Underwater archaeology: The elusive Minoan wrecks

Brendan Foley, a marine archaeologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, and his colleagues at Greece's Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, made a four-week survey of the waters around Crete last October as part of a long-term effort to catalogue large numbers of ancient shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea. The grand prize would be a wreck from one of the most influential and enigmatic cultures of the ancient world - the Minoans, who ruled these seas more than 3,000 years ago.
     A Bronze Age wreck called Ulu Burun shows how the remains of a single ship can transform archaeologists' understanding of an era. Discovered in 1982, about 9 kilometres southeast of Kash in southern Turkey, it dates from around 1300 BCE, a century or two after the Minoans disappeared. It took ten years to excavate, and researchers are still studying the nearly 17 tonnes of treasures recovered, including ebony, ivory, ostrich eggs, resin, spices, weapons, jewellery and textiles, as well as ingots of copper, tin and glass. What really stunned archaeologists was that the artefacts on this one vessel came from at least 11 different cultures.
     The Ulu Burun sailed at around the time that Tutankhamun ruled Egypt, yet "it is far more important than Tutankhamun's tomb as a contribution to our understanding of the period", according to Shelley Wachsmann, an expert in ancient seafaring at Texas A&M University, USA.
     The earlier Minoans set the stage for such a widespread trading network through their domination of the eastern Mediterranean, and what archaeologists crave is a Minoan equivalent of Ulu Burun - a long-distance trading ship packed with valuable cargo that would reveal how different cultures interacted.
     Robert Ballard, an oceanographer based at the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett, has pioneered deep-sea exploration and discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. Ballard has spent years searching for ancient wrecks and has learned the importance of finding areas beyond the reach of the fishing trawlers which scour the sea floor, destroying archaeology in the process. Historians once assumed that the number of wrecks in the deep sea was negligible, but in the 1990s Ballard found eight ancient wrecks far from shore, between Sicily and Sardinia. "The ancient mariner was not afraid of going out to sea," says Ballard. Like Foley, he believes Minoan ships are waiting to be discovered.
     Foley estimates that hundreds of thousands of ships must have sunk in ancient times - thousands in the Bronze Age alone. That could shift marine archaeologists into an era in which they can use statistical data gathered to build up a bigger picture of trade routes, migration and warfare throughout history. "We'd rather find 500 ships than excavate one," says Ballard.

Edited from Nature (25 January 2012)

  Neanderthals and their contemporaries engineered stone tools

New published research from anthropologists at the University of Kent (UK) has scientifically supported for the first time the long held theory that early human ancestors across Africa, Western Asia and Europe engineered their stone tools.
     For over a century, anthropologists have debated the significance of a group of stone age artefacts manufactured by at least three prehistoric hominin species, including Neanderthals. These artefacts, collectively known as 'Levallois', were manufactured across Europe, Western Asia and Africa as early as 300,000 years ago.
     Levallois artefacts are flaked stone tools described by archaeologists as 'prepared cores', shaped in a deliberate manner such that only after such specialised preparation could a prehistoric flint knapper remove a distinctive 'Levallois flake'. Levallois flakes have long been suspected to be intentionally sought by prehistoric hominins for unique standardised properties of size and shape.
     Now, a experimental study in which a modern-day flint knapper replicated hundreds of Levallois artefacts supports the notion that Levallois flakes were indeed engineered. By combining experimental archaeology with morphometrics (the study of form) and statistical analysis, the Kent researchers have proved that Levallois flakes removed from these types of prepared cores are significantly more standardised than the flakes produced incidentally during Levallois core shaping, called 'debitage flakes'. Importantly, they also identified the specific properties of Levallois flakes that would have made them preferable.
     Dr Metin Eren, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University's School of Anthropology and Conservation, and the flint knapper who crafted the tools, said: "The more we learn about the stone tool-making of the Neanderthals and their contemporaries, the more elegant it becomes. The sophistication evident in their tool-making suggests cognitive abilities more similar to our own than not."
     Dr Stephen Lycett, Senior Lecturer in Human Evolution and the researcher who conducted the laboratory analysis, explains: "Amongst a variety of choices these tools are 'superflakes'. They are not so thin that they are ineffective but they are not so thick that they could not be re-sharpened effectively or be unduly heavy to carry, which would have been important to hominins such as the Neanderthals".

