Stone Pages - Archaeo News (Asia)

Nomads and Networks: Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:11:11 +0100

When one thinks of historic Kazakhstan, a vision of rough-riding, nomadic, gypsy-like people on horseback, traversing a vast, flat, steppe-like landscape, comes to mind. The ancient cultural and artistic achievements of this people might surprise you, however.
The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University (ISAW) will present the first U.S. exhibition with a comprehensive overview of the unique nomadic culture of ancient Kazakhstan. On view from March 7 through June 3, 2012, 'Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan' focuses on the peoples of the Altai and Tianshan regions from the eighth to first centuries BCE.
Artefacts include bronze openwork offering-stands, superbly decorated with animal and human figures; petroglyphs marking important places in the landscape; and sophisticated gold adornments that marked the social status of those who wore them. A highlight is recently excavated, never-displayed material from a fourth-third century cemetery near the Russian/Chinese border, where permafrost conditions enabled the preservation of organic materials. Included here are such objects as saddles and expertly carved horse trappings that display hybrid mythical animals, among a variety of other artefacts.
Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, and archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in this region. Horse-riding defined their activities, and equestrianism and horse-racing remains a national passion.

Edited from Popular Archaeology (3 February 2012)

Pottery from 1900 BCE discovered in India

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:28:40 +0100

Hallmark pottery dating back to 1900 BCE has been discovered during the recent excavations in Rupnagar (Punjab, India). The Archaeological Survey of India, which recently started excavating the site after a gap of 56 years, has recovered fragments of geometrical designs dating back to the Harappan era.
Ropar is situated on a high ancient mound overlaying the Shiwalik deposition on the left bank of the river Satluj where it emerges into the plains. It has yielded a sequence of six cultural periods or phases with some breaks from Harappan times to the present day. The first excavations at the site were carried out by Dr. Y.D. Sharma of the Archaeological Survey of India. The migration of people from Harappa to Ropar has been postulated through the lost Saraswati River to the Satluj as both rivers once belonged to
After more than five decades, archaeologists say further digging may allow them to discover typical Harappan culture findings. "We have so far found the contemporary, regional elements, but there is a possibility of discovering typical Harappan culture items," said superintending archaeologist V.N. Prabhakar.
Experts say once the excavations are over, they will use scientific methods to establish the dietary pattern of the Asian population that lived there.

Edited from The Asian Age (2 February 2012)

Indian megalithic sites project begins

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:27:17 +0100

'Discovering Idukki', a project to explore and document the rich heritage of the Kerala district in the very southern tip of India has begun. In the first phase, a heritage museum will be opened in Painavu by April of this year.
Archaeological explorations will be conducted at various dolmens in Marayur, and sites where burial urns were excavated, especially in the high ranges. Mr T. Rajesh, officer-in-charge of the project said that the study may open unknown chapters of the Kerala spice trade during the Stone Age and later, adding that the Muzaris heritage has a strong link to the hill country because cardamom is indigenous to the area.
So far only individual studies have been done at megalithic sites in the district. The project envisages site protection and preservation, as well as possible restoration in the case of dolmens damaged by human interference.
Rajesh said that the excavations in Idukki will provide valuable data on life during the Megalithic period. The items collected will be made available to the heritage museum.

Edited from The Hindu (14 January 2012)

China's tomb raiders

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:12:48 +0100

China's extraordinary historical treasures are under threat from increasingly aggressive and sophisticated tomb raiders. The thieves use dynamite and even bulldozers to break into the deepest chambers, and night vision goggles and oxygen canisters to search them. The size and value of the relics demonstrates the audacity of the raiders - last year, Chinese authorities recovered a 27-tonne sarcophagus stolen from Xi'an and shipped to the USA.
"Before, China had a large number of valuable ancient tombs and although it was really depressing to see a tomb raided, it was still possible to run into a similar one in the future," said Professor Wei Zheng, an archaeologist at Peking University. "Nowadays too many have been destroyed. Once one is raided, it is really difficult to find a similar one. Archaeologists are now simply chasing after tomb raiders."
With thousands of sites - many in remote locations - the scope of China's heritage poses a particular challenge. The problem became worse as China's economy opened up, with domestic and international collectors creating a huge market for thieves. One researcher estimated that 100,000 people were involved in the trade nationally.
Luo Xizhe of the Shaanxi provincial cultural relics bureau told China Daily: "If we don't take immediate and effective steps to protect these artefacts, there will be none of these things left to protect in 10 years." Police have already stepped up their campaign against the criminals and the government is devoting extra resources to protecting sites and tracing offenders. This year it set up a national information centre to tackle such crimes.

