Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2021 i ARCHAEOLOGY

One of the practices of good editing I was taught years ago was to make sure readers can understand the complex layouts of archaeological landscapes and sites simply by reading words on the page, rather than relying on images to transport them to distant locales. To be confident of this, I draw sketches from the written descriptions in ArchAeology’s articles without looking at a photograph or site plan. By any definition, I am a terrible artist—the margins and blank sides of hundreds of manuscripts I have edited are covered with clumsy renderings of features ranging from the stone circles of Göbekli Tepe to World War I tunnels. My sketches don’t much resemble the sites, but each one confirms that I understand the structures or landscapes being described and can be…

VIKING FANTASY ISLAND On the southern coast of the small Danish island of Hjarnø, just east of the mainland, lies a curious collection of stones arranged to form the outlines of boats. More than 1,000 such monuments, called ship settings, which often include burials, have been found throughout the Baltic region. Some of the oldest examples, dating to as early as 1300 B.C., are located in southern Sweden. Based on grave goods uncovered in a 1936 excavation, the Hjarnø ship settings are believed to date to the late Iron Age (A.D. 600–800) or Viking Age (A.D. 800–1000). The tradition, which had faded, was revived during this period, says Erin Sebo, a medievalist at Flinders University who led a survey of the Hjarnø settings in 2018. At first glance, these settings,…

In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of settlers from diverse European and Asian backgrounds began to arrive in Britain’s young colony of New Zealand. Many were drawn to the South Island region of Otago by dreams of a pastoral lifestyle, or by the discovery of gold in the 1860s. A picture of the multicultural society these colonists formed is beginning to emerge through analysis of human remains recovered from unmarked graves at three cemetery sites. Researchers conducted isotope and DNA analysis, hoping to determine where the people came from. Isotope analysis, explains University of Otago archaeologist Charlotte King, can help indicate where someone grew up, while DNA provides information about genetic heritage, narrowing down where someone’s ancestors are from. “The combination of isotope and mitochondrial DNA analysis can tell us quite…

While excavating behind a medieval wall in the southern Italian town of Isernia, archaeologists uncovered a 14-inch-tall marble head of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus (r. 27 B.C.–A.D. 14). Researchers identified the emperor based on the sculpture’s distinctive eyes and coiffure, which are hallmarks of portraits of Augustus. Isernia, known in Roman times as Aesernia, was originally settled by the Samnites, an ancient people from south-central Italy’s Apennine Mountains, but by 295 B.C. they had been conquered by the Romans. In 90 B.C., the Samnites recaptured the Roman colony, only to lose it once again to Roman control. By the reign of the emperor Augustus, Aesernia had become a prosperous Roman town.…

A 2,000-year-old Roman basilica complex has been uncovered in Ashkelon, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. The structure, which measures roughly 360 feet long and 130 feet wide, was a multipurpose public building where Ashkelon’s residents would have socialized, conducted business transactions, and even attended theater performances. It includes a colonnade with marble columns standing some 40 feet tall as well as a central hall and two side halls. The floors and walls of the building were also made of marble, which is thought to have been imported from what is now Turkey. The team, led by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists Rachel Bar-Natan, Sa’ar Ganor, and Federico Kobrin, uncovered coins near the building’s foundations that date to the reign of Herod the Great (37–4 B.C.), who was renowned for his ambitious building…

DURING THE DAY, the rocky island of Samothrace in the northern Aegean Sea is often veiled by clouds. Wind sweeps across the landscape, and the turbulent waters remain, as they were in antiquity, dangerous for seafarers. When the clouds clear at night, however, the peak of Mount Fengari at the island’s center, which reaches a mile into the sky, becomes visible. From the vantage point of the peak, Homer relates in the Iliad, the sea god Poseidon watched the Trojan War as it unfolded. Nestled in a deep ravine in the mountain’s shadow lie the remains of the Sanctuary of the Theoi Megaloi, or Great Gods. From at least the seventh century B.C., pilgrims walked under the cover of darkness from the nearby ancient city, now known as Palaeopolis, to…

Among the Puritans who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the seventeenth century, drunkenness, excessive tobacco consumption, and conspicuous displays of prosperity such as extravagant dress were strictly forbidden. In a society not given to self-indulgence, wellness could take paradoxical forms. Harvard University archaeologist Diana DiPaolo Loren says that Puritans may have genuinely felt at their best under conditions of self-imposed privation, which were intended to earn them eternal salvation. “In Puritanism, to be healthy means to be right with God,” she says. “The threat of uncleanliness and of the devil would have been omnipresent, so people would have taken great care with their dress, with their comportment, and with their surroundings.” Seventeenth-century Harvard College students, for instance, may have been most comfortable in the scholar robes that they wore…

