Free Republic

The authors of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, say the Neolithic flourishing of facial herpes detected in the ancient DNA may have coincided with the advent of a new cultural practice imported from the east: romantic and sexual kissing...Two further samples were local to Cambridge, UK. One a female from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery a few miles south of the city, dating from 6-7th centuries AD. The other a young adult male from the late 14th century, buried in the grounds of medieval Cambridge’s charitable hospital (later to become St. John’s College), who had suffered appalling dental...

Secrets of the Stone Age (1/2)July 12, 2018 | DW Documentary

A metal-working site uncovered in Moray may have helped arm Caledonian tribes against the Romans, before being burned down by the invaders.Archaeologists have described the site at Lochinver Quarry, near Elgin, as fascinating and unusual.Evidence has been found of metal production over a period of up to 2,000 years from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age.Archaeologists believe they could end up excavating as many as 40 iron smelting sites.Prior to these discoveries around 25 such sites have been found for the whole of Scotland.Lochinver appears to have been abandoned suddenly and homes and other structures burned down.Archaeologists suggest one...

A 3,200-year-old Mycenaean statuette has been found in the ongoing excavations at Ayasuluk Hill in western Izmir province's Selçuk district. The statuette, which reveals a possible connection between Hittites and Mycenaean civilizations in the Ephesus region, could change the perspective on the history of civilization in Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age...During the excavations carried out under the direction of associate professor Sinan Mimaroğlu of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University Art History Department, a Mycenaean figurine with a height and width of about 5 centimeters (1.97 inches), whose head and feet could not be found, was unearthed, as well as ceramics...

Excavations were on behalf of HS2 (the purpose-built high speed railway line) near the town of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, England, revealing one of the largest Anglo-Saxon burial sites in Britain that dates from between the 5th and 6th century AD.Most of the burials have been described as containing high-status grave goods, suggesting the site was the final resting place of a wealthy Anglo-Saxon community nearby. The site contains 138 graves, with 141 inhumation burials and 5 cremation burials, in addition to evidence of Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman activity.Many burials were found to contain two brooches in the...

Restoration of 4000 well preserved bronze age woman from Central Europe. He DNA is closely related to modern Europeans, she likely spoke with protoeuropean language. See picture in the link. The member of the Únětice culture was buried with a unique amber necklace, but her DNA is the real treasure. The woman, estimated to have died at around age 35, came from the upper social strata. Her grave in Mikulovice in Eastern Bohemia is one of the richest in Europe from her era. She had fair skin, brown hair, widely spaced brown eyes, a prominent chin, and a petite figure...

Swedish archaeologists in cooperation with the antiquities department have excavated two burial tombs at the site of Dromolaxia-Vyzakia that they believe belonged to two rich families judging by the nature of the finds, they said on Friday.This large Late Bronze Age city, which flourished between 1630 and 1150 BC, is situated along the shores of the Larnaca Salt Lake near the mosque of Hala Sultan Tekke.Both tombs contained material from the outgoing 15th and the 14th centuries BC, which chronologically corresponds to the Late Cypriot IIA-B period, the Late Helladic IIIA1-2 and the famous Egyptian 18th Dynasty. One of the...

A team of German and Kurdish archaeologists have uncovered a 3400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city once located on the Tigris River. The settlement emerged from the waters of the Mosul reservoir early this year as water levels fell rapidly due to extreme drought in Iraq. The extensive city with a palace and several large buildings could be ancient Zakhiku – believed to have been an important center in the Mittani Empire (ca. 1550-1350 BC)....The south of the country in particular has been suffering from extreme drought for months. To prevent crops from drying out, large amounts of water have been drawn...

The time team had barely begun day one at the South Cerney site near Cirencester when a Bronze Age spearhead was uncovered in a condition they called pristine...The spear made point, there was more. Work on the site of a planned new £200,000 wildlife habitat scheme at a Thames Water sewage works has uncovered and identified finds and features from a range of periods including six Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age timber-posted roundhouses, two Roman trackways, and a mix of pottery and animal bone.The spearhead was found in a shallow pit surrounded by a circle of stakeholes. Athough...

The member of the Únětice culture was buried with a unique amber necklace, but her DNA is the real treasure when it comes to recreating her appearance.You can now see what a woman who lived near the Czech city of Pardubice in the Bronze Age looked like.This image is not an artistic guess. New forms of DNA analysis plus unusually well-preserved personal items allow us to now make a highly accurate picture.The woman, estimated to have died at around age 35, came from the upper social strata. Her grave in Mikulovice in Eastern Bohemia is one of the richest in...

