Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2020 i ARCHAEOLOGY

One of the most fascinating things that happens when we are putting together an issue of ARCHAEOLOGY is that, more often than not, we start to see connections between the stories. Sometimes this happens when multiple archaeologists are looking at the same site or region. This is the case in three stories that explore early human history in South Africa. “Our Coastal Origins” follows the quest of early modern humans to find new sources of food, and “Alcohol Through the Ages” features the same Paleolithic people, who may have made the world’s first fermented beverages. You will also encounter these early humans in “Paleolithic Bedtime,” in which the residents of South Africa’s Border Cave looked for a good night’s rest after a long day hunting and gathering shellfish and honey.…

A recent study of the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan has revealed that ancient Egyptian engineers possessed an uncanny sense of space. A team led by University of Jaen cartographer Antonio Mozas-Calvache used laser scanning and photogrammetry to create 3-D models of three tombs at the necropolis that were cut into the same rock face during the 12th Dynasty (ca. 1981–1802 B.c.). The entrances to the large tombs—which were built for local governors and their families—were separated by about 65 feet. But the models showed that the interiors of the complexes were so close together that two of the tombs were separated by only four inches in two places. “Initially, we didn’t believe these results,” says Mozas-Calvache. “We supposed that both tombs were close, but not so close.” After…

Ancient visitors to the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus in the northeastern Peloponnese traveled from all across Greece to be healed by the god. Many of these pilgrims are described in inscriptions as walking with canes and crutches or being carried on litters or wagons. By the fourth century B.c., the sanctuary had been equipped with at least 11 stone ramps that provided access to a number of its raised temples and other public spaces. Archaeologist Debby Sneed of California State University, Long Beach, has found that such ramps were installed much more frequently at sanctuaries associated with healing, and contends that the ramps were purposely built to serve these sanctuaries’ mobility-impaired visitors. In contrast to today’s disability accommodations, however, ancient Greek architects’ design choices were not motivated by progressive…

From the medieval period to the twentieth century, there was a thriving Jewish community in the Polish market town of Leżajsk, and beginning in 1635, its dead were buried in the town’s Jewish cemetery. But in 1939, the Wehrmacht occupied Leżajsk, deported its Jews to the Soviet Union, and began to destroy the cemetery. In recent months, during reconstruction of the town’s Market Square, many Jewish tombstones, or matzevot, have been found, some still bearing their painted gold and red lettering. “The only thing that saved the inscriptions and the polychrome was that they were buried facing down,” says archaeologist and regional monuments conservator Ewa Kedzierska. “I was really shocked. We expected maybe a few tombstones because some had been found during road renovation nearby, but no one expected there…

Researchers excavating a Bronze Age hillfort in Maszkowice, Poland, have unearthed two clay pig figurines in a house along the settlement’s defensive wall. Dating to some 3,500 years ago, the 1.7-inch trinkets were likely either toys or sacred objects. “There are important similarities between religious ritual and child’s play,” says archaeologist Marcin S. Przybyła of Jagiellonian University. “They both pretend something, reenact a story.” Regardless of the figurines’ exact use, he says, swine were clearly crucial to local subsistence. Pig remains comprise up to onefifth of the animal bones recovered from the site’s Early Bronze Age levels.…

Ancient Greek vases frequently depict the revels of men participating in the symposium, an intimate drinking party held in a private home, as well as the consequences of excessive consumption that may have occurred during such gatherings. But just how much wine, mixed with water in a bowl called a krater, would a group have consumed in the course of a typical symposium in early fifth-century B.C. Athens? To answer this question, archaeologist Kathleen Lynch of the University of Cincinnati and independent scholar Richard Bidgood calculated the capacity of serving vessels and drinking cups, including kylikes and skyphoi, excavated from early fifth-century b.c. houses in the Athenian Agora, the city’s main marketplace. Assuming each kylix was filled to just over half an inch below its rim—a level at which reclining…

IN THE EARLY TENTH CENTURY A.D., the Khitan, a coalition of nomadic tribes native to eastern Mongolia and parts of China, took advantage of political instability in the region to establish an empire. They conquered a vast swath of northern Asia, stretching from the border of the Korean Peninsula across large portions of northern China, southern Siberia, and Mongolia. Included in their realm, which came to be known as the Liao Empire, was a significant area of traditionally Chinese territory inhabited by settled farmers, as well as great expanses occupied by various other nomadic tribes, who raised herds of horses, sheep, goats, and camels on the grassy steppe. The Khitan elite themselves continued to follow a nomadic lifestyle, honing their skills as mounted warriors and tending their own herds. The…