Even under excruciating circumstances, members of oppressed communities may seek wellness through resistance and survival. The Danish government abolished the slave trade as of 1803. From then until 1848, when enslaved people in the Danish West Indies were officially emancipated, plantation owners, colonial officials, and European physicians sought to maintain the captive labor force they could no longer replenish from Africa. At Cane Garden, a sugar plantation on Saint Croix that operated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, enslaved people practiced self-care that contrasted with the medical treatment that was forced upon them. “Plantation hospitals were designed to keep enslaved people alive and to keep them working, which is a form of violence,” says San Francisco State University archaeologist Meredith Reifschneider, who led a team that excavated and analyzed botanical…

Explore the 4,000-year-long history of ancient Troy in this special publication from the Archaeological Institute of America. The site of ancient Troy in what is now western Turkey is most famous as the location of the Trojan War described in Homer’s Iliad. For thousands of years, the story of that epic battle has captivated readers. But the war is only one episode in the site’s extraordinarily rich history. In Uncovering Troy, you will read about the archaeologists who discovered the ancient city over 150 years ago and see images of the spectacular finds they unearthed. You will also get answers to questions such as: •Who lived on the site before and after the Trojan War? •What have archaeologists found since the site was discovered? •And…did the Trojan War actually happen?…

The Costa Rican community of Cahuita, working together with American maritime archaeologists, is beginning to reveal the story of African captives who escaped European slave traders to make a new life for themselves. In 1710, two Danish slave ships were blown miles off course on the slave trading route from northwest Africa to their destination, the island of Saint Thomas in what is now the U.S. Virgin Islands. Upon making landfall in Costa Rica, the crews mutinied. They set fire to one of the ships, scuttled the other on the shore, and set off for Panama, leaving the captives to fend for themselves. What happened to these approximately 600 Africans? The oral tradition of the Bribri, Costa Rica’s largest Indigenous population, tells of African ancestry as well as Maya roots.…

Researchers have gained new insight into the efficiency of Roman marble production and decoration strategies employed by Roman architects. Because marble was expensive, Romans often used thin slabs as veneers, attaching them to walls built of less valuable material such as bricks. A recent study led by Cees Passchier, a geologist at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, examined 54 marble panels excavated from a second-century A.D. villa in Ephesus, Turkey. Using 3-D modeling software, Passchier and his team found that 40 of the panels had been precisely cut into 0.6-inch slices from a single block of cipollino verde, a type of greenish marble known for its elaborate wavy folds, using a water-powered sawmill. The researchers determined that the slabs were not randomly hung on the walls. Instead, sections of the block…

A 4,400-year-old carved wooden snake figurine has been unearthed from a wetland site called Järvensuo 1 in southwest Finland. The figurine, which measures 21 inches long and around an inch in diameter, resembles a grass snake or European adder in the process of slithering or swimming away. “It’s astonishing how well-preserved the snake figurine is,” says Satu Koivisto, an archaeologist at the University of Turku. “The tool marks on its surface are sharp and clearly distinguishable.” Contemporaneous rock art from the region features human-like figures holding snake-shaped objects. In the area’s pre-Christian tradition, snakes were seen as supernatural spirit helpers that guided shamans to the underworld. “Even though the time gap is immense, the possibility of some kind of continuity is tantalizing,” says Antti Lahelma, an archaeologist at the University…

At a housing development site in North Yorkshire, England, archaeologists have unearthed a sprawling Roman building complex dating to between the second and fourth centuries A.D. In addition to a bathhouse, the complex included at its center an unusual circular structure with four square rooms branching off it. Similar Roman buildings are known from North Africa and Portugal, says Historic England archaeologist Keith Emerick, but this architectural layout is unique in Roman Britain. The researchers think the complex was either a luxurious Roman villa or a religious sanctuary—or perhaps a hybrid. “Another interpretation of the site is a kind of gentlemen’s club,” Emerick says. “A modern equivalent would be a high-status leisure hotel that serves a number of functions, like a spa and sauna.”…

