An aerial view of farmland in Serbia that housed a Bronze Age settlement more than 3,000 years ago.Image credit: Barry Molloy et al
Posted on 12/09/2023 8:52:34 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Satellite imagery has revealed a network of more than 100 Bronze Age structures hidden in the Serbian plains.
Archaeologists first noticed the remnants of the more than 3,000-year-old enclosures in 2015 while reviewing Google Earth photos of a 93-mile stretch (150 kilometer) of wilderness along Serbia's Tisza River, according to a study published Nov. 10 in the journal PLOS One...
Previously, this area, known as the Pannonian Plain, was thought to be a hinterland not used for Bronze Age settlements. But now, researchers think that this is just one example of the many settlements found across Europe that are part of an extensive trade network from the time.
In addition to analyzing satellite images, for the new study, researchers visited the site via small plane and in person and found the footprints of dozens of structures "hiding in plain sight," according to Science magazine.
Most of the enclosures were built close together, similar to neighborhoods today, suggesting that the inhabitants "chose to live together very closely" in what Molloy described as a "complex and well-organized society." ...
Due to farmers plowing the land for many years, the outlines of many of the enclosures were practically invisible from the ground. However, archaeologists did find what was left of several walls and ditches, which may have been used as ramparts to help protect the settlement, according to the study...
There are a few clues as to why the settlement would've been so heavily fortified. Based on the discovery of clay chariots and weaponry at cemeteries near some of the enclosures, it's likely that the inhabitants were "familiar with warfare" — not amongst each other, but rather, with the outside world, according to Science.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
An aerial view of farmland in Serbia that housed a Bronze Age settlement more than 3,000 years ago.Image credit: Barry Molloy et al
But...but...you said they’d NEVER find it!
Sir, your nose is going to grow!
‘Face
;o]
Looks like the Neocon Bombing Party of Serbia didn’t reach that farm. Lucky!
Amazing.
Also amazing that archeologists spend time poring over Google Earth images looking for things like this. How tedious. I wonder if AI has been applied to this.
“...it’s likely that the inhabitants were ‘familiar with warfare’”
Was there anybody NOT familiar with warfare in those ancient times? Or throughout all history, for that matter? Could anybody be born, live and die without having their village raided, marauded and plundered?
The irony for me is that this morning I started watching a show called Hunting Atlantis which focuses on both geology and archaeology of that region.
Even though the show’s bias is on finding evidence of Atlantis, it outlines the glaring gaps in archaeology and the ongoing struggle [ahem] of evolution of known history for this region.
It’s tough to tolerate the show’s ‘campiness’, but there IS some good science.
I don’t have much use for the late Gavin Menzies, but like a lot of fringe authors, he has dug out some obscure facts that are generally ignored because of, well, reverse cherry picking. :^)
P
That Hunting Atlantis show exposes a lot of bunny holes.
For example, I’d never heard of the Lycian culture before.
Many other examples, including the little explored Büyük Menderes River Basin (under the silt).
It’s maddening because I put on the show as background as I work a project, but it’s got enough detail that it’s distracting my focus.
:^)
It is discoveries like this one that make me think that the estimates of human population in the ancient world are extremely low.
For instance the large cities in the Incan empire that are being discovered with Satellites.
It seems that the human population exploded rapidly at the end of the last ice age.
I had a class back when I was young and pretty that had as one of its texts, "The Invasion of America", a predictably anti-colonialist screed. One of the claims was that the population of North America (as was the case in Central America) had hit a height before 1492-ish that wouldn't be reached again until the 19th century or early 20th century. Obviously the culprit (if there was one) would have been inadvertently introduced diseases.
Interestingly enough, in a completely different class we learned that the Mayans had I think four different population peaks, with the final one in the early 16th century, just as Cortez arrived. Unless one attributes the earlier ones to a similar introduction of diseases by ocean-crossers -- which could help clarify where some of the ancient pandemics in Eurasia came from -- one is stuck with the 100 percent natural climate changes that continue to this day.
Yeah, that gave me a good laugh.
Now the show’s exposed an event at Mt. Etna 5500-6500 BC which affected at least a portion of the Eastern Mediterranean with a tsunami exceeding an estimated 50 meters (aka “Neolithic Etna tsunami”; I was admittedly ignorant of that event).
Too many bunnyholes. Gotta put on something else...
You won’t want to look at this, then:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3322433/posts
https://freerepublic.com/tag/atlityam/index
Multi-spectral imaging would be very useful, too. There are lots of things that can be seen in IR and UV light that the human eye cannot detect. I was reading here recently about the Pompeii scrolls turned to charcoal in the volcanic pyroclastic flow and how they can be carefully unrolled and read using invisible light wavelengths.
My dad was a project manager on the first multi-spectral earth orbiting satellites, originally named “Earth Resources Technology Satellite” (”ERTS”) and later renamed “Landsat.” Before that, he also worked on the first Nimbus meterological satellites launched in the 60s.
I remember Dad trying to explain “false color” images to me when I was in high school. As a young teen, I kept thinking “Huh, how can there be light we cannot see?”
Here in the northwest, we get lots of surveillance aircraft shooting IR in regular patterns analyzing forest fires and looking for hot-spots after the fires are out (or nearly out). You can see the patterns on FlightRadar 24.
Any remnants of those attrocities?
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