Stone Pages - Archaeo News (Rest of Europe)

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)

Ancient Mediterranean tsunami

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 15:13:48 +0100

Researchers have excavated the remains of a young man killed by a tsunami about 3,600 years ago, following the eruption of a volcano on the Aegean island of Santorini, roughly equidistant from the shores of Crete, Greece, and Turkey. The eruption has long been blamed for the decline of the Minoan civilisation on the island of Crete.
Tsunamis tend to pull debris back into the sea, so while volcanic ash is plentiful, little evidence of the tsunami has been found. The remains of the young man were discovered at a Late Bronze Age site on the shore of western Turkey, about 200 kilometres from the volcano, in layers of ash and debris trapped behind a retaining wall.
The eruption has been tentatively dated to 1560 BCE, based on tree rings found in an ancient Phrygian tomb last year. Damaged walls, rubble, sediment and ash at the site in Turkey - all evidence of multiple tsunamis related to the eruption - date to no earlier than 1612 BCE.

Edited from PhysORG (29 December 2022), Nature World News (3 January 2022)

Ancient pottery found in Jersey

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 15:13:03 +0100

A nearly complete late Bronze Age pottery vessel has been found in fields intended for a new hospital on the island of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. Thin-walled and finely made, the vessel is believed to be of Deverel-Rimbury style from around 1200-900 BCE, placed in a purposely dug pit. A decorated fragment from the rim of a pot was also found, which may be part of a different vessel.
Inside were two scraps of copper alloy metalwork. One, a hexagonal tube approximately 15 millimetres in length, may have been part of a socketed axe or small socketed hammer. The other is flat, irregularly shaped, rectangular in cross-section, and about 31 millimetres at the widest point.
Further investigations will be carried out on the site ahead of construction.

Edited from Jersey Evening Post (8 January 2022)

Turkish Neolithic statuette - a man or a woman?

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:16:27 +0100

There is a Neolithic and Chalcolithic site in the central Turkish region of Anatolia, known as Catalhoyuk. Excavations first began in 1958 and this first phase continued through until 1965, under the lead of British archaeologist James Mellaart. During the course of these investigations 18 layers of buildings were uncovered, dating from 7100 BCE to 5600 BCE.
No further investigations then happened on the site until 1993, when a team from Cambridge University (UK) started their investigations, headed by Ian Hodder from Stamford University (USA). The site has proved to be so rich in finds and importance that it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.
During more recent excavations on the site's southern mound, several miniature figurines have been uncovered, but a recent discovery of a miniature marble statuette has archaeologists puzzled as to its gender, despite the previous preponderance of female statuettes.
Local archaeology professor at the Anadolu University (Turkey), Ali Umut Turkcan, is quoted as saying of the piece that it "is reminiscent of figurines identified as male, leaning back slightly on the back of an animal, similar to those found in excavations in the past". To give an idea of the size of the site the average population, over its lifetime, is estimated at between 5000 and 7000, making it one of the largest Neolithic settlements ever found.

Edited from TurkishPress (28 December 2021)

Arctic hunter-gatherers were advanced ironworkers

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:11:54 +0100

Excavations at Sangis, 1,000 kilometres north-northeast of Stockholm near the Gulf of Bothnia, uncovered a rectangular iron-smelting furnace comprised of stone slabs with one open side, and holes in the frame for blowing air onto burning charcoal. A clay chimney had been built in and partly on the frame. Inside the furnace were remnants of a ceramic wall lining, and slag from heating iron ore.
Radiocarbon dates show the site was active between around 200 BCE and 50 BCE. Pottery fragments and other material were discovered about 500 metres from the furnace, dating to between around 500 BCE and 900 CE. Other finds include numerous fish bones, at least three fire pits where iron was reheated and refined, as well as several iron items, others of steel, a bronze buckle, and metallic waste with copper droplets on the surface. The casting and decorative style of the bronze buckle resembles metal items found at sites in northwestern Russia dating to as early as around 2,300 years ago. Knives and other iron objects found at Sangis contained two or more layers that had been expertly welded together, and had in some cases been heat-treated to improve their strength.
Other excavations at Vivungi, about 260 kilometres further north, uncovered remains of two iron-smelting furnaces in use from around 100 BCE. Radiocarbon dates of animal bones found near the furnaces indicate repeated occupation from around 5300 BCE to 1600 CE.
Supposed by many to have been an invention of large agricultural societies in southwest Asia more than 3,000 years ago, evidence of iron production more than 2,000 years ago is known in southern Scandinavia, and preliminary study suggests iron was also being produced in East Asia at that time.

