Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2016 i ARCHAEOLOGY

In northeastern France’s Alsace region, a team from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research has discovered graphic evidence for a violent Neolithic-era clash of cultures. While digging in a fortified village dating to between 4400 and 4200 B.C., archaeologists unearthed a storage pit that held the mutilated remains of five men and one teenage boy, as well as four severed left arms. Archaeologist Philippe Lefranc suggests the limbs were battlefield trophies, and that the skeletons belonged to members of a captured enemy war party. “I think we are seeing ritualized violence against captives who were initially alive,” says Lefranc. “It probably took place in the middle of the village during a victory celebration. All the remains were eventually thrown in a ritual refuse dump.” Lefranc thinks the enemy warriors…

The largest ancient DNA laboratory in the United States sits behind a heavy steel door in a plain service hallway at the University of Oklahoma. Inside, researchers find, extract, isolate, and amplify DNA molecules and proteins, producing voluminous mounds of data that can address grand, complex questions about migration, diet, and human health—in the deep past and today. They’re probing the limits of new methodologies. They’re encountering the advantages and pitfalls of interdisciplinary science. And they’re writing the first drafts of a new chapter in archaeological research. But before they can do any of this, they have to ensure that the lab is scrupulously clean. Next to the door, a red button, when pressed, produces a satisfying thump and turns off powerful UV lights inside. A series of pressure gauges…

The skyscrapers of Rotterdam rise high above the banks of the Nieuwe Maas, a channel of the Rhine Delta, whose rivers snake their way across most of the southern Netherlands. Lying some 20 miles upstream from the North Sea, the city’s port is a vital trading center that connects the industrial heartland of Europe with the rest of the world. In this forward-looking, modern metropolis, the country’s second largest, almost no two buildings look alike, and its futuristic appearance is a stark contrast to more traditional Dutch cities, such as Amsterdam or Delft. Rotterdam’s Centraal train station, for example, is all angles and sharp lines with a tip that points new arrivals in the direction of the city center. The public library is covered in creeping yellow tubes, while the…

www.archaeological.org AIA Site Preservation Included in List of Best Preservation Ideas from Around the World An essay describing the AIA’s approach to archaeological site preservation was selected as one of eight that will be used by the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) to develop policy recommendations for the next presidential administration and Congress. The AIA essay was one of almost three dozen entries in a competition sponsored by the U.S. National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS) and the ACHP to “identify useful approaches to heritage law, policy, program strategy, and related preservation challenges from around the world that could help point the way to innovations in U.S. heritage practice over the next 50 years.” The winning essays will be published in a book…

In 1620, Spanish Franciscan missionaries arrived in what is now known as the Salinas area of New Mexico, southeast of Albuquerque, then a Native American community and trading hub populated by the Tompiro and Tiwa Pueblo Indians. It is easy to see why the site appealed to the Spanish—both missionaries and traders—as the trade conducted there provided access to the Plains peoples, such as Apaches, and valuable bison hides. Spanish dreams of wealth in Salinas never materialized, and in the face of tribal conflict, drought, and famine, the pueblo and missions were abandoned in the 1670s. The spectacular ruins that remain today are an interesting combination of traditional Native American pueblos and Spanish mission architecture. According to Jake Ivey, a historian of Spanish architecture and former National Park Service archaeologist,…

ONCE WE REACH the spot, you won’t believe your eyes,” says archaeologist Luciana Jacobelli of the University of Molise as she opens a small door to the crypt of the church of Santa Maria Assunta in the center of town. It’s very dim inside, and she has to use a flashlight as we make our way. We slowly climb down a series of ladders through a forest of iron scaffolding toward what seems to be the only well-lit area, nearly 30 feet under the church. Jacobelli then leads me into a room and, as promised, frescoes in dazzling green, yellow, red, and blue seem to illuminate the space on their own. We have arrived at the extraordinarily well-preserved remains of a lavish villa marittima, or seaside villa, once a luxurious…

Our iron floating battery is a splendid failure. She has been taken down between the forts and they are obliged to keep her engines at work the whole time to prevent her sinking, she leaks so badly. The officers had a consultation, a day or two after she went down, to decide on the propriety of throwing over her coal to keep her afloat. During the long storm last week, she leaked also from the roof, so that there was not a dry spot for the men or anything else in the vessel, even their beds were wet. —Savannah resident Mrs. Edward F. Neufville, September 2, 1862 PRIOR TO THE OUTBREAK of the Civil War, Savannah was—as it is today—a jewel of the South, often compared with New York for…

