Stone Pages - Archaeo News (Italy)

Horned helmets of the Bronze Age

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 15:14:09 +0100

Horned helmets are found in three places in Europe: Scandinavia, southern Iberia, and Sardinia. Horned helmet imagery has a complex history, with Levantine roots in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean. The only existing horned metal helmets are a pair from Denmark, though similar imagery is found both within and outside Denmark.
The horned warrior occurs in southern Sardinia and adjoining parts of Corsica, a middle zone in southwestern Iberia, and a northern zone in southern Scandinavia, but little or not at all in the rest of Europe, except in the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean, which have a deep history of horned-helmet figures connected with divine rulership and with warfare, at the time when the longstanding Bronze Age civilisation there was in rapid transition, around 1200 BCE.
Scandinavian horned-helmet representations stand out among Nordic Bronze Age expressions, yet are understudied as a group. Recent fieldwork acknowledges a relationship between the Sardinian and the Scandinavian imagery. Close similarities between the rock carvings of Tanum, Sweden, and the Iberian stelae have been noted, while Alpine and Galician rock art may reveal similarities between these regions.
Apart from the two normal-sized helmets from Denmark, and a horn from a similar helmet, the Scandinavian repertoire consists of three sets of two figurines. Additionally, there are a pair of figures on a razor, and about 40 images on rock in western Sweden. The motif favours horned twin warriors. Similar horns also occur on snakes and horses, and horse-headed gold bowls. Blowing horns or lurs, always in doubles, can be seen as a parallel way of portraying the horned twins, who are sometimes depicted playing the lur.
It is clear that horns in anthropomorphic and zoomorphic imagery have a deep ancestry. Overlapping dates are seen for horned-helmet representations in Scandinavia (1000 to 750 BCE), Iberia (1200 or 1100 to 750 BCE), and Sardinia (1200 to 750 BCE). Sardinia and the Iberian southwest are naturally rich in metals. Scandinavia was completely dependent on imported copper.
Sardinia and Iberia mostly share features that tie all three zones together. Archery is a favourite in both zones. Similarity between Scandinavia and Sardinia is strong, however the Scandinavian rock carvings share features especially with the Iberian stelae. The 40 Scandinavian horned-helmet warriors reside within a wider community of anthropomorphic figures, both in bronze and on rock, including other males without horned insignia, females, and smaller, more ordinary-looking figures.
Similarly, in Iberia, 41 horned-helmet figures are identifiable on 140 stelae so far recorded. In addition to horned-helmet warriors, the anthropomorphic group of stelae includes warriors wearing a crested or pointed conical helmet, in addition to smaller, anonymous-looking figures including children, and women wearing a diadem or crown headdress. Like the Scandinavian figurines and rock carvings, some of the Iberian scenes appear as a narrative. Both regions depict the horns in the same manner.
In the medium of bronze, helmet appearance is strikingly similar in Sardinia and Scandinavia, with a similar length, turn, and the position of the horns. Frequently occurring are short, stubby horns with a forward tilt close to the head, long horns standing erect, and the ends of horns sometimes with distinct knobs.
Sardinia has the largest variation of the three regions, including unique versions with longhorns pointing in different directions. The horns of Iberian stelae and the Tanum rock art always stand erect and may turn in various directions; their appearance seems to have been dictated by the stone. The combination of crest and horns on the Danish helmets matches those on the Sardinian bronzetti. Turned horns occur in all three zones. Doubles or mirror-images of warriors with and without horned helmets appear in all three zones.
The warrior stelae of Iberia belong to the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean Bronze Age. The local antecedents are Neolithic anthropomorphic portable idols and menhirs, as well as earlier Bronze Age stelae depicting weaponry in much the same way as the earliest warrior stelae, however the horned-helmet figure is an outsider to the region; its first appearance is likely due to Late Bronze Age connections with Sardinia. The subsequent Phoenician expansion in the west could have further reinforced the motif. Of the three zones, the Sardinian has the clearest local foundation, and may be the main source of the other two.

