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'Earliest Chinese Characters' Unearthed Archaeologists have discovered pottery bearing inscriptions dating back 4,500 years, which could prove to be China's earliest example of written language. These pottery fragments, found in the ruins of an ancient city in Huaiyang County of Henan Province, are believed to be parts of a spinning wheel, according to a report released by the county government. A photo, posted on the local government's website, showed a piece of black pottery bearing white strokes. The fragment formed half of a round spinning wheel, with a diameter of 4.7 centimeters and a thickness of 1.1 centimeters. The inscriptions...

Inscriptions on the seal and plaque display important elements of later scripts employed by civilizations in Mexico and Central America, the researchers say. These include a mix of language-related symbols and drawings, as well as references to a sacred calendar and specific kings. According to the scientists, the seal carries two sets of symbols emanating from the beak of a bird to show that the signs represent spoken words. Pohl and her coworkers interpret these hieroglyphics as representing the name "King 3 Ajaw." ...The researchers couldn't translate the two complete hieroglyphic signs and two possible partial ones on the plaque...

Ancient civilisations in Mexico developed a writing system as early as 2,000 years ago, new evidence suggests. The discovery in the state of Veracruz of a block inscribed with symbolic shapes has astounded anthropologists. Researchers tell Science magazine that they consider it to be the oldest example of writing in the New World. The inscriptions are thought to have been made by the Olmecs, an ancient pre-Columbian people known for creating large statues of heads. The finding suggests that New World people developed writing some 400 years before their contemporaries in the Western hemisphere. ...... "I think it could...

A slab inscribed with the oldest writing yet discovered in the New World has been discovered in the Veracruz lowlands in Mexico. The writing dates back nearly 3000 years to the height of the Olmec culture that was the first Mesoamerican civilisation, Mexican archaeologists report. Called the Cascajal slab, it had been rescued along with other artefacts from a quarry at Lomas de Tacamichapa, in 1999, where it had been destined for use in road fill. Isolated symbols have been found on a few Olmec artefacts, but the slab is the first solid evidence of a true written language, says...

Pottery offers clues to origin of Chinese characters www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-22 21:10:18 HEFEI, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese archaeologists claim that pottery utensils dating back 7,000 years ago which bear inscriptions of various symbols are probably one of the origins of Chinese characters. They made the conclusion on the basis of several years' study into the symbols carved on over 600 pottery ware items unearthed from the New Stone Age site in Shuangdun village, Xiaobengbu town of Bengbu, a city in East China's Anhui Province. The symbols include rivers, animals and plants, and activities such as hunting, fishing and arable farming,...

New analysis of pottery stirs Olmec trade controversy Clearing -- or perhaps roiling -- the murky and often contentious waters of Mesoamerican archeology, a study of 3,000-year-old pottery provides new evidence that the Olmec may not have been the mother culture after all. Writing this week (Aug. 1, 2005) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison archeologist James B. Stoltman presents new evidence that shows the Olmec, widely regarded as the creators of the first civilization in Mesoamerica, imported pottery from other nearby cultures. The finding undermines the...

'Earliest writing' found in China By Paul Rincon BBC Science First attempt at writing .. on a tortoise shell Signs carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells found in China may be the earliest written words, say archaeologists. The symbols were written down in the late Stone Age, or Neolithic Age. They predate the earliest recorded writings from Mesopotamia - in what is now Iraq - by more than 2,000 years. The archaeologists say they bear similarities to written characters used thousands of years later during the Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1700-1100 BC. But the discovery has already generated controversy, with...

History of words rewritten By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 06/12/2002) Symbols carved on to a recently discovered seal and plaque represent the earliest evidence of writing in the New World, a find that challenges previous ideas about who invented writing in the Americas. The artefacts, described today in the journal Science, strengthen the idea of the ancient Olmecs being the "mother culture" of the Maya and Aztecs in Central America. The Olmecs of the Gulf Coast region of Mexico were the first to develop urban ritual and political centres and now it seems that they were the first to...

Ancient map of Africa poses questions The unveiling in South Africa's parliament on Monday of a replica of an ancient Chinese map of the then known world which includes a recognisable outline of Africa is raising intriguing questions of which foreigners first explored the continent. "The idea is to take us beyond what we have been ... brainwashed into believing" declared Speaker Frene Ginwala at the opening of the exhibition, which includes other maps and rock art. The "Da Ming Hun Yi Tu", the Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire, dates back to 1389, decades before the first European...

An international team of researchers has found evidence that people lived on islands in the Azores archipelago approximately 700 years earlier than prior evidence has shown. In their paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of sediment cores taken from lakes on some of the islands in the archipelago.Due to the absence of other evidence, historians have believed that people first arrived in the Azores in 1427, when Portuguese sailor Diogo de Silves landed on Santa Maria Island. Soon thereafter, others from Portugal arrived and made the archipelago their home. In this...