The necropolis is situated on the slopes of Mont’e Prama, a hill divided into the parallelepiped-shaped complex and the serpentine-shaped complex, towered by a nuraghe fortification.Previous excavations have found stone sculptures created by the Nuragic civilisation, a culture on Sardinia that emerged during the Bronze Age until the Roman period. The Nuragic are named for the large nuraghe tower-fortress constructions built across all parts of the island.The civilisation is also attributed with the construction of the Giants’ Graves, a collection of over 800 giant megalithic gallery graves either in the so-called “slab type” or “block type” format.In the latest excavations,...

The ancient daggers. (Caricola et al., Scientific Reports, 2022) *************************************************************************** Prehistoric daggers long thought to be non-functional ceremonial objects interred in warriors' graves were actually used to slaughter and butcher animals during the early fourth millennium BCE, a new study suggests. Numerous copper-alloy daggers have been unearthed in Bronze Age warriors' graves across Europe, along with other weapons, and archaeologists previously speculated that the daggers may have served as status symbols. But scientists used a new analysis method on a set of 10 daggers, found in Pragatto, Italy in 2017, to reveal evidence that the tools had a more practical...

Analysis of Bronze Age daggers has shown that they were used for processing animal carcasses and not as non-functional symbols of identity and status, as previously thought...As daggers are often found in weapon-rich male burials, or ‘warrior graves’, many researchers speculated that they were primarily ceremonial objects used in prehistoric funerals to mark out the identity and status of the deceased. Others suggested that they may have been used as weapons or tools for crafts.However, the lack of a targeted method of analysis for copper-alloy metals, like those available for ceramic, stone, and shell artefacts, left this problem unresolved.A revolutionary...

Yahalom-Mack adds that her team was surprised to trace the ingots to Sardinia, which is “beyond the western Mediterranean, beyond the [Cypriots’] regular route of trade, which is Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia and the Aegean.” Though Cyprus was once considered a passive player in the Bronze Age metal trade, simply producing copper for other countries, more recent research has painted a portrait of a “small but agile nation with both formal and informal trade ties that may well have helped fill the power vacuum that occurred with the collapse of entranced empires around 1200 B.C.E.,” per the Times of Israel.Divers...

Archaeologists are launching a new dig to try to unearth the secrets of a 9th Century stone monument on a prehistoric mound. Bangor and Chester university experts will begin excavations at the Pillar of Eliseg near Llangollen, Denbighshire... Last year excavations focussed on the mound, which was identified as an early Bronze Age cairn. It followed on from one in the 18th Century. Professor Nancy Edwards from Bangor University told BBC Radio Wales: "...This year we are going back to the cairn to one particular trench because we discovered evidence last year of the dig into the top of the...

A mind-blowing 3D reconstruction has revealed what a Stone Age woman looked like 4,000 years ago. It’s now on display at Västernorrlands Museum in Sweden and is based on skeletal remains that were found in 1923. The remains of the Stone Age woman were found next to the body of a seven-year-old boy who may have been her son. Scientists have reconstructed her after all this time and designed her expression as if she was watching over her child....

The bronze hand and its thin gold cuff, along with a bronze dagger and a human rib bone, were discovered by the metal detectorists near Lake Biel in the Bernese Jura, about 28 miles (45 km) northwest of Bern, Switzerland, according to a Canton de Bern press release. The items were handed over to specialists at the Ancient History and Roman Archeology Department in the Bern Archaeological Service one day after the discovery. The hand of Prêles, as it’s now called, is slightly smaller than an adult hand and was cast from about a pound of bronze, according to National...

9 of the very many bronze shapes of vessels made in China, mostly from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, 1600 to 256 BC. Music is Feng Ru Song playing Wind Through the Pines from the Taoist Music Orchestra CD, available through Amazon.

A creepy prehistoric doll with almond-shaped eyes has been unearthed in Siberia. Another plaything, a mythical dragon-like animal head, made from antler or horn, was found alongside the artefact in the Bronze Age grave of a small child. The finds have been added to what has been described as 'the oldest toy collection in the world' following a series of 4,500-year-old discoveries in the remote Khakassia region. The toy, which is made of soapstone, is believed to be the oldest doll designed for play ever found.

A skeleton found 138 years ago in Stirling has been identified as a Bronze Age farmer who worked the land more than 4,000 years ago. The discovery makes the man the earliest known resident of the ancient capital of Scotland. The farmer, who died in his twenties, has been nicknamed "Torbrex Tam", after the area of Stirling in which he was found. Tam's facial reconstruction has been carried out by a forensic artist to discover what he would have looked like. The remains were found in 1879 when workmen digging for gravel hit the slabs of a stone-lined cist. The...