Edited from Praehistorische Zeitschrift, via De Gruyter (21 December 2021)

Earliest female infant burial in Europe

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 14:29:15 +0100

An elaborate early Mesolithic burial of an infant girl who lived just 40 to 50 days is the oldest identified female infant burial in Europe. Nicknamed "Neve", she was discovered in 2017 in the Arma Veirana cave in the pre-Alps of northwestern Italy, adorned with over 60 pierced shell beads in articulated lines, 4 shell pendants, and the talon of an eagle owl. Many of the ornaments exhibited wear demonstrating they were passed down to the child from group members.
Few recorded burials are known from this period, and infant burials are especially rare. Radiocarbon dating confirmed she died about 10,000 years ago. Using ancient DNA, protein analysis, and microscopic examination of her teeth, the study team identified the child's genetic lineage, sex, age at death, and determined that stress had briefly halted the growth of her teeth 47 days and 28 days before birth.
Layers near the mouth of the cave contained Mousterian tools over 50,000 years old typically associated with Neandertals in Europe, along with the cut-marked bones of wild boars and elk, and bits of charred fat. Other finds include much more recent stone tools likely transported from deeper inside the cave.

Edited from PhysORG, Gizmodo (14 December 2021)

Neanderthals could swim and dive?

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 12:34:19 +0100

Over 100,000 years ago at the Grotta dei Cavalli (Cave of Horses) on what is now the northwestern tip of Sicily, a group of Neanderthals made tools from clamshells - one of only three sites in the world where strong evidence has been found of systematic shell scraper manufacture by Neanderthals, another being the Grotta dei Moscerini (Cave of Gnats), a large seaside cave at the base of a cliff on the tip of Italy's boot-heel about 500 kilometres to the northeast.
The tools were found throughout multiple archaeological layers dating from 106,000 to 74,000 years ago, but were not distributed evenly throughout the Neanderthal-associated sequence; where shell tools were common, stone tools were not.
Neanderthals made stone tools, but their shell-based toolmaking is less well-known. In 1949, archaeologists found 171 at Moscerini. Another 136 were separately found at Cavalli, and much smaller numbers in other Neanderthal sites such as Kalamakia Cave in Greece.
The assumption had been that the Neanderthals picked up shells on the beach, but between a fifth and a quarter of the specimens found at the two sites in Italy seem to have been collected alive. All were made from the smooth clam, Callista chione. The shells are almost evenly thin from the bulge of the half-shell to its edge. Edges were shaped with stone hammers, and experiments demonstrate that unlike stone the cutting edges of the shells can be retouched two to three times without changing the cutting angle.
Studies show that Neanderthals preferred meat but also caught fish in shallow freshwater and ate shellfish. Neanderthals 115,000 years ago in what is now Spain bored holes into shells and coloured and decorated them. Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St Louis, USA, reports evidence of "surfer's ear" in Neanderthal skulls - bony growths in the ear canal prevalent among humans who swim in cold water. Interestingly, surfer's ear seems to have become less common in Upper Palaeolithic Neanderthal communities although signs of marine resource use remain.

Edited from Haaretz (15 January 2020)

Neolithic Italy was home to networks of metal exchange

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 19:25:50 +0100

During the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, Italy was home to complex networks of metalwork exchange, according to a study by Andrea Dolfini of Newcastle University (UK), and Gilberto Artioli and Ivana Angelini of the University of Padova (Italy).
Research in recent decades has revealed that copper mining and metalwork in Italy began earlier and included more complex technologies than previously thought. However, relatively little is known about metalwork exchange across the country, especially south of the Alps.
In this study, Dolfini and colleagues conducted an analysis of 20 copper items, including axe-heads, halberds, and daggers, from central Italy dating to the Copper Age, between 3600 and 2200 BCE. Comparing archaeological data and chemical signatures of these items to nearby sources of copper ore, as well as to other prehistoric sites, they were able to determine that most of the examined objects were cast from copper mined in Tuscany, with the rest sourced from the western Alps and possibly the French Midi.
These results not only confirm the importance of the Tuscan region as a source of copper for Copper Age communities in Italy, reaching as far as the Tyrolean area home of Oetzi, the Alpine Iceman, but also reveal the unexpected finding that non-Tuscan copper was a significant import to the region at this time.
These data contribute to a growing picture of multiple independent networks of Copper Age metal exchange in the Alps and neighboring regions. The authors note that future research might uncover other early sources of copper, as well as more details of the interactions between these early trade networks.
The authors add: "The research has revealed that, while some of the copper was sourced from the rich ore deposits of Tuscany, as was expected, some is from further afield. This unforeseen discovery demonstrates that far-reaching metal exchange networks were in operation in prehistoric Europe over a thousand years before the Bronze Age."