Edited from The Guardian (1 January 2012)

Megalithic burial urn excavated in southern India

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:20:01 +0100

A burial urn, locally known as a nannangady and believed to date back to the megalithic era (1500 BCE -100 CE), was recently excavated from a construction site near Ramakkalmedu in Idukki district (Kerala, India). The discovery may throw light on the possibility of carbon dating for further studies as there were bone remains found inside the ancient urn.
The nannangadi is about one metre high and its opening has a diameter of about 12 inches. The top of the urn was covered with a round shaped stone slab. Two small pots and a bowl having a diameter of about 8 inches were placed near the urn. Inside the urn, a human bone was found.
"The red and black pottery is remarkable as it denotes the Dravidian expansion to South India," Mr T. Rajesh, historian, who led the excavation said. It is the first that a human bone was fond in a nannangadi, and these remains will allow scientists to date the burial urn, he added.
Dr P.J. Cherian, director of the Kerala Council for Historical Research, said that the excavation had opened the windows for further study of the valuable historical remains in Idukki district. The local administration has drawn up a project 'Discovering Idukki,' in its annual budget for 2011-2012 to protect the megalithic sites and start studies of those monuments. It also plans to open a megalithic museum at the district headquarters in Painavu for collection and preservation of the historical remains excavated in the district.

Edited from The Hindu (30 December 2011)

Human remains from 450 BCE unearthed in a Nepalese cave

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:18:18 +0100

Experts digging into the Mhebrak cave in Lower Mustang (Nepal) have unearthed new clues, which could potentially unravel a significant portion of human history dating back to 450 BCE. A team of experts including those from the Department of Archaeology (DoA), who have been studying two unique corpses recovered from Mhebrak cave complex in Muktinath Valley of Lower Mustang, say shocking features of the corpses are drawing them closer to discovery of a peculiar prehistoric culture.
They say the corpses - proved to have been of a mother and an infant - dating back to 450 BCE were recovered in a sleeping posture where the mother seems to have protected her infant. Interestingly, the body of the infant was found with steady bones and joints that were not detached. Even a layer of thin skin covering the infant's bones is still intact. Finding of a human body as old as 2,600 years in such a peculiar condition, says Mohan Singh Lama, an excavation officer at the DoA, challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding mummification of a corpse. Some parts of the mother's body including limbs were also intact.
The discovery was made during an excavation between 1992-1997 by a team that included DoA experts and a Germany-based excavation team. According to Lama, 63 other corpses were also recovered from the same site. The Mehbrak cave complex, therefore, is assumed to have been a cave used for burial purposes. However, Lama says there are other possibilities too. "They may have died in a landslide when mudstone of the inner cave fell on them," he said. "But the clothes tied to the feet of many corpses hint towards a mass killing."
Hari Shrestha, associate professor at the Tribhuvan University (TU) said that during the 1992-1997 excavation carried out in other parts of Mustang "Ceramic vessels filled with food offered to the deceased were found into the grave chamber, pointing towards a very peculiar culture that is not in practice now."

