Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2018 i ARCHAEOLOGY

In the Upper Paleolithic period, just over 12,000 years ago, Arene Candide in Italy’s northwestern Liguria region was an imposing cave with a massive, nearly 300-foot sand dune next to its entrance. Today, the dune has been quarried away. For archaeologist Vitale Sparacello of the University of Bordeaux, Arene Candide is key to understanding humanity’s legacy in the region. Sparacello grew up in Genoa, just about an hour east of Arene Candide, and has long been fascinated by the deep history the region has to offer. Unlike other caves, which have been studied mostly to see how people lived in them, for Sparacello and his colleagues, the site provides something else altogether—insight into how Paleolithic people buried their dead. Arene Candide has 10 primary Paleolithic burials, two of which are…

Archaeologists working at Pachacamac, a pre-Columbian pilgrimage site and ceremonial center on the coast of Peru, have uncovered a well-preserved mummy buried sometime between A.D. 1000 and 1200. The team discovered the mummy while excavating remains of a structure once devoted to local ancestors. The building appears to have been transformed into a ritual healing facility when the Inca Empire absorbed Pachacamac in the late fifteenth century. “We knew there was an important cemetery beneath the building, which had been continually looted since the Spanish conquest in 1533,” says Peter Eeckhout of the Université libre de Bruxelles, who has directed excavations at the site since 1999. “Finding the burial in such a perfect state is miraculous.” Researchers will soon examine the mummy using medical imaging and 3-D reconstruction technology to…

When the hardy evergreen trees of the Araucaria genus were first shipped from Australia and South America to the gardens of nineteenth-century Europe, they were dubbed “monkey puzzle” trees because of the challenge their needle-like leaves were said to pose to monkeys that attempted to climb them. University of Exeter archaeologist Mark Robinson and a team of ecologists recently discovered that the human relationship with these trees is a long and intimate one, dating back some 1,400 years. By studying carbon isotopes from archaeological sites in southern Brazil, Robinson’s team found that Araucaria forests began to expand well beyond their natural habitat at the same time the ancestors of today’s indigenous groups experienced a growth in population. Researchers could isolate no environmental explanation for the expansion, and concluded that ancient…

A thin lead curse tablet dating to the fifth century A.D. that was folded and nailed shut to intensify its power has recently been opened, some 80 years after it was discovered beneath the hippodrome in Antioch, in modern-day Turkey. Curse tablets from the period are generally in Greek or Latin, but this one, although difficult to make out with the naked eye, turns out to have been written in a Jewish dialect of Aramaic using Hebrew lettering. “This means it was written by a Jewish scribe,” says Rivka Elitzur-Leiman of Tel Aviv University, “if not a Jewish magician.” Working around holes in the text where the nail punched through, Elitzur-Leiman and Margaretha Folmer of Leiden University are now deciphering the tablet’s message with photos taken using reflectance transformation imaging.…

MONTANA: Retesting of the only known Clovis period burial has finally resolved a long-standing issue. When the Anzick site was uncovered in 1968, it was found to contain a child’s skeleton as well as antler and stone artifacts. Radiocarbon dating initially indicated that the human bones and the antlers were different ages, causing confusion. Now, a new method of dating that isolated and analyzed specific amino acids has concluded that the Clovis artifacts and the child’s remains do indeed date to the same period, around 12,800 years ago. ALABAMA: A carved limestone “medicine tube,” originally discovered in the 1930s along the Flint River, presents the earliest evidence of tobacco use in North America. Recent chemical analysis of the 3,500-year-old pipe detected nicotine, the principal biomarker of tobacco. Tobacco plants were…

THE NARROW ENTRANCE to Hare Harbor, on the eastern side of Petit Mécatina Island, just off Quebec’s Lower North Shore, is obscured by cliffs and hills and therefore easy to miss. Inside, a mile-long bay protected by high hills on both sides leads to a deep-water cove abutting a raised beach, above which looms a thousand-foot-high cliff. In August 2001, as a storm raged in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the cove provided a welcome refuge for a team led by archaeologist William Fitzhugh, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center. They were making their way up a 350-mile stretch of the Lower North Shore in a research vessel, searching for potential excavation sites. In particular, they hoped to find the southernmost settlements of the Inuit, the Arctic native…

Intricately carved stone balls of unknown purpose, which date to the third millennium B.C. and have been discovered throughout the British Isles—though most frequently in northeast Scotland—continue to beguile scholars. National Museums Scotland houses the greatest number of these objects, and has recently built interactive 3-D models of several using photogrammetry. “In some cases details not apparent to the naked eye are revealed,” explains Hugo Anderson-Whymark, the National Museums Scotland curator who created the models. “For example, on one ball I identified fine concentric circles that have never been observed before.” Several theories have been put forward over the years about what the balls were for, though Anderson-Whymark believes that those postulating use in battle or in ritual contexts are among the most plausible. “For at least some of these…

During excavations at Sanauli in the Baghpat district of western Uttar Pradesh, a team from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) unearthed the remains of three chariots, along with a number of coffins and other objects they believe are almost 4,000 years old. “The discovery of chariots in burial pits is extremely important, as they put India on par with ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia and Greece where chariots were extensively used,” says S.K. Manjul, director of the ASI’s Institute of Archaeology. The three chariots are two-wheeled open vehicles that can be driven by one person. The dig has also unearthed eight burial sites and additional artifacts, including three coffins, swords, daggers, combs, and ornaments. The burial pits indicate that a warrior class thrived in this region, according to Manjul.…