Edited from PhysORG (22 January 2020)

Scientists identify sinew bowstring used by Oetzi

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:47:55 +0100

A length of cord found alongside the body of Oetzi, the Neolithic hunter who was discovered entombed in ice high in the Dolomites, has been identified as a string for his wooden bow.
Experts had long speculated that the two objects were connected but definitive proof has now been obtained by a team of Swiss scientists. The cord, which was found tucked into a quiver used by the 5,300-year-old Iceman for keeping his arrows, is made of animal sinew - ideal material for producing a strong, powerful bow. It is two metres long, almost exactly the same length as the bow that was found beside the mummified body of the hunter when he was discovered by a pair of hikers on the Schnalstal glacier in 1991.
"It has finally been confirmed by science: the cord in Oetzi's quiver is indeed a bowstring and it fits his bow perfectly," the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology, where the mummified body of the Neolithic tribesman is kept in a climate-controlled chamber, said in a statement.
It was previously thought the cord was made of plant material, but plant fibres "would not have withstood the tension of the bow and as such wouldn't have been suitable for a bowstring," said experts from the museum in Bolzano, in the German-speaking north of Italy. The bowstring has been declared the oldest known and best preserved in the world.
The scientists from the Swiss National Science Foundation also discovered that the Copper Age hunter's bow had been freshly-cut from a yew tree. It was not yet finished - they found marks left by a hatchet which would have been used to whittle and shape the wood.
The discovery of Oetzi, in a 3,210m high mountain pass on the border of Austria and Italy, caused a sensation. He died after being struck in the back by an arrow, sparking a long-running mystery as to who may have wanted to kill him and why - the ultimate cold case.

Edited from The Telegraph (18 December 2019)

Ancient Italian skeletons had hemp in their teeth

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 19:29:54 +0100

In a new analysis of thousands of teeth from ancient skeletons buried at a site near Naples (Italy), archaeologists have discovered that people were using their mouths to help with their work - occupations that likely involved processing hemp into string and fabric.
To archaeologists, the pattern of tooth use that occurs from actions other than chewing is called AIDM -- activity-induced dental modification -- and can reveal cultural information about a person's life, diet, and occupation.
A group of Italian and American researchers led by Alessandra Sperduti of the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome analysed more than 3,000 teeth from over 200 people who were buried in a cemetery at the Early Bronze Age (2500-1800 BCE) site of Gricignano d'Aversa just north of Naples.
Sperduti and colleagues found grooves near the chewing surfaces of the teeth of 28 females and 1 male, and further learned that no children under the age of 15 had any evidence of AIDM. The pattern of the grooves is "consistent with the hypothesis of yarn production - or weaving preparation - of small-diameter threads," they note, which were repeatedly pulled across the fronts and sizes of the women's upper incisors and canines. The striking difference in number of women versus men found to have these grooves indicates "a clear gender division in the fiber manipulation."
The researchers also analyzed the dental calculus - calcified plaque that can trap microscopic pieces of food - from 19 of the skeletons buried in the cemetery."The most interesting find," they write, "is the evidence of three micro-fragments of fibers in two female individuals." The fiber fragments appear to be hemp (Cannabis sp.), and are a perfect match for the width of the tooth grooves.
It is unclear archaeologically exactly how old hemp production in ancient Italy is, since the fiber does not preserve well, but it was well known in Roman times. At the site of Gricignano d'Aversa, though, hemp was also found attached to a metal blade in the tomb of an adult male - likely the remains of fabric sheath. This discovery of hemp in dental calculus and in a burial at the same site therefore speaks to the importance of the fabric and its manufacture in Bronze Age southern Italy.
Sperduti and colleagues conclude that "as more work is done analyzing dental calculus in a variety of humans, it is apparent that this biological material holds rich resources documenting non-dietary habits."