Edited from The Kathmandu Post (28 December 2011)

Oldest representation of the Tower of Babel

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:50:24 +0100

Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the 'Tower of Babel' stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE. It was found in the collection of Martin Schoyen, a businessman from Norway who owns the largest private manuscript assemblage formed in the 20th century.
Consisting of 13,717 manuscript items spanning over 5,000 years, the collection also includes a large number of pictographic and cuneiform tablets - some of the earliest known written documents - spanning most of the written history of Mesopotamia, an area near modern Iraq.
A total of 107 cuneiform texts, dating from the Uruk period about 5,000 years ago to the Persian period about 2,400 years ago, have been now translated by an international group of scholars and published in the book 'Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schoyen Collection'.
The Tower of Babel stele clearly shows the Tower and King Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled Babylon some 2,500 years ago. The first Babylonian king to rule Egypt, he is also famous for building the legendary Hanging Gardens - one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world - and many temples all over Babylonia.
In the inscription, his standing figure is portrayed with the royal conical hat, holding a staff in his left hand and a scroll (or a foundation nail) in his outstretched right hand. Calling himself the 'great restorer and builder of holy places,' he also reconstructed Etemenanki, a 7-story, almost 90-metre-tall temple (known as a ziggurat) dedicated to the god Marduk.
According to Andrew George, a professor of Babylonian at the University of London and editor of the book, the relief yields only the fourth certain representation of Nebuchadnezzar II. The inscription also depicts the Tower of Babel in face view, features a line drawing of the ground plan of the temple, and clearly identifies the tower as the 'great ziggurat of Babylon'.

Edited from Discovery News (27 December 2011)

Earliest evidence of transition from wolf to dog

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:35:15 +0100

Lead researcher Nikolai Ovodov of the Russian Academy of Science "was immediately suspicious that there was something different" about the 33,000-year-old canine skull found in a cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia.
Odvodov turned to evolutionary biologist Susan Crockford, adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) - a specialist in the biology of ancient dogs, and an expert in dog domestication among aboriginal nations in North America - for help in analysing the specimen and comparing it with other early cases of canine evolution.
"It doesn't meet all of the criteria for what we consider to be a fully domesticated dog," she said; "It's got some evidence that it is part-way through the process... It's smaller than a wolf but it still has wolf-sized teeth."
Crockford - part of a six-member team of researchers from Russia, Britain, the USA and the Netherlands - said the process of domestication "was, in most cases, entirely natural" and not really a "human accomplishment," which began when wolves began living at the fringes of human encampments and scavenging meals from piles of the discarded bones of human-hunted game.
"Traditional anthropological definitions of domestication consider the process to be a deliberate act of selection by humans," the published study states. "However, this view has been challenged in recent years by the hypothesis that animals colonised anthropogenic environments of their own volition and evolved into new species via natural evolutionary processes. ... After initial changes occurred, the resulting new species were modified during their association with people via natural adaptation, human selection, and genetic drift."
It is believed the wolf-dog lineage seen in the Altai Mountains specimen did not continue through the Ice Age that took hold of the region beginning some 25,000 years ago.

Edited from Postmedia News, The Vancouver Sun (19 December 2011)

Origins of modern dogs

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:12:06 +0100

Results from collaborators in California, Iran, Taiwan and Israel, suggest that European and American breeds were much more influenced by dogs from Southeast Asia than by ancient Western dogs or by dogs from the Middle East, as was previously thought.
"The two most hotly debated theories propose that dogs originated in Southeast Asia or the Middle East," said study co-author Ben Sacks, director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Group in the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory of the University of California Davis School of Veterinary Medicine (USA). The laboratory is an international leader in animal genetics research and provides DNA testing and forensic analysis for numerous wildlife, companion animal and livestock species.
"In contrast to those theories, our findings suggest that modern European and American dogs are overwhelmingly derived from dogs that were imported from Asia since the silk trade, rather than having descended directly from ancient dogs native to Europe," Sacks said.
Other findings from the study demonstrate that Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian village dogs must have originated from a common gene pool thousands of years ago, or from distinct groups of wolves or wolf-like dogs.
In order to compare the evolutionary relationships between the dogs of Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the researchers analysed DNA samples from 642 canines: 9 wild members of the dog family, and 633 domestic dogs. The domestic dogs were mostly from villages in the Middle East and Southeast Asia; they also included Australian dingoes, desert-bred salukis, which are Middle Eastern sight hounds, and 93 purebred dogs representing 35 other breeds.
The village dogs of Southeast Asia and the Middle East were chosen because they are considered to have developed independently of modern breeds and are likely to reflect the genetics of ancient dogs of their regions. The Australian dingoes and Bali dogs were included because they have been isolated from other canine populations for thousands of years.

