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“The Catastrophe” - Part 1: What the End of Bronze-Age Civilization Means for Modern TimesFrom the desk of Thomas F. Bertonneau on Tue, 2009-09-15 09:20 Introduction to Part I: Modern people assume the immunity of their situation to major disturbance or – even more unthinkable – to terminal wreckage. The continuance of a society or culture depends, in part, on that very assumption because without it no one would complete his daily round. A man cannot enthusiastically arise from bed as the sun comes up and set about the day’s errands believing that all undertakings will issue vainly because the...

Archaeologists have discovered an early Bronze Age grave and artefacts at the site of a centuries old royal centre. The 4000-year-old burial chamber was uncovered near Forteviot, Perthshire. Few remains of the body were found, but the archaeologists said it would have lain on a bed of quartz pebbles in sand, in a large stone coffin. A bronze dagger with a gold band was discovered inside the grave, along with a leather bag, wooden objects and plant matter, which could be floral tributes. The discovery was made by archaeologists from Glasgow and Aberdeen universities. They found a large sandstone slab,...

A County Tyrone family could be in line for a reward after finding a rare Bronze Age gold bracelet on their land. Farmer Gary Sproule accidentally unearthed the precious artefact while ploughing over a field at Castlegore near Castlederg last April. The intricate item is believed to date from almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. An inquest was held yesterday in Belfast at which the item, which would have belonged to an important warrior or priest, was officially classified as treasure. Under the law, a ‘treasure trove’ inquest must be held by the coroner to determine the significance...

Recent excavations have found more evidences on both Bronze Age and Iron Age in Thazi township, central Mandalay division, Myanmar, proving that the country passed through both Bronze Age and Iron Age in the ancient time. The Archaeology, Natural Museum and Libraries Department under the Ministry of Culture, in cooperation with the CNRC of France, excavated the areas around Ywagongyi village in the township for 20 days from Jan. 10 to 30, finding out the site where 44 bodies were buried along with two small bundles of bronze sheets, two iron objects, 14 stone beads of different colors, a fine...

THREE treasure hunting friends have struck gold again after unearthing Bronze Age treasure in the same spot near Wrexham for the second time in three years. William May, Joseph Perry and Peter Skelly, all from Liverpool, found a pure gold bead and wire piece in a farmer's field outside Rossett, near Wrexham, in August of last year. At an inquest in Flint yesterday, the find was declared treasure by John Gittins, deputy coroner for north east Wales. The latest find belongs to the so-called "Burton Hoard", which was discovered by the three friends in 2004 on the same field in...

A rare amber necklace believed to be about 4,000 years old has been uncovered in Greater Manchester. Archaeologists made the find while excavating a cist - a type of stone-lined grave - in Mellor, Stockport. It is the first time a necklace of this kind from the early Bronze Age has been found in north-west England. Experts from the University of Manchester Archaeological Unit said a amber necklace was one of the ultimate status symbols of the period. The necklace consists of dozens of pierced amber beads of various sizes, linked together on a length of fibre. It was discovered...

Unique Dutch settlement discovered from Bronze Age May 23, 2008, 8:52 GMT Amsterdam - Archaeologists have found a settlement dating back to the Bronze Age just north of Eindhoven, a city in the southern Netherlands, Dutch archaeologist Nico Arts told Dutch media Friday. The discovery was made during preparations for the building of a highway junction at Ekkersrijt, north of Eindhoven. The settlement may be the largest ever discovered in the Netherlands, and is definitely the largest settlement ever found in the southern Netherlands. Bronze Age settlements (1500-850 BC) have also been discovered in the province of Drenthe in the...

Bronze Age burial 'with beer mug' The skeleton was "crouched" which was typical of the time A 4,000-year-old Bronze Age skeleton has been unearthed by archaeologists working on a site in east Kent. Canterbury Archaeological Trust said the curled-up skeleton was an example of a "Beaker" burial because of the pottery vessel placed at its feet. Education officer Marion Green said the "beautifully decorated" pot could have been "a type of beer mug". She said tests on beakers from other sites suggested Bronze Age man was brewing a type of beer from grain. The body was in a "crouched" position...