Edited from Forbes (30 August 2018)

Sicilian amber diffusion pre-dates Baltic kind by 2,000 years

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 19:29:35 +0100

Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery. 'Baltic' amber from Scandinavia is often cited as a key material circulating in prehistoric Europe, but researchers have found that amber from Sicily (Italy) was travelling around the Western Mediterranean as early as the 4th Millennium BCE - at least 2,000 years before the arrival of any Baltic amber in Iberia.
According to lead author Dr Mercedes Murillo-Barroso of the Universidad de Granada, "The new evidence presented in this study has allowed the most comprehensive review to date on the provision and exchange of amber in the Prehistory of Iberia. Thanks to this new work, we now have evidence of the arrival of Sicilian amber in Iberia from at least the 4th Millennium BCE. Interestingly, the first amber objects recovered in Sicily and identified as being made from the local amber there (known as simetite) also date from the 4th Millennium BCE, however, there is no other evidence indicating direct contact between Sicily and Iberia at this time."
Dr Mercedes Murillo-Barroso also reported that "It is plausible that Sicilian amber reached Iberia through exchanges with North Africa. This amber appears at southern Iberian sites and its distribution is similar to that of ivory objects, suggesting that both materials reached the Iberian Peninsula following the same or similar channels."
Senior author Professor Marcos Martinón-Torres, of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge adds, "It is only from the Late Bronze Age that we see Baltic amber at a large number of Iberian sites and it is likely that it arrived via the Mediterranean, rather than through direct trade with Scandinavia. Amber from the North may have moved South across Central Europe before being shipped to the West by Mediterranean sailors, challenging previous suggestions of direct trade between Scandinavia and Iberia."
Murillo-Barroso concludes, "There are still unresolved issues to be investigated in the future - namely exploring the presence of amber in North African contexts from the same time period and further researching the networks involved in the introduction and spread of Baltic amber in Iberia and the extent to which metals or other Iberian commodities were provided in return."

Edited from EurekAlert!, Popular Archaeology (29 August 2018)

Wooden tools hint at Neanderthal fire use

Fri, 23 Feb 2018 11:02:11 +0100

Archaeologists unearthed pieces of several wooden digging sticks from a plain at the foot of a low hill in Tuscany (Italy) where 171,000 years ago the shore of a lake was surrounded by grasslands and marshes - home to large grazing mammals, including the straight-tusked elephants whose bones litter the site.
If you're a hunter-gatherer, the digging stick is your foraging multi-tool: about a meter long, one end rounded to offer a handle and the other tapered almost to a point; useful for digging up roots and tubers, hunting burrowing animals, or pounding and grinding herbs. Neanderthals of Middle Pleistocene Italy created and used digging sticks that would be familiar to modern hunter-foragers, like the Bindibu of Australia, Hadza of Tanzania, and San of southern Africa. In most modern hunter-gatherer cultures, digging sticks are women's tools.
The finds date to a period when Neanderthals roamed the hills of southern Italy. Archaeologists excavating the site in 2012 found 39 broken pieces of the sticks, along with an assortment of stone tools. Of the 39 fragments, only about four pointed tips and six rounded handles survived, along with 31 pieces of shafts. Four of the handles and all of the tips had been broken during the tools' lifetimes.
Researchers noticed that one of the digging sticks had a 1-millimetre-thick layer of black film on its shaft, its surface fractured in a square-like pattern reminiscent of charring. Chemical testing revealed that the wood had in fact been charred, as had 11 of the other pieces. All were charred evenly, on the same part of the stick, implying carefully controlled exposure to fire.
Archaeologists say that the Neanderthals probably used fire to char the surface of the wood to make it easier to scrape off the bark and shape the ends. Boxwood is one of the strongest European hardwoods - perfect for a digging stick - but it's also difficult to shape with stone tools. Fire would have softened an outer layer and made it easier to work. When researchers tried working some boxwood branches, they found that they couldn't shape the handles and points without first charring the wood.
Some archaeologists think that Homo heidelbergensis, an ancestor of Neanderthals, may have used a similar method to shape spears in a 300,000-year-old site in Germany, which come to much sharper points than the digging sticks from Italy, but lack evidence for the use of fire in their manufacture. That makes the digging sticks from Italy the earliest clear examples of wooden tools shaped with fire.

