Archaeology news updates

Iron Age people gave interiors of dwellings a decorative streak

It is very gratifying to see the increase in Natives in the field not just in their homeland regions but potentially anywhere in the field. Hats off to NW College.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194730.html
"...A team of Albanian and American archaeologists has found the remains of a Roman ship off the Karaburun Peninsula in Albania's southern coast.
Researchers discovered the 30 meter-long ship wreck at a depth of 50 meters and believe it to date back to a time between the second and first century BCE, BalkanInsight reported.
Experts say the find can reveal new facts about the ancient population of the southern Illyrian coast and its trade relations in the Mediterranean.

“The growing maritime evidence points toward an intense wine industry and associated heavy trade that developed in the 2nd century BCE and continued into the 1st century CE,” Dr. Jeff Royal of the RPM Nautical Foundation said in a statement...."

Edited by Don Quixote - 22-Aug-2011 at 03:14

I have a question - I didn't see that there is a archeology news thread and made a new one - should I repost the stuff i posted yesterday here, or what should I do? We don't need 2 archeology threads, right? On the other hand I don't now how to erase a thread I've made already. Any suggestions?

Taken care of. If I lost any.. my apologies... and feel free to repost them.

Edited by Centrix Vigilis - 22-Aug-2011 at 23:55

That's quite morbid!
http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004484.html
"...DNA tests on Scottish prehistoric mummies revealed they were made of body parts from several different people, arranged to look like one person. The four bodies discovered in 2001 on South Uist, in Scotland's Outer Hebrides were the first evidence in Britain of deliberate mummification. It is thought the body parts may have come from people in the same families. Sheffield University's Prof Mike Parker Pearson said the mummies had not been buried straight after preservation.
     A team from the University of Sheffield first uncovered the remains of a three-month-old-child, a possible young female adult, a female in her 40s and a male under the prehistoric village of Cladh Hallan. But recent tests on the remains carried out by the University of Manchester, show that the 'female burial', previously identified as such because of the pelvis of the skeleton, was in fact a composite. It was made up of three different people, and some parts, such as the skull, were male. Radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis showed that the male mummy was also a composite...."

"... In order for the bodies to have been found as articulated skeletons as they were, rather than piles of bones, some soft tissue preservation had to have taken place. Further tests showed that the bones had become demineralised, a process caused by placing a body in an acidic environment like a peat bog. Analysis on the bones found showed that after death, the bodies had been placed in bogs for about a year to mummify them before being recovered. Mr Parker Pearson said he believed there may be more examples of deliberate mummification in Britain that have been missed by archaeologists up until now....."

Edited by Don Quixote - 23-Aug-2011 at 02:34

The oldest profession is ...cooking!
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/333558/title/The_worlds_oldest_profession_chef
"...Humans are the only animals who cook, and compared to our living primate relatives we spend very little time gathering and eating food. We also have smaller jaws and teeth.

Homo erectus also had small teeth relative to others in the human lineage, and the going idea was that hominids must have figured out how to soften up their food by the time that H. erectus evolved. But behavioral traits such as the ability to whip up a puree or barbecue ribs don’t fossilize, so a real rigorous test of the H. erectus-as-chef hypothesis was lacking...."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-08/23/c_131068560.htm
"...HOHHOT, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 coins that were used 1,000 years ago were excavated in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said local archaeologists on Tuesday.The green verdigris-covered coins, most from the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and some from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), were unearthed at a construction site in Araxan League, said Zhang Zhenzhou with the Araxan Museum.

Zhang added that the place where the coins were found belonged to the Western Xia Kingdom, which means that the area was probably a business hub between Northern Song and Western Xia.Zhang's opinion is echoed by Li Daxiang, curator of Weiwu municipal museum in Gansu Province."Despite the many battles between the two kingdoms, bilateral trade was booming, which lead to the transfer of the Northern Song coins to Western Xia," Li said...."

"..The Abri (Rock Shelter) of Saint-Joseph was first discovered in 1983 by archaeozoologist Rose-Marie Arbogast and Neolithic specialist Christian Kids, during a systematic exploration of caves of the northern slope of the Jura Hills, in the Alsace region of France.

The evidence for occupation was concentrated from the Mesolithic (8500-5500 BCE) and Neolithic (5500-2200 BCE) periods, with lesser but discernible activity during the Bronze Age, late Iron Age and into the Roman period. This represents an occupational period of 10,000 years where groups lived in and around the rock shelter for short periods at a time.

A transitional period

Was there a pre-ceramic Neolithic here, prior to the arrival of kiln technology and the farmers from the east?The findings at St. Joseph do present a tantalizing perspective on this question, as the rock shelter is located on the fringes of the main occupational zone during the Neolithic.

It is quite possible that the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in this area kept their traditions until as late as 3900 BCE, long after the farming population of the plain of Alsace had adopted a lifestyle based on agriculture

It is quite possible that the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in this area retained their traditions and way of life until as late as 3900 BCE, long after the farming population of the plain of Alsace had adopted a lifestyle based on agriculture...."

Edited by Don Quixote - 24-Aug-2011 at 02:14