In general, historiography concerning ancient Sicily is overwhelmingly Greco-centric, i.e. focused on its Greek immigrants. Because the indigenous population’s architectonic remains are relatively invisible, whilst those of the Greek immigrants are monumental, the accepted historiography has been that the indigenous population had neither territory, power nor economic resources.It was instead accepted that as soon as the Greeks had established themselves on the island (on the western side in 628 BCE) they colonised and controlled the majority of the Sicilian lowlands, the economy and thus also the indigenous population.This outlook has contributed to an imbalance and a distorted picture of the...

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1957, was donated to Yale in the 1960s where it immediately came under a great deal of suspicion and intrigue. Alleged to date back to the 15th-Century, the map depicts 'Vinlanda Insula' - a section of North America's coastline. It also claims that the region was visited by Europeans in the 11th Century. Despite appearing outwardly genuine, the map has been mired in controversy ever since it first appeared. Previous studies have indicated the presence of modern ink on its parchment, however it wasn't until Yale researchers were able to apply modern tools and techniques that it was possible to...

Using the latest scientific techniques to solve the greatest mysteries of the ancient world's naval technology, our team of underwater detectives and elite naval commandos are investigating legends, in Season 4, Episode 2, "Ancient Super Navies."The HISTORY Channel® is the leading destination for award-winning original series and specials that connect viewers with history in an informative, immersive, and entertaining manner across all platforms. The network's all-original programming slate features a roster of hit series, premium documentaries, and scripted event programming.Ancient Super Navies | Ancient Discoveries (S4, E2) | Full Episode | History | Sep 8, 2021 | History

Underwater archaeologists from the Soprintendenza del Mare Regione Siciliana, RPM Nautical Foundation, and the Society for the Documentation of Submerged Sites (SDSS), has recovered two more bronze warship rams at the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, a pivotal naval engagement during the First Punic War, that led to the victory of Rome over Carthage.The Battle of the Egadi Islands, also called the Battle of the Aegates, was a naval battle fought on the 10 March 241 BC off the western coast of the island of Sicily.Ancient authors recount the size and scale of the battle, which saw...

Skeletal remains in an island cave in Favignana, Italy, reveal that modern humans first settled in Sicily around the time of the last ice age and despite living on Mediterranean islands, ate little seafood. The research is published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marcello Mannino and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Genetic analysis of the bones discovered in caves on the Egadi islands provides some of the first mitochondrial DNA data available for early humans from the Mediterranean region, a crucial piece of evidence in ancestry analysis. This analysis reveals...

Ötzi the ice mummy may have met his death in the Alps some 5300 years ago, but his descendants live on – on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The finding comes from an analysis of Ötzi's DNA, which also reveals he had brown eyes and hair, and was lactose intolerant. The ice mummy was found in 1991 on an Alpine glacier between Austria and Italy, where he met a violent end in the Neolithic.....

E. Matisoo-Smith from the University of Otago, New Zealand and Pierre Zalloua from the Lebanese American University, Beirut, and colleagues... looked at mitochondrial genomes... to investigate how Phoenicians integrated with the Sardinian communities they settled. The researchers found 14 new ancient mitogenome sequences from pre-Phoenician (~1800 BCE) and Phoenician (~700-400 BCE) samples from Lebanon and Sardinia and then compared these with 87 new complete mitogenomes from modern Lebanese and 21 recently published pre-Phoenician ancient mitogenomes from Sardinia. The researchers found evidence of continuity of some lineages of indigenous Sardinians after Phoenician settlement, which suggests that there was integration between Sardinians...

An Etruscan settlement that dates back to the 9th century BC has been found on the Sardinian coasts near Olbia. The presence emerged during a review of the findings of recent years by the archaeological superintendency for the Sassari and Nuoro provinces. The area of the settlement - according to a statement issued by the superintendency - is on the Tavolara isle, a position that enabled a certain degree of caution in contact with coastal inhabitants and those further inland. Archaeologists note that other settlements might be found in the Gallura area, on the opposite shore from Etruria. Etruria's cities...

Archaeologists have discovered ashes from one of the biggest ever volcanic eruptions in recorded history. Excavations in Turkey’s ancient city of Smyrna, now located in Izmir, have revealed details from a Minoan eruption that took place some 3,600 years ago. Smyrna was established about 5,000 years ago by the Greek tribe of Aeolians and later inhabited by Ionians. It was mostly abandoned after it was captured by the Anatolian kingdom of Lydia in the 6th century B.C. Archaeologists say the ashes will tell them a lot about the history. “Now that we have identified those ashes with a more extensive...