Edited from Popular Archaeology, Ars Technica (5 February 2018), Newsweek (6 February 2018)

Oetzi the Iceman gets the big screen treatment

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 21:12:20 +0100

There can be no more famous a person in European archaeology than 'Oetzi the Iceman'. The remains of this 5,300 year old Alpine hunter have been at the centre of an unprecedented degree of attention and examination since a German couple first stumbled across him in the ice of the southern Tyrol, on the borders of northern Italy and southern Austria. In 1991.
Now a German film maker has dramatized his life into a feature film. The film fictionalises Oetzi's travels through the Otztal Alps and speculated on how and why he eventually died, to lie preserved in the ice for thousands of years.
Despite Oetzi's existing vast popularity with tourists, ever since he was displayed under controlled conditions in a special museum in Bolzano, northern Italy, the museum is bracing itself for an even higher number of visitors following the film's release. Even though there has been some criticism from some academic quarters, the film attempts to show how Oetzi might have lived and hunted. They have even gone to the extent of making the actor who portrays him speak in a pre-Roman language called Rhaetic, which it is believed was spoken in that area at the time.
Despite what will undoubtedly lead to more interest in this intriguing figure there are serious concerns that the interested generated could lead to Oetzi's destruction. This increased attention by both the public and scientists are having an effect on the controlled conditions in which he is preserved.
The museum is having to conduct a constant process of hydration to the remains, keeping it cool at the same time. The fear is that microbes and bacteria could be introduced during the process and the forensic scientist in charge of the process, Oliver Peschel, is so concerned that he is quoted as saying "If we're not extremely careful Oetzi will go bad on us". Despite these dire concerns scientists are far from finished examining him!

Edited from The Guardian (3 December 2017)

Ancient textiles reveal differences in Mediterranean fabrics

Sun, 03 Dec 2017 12:46:59 +0100

One of the earliest human craft technologies and applied arts, is the production of textiles. The production of this material would represent one of the most important, time, resource, and labor consuming activities in ancient times.
However, despite their importance, they are rarely present in archaeological contexts, especially in Mediterranean Europe, due to the unfavorable conditions for preservation of organic materials. A new article published in Antiquity may change the way these textiles are studied through the study of mineralized textiles. This has provided a more detailed study of hundreds of textile fragments from Italy and Greece in the first half of the first millennium BCE.
According to Dr Margarita Gleba, the study's author and researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, "Luckily for us, during the Iron Age (c. 1000-400 BCE) people were buried with a lot of metal goods such as personal ornaments, weapons and vessels. These metals are conducive to the preservation of textiles as the metal effectively kills off the micro-organisms which would otherwise consume the organic materials, while at the same time metal salts create casts of textile fibres, thereby preserving the textile microstructure."
Dr Gleba also adds: "This is how we get such a large number of textiles, even though they only exist now in tiny fragments. Through meticulous analysis using digital and scanning electron microscopy, high performance liquid chromatography and other advanced methods we are able to determine a lot of information including the nature of the raw materials and structural features such as thread diameter, twist direction, type of weaving or binding, and thread count."
The results of her study imply that there were close similarities between the Italian Iron Age textiles and those from Central Europe, normally associated with the Hallstatt culture, while the Greek textiles were more closely connected to the Near East.