A metal detectorist investigating the area around the ancient hillfort of Wilzenberg in western Germany happened upon one of the largest hoards of Iron Age metal objects ever found in the region. The collection is made up of more than 100 weapons and other pieces of military equipment dating to between the third and first centuries B.C. It includes spearheads, swords, shield fragments, belt hooks, and parts of horse harnesses. One particularly rare object is a special bridle that was used on chariot horses and allowed the driver to control the vehicle more precisely. Many of the swords were deliberately curled and bent, while some spear and lance tips were blunted and deformed. Researchers believe that the weapons were taken by local warriors from enemy combatants on the battlefield and…

Located in the state of Morelos some 50 miles southwest of Mexico City, at the base of a pair of granodiorite hills that rise up sharply above Mexico’s central highlands, Chalcatzingo was a regional trade hub during Mesoamerica’s Middle Formative period (ca. 700–500 B.C.). For decades, archaeologists have marveled at similarities between dozens of bas-relief rock carvings discovered at Chalcatzingo and similar examples found at Olmec centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast, nearly 300 miles away. This led many to suggest that Chalcatzingo was an Olmec colony. At its apogee, Chalcatzingo is believed to have covered more than 100 acres and been home to between 500 and 1,000 people. Chalcatzingo’s farmers engineered agricultural terraces and water-control systems on some of the most fertile land in the region. Builders constructed public…

YOU MAY BE ONE OF MILLIONS of people returning to recently reopened gyms in an attempt to shed a few pounds of pandemic weight. Or, to give yourself a moment of respite between loading the dishwasher and putting the kids to bed, perhaps you have started meditating. Alternatively, you might put on noise-canceling headphones to take in ambient sounds of lakes or jungles through an app on your phone. If so, you are participating in a widespread commitment to wellness, taking part in activities meant to promote and achieve personal well-being. Peoples of the ancient world practiced self-care, too, with a range of behaviors and rituals that nurtured mind, body, and soul. For instance, around A.D. 60, at Aquae Sulis, the site of natural hot springs in what is now…

For many of the some six million Maya people living in Central America today, the temazcal, or sweat lodge, is an important feature of their daily lives. Temazcals are small earthen, stone, or brush structures that function as family saunas where water is poured over fires to generate steam that aids in cleansing the body. Such sweat lodges date back to at least the Classic period (A.D. 250–900). Before the arrival of the Spanish, public temazcals were constructed throughout Maya cities and villages where they likely served a wide range of purposes. University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist Payson Sheets notes that temazcals were used in activities and rituals surrounding childbirth, as they still are. Some ancient stone examples were located near ball courts, and may have had a connection to…

SIX YEARS AGO, POLICE in Mongolia’s western Khovd Province apprehended looters in possession of a set of unusual artifacts. The group had taken a birch saddle, an iron bit with antler cheekpieces, and wooden archery equipment from an ancient coffin tucked into a cave on a mountain known as Urd Ulaan Uneet in the Altai range. Suspecting the objects were historically significant, the police contacted archaeologist Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan of the National Museum of Mongolia. Bayarsaikhan knew examples of ancient horse tack are very rare, so he and his team made the trip to far western Mongolia to collect the objects and study the site. He was immediately impressed by the saddle, which was painted deep red with black trim. “It looks like it could have been ridden yesterday,” Bayarsaikhan says.…

At first glance, the 180-foot Cerne Abbas Giant might appear to be the most profane of Britain’s iconic chalk figures. But a new interpretation suggests that one of Dorset’s most famous residents may actually have been associated with a ninth-century A.D. cleric. By using optically stimulated luminescence to analyze samples of deeply buried soil from when the giant was first cut into the hillside, researchers have now established that the figure dates to the early medieval period, between A.D. 700 and 1100—not the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, or the early modern period, as has previously been suggested by various observers throughout the centuries. Some have speculated that the giant depicts a pagan god, but National Trust archaeologist Martin Papworth says that most inhabitants of Dorset had converted to Christianity…

The advent of spoken language was one of the key developments in human evolution, but for speech to have meaning, it has to be heard. Mercedes Conde-Valverde, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Alcala, led a team that used computer models to reconstruct the inner-ear anatomy of fossilized hominins. The specimens included a group of 430,000-year-old pre-Neanderthal hominins from the site of Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains, and a group of Neanderthals from across Europe and the Middle East dating to between 130,000 and 42,500 years ago. The team compared the two hominin groups’ hearing with that of chimpanzees and modern humans. Some previous studies had shown that chimpanzees are able to hear a narrower range of frequencies than humans. Other studies have demonstrated that early…

