🧐 Ancient Beat #42: Ice age writing systems, Viking captives, and a new Scythian-style culture
Hi folks! Welcome to issue #42 of Ancient Beat. I hope you’re all having a wonderful start to 2023! Let’s get right into this week’s ancient news. 👇
🗞 Ancient News: Top 5
Amateur Archaeologist Uncovers Ice Age ‘Writing’ System — According to a recent paper, 20,000-year-old cave art is not just art, but a sophisticated method of recording the timing of animals’ reproductive cycles based on a lunar calendar. Alongside images of aurochs, reindeer, fish, bison, and other animals in caves like Lascaux and Altamira are strange dots, lines, and other marks. At least 600 such images have been documented across Europe. According to the researchers, the number of marks acted as a record of which lunar month an animal mated in. And a “Y” sign meant “birth”. If correct, this pushes back this type of record system by more than 10,000 years. According to Paul Pettitt, “The results show that ice age hunter-gatherers were the first to use a systemic calendar and marks to record information about major ecological events within that calendar.” I love this for so many reasons, not the least of which is that an amateur discovered it, then worked alongside academics.
Siberian Gravediggers Find 2,000 Year Old Scythian-Style Cemetery — A cemetery of a previously unknown culture was located in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia while workers were bulldozing land to extend a modern cemetery. The original discovery of the cemetery was made a few years back, but recent analysis of the mound and grave goods made it clear that they belonged to an unknown culture. The mound in question contains an estimated 50 bodies. The bodies were placed in a large rectangular pit which was walled and roofed with timber and carpeted with birch bark. The tomb was then likely burned, though ten other burial pits found around it were not. Grave goods included bronze plaques, miniature daggers and battle axes, knives, mirrors, needles, and ceramic vessels. It is being referred to as a “Scythian-type” burial — a fairly normal categorization since “Scythian” refers to certain archaeological features rather than one singular people. The culture was probably a transitional Tesinian culture dating to the 2nd or 1st century BCE.
Ancient DNA Paints a New Picture of the Viking Age — Researchers looked at ancient DNA and found that between 750 and 1099 CE, a surge of people from the British-Irish isles and the Baltic region went to Scandinavia, introducing new genetics into the Viking gene pool. According to Neil Price, “We used to speak of a ‘Viking expansion,’ in which the ancient Scandinavians somehow pushed out into the wider world in search of portable wealth, trading contacts, and lands to settle… [but] this was a world of movement in all directions—into Scandinavia as well as out of it.” The newcomers were primarily female, and may have been captives taken by the Vikings. Christian missionaries, diplomats, and traders could have also been a part of the migration. Traces of these genetics today are less than expected, indicating that these people did not thrive.
50,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Were Made by Monkeys — Stone tools from Pedra Furada in Brazil that date to 50,000 years ago probably belong to capuchin monkeys, not ancient humans, according to a recent study. The researchers compared stone tools from archaeological sites in Brazil with modern capuchin-made tools and found that they are consistent with tools used by capuchins today, which are created by repeated impacts between a boulder and flat quartzite surface. I assume the date was originally contested since humans aren’t supposed to have been in South America 50,000 years ago, so this find likely adds much-needed clarity.
Additional Mummies Uncovered Near Vizier’s Tomb in Luxor — Two tombs containing nearly 60 mummies were discovered in Luxor, Egypt. The remains are those of officials and clergy. The tombs are connected to Amenhotep-Huy’s tomb, who served as vizier in the 18th Dynasty during the reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BCE). The vizier opposed the religious practices of the pharaoh’s son, the famous Akhenaten. The tombs are dated to after this time, meaning that the vizier’s tomb became a necropolis. According to Francisco Martin, “They began to build other tombs from different dynasties within the vizier’s tomb, since the place was sacred.”
That’s it for the free Top 5! If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to read another nine headlines and eight pieces of content covering unexpected Greek script in Tajikistan, a Roman domus, an Elizabethan-era ship, a pendant with a surprise in it, Neanderthal swimmers, the history and importance of rituals, archaeological predictions for 2023, and more, sign up for the paid plan below. And if you want access, but it’s a little too steep for you right now, just shoot me an email. 😃
🗞 Ancient News: Deep Dive
How Did Ancient Greek Letters Get Engraved in Mountains in Tajikistan — Characters written in the Bactrian language have been discovered by a shepherd in a hard-to-reach area near the Almosi River in Tajikistan. Bactrian is written in an alphabet based on Greek script. The stone in question says, “This is the...of the king of kings, Vima Tactu.” According to the shepherd, there were more writings when he first found the site, but avalanches destroyed them.