Edited from PhysOrg.com (20 December 2011)

Neolithic site discovered in northern China

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:17:46 +0100

After more than 40 days of excavation, archeologists found an about 5,000-year-old Yangshao culture site in Zezhou county of Shanxi province. A well-persevered pottery kiln dating back to the Xia and Shang dynasties over 4,000 years ago was unearthed, providing valuable information about ancient ceramic firing techniques. Liu Yan, an archeologist from the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, said they found the well-preserved pottery kiln in Pit No. 25. The kiln still works well and has great research value.
The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. It is dated from around 5000 BCE to 3000 BCE. The culture is named after Yangshao, the first excavated representative village of this culture, which was discovered in 1921 in Henan Province by the Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson.

Edited from Xinhuanet (22 December 2011)

3,600-year-old high status structure found in China

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:31:13 +0100

Chinese archaeologists recently found a high status structure dating back to about 3,600 years ago at the Erlitou Bronze Age site in Henan province. It is the best-preserved structure ever found at the site and may be the prototype for the temples of the Shang dynasty (1600 BCE - 1046 BCE). In the Erlitou site, archaeologists have found the foundation of the structure, which has at least three courtyards and covers a total area of more than 2,100 square meters.
The Erlitou site contains artefacts ranging from the Yangshao and Longshan cultures about 5,000 years ago to the Eastern Zhou and Eastern Han dynasties, but the site had its heyday during the Xia dynasty from the 21st to 17th century BCE, and the culture created during this period is known as the 'Erlitou Culture.' +
"The Erlitou complex is an amazing discovery, and this could be the earliest imperial palace in China," said Xu Hong, head of the archaeological team at the Erlitou site and director of the Department of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The complex covers a total area of nearly 110,000 square meters and is the oldest of its kind in China. "Built about 3,700 years ago, the neatly designed strucxture, along with surrounding buildings, forms the center of the ancient capital. Although it is only one-seventh the size of the Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this complex is the prototype of all later imperial palaces in China," Xu said.

Edited from People's Daily Online (13 December 2011)

Ancient human remains uncovered in western Nepal

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:17:31 +0100

A team of national and international climbers, scientists, archaeologists, historians and anthropologists has found evidence of thousands of years of civilization in the caves of Upper Mustang in western Nepal. After beginning the first phase of its research in 2008, the team discovered human remains dating back to 3,000 years.
According to Mohan Singh Lama, an archaeologist with the Department of Archaeology (DoA), the earliest findings date back to prehistory, when the Indus Valley and the Chinese civilizations were slowly making inroads into Nepal via present day India and the Tibetan plateau. "Since cave settlement was not popular in other places around, we can view this as an independent civilization," he said.
The team found square coffins in the caves with human skeletons, perched under a great deal of jewelry and tools. "Many of the graves were dug by treasure hunters," Lama said. The team has so far been able to explore at least nine caves, and more recent Tibetan Buddhist shrines were also found there.
Mark Aldenderfer, an archaeologist at the University of California who is leading the excavation team, claims people have been living in the Mustang valley since 10,000 years. "Our team found stone tools near Kagbeni. These tools resemble those found at lower elevations. Their presence suggests people have been moving into the valley for a very long time," Aldenderfer said.

Edited from People's Daily Online (12 December 2011), The Kathmandu Post (13 December 2011)