Syrian archaeologists have unearthed two Bronze-era cemeteries dating from the 18th century B.C., the third set of ancient graveyards found in less than a month, the head of the Archaeological Department said Tuesday. Mahmoud Hamoud said the circular limestone cemeteries that were discovered Monday in the village of Heina, south of the capital Damascus, contained skeletons of both adults and children, more than 120 pieces of pottery, jars and precious stones... Last month, Syrian media reported the discovery of a Roman-era cross-shaped limestone cemetery in the Nasiriya area in the remote Hasaka province... dating from the third century... Also last...

How Bronze Age man enjoyed his pint Declan Moore and Billy Quinn have an ancient beer theory Bronze Age Irishmen were as fond of their beer as their 21st century counterparts, it has been claimed. Two archaeologists have put forward a theory that one of the most common ancient monuments seen around Ireland may have been used for brewing ale. Fulacht fiadh - horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds - are conventionally thought of as ancient cooking spots. But the archaeologists from Galway believe they could have been the country's earliest breweries. To prove their theory that an extensive brewing tradition...

Workers discover ancient 'snake' An aerial view of the 4000 year old 'Rotherwas Ribbon' Diggers constructing a new access road have uncovered a mysterious serpent-shaped feature, dating from the early bronze age. The 197ft (60m) long ribbon of stones, found in Rotherwas, near Hereford, is thought to date from the same period as Stonehenge, roughly 2000 BC. County archaeologist Dr Keith Ray said as far as he is aware the stone feature is unique in Europe. "We can only speculate it may have been used in some kind of ritual," he said. 'International significance' The Rotherwas Ribbon, as it is...

4,000-year-old Seahenge to rise again – but not until 2008Pieces of Seahenge, the mysterious Bronze Age monument uncovered on the beach at Holme in 1998, will be renovated and transported to Lynn Museum over the next few months, where a permanent display will be painstakingly created for them. CONSERVATION work on the Seahenge wooden circle is continuing apace – but it will be at least a year before the Bronze Age monument will be on display in Lynn. The 4,000-year-old structure was uncovered by waves on the beach at Holme in 1998, sparking frenzied interest from the archaeological community. In...

Gristhorpe Man 'was Bronze Age warrior chieftain' Reports by Roger Highfield and Nic Fleming (Filed: 07/09/2006) Gristhorpe Man, who was found buried in a tree trunk in the 19th century, has been identified as a Bronze Age warrior chieftain by archaeologists. The skeleton of Gristhorpe Man, excavated near Scarborough in 1834 Although a few examples of burial in a scooped-out oak tree have been found in Scotland and East Anglia, it was an unusual method and the example found near Scarborough, North Yorks, was the best preserved. The remains were discovered in 1834 by William Beswick, a local landowner, in...

FOUR thousand years ago work began to erect the great earthen burial mounds that comprise the Bronze Age barrow cemetery at the Knowes of Trotty, in Harray, Orkney. There are at least 16 barrows - or graves - in two rows, nestling between the edge of the farmlands and the foot of the moorland. Many were raised upon natural mounds to enhance their prominence. It is a spectacular site, even today, and there are indications that in the Bronze Age the Knowes of Trotty was a cemetery of special significance. The barrows were built to honour the dead of the...

Archaeologists working on a gas pipeline near Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire have unearthed what they believe to be a 3,400-year-old canoe. Work has stopped on a section of the pipeline near St Botolphs to allow the Bronze Age oak relic to be recovered. It is the first such discovery in Wales and only 150 exist across Europe. Senior archaeologist Neil Fairburn said: "You could never have expected to find anything like this in this small wetland area, it's just awesome." The team has also found evidence of a small settlement, a small amount of property and other items, such as...

Published online: 28 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060227-3 Were ancient Minoans centuries ahead of their time? Unprecedented mathematical knowledge found in Bronze Age wall paintings. Philip Ball Did the Minoans understand the Archimedes' spiral more than 1,000 years before him? A geometrical figure commonly attributed to Archimedes in 300 BC has been identified in Minoan wall paintings dated to over 1,000 years earlier. The mathematical features of the paintings suggest that the Minoans of the Late Bronze Age, around 1650 BC, had a much more advanced working knowledge of geometry than has previously been recognized, says computer scientist Constantin Papaodysseus of...

A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea. Nautical archaeologist Dr Tom Vosmer and seven other sailors had set off from Oman for a two-week voyage in the Magan, a 12-metre-long sailing boat made of reeds, rope and wood, but capsized within hours. "Water leaked into the Magan causing it to capsize, but a support ship from the Omani royal navy accompanying the boat intervened and rescued the sailors," a source from Oman's culture and national heritage ministry which organised the trip...