Archaeology helps us tell the stories of our past where historical documents are silent. On the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower in 1620, we can see this in two complementary ways: first, in the ongoing story that is unfolding about the ship itself. The original Mayflower sailed back to England in spring 1621. An appraisal of 1624 suggests the ship was in ruins; its material may have been sold for scrap. A full-scale reproduction designed by naval architect William Avery Baker was built between 1955 and 1957 in Brixham, England, as a gift to Americans from the British people. Over the course of 60 years in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Mayflower II has welcomed some 25 million people aboard to imagine the Pilgrims’ experiences on that historic crossing…

As much as 100,000 years ago, modern humans in southern Africa began to settle down. Just how and why this momentous shift in our distant ancestors’ way of life occurred is difficult for scholars to say. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers from this era are among the most challenging humans to study. They did not leave behind any permanent structures as evidence of their presence, and their stone tools are rarely found along with contextual information such as the remains of plants or bones. Other artifacts, including beads or ochre paint, are very rare, and materials such as leather and wood do not survive. But one available resource is evidence of the food they ate. Changes in their diet may have had profound consequences in the transition from living in highly mobile bands…

A well-preserved shipwreck lying in shallow water just a few hundred feet off the coast of Israel is providing new evidence of what life was like in the region when it sank, between the mid-seventh and mid-eighth century a.d. Volunteer student divers, who are part of a team led by archaeologist Deborah Cvikel of the University of Haifa, discovered almost 200 amphoras containing commodities such as olives, dates, fish, pine nuts, grapes, and raisins. This breadth of goods is surprising, as it has generally been thought that trade in the region declined greatly after the transition from Byzantine to Islamic rule in the midseventh century. “Here we have a large ship with cargo from all over the area,” says Cvikel. “I think we have proved that there was some largescale…

The people living in South Africa’s Border Cave up to 200,000 years ago knew how to make a cozy home. Excavations that took place between 2015 and 2019 have revealed that the cave’s residents slept on bedding that was made by piling broad-leafed grass on top of a layer of ash from the many fireplaces within the cave. The ash may have kept crawling insects from disturbing sleepers, says Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand. Wadley believes that this type of bedding was very common in the distant past, but that it rarely survives in the archaeological record. The research team removed layers of the cave’s sediment in blocks and excavated them in the lab, which enabled them to examine their contents under a microscope. This meticulous approach…

Intrigued by a number of nauticalthemed Norse place-names for inland locations on the Scottish island Orkney, researchers have identified a series of lost Viking waterways that ran across the island, connecting the North Atlantic with the Scapa Flow. Among the curiously named spots is Knarston, which comes from the Old Norse knarrar staðir and denotes a farm where transport vessels are moored. Using remote sensing and environmental data from sediment samples, the team mapped several infilled channels that once connected farmsteads around the island’s Loch of Harray to the stronghold of Viking earls at Birsay on the northwest coast. Environmental scientist Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews says that farmers would have been able to trade and transport regular tribute to Birsay without having to brave Orkney’s treacherous…

As early as the Predynastic period, beginning in the midfifth millennium b.c., the Egyptians placed wine jars in tombs as offerings to the dead. References to wine dating to the 1st and 2nd Dynasties have been identified on ceramic jar seals found in the burial grounds at Abydos and Saqqara, and the word for wine, “irp,” appears on 2nd Dynasty stelas. By the 4th Dynasty, in the mid-third millennium B.C., tomb designers had begun to illustrate viticulture and winemaking on tomb walls. For archaeologist Sofia Fonseca of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, such imagery offers valuable insights into the vintner’s entire process. “We have this idea that viticulture and winemaking originated in the ancient Near East, and that European wine culture is a legacy from Greece and Rome,” she says.…

In the 1640s, English landholders in Barbados began cultivating sugarcane after failing to compete in the tobacco market dominated by Virginia planters, beginning a revolution that would transform sugar from a rare, exotic commodity into a staple of modern life. This profound shift in global commerce was founded on a system of slavery for which millions of captive Africans were transported to plantations across the Americas. These enslaved Africans brought with them millennia-old knowledge of fermenting grains and palm sap to produce alcohol. They were indispensable in developing the process by which sugarcane juice or molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining, was fermented into alcohol and distilled, producing rum. Archaeologist Frederick Smith of North Carolina A&T State University explains that while rum began as a drink for sailors and the…