A rich burial unearthed in southeast Spain suggests that women may have held greater power in the Bronze Age El Argar culture than previously understood. In a large building at the palace site of La Almoloya, a team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a 35- to 40-year-old man and a 25- to 30-year-old woman who had been buried in a large ceramic jar in the mid-seventeenth century B.C. The room where the couple was buried had a raised platform and benches on all four sides that could seat more than 50 people. It appears to have served as an important gathering space. “The fact that the woman and man were buried in the most outstanding building and ample hall we know of suggests that they were both linked to…

CANADA: When archaeologists in the southern Yukon recovered a 6,000-year-old atlatl dart—a deadly projectile used by First Nations peoples—from melting alpine ice, they noticed it was coated with a mysterious orangish substance. The researchers initially suspected it was red ochre, but further examination revealed that it was actually castoreum, a secretion beavers use to mark their territory. This is the first known archaeological evidence of the substance’s use. It might have been applied to the dart as an adhesive, a preservative, or a colorant. GUATEMALA: At its zenith in the 9th century A.D., the Maya city of Tikal had a population of around 60,000. It was a bustling metropolis of buildings, plazas, and roads in the middle of a rain forest. Yet, despite the urban sprawl, lush green spaces were…

RISING NEARLY 3,000 feet above sea level, Mount Gerizim overlooks the city of Nablus in the West Bank. For more than two millennia, the mountain has served as the holiest place of worship for the Samaritan people. In their telling, the Samaritans are descended from the original Israelites, who escaped from slavery in Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. The Samaritan Pentateuch, which relates the same basic narrative as the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, identifies Mount Gerizim as the site where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac and where Joshua took the Israelites to make their first sacrifices after they finally crossed the River Jordan into Israel. According to the Jewish version, these events took place at Mount Moriah,…

The earliest textual and sculptural evidence of yoga, which came to be practiced in northern and northwestern India and what is today Pakistan, dates to the last few centuries B.C. For at least a millennium afterward, yoga generally involved meditation in the cross-legged lotus position. It was largely practiced by ascetics who saw the body as something to be controlled and subdued, or even mortified, through extreme activities such as standing or holding their arms above their heads for years on end. “It’s quite different from what we understand as yoga nowadays,” says James Mallinson, a scholar of the history of yoga at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Around 1,000 years ago, yoga practices that aimed to develop, rather than punish, the body began to…

As part of an effort to win his subjects’ loyalty, the Khmer king Jayavarman VII, who ruled the Angkor Empire from A.D. 1181 to 1218, launched what may have been Southeast Asia’s first state-run health care system. Across his empire’s territory, which stretched from the southern tip of Vietnam, through Cambodia, Laos, and parts of Thailand, the king ordered the construction of 102 hospitals called arogyasala. At these institutions, dedicated staffers such as astrologists and sacrificers dispensed measures of rice, honey, camphor, ginger, and other medicinal substances to patients. Jayavarman VII’s government also seems to have invested in nonclinical forms of wellness. Along a sophisticated network of roads crisscrossing the empire, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of buildings spaced some seven to nine miles apart that are believed to have sheltered…

One of antiquity’s most prolific writers on the subject of health and wellness was the second-century A.D. physician, surgeon, and philosopher Galen. He saw health not just as lack of disease, but as a state that could be achieved by living a balanced life, an important component of which was moderate exercise. For the ancient Greeks, exercise meant competition, often in organized festivals such as the Olympics—the word “athlete” comes from the ancient Greek athlos, meaning contest. Participation in these events was limited to young men of certain classes. Exercise was also a crucial part of preparation for Greek military service, and thus women were excluded. But in the Roman world, exercise was more universally popular, and both men and women were frequent participants. Romans often exercised at the public baths,…

Creeping silently, the warriors emerged from the cover of the trees and made their way toward the fort. Minutes later the fort’s guards were surrounded by semi-naked men, their faces concealed by bushy beards, their bodies covered in tattoos. Some guards were dragged from their posts while others were dispatched with long spears. The warriors then surged over the wall and plundered and laid waste to the town beyond, leaving a trail of death and destruction. Once again, the Picts’ guerrilla tactics had caught their enemies by surprise. At least this is what the Romans, who occupied much of Britain from A.D. 43 to 409, would have the world believe. Given the name Picti—meaning “painted ones” in Latin—these people inhabiting northern Britain stood up to the Roman legions and, against…