University of Kent, Mail Online (24 January 2012)

  7,500-year-old fishing village found in Russia

A team of Spanish and Russian archeologists has documented a series of seines and fish traps - on the banks of the River Dubna, 100 kilometres north of Moscow - which are more than 7,500 years old. The equipment, among the oldest in Europe, displays great technical complexity. The survey will aid in understanding the role of fishing among European settlements by the early Holocene (10,000 years ago), especially in areas where the inhabitants did not practice agriculture until nearly the Iron Age.  
     Ignacio Clemente, researcher at the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) and manager of the project, explains: "Until now, it was thought that the Mesolithic groups had seasonal as opposed to permanent settlements. According to the results obtained during the excavations, in both Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, the human group that lived in the Dubna river basin, near Moscow, carried out productive activities during the entire year". According to Clemente and his team, the inhabitants preferred to hunt during summer and winter, fish during spring and early summer, and harvest wild berries at the end of summer and in autumn.
      While it is commonly accepted that the first permanent settlements appeared with the rise of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, that theory overlooks other valid possibilities - such as the fishermen in the Bay of Biscay, who did not cultivate the land until long after the practice reached Spain, about 5,000 years ago. The recent Russian findings support a new hypothesis: fishing, and not agriculture, allowed certain populations to become sedentary.
     During the three year project just ended, several types of objects were found: everyday objects (spoons, plates, etc.), working tools, hunting weapons and fishing implements, all of them manufactured with flint and other stones, bones and shafts. Clemente adds: "The documented fishing equipment shows a highly developed technology, aimed for the practice of several fishing techniques. We can highlight the finding of two large wooden fishing traps (a kind of interwoven basket with pine rods used for fishing), very well-preserved, dating back 7,500 years. This represents one of the oldest dates in this area and, no doubt, among the best-preserved since they still maintain some joining ropes, manufactured with vegetable fibers". In addition, the researchers have recovered related objects such as hooks, harpoons, weights, floats, needles for the manufacture and repair of nets, as well as moose rib knives to scale and clean the fish.  
     The Zamostje 2 site has preserved numerous organic materials, such as wood, bones, tree leaves, fossil feces, and especially fish remains. These will allow researchers to estimate the percentage of fish in the diet, survey species, catch amount and size, and fishing season. The team have also found abundant remains of hunting; mostly moose, beaver and dog. "We have found signs of presence throughout the year," says Clemente; "these people were not nomadic." He then adds, "Farming did not arrive in this area until some 3,000 years ago." The greatest secret is how the fish traps were constructed. "We have no idea how they managed such thin rods of pine, although it could be that the wood was frozen," concludes Clemente.

Edited from CSIC (25 January 2012), El Publico (26/01/2012)

  Early evidence of popcorn found in Peru

The first evidence of the domesticated production of corn in the Americas can be found in Mexico and dates back to 7,000 BCE. It was developed from a wild grass called teosinte. After a few thousand years its usage and cultivation spread over South America and evidence has been found in areas even before the use of pottery.
     Until now the earliest evidence had only dated back as far as 3,000 BCE. Now a team of scientists from the Washington Natural History Museum (USA) have found evidence of processed (cooked) corn in Peru, dating from approximately 4,700 BCE.
     Dolores Piperno, a curator of New world archaeology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is quoted as saying "These new and unique races of corn may have developed quickly in South America, where there was no chance that they would continue to be pollinated by wild teosinte. Because there is so little data available from other places for this time period, the wealth of morphological information about the cobs and other corns remains at this early date is very important for understanding how corn became the crop we know today".  

Edited from EureAlert! (18 January 2012) BBC News, National Geographic News (19 January 2012)

  Ancient geoglyphs found under Amazonian rainforest

In an area on the western boundary of the Brazilian Amazon, known as Acre, rare geoglyphs have been uncovered by a farmer clearing his land. The area has long been believed to have been forested for thousands of years, with no appreciable human occupation. But this theory is now under fire.
     The farmer, senhor Araújo, thought at first that they were part of abandoned fortifications from the Bolivian War but recent work by archaeologists has dated them at between 1,000 and 2,000 years old, representing a picture of the landscape in the time before Columbus arrived in the Americas.
     The geoglyphs uncovered on senhor Araújo's land are deeply carved earth avenues, up to 6 and a half metres deep. Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian palaeontologist involved in uncovering some of these geoglyphs, believes that they are highly significant. He is quoted as saying "What impressed me the most about these geoglyphs was their geometric precision, and how they emerged from the forest we had all been taught was untouched except by a few nomadic tribes".
     These finds are now causing alarm bells to ring with environmentalists, as they present a view of a much smaller rainforest. William woods, a geographer who is part of the team investigating the Acre site, is quoted as saying "If one wants to recreate pre-Columbian Amazonia most of the forest needs to be removed, with many people and a managed, highly productive landscape replacing it. I know that this will not sit well with ardent environmentalists but what else can one say?"