An Early Bronze Age grave In the spring of 2002 what started as a routine excavation was undertaken in advance of the building of a new school at Amesbury in Wiltshire. By the end of the excavation the richest Bronze Age burial yet found in Britain had been discovered. The Bronze Age man discovered there had been buried not far from the great temple of Stonehenge. He was a man who owned and could work the new and magical metals of gold and copper. And he had come from what is now central Europe, perhaps around the Alps. Was he...

ABOUT 200 skeletons dating as far back as 1200 years have been unearthed. The foundations of a medieval church and graveyard have also been found by Historic Scotland near Tantallon Castle, by North Berwick. Archaeologists were called in earlier this year when human remains were found during ploughing at Auldhame farm. Some of the graves are believed to be medieval, but others could date from the time of St Baldred, who lived in the eighth century. The saint founded a monastery at nearby Tyninghame and lived as a hermit on Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth before his death...

A collection of artefacts dating from the Bronze Age to the 1600s has been declared treasure by a coroner's court in Cardiff. The items were found over the course of 18 months at various sites in the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales. They included a gold Elizabethan ring with the inscription "Let Liking Last" on its inner rim, found near the ruins of a manor house in Llantrithyd. Five Bronze Age axe heads were also among items found by metal dectectors. The court declared seven items to be treasure, meaning it now becomes the property of the Crown and must...

SKELETONS in the closet were a real-life problem for Ashford Price when he opened a cupboard in his late aunt's bedroom to be confronted with dozens of human remains. The grand Georgian townhouse in the stately sweep of Swansea's leafy St James's Crescent had hidden a secret for decades until its owner, Brenda Morgan, 84, passed away. Police were immediately called after the discovery, but suspicions were dampened when it was noticed all the bones had been carefully cleaned and numbered. The remains were in fact 42 human skeletons dating back over 3,000 years to the Bronze Age. They had...

MOSCOW (AP) - A legendary collection of gold objects from ancient Troy seized by Soviet troops in Berlin in 1945 should become Russian government property, a top Russian cultural official said in remarks published Saturday. But Anatoly Vilkov, deputy chief of the Russian agency that preserves the nation's cultural legacy, stopped short of ruling out the objects' return, as quoted by the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The gold collection - excavated by amateur German archaeologist Hermann Schliemann - will be made federal property after it is inventoried, he said. It could be exhibited in Germany but only if its return is...

One of the world's best-preserved Bronze Age villages has been found at Nola, a few miles from Vesuvius, during routine tests before construction of a shopping center. A catastrophic eruption of the volcano, known to have taken place between 1800 and 1750 B.C., left this "Prehistoric Pompeii" in a state of remarkable preservation... Although much of the structure of the prehistoric huts was destroyed by the eruption, falling ash and volcanic mud hardened to create a kind of mold of the village in reverse, much like the casts of the victims of Vesuvius' more famous eruption. In addition to...

Dozens of women want Bronze Age hunter's babies Dozens of women have asked to be made pregnant by a prehistoric iceman who died 5,000 years ago. The body of "Otzi the Iceman" was discovered by hikers in 1991 as ice melted in the Schnalstal glacier, high in the Italian Alps. Alex Susanna, director of the Bozen Museum where his body is exhibited, says requests have been received by many women wanting to have Otzi's babies. He told Austrian broadcasting company ORF that all of the requests had been turned down, not least because Otzi's penis had decayed away. Otzi was...

Oct. 4, 2002 Celestial Bronze Age disc recovered Sensational archaeological find from eastern Germany returned to safety after three years by Heidi Sylvester Journalists last week received their first opportunity to inspect the site where an Early Bronze Age disc with gold foil ornaments - perhaps the oldest cosmological picture ever found - was abruptly ripped from the earth three years ago by local looters. The archaeological sensation was unearthed in a forest near the village of Nebra in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The site was located after one of a band of shady treasure hunters confessed where...

Bronze Age observatory to be rebuilt in Germany September 10, 2002, 20:15 Archaeologists hope to rebuild as a tourist attraction a Bronze Age observatory where ancient priests in Germany divined the right days to sow and harvest crops 3 600 years ago. They said the site on a hill in the middle of a forest is the world's oldest surviving astronomical observatory. The location has been kept secret so artefacts robbers will not disturb it, but the media are to be granted a first glimpse September 25. Treasure hunters stumbled on the site four years ago and dug up the...