Edited from Science News (3 January 2022)

Landscape modification by last interglacial Neanderthals

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 11:10:39 +0100

Most examples relating hominin behavior to more detailed and continuous records of environmental change involve the transformation of late Pleistocene or early Holocene vegetation through the use of fire. Burning practices by hunter-gatherers are widespread across almost all biomes worldwide. Australian studies suggest that fire use has measurable benefits in terms of prey density and habitat diversity, and depends on regular burning. One recent study proposes that early modern humans were using fire around northern Lake Malawi in Africa by around 85,000 years ago, another that human activities have shaped nearly three-quarters of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years.
A new study presents paleoenvironmental and archaeological data from the Last Interglacial period of Neumark-Nord, about 190 kilometres southwest of Berlin, near Halle, where comparative data strongly suggest that Neanderthals had a role in vegetation transformation. The site complex represents a long phase of distinct vegetation openness that correlates with an approximately 2,000 year period of significant hominin presence in the area.
After a long period of abandonment, when major parts of the northern European plain were covered by ice sheets, hunter-gatherers moved back into this region at the beginning of the Last Interglacial. In the rain shadow of the Harz mountains with relatively low precipitation, the basin has become well known for the discoveries of numerous virtually complete skeletons of large mammals such as straight-tusked elephants, rhinos, bison, horses, deer, boar, aurochs, lions, hyenas, and bears, with and an abundance of faunal remains interspersed with traces of Neanderthal activities - including substantial evidence for fire use - in a diverse environment comprising both forested patches and large open areas, with a climate broadly comparable to today.
While the butchering of large herbivores created a highly visible archaeological record at Neanderthal sites in general, nutritional studies strongly suggest that plants played an important role in Neanderthal diets, possibly reflected by the few charred remains of hazelnut, acorn, and blackthorn in the Neumark-Nord landscape, where an increase in upland herbs and grasses including wild relatives of wheat and barley would have enabled easy access to a now well-established component of the Neanderthal diet.
Traces of Neanderthal presence are well documented for the wider area around Neumark-Nord, and increasingly also in northwestern France, which could suggest locally higher hominin densities and a less mobile lifestyle during interglacial periods. Evidence for Neanderthal landscape modification points to an important and previously unknown aspect of Neanderthal behaviour, and is older than comparable evidence for Homo sapiens.

Edited from Science Advanced (15 December 2021)

Remains of 4,500-year-old rope found in Turkey

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 16:59:19 +0100

A third consecutive year of excavations at the Seyitömer mound around 200 kilometres south-southeast of Istanbul have revealed the remnants of a 4,500-year-old rope, along with other organic items which survived because they had been charred by fire. Around 12 centimetres long and 1.5 centimetres in diameter, the rope is similar in weave to modern ropes, with a double spiral of twisted strands.
The mound dates to the 3rd century BCE, with evidence of Early Bronze Age and Roman period settlements. The site has yielded more than 17,000 artefacts. Originally 26 metres high, 140 metres wide and 150 metres long, mining for lignite - a type of soft coal - began in 1989. Archaeological digs have happened between 1990 and 1995, from 2006 to 2014, and again since 2019.

Edited from Daily Sabah (23 December 2021)

Rock art found in Turkey

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 11:20:21 +0100

A rock shelter with paintings dating to the 5th millennium BCE has been discovered 2 kilometres northwest of the 3,500-year-old city of Alinda, about 500 kilometres south-southwest of Istanbul and 50 kilometres from the Aegean Sea.
The rock shelter was found during a surface survey, and officials encountered wall paintings resembling human figures inside. While four of the paintings are believed to feature female figures, two feature male figures. Found in an area known as Bitişik Tepe, the paintings are older than the ancient city, which dates to 1,400 BCE. The human figures were made with a plant-derived dye, and date to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic period.
Alinda has a three-storey plan and a large plaza. The province of Aydin is Anatolia's biggest producer of dried figs, also exporting olives, chestnuts, fruits, and cotton.

