🧐 Ancient Beat #47: The Great Revolt, the collapse of the Hittites, and (early) migration to the Americas
Hi folks! Welcome to issue #47 of Ancient Beat. Anyone else feel like spring is just around the corner? I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but the sun is shining and the snow is melting. 😀
Let’s start your weekend off right, with a dose of the latest ancient news. 👇
🗞 Ancient News: Top 5
Changing Climate Conditions Likely Facilitated Early Human Migration to the Americas at Key Intervals, Research Suggests — As you may have noticed, there is a growing body of evidence saying that people came to the Americas long before an ice-free corridor opened in the ice sheets of Canada. Well, a new study of sediment cores identified two intervals that would have supported early human migration to North America, thanks to favorable ice and ocean conditions. The sediment cores showed that during the periods of 22,000-24,500 BP and 14,800-16,400 BP, sea ice was present in the winter, which may have given people a chance to travel along the coast. According to Summer Praetorius, “Sea ice is relatively flat and pretty stable when it is stuck to the shoreline, so you can walk on the ice and hunt seals to survive through the winter. It seems possible that sea ice could have facilitated movement, rather than hinder it, by providing a more traversable surface than the hazardous pathway of crevassed glaciers or paddling against strong ocean currents.” These findings back the existing (and growing) theory that people followed a Pacific coastal route as they headed south. And it’s worth noting that meltwater from the Cordilleran ice sheet would have accelerated ocean currents moving north, making boat travel difficult, which is why they believe these people made the trip by foot.
Evidence Oldest Bone Spear Point in the Americas is 13,900 Years Old — A new study has found the oldest bone spear point in the Americas, and it’s 13,900 years old. That’s 900 years older than the famous Clovis points. According to Michael Walters, “We isolated the bone fragments, printed them out and assembled them. This clearly showed this was the tip of a bone projectile point. This is the oldest bone projectile point in the Americas and represents the oldest direct evidence of mastodon hunting in the Americas.” The spear point was embedded in a mastodon rib at the site of Manis in Washington state, US. It was made from the leg bone of a mastodon.
Researcher Using AI to Piece Together Fragments of Ancient Texts — I’ll be honest, I question the application of artificial intelligence in so many aspects of our lives, but I’m pretty excited about this one. A team created a database of thousands of photographed fragments of Babylonian tablets, and they developed an algorithm designed to piece together fragments of these texts. They call it the “Fragmentarium”. There are many such fragments, and they’re written in two complex writing systems — Sumerian and Akkadian — so it’s a big task to say the least. To date, hundreds of manuscripts have been pieced together by the program, including a tablet telling the Epic of Gilgamesh and a hymn to the city of Babylon. According to Enrique Jiménez, “Hitherto there have been no hymns to cities in Babylonian literature. Now we have found 15 new fragments of it. Without the Fragmentarium, the reconstruction would have taken 30 or 40 years.” The Fragmentarium will soon be available to the public. Who’s ready to geek out on that? 🤓
New Research Suggests Drought Accelerated Empire Collapse — The Hittite Empire of central Anatolia was a major power in the ancient world for five centuries until roughly 1200 BCE, when their capital city of Hattusa was abandoned and the empire fell for unknown reasons. Theories have ranged from war to internal strife, but a new dendrochronological study of Juniper wood found at the Midas Mound Tumulus at the site of Gordion in Turkey is painting a different picture. Tree ring growth showed unusually narrow rings indicating dry conditions from the late 13th century to the 12th century BCE., with a severe drought between 1198 and 1196 BCE, give or take three years. This was confirmed by the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 isotopes in the rings. This extreme three-year drought would have caused famine in the Hittite empire. The tax base would have been affected, the army weakened, and migration would have been necessary. While the drought may not have been the only factor in the demise of the Hittites, it was almost certainly a significant one. This study is not unlike the one I covered recently in issue #44 which showed how dry and wet periods affected Persian empires. I think we can all agree that droughts are bad news for empires.
Battle Site of 'Great Revolt' Recorded on Rosetta Stone Unearthed in Egypt — Historical decrees and texts, including the Rosetta Stone, mention an Egyptian rebellion against Ptolemaic rule known as the Great Revolt, which occurred between 207 and 184 CE. Well, archaeologists have now discovered the location of one of its battles. Evidence of violent conflict was found during the excavation of the site of Tell el-Timai in Egypt, which was once a Greco-Roman city called Thmouis. The evidence included burnt buildings, ballista stones, and unburied human remains — the latter being unusual since ancient Egyptians took such great care with their burials. Until recently, they weren’t sure which conflict they were excavating, but by using coins and other artifacts like pottery sherds, they were able to conclusively say that its date coincides with that of the Great Revolt. According to Jay Silverstein, “We have opened a new door into our understanding of Hellenistic colonialism, indigenous resistance, and the mechanisms of control including the brutality of the Macedonian dynasty’s rule of Egypt.”