Megalithic site in India may date back to 3300 BCE

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:16:56 +0100

During the works for the construction of a road on the outskirts of Obra village in Chatra district (Jharkhand state, India) Subhashis Das, a local megalith expert, came across a series of huge standing stones. This megalithic site may indicate that civilization existed here since Chalcolithic period, corresponding for India to a period of 3300-1200 BCE.
The site was already partially damaged by villagers who removed several standing stones. "I have tried to educate the villagers about the importance of these sites to preserve them and getting in touch with professionals and researchers to carry out further studies," Das said, adding that the recently discovered site was probably a primitive tribal memorial site having tall menhirs. "The road construction has destroyed a few menhirs, but it has also exposed a couple of burial urns; one of them contained Chalcolithic remains such as copper slags, a ring and a small bell," Das added.
Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI)'s Ranchi circle N.G. Nikoshey said Jharkhand was full of megalithic sites but they had not obtained any license to excavate those sites. "ASI Ranchi circle has recently been given permission to excavate the Itkhori site in Chatra and carry out exploration in Karbra Kala region of Palamu." In total, 12 monuments in the state are being looked after by the ASI.
Nikoshey said in the absence of any direct scientific evidence, the date offically aknowledged for these megalithic monuments is around 7th century CE. "Some university or the state archeology department should come up with excavation license, only then the sites could be dated properly," he said. Das, however, stressed that megaliths are the oldest man-made relics of the country, and they face the threat of being gradually obliterated under the pressure of development.
Deputy archeology director of the state mitava Kumar said 29 megalithic sites in Hazaribag have been identified to be taken up for conservation by the department under the 13th Finance Commission. "Detailed project report has been prepared for these sites and we hope to include other sites as well in due course," he said.

Edited from The Times of India (5 December 2011)

Cave yields oldest human remains ever found in Japan

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:08:26 +0100

Japan's oldest known human remains have been found in cave remains on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture, a researcher has announced. Minoru Yoneda, associate professor at the University of Tokyo, confirmed the human remains dating back some 24,000 years after inspecting human bones excavated at the Shirahosaonetabaru cave remains in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture.
The ancient cave is also home to approximately 20,000-year-old human remains dating back to the Paleolithic Period - previously the nation's oldest known traces of human existence. A past survey had found that one of the six pieces of human bones found at the site dated back some 20,000 years through direct measurement of radioactive carbon of collagen extracted from those bones. However, researchers had been unable to identify the geological layer that hosted the human remains.
Yoneda analyzed some 25 pieces of human bones that were freshly excavated from the 20,000 to 24,000-year-old bottom layer and other locations at the cave remains before 2010. By using radiocarbon dating, one of the rib bone pieces excavated from the bottom layer has turned out to be about 24,000 years old, while three other bone fragments proved to be some 20,000 years old.
On mainland Japan, which has abundant acid soil, human remains found in Hamakita (present-day Hamamatsu), Shizuoka Prefecture -- which have been confirmed to date back some 18,000 years through the use of radiocarbon dating -- are the only known human bones from the Paleolithic Period.

Edited from The Mainichi Daily News (10 November 2011), Japan Update (2 December 2011)

Bashed skull earliest evidence of human aggression?

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:16:22 +0100

A healed fracture discovered on an ancient skull from China may be the oldest documented evidence of violence between humans. The individual, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago, suffered blunt force trauma to the right temple - possibly from being hit with a projectile. But the ancient hunter-gatherer survived: the injury was completely healed by the time of death. The skull was unearthed at a cave near Maba, southern China, in 1958.
Professor Trinkaus, who was part of an international team that re-examined the specimen, said the depressed fracture in the right temple region was the result of an impact that was "very directed, very localised. Can we completely rule out a hunting accident? No. But it's less likely to be that than getting hit on the side of the head with a missile."
Yet the Maba individual survived weeks or months after the injury. "It's another individual in a growing number of human fossils going back in excess of a million years who show long-term survival with serious injuries and congenital problems - a variety of things along these lines. We have many instances of trauma - some serious, some minor. We also have a surprisingly high incidence of conditions that occur in the modern world but are extremely rare. So the probability of finding them in our meagre fossil record is extremely low."
Researchers believe such evidence points to the existence of care and support networks within ancient human groups. The Maba individual was not a modern human; it belonged to a poorly defined population of so-called 'archaic' people living in East Asia at the time the Neanderthals dominated Europe. Trinkaus thinks the Neanderthals were the western representatives of this continuum, with Maba and other specimens representing an eastern physical form.

Edited from BBC News, Popular Archaeology (21 November 2011), National Geographic News (22 November 2011)