Archaeological discoveries, breakthroughs and theories

[Shippou-Sensei]

Orkney seems to be at least 30% archeology.

 

[petee]

it's an ill wind ...

Ancient rock carvings revealed by receding Amazon waters amid drought

Human faces and other figures believed to be up to 2,000 years old exposed as Brazil river level hits record low

www.theguardian.com

 

[petee]

Cold war satellite images reveal hundreds of unknown Roman forts

Declassified spy images point to 396 undiscovered forts in Syria and Iraq, shifting understanding of Roman frontier

www.theguardian.com

"many of the likely Roman forts we have documented in this study have already been destroyed by recent urban or agricultural development, and countless others are under extreme threat.” "

 

[friendofdorothy]

interesting article:

The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong

The influential idea that in the past men were hunters and women were not isn’t supported by the available evidence

www.scientificamerican.com

the conclusion:

And ancient women and men appear to have engaged in the same foraging activities rather than upholding a sex-based division of labor. It was the arrival some 10,000 years ago of agriculture, with its intensive investment in land, population growth and resultant clumped resources, that led to rigid gendered roles and economic inequality.

 

[JimW]

interesting article:

the conclusion:

That's fascinating. Think I've mentioned here before that skeletal and other analyses of burial at catalhoyuk showed there were no differences between the work roles men and women performed, same toolsets too and same diets. Clearly patriarchy was not inevitable.

 

[belboid]

This years Broctoberfest talks are up for viewing now -

 

[bluescreen]

New evidence of a 6,500 year old burial site in northern Finland, after reanalyzing old records and undertaking new fieldwork. Skeletons decay quickly in the acidic soil so they are drawing on other clues like the shape of the pits, traces of red ochre and possible grave goods.

Possible Arctic graveyard may be northernmost Stone Age cemetery — but there are no human remains to prove it

Archaeologists in Finland have identified a 6,500-year-old site as potential cemetery with 200 graves.

www.livescience.com

 

[JimW]

Scythians used human skin to make quivers, confirming something Herodotus mentioned: Analysis of ancient Scythian leather samples shows two were made from human skin

 

[Artaxerxes]

Huge ancient lost city found in the Amazon

The city was built 2,500 years ago but may have been abandoned after a volcanic eruption.

www.bbc.co.uk

Finding new evidence for a much more thriving and varied Amazon pretty much daily at this point

 

[PTK]

Huge ancient lost city found in the Amazon

The city was built 2,500 years ago but may have been abandoned after a volcanic eruption.

www.bbc.co.uk

Finding new evidence for a much more thriving and varied Amazon pretty much daily at this point

I wonder what the climate in the region was like at the time? How old is the Amazon rain forest?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I wonder what the climate in the region was like at the time? How old is the Amazon rain forest?

55 million years apparently.

The rainforest likely formed during the Eocene era (from 56 million years to 33.9 million years ago). It appeared following a global reduction of tropical temperatures when the Atlantic Ocean had widened sufficiently to provide a warm, moist climate to the Amazon basin. The rainforest has been in existence for at least 55 million years, and most of the region remained free of savanna-type biomes at least until the current ice age when the climate was drier and savanna more widespread.

...

There is evidence that there have been significant changes in the Amazon rainforest vegetation over the last 21,000 years through the last glacial maximum (LGM) and subsequent deglaciation.

 

[PTK]

55 million years apparently.

Ah, so after there perhaps was once more savanna than there is now.

 

[PTK]

"Yet new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that quite recently—just 500 years ago—a significant portion of the southern Amazon was not the tall-canopied forest it is today, but savannah."

A garden or a wilderness? One-fifth of the Amazon may have been savannah before the arrival of Europeans

The Amazon rainforest in Yasuni National Park in Ecuador. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. The Amazon is the largest tropical forest on the planet, covering about 6.5 million square kilometers, although much has been lost (around 18-20 percent) in recent decades. The great forest also, very likely...

news.mongabay.com

 

[zahir]

Second century Buddha statue dug up in an Egyptian Red Sea port: A marble statue of Buddha was uncovered in Berenike at the Red Sea

expanding on this

https://archive.ph/P1Az4

Video using this find as a starting off point for discussing possible Buddhist influence on early Christianity.

 

[Dystopiary]

Neanderthals used complex adhesives, a team of scientists have discovered.

Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought.

(Surely it's not entirely accurate to describe Neanderthals as modern humans' "predecessors" though.)

"These astonishingly well-preserved tools showcase a technical solution broadly similar to examples of tools made by early modern humans in Africa, but the exact recipe reflects a Neanderthal 'spin,' which is the production of grips for handheld tools," says Radu Iovita, an associate professor at New York University's Center for the Study of Human Origins.

The research team [...] re-examined previous finds from Le Moustier, an archaeological site in France that was discovered in the early 20th century.