Edited from The New York Times (14 January 2012)

  Haematite to colour ancient stones found in Scotland

Archaeologists working on prehistoric sites at Daer on Lowther Hills, an extensive area of hill country in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, are discovering further sites within a forestry plantation.
     For the first time Biggar Archaeological Group has found colouring substances, used by hunter-gatherers over 6000 years ago. "Haematite was rubbed on stones to give a bright maroon coloured powder which makes good paint," explained group leader Tam Ward. "How it was used at Daer is not known but in Denmark, where graves are often found, the skeletons are covered in this stuff. The overlap between the hunters and the first farmers has also been found and is causing some excitement."

Edited from Lanark Gazette (22 January 2011)

  Seafaring in the Aegean: new dates

Seafaring before the Neolithic - circa 7th millennium BCE - is a controversial issue in the Mediterranean. However, evidence from different parts of the Aegean is gradually changing this, revealing the importance of early coastal and island environments. The site of Ouriakos on the island of Lemnos (Greece) tentatively dates to the end of the Pleistocene and possibly the beginning of the Holocene, circa 12,000 BP.
     A team formed by N. Laskaris, A. Sampson and I. Liritzis from the Laboratory of Archaeometry, University of the Aegean, Department of Mediterranean Studies, Rhodes; and F. Mavridis from the Ephorate of Palaeo-anthropology and Speleology of Southern Greece suggested that obsidian sources on the island of Melos in the Cyclades could have been exploited earlier. Studies of material from Franchthi cave in the Argolid indicated Melos as its origin, but obsidian hydration dating was not applied to the artefacts recovered.
     Obsidian, or 'volcanic glass', has been a preferred material for stone tools wherever it is found or traded. It also absorbs water vapour when exposed to air - for instance, when it is shaped into a tool - and absolute or relative dates can be determined for that event by measuring the depth of water penetration. In 10,000 years, the expected hydration depth is about 10 mm from the tool surface.
     Two routes for the obsidian found at Franchthi have been considered: a direct one of around 120 kilometres with islets in between, and another one through Attica including crossings of 15 to 20 kilometres between islands. The presence of obsidian in mainland and island sites indicates that these voyages included successful return journeys.
     Sites in Ikaria, in Sporades, and on Kythnos demonstrate that, during the Mesolithic, a well established system of obsidian exploitation and circulation existed - a phenomenon that has its routes even earlier, as dates from sites in Attica indicate. Furthermore, obsidian artefacts have recently been found in two other Mesolithic sites in Greece, one in the island of Naxos and the other one in the small island of Halki. Exchange systems therefore brought obsidian to the eastern and the north-west Aegean, and even reached coastal inland sites of mainland Greece such as Attica, though not yet found in mainland sites. Possibly through sites in this latter region obsidian was also brought to the Peloponnese.

Edited from Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 38, Issue 9, pp. 2475-2479 (2011)

  Cave in Croatia yields oldest-known astrologer's board

A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologer's board - used to depict a person's horoscope - in the Nakovana cave famous for its conspicuously phallic stalagmite, overlooking the Adriatic Sea in Croatia.
     Dating back more than 2,000 years, the surviving portion of the board consists of 30 ivory fragments inscribed with signs of the zodiac in a Greco-Roman style. They include images of a crab (Cancer), twins (Gemini) and fish (Pisces). The fragments were discovered next to the phallic-shaped stalagmite, amid thousands of pieces of ancient Hellenistic (Greek style) drinking vessels.
     "This is probably older than any other known example," says Alexander Jones, a professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, adding, "We have a lot of [Greco-Roman] horoscopes that are written down as a kind of document on papyrus, or on a wall, but none of them as old as this."
     Jones and Stasho Forenbaher, a researcher with the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, reported the discovery in the most recent edition of the Journal for the History of Astronomy.
     In 1999, the team was digging near the entrance of the cave, well known to people at the nearby hamlet of Nakovana who simply call it 'Spila' (the cave).
     What no one knew at the time was that the cave had another section, sealed off more than 2,000 years ago. Forenbaher's girlfriend (now his wife) burrowed through the debris, discovering a wide low passageway that continued nearly 10 metres. Forenbaher described going through the passageway as "The unique King Tut experience, coming to a place where nobody has been for a couple of thousand years. There was a very thin limestone crust on the surface that was cracking under your feet when you went in, which meant that nobody walked there in a very, very, long time."
     When the archaeologists investigated they found the phallic-shaped stalagmite, numerous drinking vessels that had been deposited over hundreds of years, and something else. "In the course of that excavation these very tiny bits and pieces of ivory came up," said Forenbaher. "What followed was years of putting them together, finding more bits and pieces, and figuring out what they were."
     Archaeologists are not certain how the board came to the cave or where it was originally made. Radiocarbon testing shows that the ivory dates back around 2,200 years, shortly before the appearance of this form of astrology. The signs would have been attached to a flat (possibly wooden) surface to create the board.
     "There is definitely a possibility that this astrologer's board showed up as an offering together with other special things that were either bought or plundered from a passing ship," Forenbaher said. He pointed out that the drinking vessels found in the cave were carefully chosen. They were foreign-made, and only a few examples of cruder amphora storage vessels were found with them.
     The phallic-shaped stalagmite appears to have been a centre for these offerings. "This is a place where things that were valued locally were deposited to some kind of supernatural power, to some transcendental entity or whatever," says Forenbaher.

