater complexity and a little bit more of a mosaic, or hybrid of groups,” says Darnell. “I think this discovery will influence how we see the development of the early state in Egypt.”

“Our newly discovered material at Bir Umm Tineidba is important in revealing a desert population coming under increasing influence from the Nile Valley during the time of Dynasty 0 [the Protodynastic Period in ancient Egypt characterized by an ongoing process of political unification, culminating in the formation of a single state to begin the Early Dynastic Period],” he adds.

The archaeologists also uncovered several burial tumuli — or mounds of earth and stone raised over graves — that appear to belong to desert dwellers with physical ties to both the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. They investigated one of the tumuli, which they determined was the burial place of a woman between 25 to 35 years of age at the time of her death. “She was probably one of the local desert elite, and was buried with at least a strand of Red Sea shells and carnelian beads, alluding to her desert and Red Sea associations, as well as a Protodynastic vessel of Nile Valley manufacture, all indicative of the two worlds of Nile and desert with which she and her people appear to have interacted,” says Darnell.

To the south of the rock inscription and tumuli sites, the archaeologists located a Late Roman settlement with dozens of stone structures. The ceramic evidence and other materials indicate that the site dates to between 400 and 600 C.E., says Darnell. “This Late Roman site complements the evidence for similar archaeological sites in the Eastern Desert, and once again fills a gap in an area once blank on the archaeological map of the Eastern Desert.

“Probably associated with the ancient people whom Egyptian and later Roman documents call the Blemmyes, these sites reveal important information on the late administration of the Eastern Desert, and help us understand the transition between the Late Antique and the Early Islamic Periods,” says Darnell.

To document their findings in the field, the team used a digital technique developed at Yale in 2010, in collaboration with Yale digital archaeologist Alberto Urcia. The technology, employing the photogrammetirc Structure from Motion technology, generates detailed three-dimensional models of the rock surface that are used to produce high-resolution images of each panel. Unfortunately, says Darnell, considerable and active mining in the area is threatening the sites in and near Bir Umm Tineidba.

The new technology, says Darnell, cuts excavation and recording time down to about a quarter of what it used to be. “It means you get through more material in greater detail than you would otherwise. If you’re racing the clock to record these desert sites before mining and land reclamation and thieves get at them, you know you can do four structures in a month rather than one structure in a month, which is fabulous.”

Darnell adds, “If I could go back in time and do all the other sites I’ve done in the past using that technique I would. At least we have it now, and it will greatly increase the speed and accuracy with which we will hopefully record ever more sites.”

source:

https://www.yale.edu/

Ancient Egyptian graffiti, burial sites discovered by Yale archaeologists

The Unveiling of an Ancient Underwater Forest off Alabama Coast

Deep beneath the surface, off the coast of Alabama, lies a hidden treasure not known to man for thousands of years: an ancient underwater forest.

loading...

Long concealed and preserved under a thick layer of sediment are clusters of cypress trees, which scientists believe was uncovered by Hurricane Ivan back in 2004.

The exact spot of the forest was unknown for years until local fishermen happened upon it, just by noticing something odd on the sonar.

“We didn’t know what it was,” said Chas Broughton, a local fisherman. “And that’s why we thought we need to get some scientists out here.”

And when the scientists did show up, it was determined that the trees dated as far back as the ice ages, some 60,000 years ago.

The challenge now for the forest is that these once buried trees are beginning to decompose as the mud that preserved the trees got washed away by Hurricane Ivan.

Researchers from Louisiana State University estimate the forest was about half a square mile, that’s because they believe where the Gulf of Mexico is now, there was an island with a fresh water river rushing right through it.

Some scientists say these trees may hold key clues to how climate change could affect the future.

HOT ON THE WEB

"These trees died very quickly and we want to see how that's tied to sea-level rise," said Kristine DeLong, a paleo-climatologist at Louisiana State University.

The discovery of the ancient forest is also the subject of a popular documentary film. Film maker and AL.com environmental reporter Ben Raines documented the journey 60 feet below the surface to learn a little bit more about the trees in a documentary film.

“You're in this sort of ethereal fairy world, where the stumps are covered in Anemones and everything,” said Raines. “But you realize they're trees.”

The Unveiling of an Ancient Underwater Forest off Alabama Coast

Neolithic figurine, over 7,000 years old, unearthed at Turkey’s Çatalhöyük

Archaeologists at Turkey's neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia have unearthed a "unique" complete female figurine, The Ministry of Culture and Tourism said on Tuesday.

The statuette, measuring 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) long and weighing one kilogram (2.2 pounds), is considered unique due to its intact form and fine craftsmanship; it dates back to about 5500-8000 BC, a statement said.

The figurine, which is made of marmoreal stone and considered to be part of a ritual, was discovered by the international team of archaeologists working on site led by Professor Ian Hodder, anthropologist at Stanford University in the U.S.

One of the world's first urban centers which dates back 9,000 years, Çatalhöyük is included in the 2012 UNESCO World Heritage List.

HOT ON THE WEB

"Çatalhöyük has been the subject of investigation for more than 50 years. Researchers from around the world have travelled to the site over the past half-century to study its vast landscape of buildings, remarkable ways of life, and its many exquisite works of art and craft.

"Since 1993, the Catalhoyuk Research Project has recruited an international group of specialists to pioneer new archaeological, conservation and curatorial methods on and off site. Simultaneously, it aims to advance our understandings of human life in the past," according to the official website.

loading...