Edited from EurekAlert! (22 September 2017)

The continuing story of Oetzi

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 15:09:16 +0100

The mummified remains of a Chalcolithic man were first found in the Olztal Alps, between Austria and Italy, in September 1991. Since then the story of Oetzi the Iceman, as he became known, has unravelled and enthralled us. Recently researchers from the University of Padua have been analysing the copper head which formed the cutting blade of the axe which had been found alongside Oetzi's body.
Before the research began it had been believed that the copper had been mined and forged in either the local Alpine area or the nearby Balkans. Using chemical analysis and isotope analysis the Paduan team, lead by Professor Gilberto Artioli, has come to the conclusion that the copper used had actually been mined in Southern Tuscany.
Their belief is founded on the fact that the lead-isotope variation in this region is unique in Europe and the Mediterranean areas. This raises new questions as to whether it was traded as copper ore or the finished article. Either was it has identified new trade routes that were previously unknown in the 4th Century BCE.

Edited from Archaeology & Arts (10 July 2017)

Sound-reflecting rock shelters attracted ancient artists

Wed, 16 Aug 2017 13:02:17 +0100

Researchers say that members of early farming communities in in the central Mediterranean preferred to paint images in rock shelters where sounds bounced off walls and into the surrounding countryside. Archaeologist Margarita Diaz-Andreu of the University of Barcelona and colleagues report that in landscapes with many potential rock art sites, "the few shelters chosen to be painted were those that have special acoustic properties."
Diaz-Andreu's team studied two rock art sites generally dated to between approximately 6,500 and 5,000 years ago. In southeastern France, at the kilometer-long cliff site of Baume Brune, only eight of the forty-three naturally formed cavities in the cliff contain paintings, which include treelike figures and horned animals. On the east coast of Italy, in the Valle d'Ividoro, at an 800-metre-long section of a gorge, only three of eleven natural shelters contain painted images.
The researchers popped balloons in front of each rock-shelter, recording the sound waves from various locations and distances. Three-dimensional slow-motion depictions of echoes revealed that at both sites, shelters with rock paintings displayed better echoing properties than undecorated shelters, and that shelters with the best echoes had the highest number of paintings.
In a separate study of paintings in northern Finland dated to between around 7,200 and 3,000 years ago, music archaeologist Riitta Rainio of the University of Helsinki and her colleagues found that echoes from steep rock cliffs bordering three lakes also attracted ancient artists. She and her colleagues recorded from boats on the lakes.
Similarly, at the Grotte de Niaux in southwestern France, archaeologist Paul Pettitt of Durham University in England observes that many roughly 14,000 to 12,000 year-old animal drawings and engravings are concentrated in a cathedral-like chamber where sounds echo loudly.

Edited from Science News (26 June 2017)

Huge prostrate menhir discovered in northern Italy

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 12:13:45 +0100

Andrea Eremita, Bruno Calatroni, Stefano Albertieri, Paolo Ciarma e Aldo Ummarino of the 'Archeonervia' research group have announced the discovery of a 5-meter tall menhir hidden under the vegetation around the Seborga area, near Imperia (Liguria, Italy).
According to the discoverers, the huge monument - that now lies on the ground - was cut from a single block of quartz sandstone rock and it should weigh at last 6 tons. Measuring 5,22 meters by 1,25 at the base, the gigantic stone fell from the original erect position possibly due to natural causes. On the side that now is facing up there is a pair of cupmarks, and the discoverers believe these have been carved in prehistoric times to assess the sacrality of the stone.
The base of the rock was slightly tapered, with signs of carving, so to ease its insertion on a holding socket.
On the same area many other standing stones have been found, but the vast majority was discovered lying on the ground due to both the action of local Benedictine monks that in historical times used to knock down what they considered pagan symbols, and the fact that the ground in the area is very hard and steep, so it's difficult to create a hole deep and strong enough to keep a stone in a standing position.