Archaeologists Uncover High-Status Roman Domus — A Roman domus (high-class town house) was found by archaeologists in Reims, France. Reims, which was known as Durocortorum in Roman times, was a large city of 30,000-50,000 inhabitants in Roman Gaul. Of the 2nd-3rd century dwelling, walls and two large blocks that supported pillars have been found. Additionally, painted plaster which may have depicted the Greek hero, Achilles, was found beneath a demolition layer.
Spanish Police Find Hundreds of Archaeological Artifacts at Two Homes — Spanish police found 350 artifacts and 200 human bone fragments in the homes of two suspects. The artifacts include a Roman loom, Phoenician amphorae, 18th-century cannonballs, and much more. Some of the remains are thought to be 5,000 years old.
New Findings Unveiled at Lingjiatan Relics Site — Burnt remains of sacrifices were discovered at the site of Lingjiatan in China. Finds include a large stone tool called a “yue”, a large jade ornament known as a “huang”, and a jade dragon head. In total, over 400 relics have been unearthed there over the years. The site dates back 5,300 to 5,800 years.
Rare Unexpected Discovery of Elizabethan-Era Ship at Quarry 300 Meters From the Coast — A 16th-century ship was discovered 300 meters inland, in a modern quarry in Kent, England. The area where it was found would have once been a coastline, so experts believe the ship either wrecked or was discarded. Over 100 oak timbers from the hull were recovered and dated to between 1558 and 1580 — a transitional period in northern European ship building. According to Andrea Hamel, “To find a late 16th-century ship preserved in the sediment of a quarry was an unexpected but very welcome find indeed. The ship has the potential to tell us so much about a period where we have little surviving evidence of shipbuilding but yet was such a great period of change in ship construction and seafaring.”
Head Wounds of Medieval Victim Analyzed — The 700-year-old remains of a young man found at the church of San Biagio in Italy have been re-analyzed. He appears to have dodged a sword attack to the front of his head (as evidenced by a shallow lesion), but then received deep wounds on the back of his head and neck. It was a frenzied attack. The researchers believe that this may have been a member of the De Citillio family that established the church.
Neolithic Tombs Discovered in Central China — Over 300 tombs were discovered at the site of Suyang in China. They date to 4,500 years ago, the beginning of the Longshan Culture period.
Possible Roman-Era Mausoleum Uncovered in France — The remains of what might have been a Roman-era Mausoleum were found at a Gallo-Roman site in Auvergne, France. A cornice decorated with leaves and a Corinthian capital was found, along with a fragment of a frieze depicting the Greek sea god, Triton, and seahorse with two front legs next to him. It dates to the 1st or 2nd century CE. The sea monster motif was often used in mausoleums to represent the journey of the dead.
Bone Fragments Found Inside Mysterious Medieval Pendant — Researchers used neutron tomography to look inside a 12th-century gold-plated pendant found in a Medieval refuse pit in Mainz, Germany. The pendant shows Jesus, the four Evangelists, Maria, and four female saints. The locking mechanisms were corroded, so opening it would have meant destroying it, hence the need for fancy imaging tech. What they found were tiny bone fragments within five individual packets of silk and linen. The remains probably belong to a saint, but there was no parchment indicating the name, as there would usually be. Only three other such phylacteries are known. Crazy that it was in a refuse pit!
❤️ Recommended Content
Here’s a one-star review of the Palace of Malia in Crete. “Lot of dead red stones. Boring waste of money only the zucchini was funny.” Um… a funny zucchini? I really need to know more about this. 😀
Did any of you participate in any rituals over the holiday season? Here’s a fascinating article about rituals, the oldest evidence we have of them, and why we, as a species, need them.
Here’s an interesting article about the world’s first “animations” — cave art that shows the progression of animal movement, particularly when viewed in firelight.
Here’s a reddit post showing a few Sanxingdui artifacts — two of which I had never seen before.
If you’re a swimmer, you may find this article about ancient swimmers interesting. Did you know that we have evidence (ear bones) of neanderthals diving 100,000 years ago?
Two weeks ago, I covered 1,000 new Maya sites which were found using LiDAR. Here’s a list of other amazing LiDAR finds.
Last week, we talked a bit about cats. Here’s an article about dogs in Egypt. They were the first animals to be domesticated in the Nile Valley.
And here are some predictions of what we can expect from archaeology in the coming year.
Well, that’ll do it for this week. As always, let me know your thoughts!
And until next time, thanks for joining me.
-James
(newish twitter: @jamesofthedrum)
P.S. If you like what you’re seeing, please consider forwarding it to a friend. It would mean a lot! 🙏