Neolithic figurine, over 7,000 years old, unearthed at Turkey’s Çatalhöyük

Spanish researchers discover 30,000 year-old cave paintings

Researchers have discovered four new sets of cave paintings in Cantabria, northern Spain, the oldest of which was made nearly 30,000 years ago – making it one of the earliest known examples of prehistoric art in the world.

The team from the Museum of Prehistory of Cantabria, led by Spanish prehistorian Roberto Ontañón, used cutting-edge imaging techniques to identify the drawings.

Twenty years ago, a speleologist – a scientist who studies caves – had informed archaeologists of the possible existence of ancient paintings in various rock cavities in Cantabria. However, the techniques available at the time were not sufficient to confirm the existence of the art.

The paintings, like much prehistoric artwork, had degraded so much over time that they were difficult to identify with the naked eye. To overcome this, Ontañón and his team used a 3D laser scanning method, which reproduced the artwork on a computer.

HOT ON THE WEB
"These technologies allow you to detect colors beyond the range of the visible spectrum (infrared to ultraviolet) and, in this way, 'reveal' paintings that at first sight are imperceptible or difficult to
distinguish", Ontañón told IBTimes UK.

The artworks are estimated to have been made between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago, making them older than the famous bison drawings at the renowned UNESCO World Heritage Site at nearby Altamira – created around 16,000 years ago – but not as old as the earliest example in the region.

Trends on the web

That title goes to the cave drawings at El Castillo, also in Cantabria, which were made more than 40,000 years ago and are arguably the oldest in the world.

Cantabria has some of the highest concentrations of prehistoric art anywhere on Earth. This can be attributed to the fact that the region was a good place to live during glacial periods in the Earth's history, a result of its temperate climate and abundance of wild animals.

loading...

Spanish researchers discover 30,000 year-old cave paintings

13,000 years old skeleton found in submerged cave near Tulum

Human skeletal remains found in an underwater cave in Mexico are about 13,000 years old, providing more evidence of early human settlement in the Americas.

HOT ON THE WEB

Scientists reported in the journal PLOS One that the bones are another piece of a complicated puzzle, as experts have had difficulty pinpointing exactly when humans first migrated to North America and spread out, settling the rest of the continent and South America as well.

This ancient human’s remains were found in a submerged cave system near the archaeological site Tulum, which is on the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico, about two hours south of Cancún in the state Quintana Roo. The scientists dated the bones with the help of a stalagmite in the Chan Hol cave that was growing on top of the skeleton’s pelvis. A stalagmite is a rock that grows vertically on a cave floor, the counterpart to the stalactite that hangs down from the top of the cave. These rock features form because of the way water drips down from the cave ceiling. Rainwater makes its way down into the cave, picking up organic material along the way. While it drips down, the calcite it is carrying solidifies and builds up over time, forming the stalactite. The calcite also builds up on the ground directly below that steady drip, forming the stalagmite.

Using information about how these vertical rocks grow, scientists can calculate how old they are.

According to the study, analysis shows that the stalagmite is more than 11,000 years old. An analysis of the bones themselves suggests they are even older, perhaps 13,000 years old.

The scientists say the ancient human died before the cave floor was wet, and the stalagmite formed later, after soft tissue had rotted away and the bone of the pelvis was already exposed.

“The Chan Hol individual confirms a late Pleistocene settling of Mesoamerica and represents one of the oldest human osteological remains in America,” the authors wrote.

There has been some debate about when humans first arrived in North and South America and what routes they took to migrate throughout the continents after traversing the now-submerged land bridge called the Bering Strait that connected from Siberia to Alaska. While some experts estimate that crossing happened 13,000 years ago, with dispersal through the continents following, others have pegged that crossing to 22,000 years ago.

The dating of the Chan Hol remains are right at the early limit of other recent findings. Earlier this year, scientists reported that the remains of a teenager found at Tulum, whom they nicknamed Naia, were dated to 13,000 years ago and they had found, based on evidence in her pubic bone, that she had given birth shortly before she fell into a pit and died. Her remains were discovered 180 feet down at the bottom of that pit, which is now filled with water and is known as Hoyo Negro — Spanish for Black Hole.

Naia’s nearly complete skeleton also gave her discoverers clues about what her life was like. Her teeth and long bones, like her femur, showed that she had lived through periods of famine, indicating that life was difficult for the people who first settled the Americas.

Although carbon-dating analysis suggests these two specimens from Hoyo Negro and Chan Hol are about 13,000 years old, the authors of this new study in PLOS One caution readers that the past climate in the cave could have contaminated the fossils, making them appear older.

The scientists are calling the age of the stalagmite growing over the pelvis, which they put at about 11,300 years old, plus or minus a few hundred years, the “minimum age for the skeleton.” That would place the remains right at the beginning of the Holocene epoch, which is the current geological era. If it is older, closer to the 13,000-year-old estimate, it would be in the preceding Pleistocene epoch.

“The oldest claims for humans in the Americas is based on tools, artifacts, scraps, and very little is based on osteological remains,” according to a paleo blog post from journal publisher Public Library of Science. “When bones are found, they are often very fragmentary.”

The Chan Hol skeleton was well-preserved, even though the site was looted shortly after its discovery and most of the bones were stolen.

“This skeleton, along with other remains found in the Chan Hol cave system, could represent an early human settlement along the sea,” the post says.

loading...

13,000 years old skeleton found in submerged cave near Tulum