Edited from Hurriyet Daily News (20 December 2021)

Vast trade network in prehistoric Russia

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 12:48:22 +0100

Green axes and adzes made from metatuff - a metamorphic rock formed when volcanic ash is subjected to high heat and pressure - were in great demand across Neolithic northeastern Europe. Excavations at one of 40 identified workshops along the Shuya River near Lake Onega, about 300 kilometres northeast of St Petersburg in the Russian Republic of Karelia, have yielded 350,000 lithic finds, 84 percent of which are metatuff.
Radiocarbon dating of organic matter associated with 77 Neolithic and Eneolithic sites in the region indicates this source was exploited starting around 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, before any evidence of agriculture or domesticated animals. The two known prehistoric quarries are estimated to have produced hundreds of thousands of tools. Analysis of hundreds of preforms and finished tools, their geographical distribution, and context, reveals a massive distribution network with long-distance trade to Finland and Sweden, Kazan and Eastern Siberia, more than 1,000 kilometres away.
Requiring a specialised four-stage process, making the tools is a tedious process. Most are quite big and heavy. Some of the largest and finest specimens are found in a detached context, leading to speculation they were ritual offerings, but not all these artefacts are in pristine condition; less developed pieces exhibiting heavy wear are commonly found in mundane contexts. Metatuff was not the only raw material available. Tools made of flint, points made of slate, hammered native copper artefacts, amber jewelry, and more have been identified.

Edited from Haaretz.com (7 December 2021)

Metal deposition were 'the most ordinary thing in the world'

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 15:13:47 +0100

As part of her PhD on Bronze Age European metal deposits, Marieke Visser showed the practice of metal deposition was an expression of people's relationships with the world around them.
"Archaeologists have become stuck in very strict interpretation models," says Visser. "Certain criteria were drawn up and boxes ticked per find. The assumption was that there were religious and non-religious depositions. I find this approach problematic because the data often don't fit in these boxes. You can't simply project the modern idea of religion onto the Bronze Age."
While it may seem illogical to throw something so valuable away, Visser points out that it is no different than the modern throwing of coins in a fountain instead of the bin. To gain a better understanding of these actions, Visser's project focuses on the actions instead of the motives, going on to say: "An incredible number of depositions have been found from throughout the Bronze Age. If you systematically research these, look at which object in which place, you discover the conventions. That shows that these objects weren't lost by accident. There are clear patterns. This was deliberate."
One such pattern was the lack of naturally occurring metal in the areas where the deposits occurred, making the finds even more valuable. These finds then show a connection to the outside world and the networks these locations worked within. One example seen from Denmark showed finds from Central Europe and Great Britain.
Visser's project studies Denmark, Northern Germany, and the Northern Netherlands, which have never been compared on this scale. Part of her project relies on the construction of a database to make it easier to recognize the patterns in the landscape.

Edited from PhysORG (7 December 2021)

Largest known Viking Longhouse in Scandinavia

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 14:28:22 +0100

Archaeologists have discovered several Iron Age Viking longhouses in Gjellestad, a village about 100 kilometres south-southeast of Oslo (Norway), thought to be a place of great importance during the Iron Age which lasted from around 1200 to 600 BCE. Out of the five longhouses identified using ground-penetrating radar, the biggest measured 60 metres long and 15 metres wide, making it one of the largest known in Scandinavia. A typical Iron Age longhouse from is believed to have measured 20 to 30 metres. The size of a longhouse corresponds with the wealth and influence of its owner, further proving this site was one of great importance.
Several burial mounds were also found, along with a ship burial reserved for the most important nobles in Viking society. Referred to as the Gjellestad ship, the vessel would have either been commandeered or specially constructed and brought onto land, the deceased placed on the boat along with funerary offerings, and all interred together. One of few surviving examples, the ship will be the first that Norway has excavated in 100 years.

Edited from ARTnews (6 December 2021), Life in Norway (7 December 2021)

4000-year-old graves discovered in Denmark

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 09:24:53 +0100

In an extremely rare find, the remains of five children have been discovered in two separate graves in a burial mound in Denmark, about 25 kilometres west of Copenhagen.
A collective grave from the late Neolithic, circa 2400-1700 BCE, contained the remains of four skeletons, three aged three to four years old and one a little older. One was buried with a flint dagger. The second grave dates from the Bronze Age, circa 1700-500 BCE, and was for a single individual, found buried with a bronze ring attached to its head. All the bones were well preserved. Researchers hope to find traces of DNA that could provide clues about who these children were and how they died.
A bronze blade excavated from the top of the burial mound is not a typical find for a child's grave.