Edited from Sanremo News (25 February 2017)

Ancient 'calendar rock' found in Sicily

Sat, 07 Jan 2017 18:56:45 +0100

Italian archaeologists have found an intriguing 'calendar rock' in Sicily. Featuring a 3.2-foot diameter hole, the rock formation marked the beginning of winter some 5,000 years ago. The holed Neolithic rock was discovered Nov. 30, 2016 on a hill near a prehistoric necropolis six miles from Gela (Sicily, Italy) by archaeologists Giuseppe La Spina, Michele Curto, and Mario Bracciaventi while conducting surveys of WWII-era bunkers.
"It appeared clear to me that we were dealing with a deliberate, man-made hole," La Spina said. "However, we needed the necessary empirical evidence to prove the stone was used as a prehistoric calendar to measure the seasons."
Using a compass, cameras and a video camera mounted to a GPS-equipped drone, La Spina and colleagues carried out a test in December at the winter solstice. The idea was to find out if the rising sun at solstice aligned with the distinct hole in the rock feature. According to La Spina, "At 7:32 am the sun shone brightly through the hole with an incredible precision. It was amazing."
The 23-foot high holed stone would have marked a turning point of the year and the seasons, anticipating some hard and cold time ahead. The moment likely had a ritual importance. In fact, further investigation of the area revealed the site was a sacred place at the end of the third millennium BCE. Not far from the holed stone, the researchers found several intact burials known as grotticella tombs. Excavated in the rock, these chamber tombs were the main form of burial for the Castelluccio culture that fluorished in the Sicilian early Bronze Age.
Interestingly, on the east of the calendar rock, La Spina and colleagues found what appears to be a menhir, or upright stone. The 16.4-foot-tall stone lay on the ground, but the presence of a pit near its base suggests the megalith was originally standing upright. "It stood at a distance of 26 feet, right in front of the rock's hole," La Spina said. The geological composition of the calendar rock and the menhir are different, indicating the monolite was cut and brought to the site from elsewhere. "This obviously reinforces the sacrality of the site," La Spina said.
At least two other holed stones have been found in Sicily in the past. "The newly found calendar rock appears to have been made by the same hand that carved the other two rocks," archeo-astronomy expert Alberto Scuderi, regional director of Italian Archaeologist Groups, said. Scuderi discovered the two holed stones near Palermo.
According to Giulio Magli, professor of archaeo-astronomy at Milan's Polytechnic University, the finding is very interesting, especially when associated to two holed stones found in the past. "More research and scientific measurements must be taken," Magli said. "We should not consider the holed stones as a precise calendars or an instruments to observe the sun's cycle, but rather monuments that provided information on the solstices for practical and agricultural purposes."

Edited from Seeker (5 January 2017)

What Oetzi the Iceman sounded like

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 08:27:59 +0100

We know what Oetzi was wearing when he died more than 5,000 years ago. We know how many tattoos he had. Now scientists have recreated the "best possible approximation" of his voice.
Lead researcher Rolando Fuestoes explains: "We can't say we have reconstructed Oetzi's original voice, because we miss some crucial information from the mummy. But with two measurements, the length of both the vocal tract and the vocal cords, we have been able to recreate a fairly reliable approximation of the mummy's voice."
Oetzi was found by two German hikers in 1991, frozen and mummified in the Oetzal Alps in South Tyrol, and is Europe's oldest known natural mummy, providing researchers with an unprecedented glimpse into what life was like around 3,300 BCE, during the Copper Age.
Oetzi was murdered - he most likely died from an arrow wound to his shoulder. He was dressed in a mix of sheep, goat, and cow skins, and carried a deerskin quiver and a bearskin cap. His 61 tattoos have been studied in detail. By reconstructing his voice, researchers hope to gain more insight into what humans might have sounded like.
Francesco Avanzini, one of the researchers, says: "Of course, we don't know what language he spoke 5,000 years ago. But we should be able to recreate the timbre of his vowel sounds and, I hope, even create simulation of consonants."
They've now succeeded with the vowel reconstruction. CT scans were used to map Oetzi's internal structure, since MRI scans could have damaged the mummy. One difficulty is that Oetzi's arm is covering his throat, and the hyoid - or tongue-bone - is party absorbed and dislocated. The tension and density of the vocal cords and the thickness and composition of the throat tissue were simulated using mathematical models.
The team predicts that Oetzi's voice had a frequency between 100 and 150 Hz, which is similar to average males today.

Edited from Science Alert (22 September 2016)