Edited from New York University (January 2012), LiveScience (16 January 2012)

  Ancient Sumerian fermented cereal beverage

Archaeologists from the Ludwig Maximilian University, together with brewing experts from the Technical University of Munich, carried out an experiment in an attempt to replicate the beer of ancient Sumer, in Mesopotamia.
     Cuneiform writing scholar Peter Damerow of the Max Planck Institute believes that, although the experiment produced a brew, it only demonstrates that modern methods can produce a beer under ancient conditions. However he does think the experiment was a step in the right direction. "Given our limited knowledge about the Sumerian brewing processes, we cannot say for sure whether their end product even contained alcohol", wrote Damerow in the Cuneiform Digital Library Journal.
     Although many of the more than 4,000 year old cuneiform texts contain records of deliveries of emmer, barley and malt to breweries, as well as documentation of the activities, there is hardly any information on the production processes, and no recipe. Moreover, the methods used for recording this information differ between locations and time periods, and the records and calculations are not based on any consistent number system - Sumerian bureaucrats used different number systems depending on the nature of the objects to be counted or measured.
     This has cast doubt on the popular theory that Mesopotamian brewers used to crumble flat bread made from barley or emmer into their mash. The so-called 'bappir' (Sumerian for 'beer bread') is never counted as bread in the administrative texts, but in measuring units, like coarsely ground barley. "Such interdisciplinary research efforts might well lead to better interpretations of the 'Hymn of Ninkasi' than those currently accepted among specialists working on cuneiform literature", said Damerow.
     The 'Hymn of Ninkasi', a mythological poem or lyric text from the Old Babylonian period (circa 1800 BCE) which glorifies the brewing of beer - and one of the most significant sources on the ancient art - provides no reliable information about ingredients, nor does it conclusively describe the procedure.

Edited from PhysOrg.com (17 January 2012), Discovery News, Heritage Daily (19 January 2012)

  Oldest evidence of ploughing in the Czech Republic

Archaeologists in Prague-Bubenec have uncovered a site with the oldest traces of field ploughing in the Czech Republic, that date back to the mid-4th millennium BCE. The research, completed late last year, also uncovered a rich evidence on the area's population in later periods, Archaeological Institute spokeswoman Jana Marikova said.
     The most important find is the system of four approximately parallel lines that are nine metres long, ten metres wide and eight centimeters deep, which archeologists think are furrows. Experts believe the furrows date back to the earlier phase of Copper Age, i.e. between 3800 and 3500 BCE. The oldest evidence on the use of primitive ploughs in Europe also coincide with this period.
     "The Bubenec finds are exceptional in that the furrows probably cannot be considered ritual ploughing. If so, it would be the oldest trace of a field in the Czech Republic," Marikova said,

Edited from Prague Daily Monitor (17 January 2012)

  Stonehenge tunnel idea resurrected

The idea of building a tunnel under Stonehenge has been resurrected by a consortium of council leaders from across the South West of England. Wiltshire was among the authorities represented at a summit meeting to discuss A303 improvements, organised by Somerset County Council last week. They discussed ways to raise the £1 billion needed to widen the remaining single lane sections of the road between Wiltshire and Devon.
     The tunnel, which would have cost more than £500 million at the last count, is one of five separate schemes they believe are needed. Somerset's leader Ken Maddock believes there is scope to seek new funding in the light of Chancellor George Osborne's autumn statement, which said that pension funds could be used to fund up to £20 billion of infrastructure schemes. He said: "This is a fabulous opportunity to put a joint bid together that will bring huge benefits to the whole of the West Country." The 2.1km tunnel plans were shelved in 2007 after the government said the soaring cost was not justified.