IN THE LATE 1980S or early 1990s, Canadian politician Robert Kaplan was driving through upstate New York on his way from Toronto to his apartment in New York City. As he often did, he stopped to browse through the antiques at a flea market off the New York State Thruway. There, a Quebecois vendor showed his fellow Canadian a special item. It was a badly damaged three-foot-tall wooden carving depicting a lion and a unicorn as well as emblems representing England, Scotland, and Ireland. The antiques dealer shared a secret about its history that had been passed down in his family for generations. He told Kaplan that the object was the official royal coat of arms that had once hung in the old Province of Canada’s Parliament building in Montreal…

Not far from the foot of Mount Carmel and the industrial port city of Haifa on Israel’s Mediterranean coast sits a grassy mound dotted with ruins of buildings and walls, the accumulation of more than three millennia of settlement. From the top of the mound, or tel, a view of the sea stretches out. Birds and fishermen perch on the numerous rocks that dot the shallow water, which is navigable only by the smallest of boats. Since the first excavations in the 1960s, archaeologists have found the site, called Tel Shikmona in Hebrew, or Tell es Samak, “Hill of the Fish,” in Arabic, curious. They couldn’t understand why, beginning in the Late Bronze Age (CA. 1600–1200 B.C.), through the Iron Age (ca. 1200–550 B.C.), and continuing more than 1,000 years…

Though it is perhaps the most heavily looted archaeological site in Cambodia, the vast settlement of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay still beguiles archaeologists and tourists with its size and beauty. Some 50 miles east of Angkor—the capital of the Khmer Empire, which spanned much of mainland Southeast Asia between the ninth and fifteenth centuries A.D.—Preah Khan is believed to have served as an important Buddhist pilgrimage center and a wealthy way station for the raw materials that fueled the empire’s expansion. First built in the eleventh century, the site consists of four concentric enclosure walls that surround several temples made of brick, laterite, and sandstone. “Preah Khan is an enigma because it is the single largest construction ever built by the Khmer,” says archaeologist Mitch Hendrickson of the University…

Ancient artists all over the world created images featuring negative silhouettes by spraying paint against an object or stencil held against a rock face. But miniature stenciled figures, those measuring less than five inches, are exceptionally rare in ancient artwork. Recently, however, a team of researchers led by Flinders University archaeologist Liam Brady discovered a miniature stenciled human figure surrounded by four boomerangs at Yilbilinji rock shelter in northern Australia, which is owned by the Aboriginal Marra people. “When we visited other nearby sites, we began finding similar miniature and small-scale stencils,” says Brady. “That made us think that we were onto something very different here in terms of the Australian rock art record.” This previously unknown tradition includes miniature depictions of kangaroo tracks as well as geometric and linear…

Two pipes unearthed at Indigenous sites in central and southeastern Washington—one dating to before contact with Europeans, and the other used after their arrival in the 1700s—have revealed the changing smoking habits of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Washington State University pioneered a process called ancient residue metabolomics, which has allowed them to extract multiple compounds from the pipes’ surfaces and interiors and to identify plants used for smoking. In the precontact pipe, they detected the presence of smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), which smokers likely added to tobacco to improve its flavor and to take advantage of the plant’s medicinal properties. This pipe, which was made of stone, also contains traces of Nicotiana quadrivalvis, a species of tobacco that was once cultivated locally by…

In 1939, an archaeological team led by University of Cincinnati professor Carl Blegen unearthed the first traces of what would soon be recognized as the ancient Greek city of Pylos and the fabled Palace of Nestor. Celebrated as one of the greatest discoveries of its time, it would forever change the study of Aegean prehistory. The 3,200-year-old ruins are the best-preserved Mycenaean palace complex ever excavated in Greece, and the hundreds of inscribed Linear B tablets found there have provided archaeologists with a unique window into how these Bronze Age centers functioned. Almost eight decades later, the legendary site continues to reveal its incredible hidden treasures. Additional discoveries in 2015 and 2017 would once again indelibly change the field of Aegean Bronze Age archaeology: the grave of the so-called Griffin…