The stone tools from Le Moustier—used by Neanderthals during the Middle Paleolithic period of the Mousterian between 120,000 and 40,000 years ago—are kept in the collection of Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History and had not previously been examined in detail. The tools were rediscovered during an internal review of the collection and their scientific value was recognized.

"The items had been individually wrapped and untouched since the 1960s," says Dutkiewicz. "As a result, the adhering remains of organic substances were very well preserved."

Several compounds were used to produce the adhesives for holding tools together.



Neanderthals' usage of complex adhesives reveals higher cognitive abilities, scientists discover

danny la rouge

 

[bcuster]

This 1,700 Year Old Egg Never Broke—And Now It’s Further Stunning Scientists

They still can’t fully crack the mystery.

www.atlasobscura.com

 

[Artaxerxes]

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/worlds-oldest-bread-discovered-turkey-intl-scli-scn/index.html

 

[Artaxerxes]

Double post

 

[two sheds]

Saw this a couple of weeks ago. I'd thought people used to believe that hunter gatherers had been wiped out by hunter gatherers then that they hadn't ...

Hunter-gatherers were violently wiped off the map by farmers, DNA reveals

Contrary to what has long been believed, there was no peaceful transition of power from hunter-gather societies to farming communities in Europe, with new advanced DNA analysis revealing that the newcomers slaughtered the existing population, completely wiping them out within a few generations.

newatlas.com

 

[Santino]

Saw this a couple of weeks ago. I'd thought people used to believe that hunter gatherers had been wiped out by hunter gatherers then that they hadn't ...

Hunter-gatherers were violently wiped off the map by farmers, DNA reveals

Contrary to what has long been believed, there was no peaceful transition of power from hunter-gather societies to farming communities in Europe, with new advanced DNA analysis revealing that the newcomers slaughtered the existing population, completely wiping them out within a few generations.

newatlas.com

"DNA evidence suggests violent battles and the introduction of new pathogens caused another swift genetic shakeup."

I'm not sure how DNA evidence alone could tell you there had been violent battles.

I'm also interested how they ruled out the hunter-gatherers simply fucking off somewhere else.

 

[DotCommunist]

, in what they suspect was a very bloody and very thorough takeover.

“This transition has previously been presented as peaceful," said Anne Birgitte Nielsen, geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Lund University. "However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers."

My bold. The claim is nowhere near as strong as the headline makes out.

 

[Idaho]

"DNA evidence suggests violent battles and the introduction of new pathogens caused another swift genetic shakeup."

I'm not sure how DNA evidence alone could tell you there had been violent battles.

I'm also interested how they ruled out the hunter-gatherers simply fucking off somewhere else.

Presumably DNA that suddenly stops appearing in the fossil record after a narrow archeological window.

 

[Santino]

Presumably DNA that suddenly stops appearing in the fossil record after a narrow archeological window.

That would establish that they no longer lived there, not what killed them ('violent battles' or 'new pathogens'), or whether they had in fact migrated elsewhere.

 

[belboid]

"DNA evidence suggests violent battles and the introduction of new pathogens caused another swift genetic shakeup."

I'm not sure how DNA evidence alone could tell you there had been violent battles.

I'm also interested how they ruled out the hunter-gatherers simply fucking off somewhere else.

It isn't DNA evidence alone, thats the thing. It is DNA evidence alongside everything else we know. A more important sentence is:

With the rapid rate of distinctive DNA turnover and the a lack of mingling genetics, all signs point to overpowering conflicts that completely anihilated existing communities.

Obviously, what those overpowering conflicts were is well debatable and archeologists have been guilty before of wrongly assuming massive battles must have taken place when they didn't, but it is still a reasonably reasonable conclusion to draw.

 

[JimW]

Though surely as Santino says, that could just be down to them moving away. You still get massive outmigrations long into the historical era when hunter populations come under pressure from stronger incomers.

 

[belboid]

You still get massive outmigrations long into the historical era when hunter populations come under pressure from stronger incomers.

which we know about because we have found evidence, There is, seemingly, no evidence of them having done so here. Of course it's still possible they did so, but thats an even bigger assumption if there isn't actual evidence for it.

 

[Idaho]

You would have to find some evidence of those groups moving and traces of their DNA appearing in the places they are thought to have moved.

 

[JimW]

Must confess to having not rtfa as it's blocked here; how wide was the survey? Maybe they did a Visigoth-standard really long trek.

 

[two sheds]

Archived version: https://archive.md/fJXqj

and original paper

100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark - Nature

Integrated data, including 100 human genomes from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods show that two major population turnovers occurred over just 1,000 years in Neolithic Denmark, resulting in dramatic changes in the genes, diet and physical appearance of the local people, as...

www.nature.com

 

[petee]

i teach out of the CLC so this has me drooling

Everything I draw ends up wearing a bow-tie

rukafais: “fluentisonus: “genuinely inconsolable I can’t have one of these pompeii bread plushies fr. ALTALTALTALT” Blorbo from my mosaics….. ”

www.google.com