Researchers at Eleutherna, a fortified city-state in Crete that reached its apogee around 800 B.C., have concluded that a woman whose remains were discovered at the site in 2009 spent her life crafting ceramics. Using a range of technology, including medical imaging and anatomical models, the team, led by anthropologist Anagnostis Agelarakis of Adelphi University, found patterns of skeletal wear consistent with years spent seated and working clay on a kick-wheel-operated turntable, making the woman the only known female master ceramicist in the ancient Greek world. Significantly, Eleutherna has an association with women in positions of importance and power. Four women related to one another and thought to have been priestesses were discovered in ornately furnished burials nearby. “While this is a rare discovery in Greek archaeology,” Agelarakis says, “in…

EGYPT’S CAREFULLY RECORDED lists of rulers run pharaoh after pharaoh for almost 3,000 years. Except, that is, for a century or so around 1640 B.C. when a new group came to dominate the kingdom on the Nile, throwing the region into turmoil and ushering in a new era in Egyptian history. “For what cause I know not, a blast of the gods smote us; and unexpectedly, from the regions of the East, invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land,” writes Manetho, a priest and the author of a history of Egypt called Aegyptiaca likely written in the third century B.C. Despite the fact that he is describing events at a remove of almost 1,500 years, and although his writings survive only because they are quoted…

Brooklyn’s Dead Horse Bay looks about as appealing as it sounds, resembling something out of a postapocalyptic movie. On most days it is devoid of people, yet an improbable amount of debris blankets its shores. Glass bottles, old leather shoes, car tires, broken dishes, children’s toys—along with mysterious sun-bleached bones—are everywhere. As waves splash against the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of glass fragments on the beach, and then retreat, a sound almost like wind chimes can be heard. This otherwise quiet and remote peninsula juts out into the mouth of New York’s Jamaica Bay. Given its prominent position at the bay’s entrance, one might assume that this barrage of material came to rest on this sandy spit through the idiosyncrasies of tide and current. But larger, heavier items…

The 1.2-foot-long bronze index finger of a massive fourth-century statue currently on display at Rome’s Capitoline Museums, thought to depict the Roman emperor Constantine, has been rediscovered in the Louvre. Aurélia Azéma, now of the French Laboratory for Research on Historical Monuments, made the discovery after studying the finger—which came to Paris from a private collection in 1861 and was originally cataloged by curators as a “Roman toe”—for a doctoral dissertation on ancient bronze techniques. “The finger was an interesting case to illustrate manufacturing techniques, particularly the welding of colossal bronzes,” Azéma says. Meanwhile, the pieces of the Constantine statue in Rome— which is thought to have stood nearly 40 feet tall—include an enormous head, a sphere, a left forearm, and a hand missing its palm, and were also important…

A pair of wine barrels that served as latrines in the late 1680s has been excavated in central Copenhagen, offering detailed insights into the diet and cleanliness of those who used them. Employing a range of techniques, including DNA and pollen analysis, archaeologists have identified foods including fish, meats, various grains, cherries, coriander, lettuce, mustard, and hazelnuts. “It’s a varied and quite healthy diet,” says Mette Marie Hald of the National Museum of Denmark. “They were consuming locally sourced products as well as exotic products from a global trading network.” The imported items include cloves from Indonesia’s Moluccan islands and figs, grapes, and bitter orange or lemon, most likely from the Mediterranean. In order to afford these imported delicacies, Hald says, the people who used these latrines must have been…

For three days in August of 1862, a small stream called Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia, became the site of one of the most decisive contests of the second year of the Civil War. Just 13 months before, the Battle of First Manassas, also known as the First Battle of Bull Run, had been fought in this same location—but the second engagement was to prove far more deadly. Some 125,000 men were engaged in battle, with 3,021 killed, 15,263 wounded, and an unknown number captured or missing on both sides. During utility work on the battlefield, archaeologists made a stunning discovery less than a foot below the surface—a surgeon’s burial pit filled with 11 amputated limbs and two nearly complete skeletons, the first such pit ever to be excavated and…

WILLIAM AND JANE CLAPHAM wed on December 15, 1746, and departed their native Essex for the prestigious university town of Cambridge. There, in 1748, they opened a coffeehouse called, appropriately, Clapham’s, and ran it until at least 1762. The remains of Clapham’s have recently been discovered by archaeologists and they are offering a new perspective on a time when British coffeehouses, like British society, were changing. Researchers are discovering that Clapham’s was a versatile venue, filling a variety of social and gustatory needs. In addition to hot beverages, including coffee, chocolate, and tea, patrons could enjoy small bites and substantial meals or let off steam throughout the evening with ale, wine, liqueurs, and fancy desserts. The variety of food and drink available at Clapham’s is reflected in fragments from hundreds…

NEARLY 1,500 YEARS AGO, a Byzantine merchant ship swung perilously close to the Sicilian coastline, its heavy stone cargo doing little to help keep it on course. The ship’s crewmen were probably still clinging to the hope that they could reach a safe harbor such as Syracuse, 25 miles to the north, when a wave lifted the vessel’s 100-foot hull and dashed it on a reef, sending as much as 150 tons of stone to the seafloor. The doomed ship was carrying a large assemblage of prefabricated church decorations—columns, capitals, bases, and even an ornate ambo, or pulpit. These stone pieces lay on the seafloor for 14 centuries until a fisherman spotted some in 1959 while hunting for cuttlefish. Covering an area a bit smaller than a football field and…