Suggestions for the Scythians I was so pleased to receive my July/August 2016 issue today with the article on the most recent dig of Scythian artifacts (“Rites of the Scythians”). I noticed in looking at the large vessel with the griffins attacking the stag that the garland trim around the top edge resembles mistletoe, Viscum album abietis or possibly album, which has leaves in opposite pairs, leathery textured, with white berries. What gives it away is the tied bow on the stem. The tree is bare. It is winter. Mistletoe had a sacred significance to the pagan world (which carried over into Christianity and Christmas traditions). I believe the picture symbolizes the dying of the old year and/or the dying of the sun. Michel Bernstein Los Angeles, CA ARCHAEOLOGY welcomes…

In 1990, cavers in southwestern France reopened a cave that had long ago been closed off by a landslide. More than 350 yards inside the feature, which they named Bruniquel, they found strange constructions made from broken stalagmites. A new study of these structures shows they were built 176,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals were the only hominins living in Europe. That places these among the oldest structures made by humans anywhere in the world, and the only known surviving ones made by Neanderthals. In the cave, stalagmite fragments were arranged into six structures, some vaguely oval-shaped and others more like free-standing walls. Each of them had been charred by fire. This is also the first evidence of Neanderthals living (or at least spending a lot of time) deep…

Treasures from the Roman era have emerged from the waters of the ancient Mediterranean harbor of Caesarea in Israel—the largest underwater find in the country in 30 years. The spectacular discovery includes a bronze lamp depicting the sun god Sol, a figurine of the moon goddess Luna, a lamp in the shape of the head of an African slave, fragments of three life-size bronze statues, and a figurine of the god of wine, Dionysus. The archaeologists also recovered two metallic lumps composed of thousands of coins bearing the images of the Roman emperors Constantine and Licinius, and holding the shape of the pottery vessels that once enclosed them. According to Jacob Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the cargo comes from what was probably…

A skeleton found at the bottom of an abandoned well in Trondheim, Norway, seems to confirm a tale of defeat and destruction told in an ancient Norse saga. In 1197, a faction of the Norwegian aristocracy known as the Baglers attacked Sverresborg, the castle stronghold of the Viking king Sverre. The story of the siege—including the “killing” of the castle’s well by throwing the dead body of one of the king’s men into it—is well known, but its veracity has been questioned. “Sverre’s saga has very detailed descriptions of the battles between the king and his main enemy, and it’s also rich in references to places and people,” says lead archaeologist Anna Petersén of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. “The human remains in the well indicate that the…

The year, 1316. The location, Sherwood Forest, central England. According to historical records, a tenant farmer named Peter Witheberd was among the many who scratched out a meager existence there with small farm plots, some livestock, and whatever they could gather from the woods. Sherwood Forest was known as common land, and villagers relied on it as a place to graze pigs, collect firewood, and gather mushrooms and fruit. It’s possible to speculate that, one day that year, as Witheberd picked up kindling near his modest home, the silence of the woodland was broken by the clatter of hooves. A group of richly clothed noblemen galloped through and ordered any villagers they saw off the land. It would now be part of King Edward’s deer park, they claimed. Witheberd, or…

For a variety of field projects over the last decade, archaeologist Phil Sapirstein has lugged more than 20 pounds of high-tech laser imaging equipment around the Mediterranean gathering data to create 3-D models of ancient monuments. “I have been working on architectural history for quite a while,” says Sapirstein, who teaches at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “and one of my main focuses has been the general problem of the origin of architectural styles, especially the Doric style, in the Archaic period [ca. 700–480 b.c.].” More often than not, little remains of Archaic buildings. The mid-seventh-century b.c. Old Temple at Corinth, dedicated to the god Apollo, burned down and was replaced, obliterating most evidence of the original building. Other structures from the period were flawed due to the lack of experience with…

Many people have keepsake boxes in which they safeguard personal items accumulated during their lives—a few faded family photos, a folded love letter from a summer romance, a single earring that was once part of a favorite pair. In a woman’s grave in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Tidworth in southern England, archaeologists have discovered a copper alloy box that perhaps served a similar purpose, even after her death. The small box is made of two cylinders that form the top and bottom and may have been soldered together. This type of container, sometimes called a “workbox,” has been found at sites across England, but only three have been uncovered in Wiltshire: one in the 1850s and one just two weeks before the example from Tidworth. “These recent finds are the…