Edited from The Vintage News (9 December 2021)

Earliest evidence of humans decorating jewellery in Eurasia

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 16:59:38 +0100

A broken pendant carved from a 41,500-year-old piece of woolly mammoth tusk could be the oldest known example of decorated jewellery in Eurasia made by humans. Discovered in 2010 among animal bones and a few Upper Paleolithic stone tools during fieldwork in Stajnia Cave, a natural rock shelter in southern Poland, the oval-shaped pendant has two drilled holes and is decorated with at least 50 smaller puncture marks that create a looping curve. The largest piece is 4.5 centimetres long and 1.5 centimetres wide, while the thickness varies between 3.6 and 3.9 millimetres. The diameter of the fully preserved hole is 2.3 millimetres. Radiocarbon dating puts the piece of mammoth tusk used to make the pendant between 41,730 and 41,340 years old - within the record of the earliest dispersals of Homo sapiens in Europe, and 2,000 years older than similarly decorated artefacts from Germany, France, Russia, and the Siberian Arctic.
Separate short term occupations by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens groups have been identified from the cave, within a large collection of bones of Late Pleistocene steppe-tundra species, and Middle and Upper Paleolithic artefacts, including a 7-centimetre-long awl made from a piece of horse bone, dated to around 42,000 years ago.
Upon their dispersals in Central and Western Europe by around 42,000 years ago, groups of Homo sapiens started to manipulate mammoth tusks for the production of pendants and portable objects, at times decorated with geometric motifs. In addition to lines, crosses, and criss-crosses, a new type of decoration - the alignment of punctuations - appeared in some ornaments in south-western France and figurines in Swabian Jura in Germany. Until now, most of these adornments were from older excavations, so their dates were uncertain and questions regarding the emergence of human body augmentation and the diffusion of mobiliary art in Europe remained strongly debated.

Edited from PhysORG (25 November 2021), Nature magazine (29 November 2021)

Why did modern humans take so long to settle in Europe?

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 11:10:53 +0100

From three sites in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic respectively, research have identified, and re-dated early human remains to between 40,000 - 50,000 years ago. However, these bones have produced a genetic profile that is not a match to any modern Europeans.
"These early settlements appear to have been created by groups of early modern humans who did not survive to pass on their genes," said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London. "They are our species' lost lineages. The crucial point is that the demise of these early modern human settlers meant Neanderthals still occupied Europe for a further few thousand years before Homo sapiens eventually took over the continent."
One of the studies was a the dating of a female skull from the Zlatý Kůň cave in the Czech Republic, which was redated from being 15,000 years old to being at least 45,000 years old. This made the woman one of the oldest Homo Sapiens found in Europe. However, once again, this woman did not have any genetic matches to modern Europeans.
These lost outposts point towards the Homo Sapiens dispersed into Europe in pulses rather than one solid wave. This raises questions as to why certain groups failed while others saw great success. Other questions, as to what level interbreeding took place between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals over time and how this changed.
"As numbers of Homo sapiens grew and we spread ever wider across Europe, it is quite possible that we 'absorbed' some of the other species - in particular, the Neanderthals - out of existence," said Stringer. "If prime-age Neanderthals were entering the modern human breeding pool, whether voluntarily or otherwise, those individuals were no longer contributing to the survival of their own species. The end result would have been straightforward extinction for the Neanderthals - although, as a species, they still survive in the DNA of men and women today."

Edited from The Guardian (14 November 2021)

Prehistoric village discovered in Turkey

Sun, 05 Dec 2021 09:37:13 +0100

Karahan Tepe is around 35 kilometres east-southeast of Göbekli Tepe. Now considered part of a constellation of contemporaneous settlements that extends over 100 kilometres, and at least 11 other unexcavated sites including Karahan Tepe, Göbekli Tepe is famous for the world's oldest known temple structures, dating to 9600 BCE. Recent work has also revealed domestic structures at Göbekli Tepe.
Described as one of the world's oldest villages, Karahan Tepe includes a vast ritualistic complex. The first of a dozen prehistoric sites to be excavated by Turkish authorities in the southeast, near the Syrian border, Karahan Tepe was carved into the slope of a hill on a high limestone plateau between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, around 400 kilometres east of the nearest Mediterranean port. Sacred and secular spaces were built simultaneously, and the site was occupied year-round for about 1,500 years. No remnants of farmed vegetation have been found.
One of the circular chambers at Karahan Tepe contains 11 giant phalluses carved from the bedrock, watched over by a carving depicting a bearded head with a serpent's body emerging from the wall. The space has a separate entrance and exit, and a channel for water.
Stone reliefs of wildlife range from insects to mammals and include attacking beasts gripping men's heads. There are more depictions of humans than at Göbekli Tepe, which is around 200 years older. As at Göbekli Tepe, scores of T-shaped anthropomorphic stelae have been unearthed. Since 2019, around 1 percent of the 60,000 square metre site has been excavated.
Turkey could open Karahan Tepe to tourists next year. The government is investing around $14m to build a research centre, expand excavations to as many as 30 sites in the area, and attract visitors to Göbekli Tepe and other Neolithic sites.

Edited from The Art Newspaper (17 November 2021)