Edited from Salisbury Journal (17 January 2012)

  A new theory on the disappearance of Neanderthals

A new theory has been put forward by a team from the Arizona State university and the University of Colorado Denver (USA) on the fate of Neanderthals. The team has recently published a paper on their findings, which were the results of computational modelling.
     Michael Barton, a pioneer in the area of archaeological applications of computational modelling explains what it means. "To better understand human ecology, and especially how human culture and biology evolved amongst hunter-gatherers in the Late Pleistocene of western Eurasia (approximately 126,000 to 9,500 BCE) we designed theoretical and methodological frameworks that incorporated feedback across three evolutionary systems: biological, cultural and environmental".
     Their theory is based on the fact that Neanderthals were more intelligent than originally thought and adapted rapidly to changes in their environment. So, when the more populous Homo Sapiens arrived in their midst they adapted and survived by inter breeding with them and, eventually, became absorbed into their society and ceased to be recognisable as a separate species. The paper has already provoked a vocal reaction, both for and against.

Edited from PhysOrg (16 January 2012)

  Bronze Age boat to take to Cornish waters after 4,000 years

Between 1937 and 1963 the remains of three Bronze Age ships were found on the foreshore of the river Humber, on the east coast of England. Now a professor from Exeter University (UK), Robert Van de Noort, has teamed up with a professional boat builder to re-create one of the ships. Bronze Age tools will be used to create a 16 metre boat out of oak planks, stitched with yew stems.
     Professor Van de Noort is quoted as saying "Because none of the boats have ever been found as complete this project will seek to understand, how they were constructed, how to steer such a long boat, measure how fast it can go, understand how the crew used paddles (as sails were not evident) and how watertight it is."
     The boat will be constructed at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall and will form part of its '2012 BC Cornwall and the Sea in the Bronze Age' exhibition.

Edited from Western Morning News (14 January 2012)

  Indian megalithic sites project begins

'Discovering Idukki', a project to explore and document the rich heritage of the Kerala district in the very southern tip of India has begun. In the first phase, a heritage museum will be opened in Painavu by April of this year.
     Archaeological explorations will be conducted at various dolmens in Marayur, and sites where burial urns were excavated, especially in the high ranges. Mr T. Rajesh, officer-in-charge of the project said that the study may open unknown chapters of the Kerala spice trade during the Stone Age and later, adding that the Muzaris heritage has a strong link to the hill country because cardamom is indigenous to the area.
     So far only individual studies have been done at megalithic sites in the district. The project envisages site protection and preservation, as well as possible restoration in the case of dolmens damaged by human interference.
     Rajesh said that the excavations in Idukki will provide valuable data on life during the Megalithic period. The items collected will be made available to the heritage museum.

Edited from The Hindu (14 January 2012)

  Humans were skilled fishermen 42,000 years ago

Fish hooks and fish bones dating back 42,000 years found in a cave in East Timor suggest that humans were capable of skilled, deep-sea fishing 30,000 years earlier than previously thought. Nearly 39,000 fishbones and three fish hooks were found in a 1 square metre test dig in a limestone cave in Jerimalai, 300 metres from the coast and 50 metres above sea level.
     "All the bones we got inside were just the result of human meals, 40,000 years ago," said Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University's department of archaeology and natural history, and the study's lead author.
     The fish hooks were apparently made from the shells of the Trochus, a large sea snail. "They are very strong shell ... we think they just put bait on and dropped the hook in the water from a boat (at the) edge of a reef." The fish bones were traced to 23 species of fish, including tuna, unicorn fish, parrotfish, trevallies, triggerfish, snappers, emperors and groupers.
     "Parrotfish and unicorn were probably caught on baited hooks ... but tuna are deepwater, fast-moving fish. Tuna and trevallies were probably caught by lure fishing," O'Connor said. "There was never any hint of (what) maritime technology people might have had in terms of fishing gear 40,000 years ago," said O'Connor. "(This study showed) you got ability to make hooks, you are using lines on those hooks. If you can make fibre lines, you can make nets, you are probably using those fibres on your boats."
     Modern humans were capable of long-distance sea travel 50,000 years ago as they colonised Australia, but evidence of advanced maritime fishing has been rare. Researchers until now have only been able to find evidence of open-ocean fishing up to 12,000 years ago.

Edited from Reuters (14 January 2012)