On the morning of August 27, 1782, Continental forces led by John Laurens—aide-de-camp to General George Washington and friend of Alexander Hamilton—clashed with 140 British soldiers in a minor skirmish on the shores of the Combahee River, about 50 miles south of Charleston, South Carolina. Two days earlier, General Mordecai Gist had prevented foraging British troops and their 18 vessels from landing on the east side of Combahee Ferry, 12 miles upriver of the battle site. On the evening of August 26, Gist dispatched Laurens, along with 40 men and a howitzer, to launch a surprise attack at a spot called Tar Bluff. “For Laurens, Tar Bluff, with its 20-foot elevation overlooking the river, was the best tactical location for the placement of his howitzer,” says archaeologist Mike Yianopoulos of…

KANSAS: Imaging technology mounted on drones has identified the outline of a previously unknown earthen feature in southeastern Kansas. The 164-foot-diameter monument is likely one of the enigmatic “council circles” built by ancestral Wichita communities. These may have been used for ceremonial rituals, as residences for tribal elites, or for defensive purposes. The earthworks may once have been part of the lost settlement of Etzanoa, which was one of the largest Native American communities in North America before being abandoned around 1700. MEXICO: Portions of two historic buildings, one atop the other, were revealed during renovation work in the heart of Mexico City. The upper structure included flooring and walls that belonged to the home of Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador who sacked the Aztec capital in 1521. Ten feet…

For the kings of the Achaemenid Empire, who ruled much of the ancient Near East from 550 to 330 B.C., there was little—apart from hunting lions and conquering the world—that rivaled a rhyton of fine wine. But for these powerful potentates, wine was not just a pleasurable pastime. It was also not, despite what the fifth-century b.c. Greek historian Herodotus would have people believe, evidence of the kings’ profligate behavior and poor decision-making skills characterized by zealous over-imbibing. “Wine drinking and distribution not only embodied refinement, wealth, and power for the Achaemenids, but also provided an opportunity for rewarding loyalty and implementing political strategy,” says linguist Ashk Dahlén of Uppsala University. “Banquets were inherently public, political acts. They were central to the construction of royal identity and demonstrated that the…

High atop a mountain in southern Peru, leaders at the remote administrative center of Cerro Baúl once entertained local elites with elaborate feasts that helped sustain the Wari Empire from about a.d. 600 to 1000. Central to these gatherings was the ceremonial drinking of chicha, a typically corn-based fermented beverage. Based on the size of the spaces where the feasts took place, archaeologists think that they held 50 to 100 guests who imbibed chicha from vibrantly painted ceramic cups. These cups ranged in size to reflect the status of the drinkers and were decorated with images of Wari heroes and gods, such as the Front-Facing Deity, and more local stylistic flourishes, including llamas adorning the deities’ faces. “One of the most effective ways to bring local elites into the hierarchy…

Since the earliest days of the Colonial Period, Americans of all backgrounds have distilled spirits from crops, especially grains. In the mid-nineteenth century, the imposition of taxes on alcohol and a growing temperance movement began to drive this cottage industry underground. After Prohibition began in 1920, the market for high-proof illegal alcohol, or moonshine, soared. But, says University of Nevada, Reno, archaeologist Cassandra Mills, this shadow economy is largely lost to history. “You only get records of moonshine production when people were caught and charged,” she says. Hoping to fill in this gap, Mills has analyzed and dated the remains of more than 100 moonshine stills in Alabama using artifacts found with them. She learned that “pot stills,” aboveground stills often constructed in prehistoric rock shelters, were popular in the…

ONE OF EGYPT’S GREAT VISTAS, says archaeologist Miroslav Bárta, is the view from the top of the pyramid of the 5th Dynasty pharaoh Neferirkare in the necropolis of Abusir. On a clear day, you can see all the iconic monuments of Egypt’s Old Kingdom from there. Ten miles to the north are the Great Pyramids of Giza. To the south rise the Bent Pyramid at Dashur and the great pyramid complex of Djoser in the nearby necropolis of Saqqara. This majestic tableau on the Nile’s west bank is the most visible legacy of the Old Kingdom pharaohs of the 3rd through 6th Dynasties, who reigned from about 2649 to 2150 B.C. and were celebrated throughout Egyptian history. The monarchs of the 3rd and 4th Dynasties oversaw the creation of the…