That’s it for the free Top 5! If you’re a free subscriber and you’d like to read another 17 stories and 6 recommended pieces of content covering urban development at Cahokia, the peopling of Sahul, Neanderthal diets, the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the ethics of ancient human DNA analysis, the enigmatic Turgai geoglyphs, 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
Superhighways Traveled by the First Australians Reveal a 10,000-Year Journey Through the Continent – New Study — Aboriginal people are thought to have migrated to Sahul (Australia + New Guinea) from the island of Timor anywhere from 75,000 to 50,000 years ago. New research shows that this began a lengthy 10,000-year period of populating the rest of the continent. It started with an expansion southward and also northward toward New Guinea. And then later to southwest and southeast Australia. The researchers reconstructed topography and climate data in a computer model, then investigated likely routes, along with the timeframe it would have taken for population sizes to become sustainable. According to Matthew Flinders, “… models that incorporate only demographic information without considering the resources and needs of travelers, as well as the opportunities and constraints to their travel, are likely to underestimate the timing of expansion into new regions. So, we now have a good prediction of the patterns and processes of how people first settled these lands tens of thousands of years ago.” This new model may be helpful in understanding other instances of human migration. Zoom in on the image for an idea of when people arrived where.
Image credit: Quaternary Science Reviews (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.107971 Proof that Neanderthals Ate Crabs is Another 'Nail in the Coffin' for Primitive Cave Dweller Stereotypes — According to a new study, Neanderthals at the site of Gruta de Figueira Brava in Portugal were cooking and eating crabs 90,000 years ago. According to Mariana Nabais, “They were taking them in pools of the nearby rocky coast, targeting adult animals with an average carapace width of 16cm. The animals were brought whole to the cave, where they were roasted on coals and then eaten.” The sizing there is notable, I think. Of course, it was in their best interest to take larger crabs, but the lack of younger crabs may indicate that they were conserving the species. This would be similar to a story I covered in issue #9 on mollusk consumption in Spain, where the size of shells was curiously in keeping with our current conservation regulations. But I digress. According to Nabais, “Our results add an extra nail to the coffin of the obsolete notion that Neanderthals were primitive cave dwellers who could barely scrape a living off scavenged big-game carcasses. Together with the associated evidence for the large-scale consumption of limpets, mussels, clams, and a range of fish, our data falsify the notion that marine foods played a major role in the emergence of putatively superior cognitive abilities among early modern human populations of sub-Saharan Africa.”
The Neanderthals and the Mystery of the Missing Zinc — Here’s another headline on Neanderthal diets. Modern humans get sick if they obtain more than 35-40% of their calories from meat because we’re not able to remove large amounts of nitrogen, which is a byproduct of protein digestion. But Neanderthals didn’t have that issue. A 2022 study of a Neanderthal tooth showed that the zinc-66 isotope, which comes from vegetables, was incredibly low. In short, the individual in question ate a lot of meat — like, so much that this person was somehow more carnivorous than a cat, which can only digest meat. Now, in a recent follow-up paper, researchers state that the original paper neglected a key element: fat. It’s possible (and has been proposed previously) that Neanderthals evolved to be able to consume more meat than us, but being more carnivorous than a cat is a stretch. The new paper suggests that Neanderthals ate (fatty) mammoths more than was previously thought, allowing them to supplement the calories they got from meat with fat rather than supplementing it with plants. This theory doesn’t fully explain the zinc anomaly, but it does explain how ancient humans were able to get by with only a little plant matter without getting sick. It may also explain why Neanderthals died out 40,000 years ago, at the same time that megafauna died out in Europe.
Prehistoric Human Migration in Southeast Asia Driven by Sea-Level Rise — According to a recent study, sea-level rise changed the genetics of Southeast Asian populations. A landmass known as the Sundaland is now half underwater thanks to a 130-meter rise in sea level that occurred between 26,000 and 6,000 BP. This had an enormous impact on human populations in Asia. In fact, this is the earliest documented instance of sea levels causing forced human migration. Two periods of rapid sea-level rise in particular had a big impact, forcing people to disperse as the landmass turned into islands. At the same time, the warmer temperatures caused population growth as high as 8x, and overpopulation caused even more migrations, often north toward the mainland. This process of migration shaped the current ethnicities across Southeast and South Asian regions, as these newcomers interbred with indigenous groups. According to Li Tanghua, “Based on our findings, the Orang Asli Malaysian indigenous group can be considered the first 'casualties' of sea-level rise, or what are known as 'climate refugees' today.”
Study Reveals Changes in the Development of Downtown Cahokia — A new study sheds light on the organization and use of space in the center of the famous First Nations city of Cahokia in the US. It found that buildings in the Great plaza were built in many phases, as was the palisade wall. According to the researchers, “Our study reinforces the notion that the founding and occupation of Downtown Cahokia resulted in the creation of a heavily palimpsestic landscape that was continually transformed according to the situational needs of the communities that were enmeshed within and influenced by the site’s historical trajectory.”
New Discoveries at Great Pyramid of Cholula — Restoration at the pyramid of Cholula in Mexico, one of the largest pyramids in the world, has revealed an adobe core dating to the end of the Classic period on the eastern side of the pyramid. An unusual accumulation of pre-Hispanic ceramic braziers was also found, indicating a sustained use of fire at the pyramid, probably either for ritual functions or for lighting the pyramid. A cylindrical sculpture of the Aztec god, Tlaloc (god of rain, fertility, and water) was also found.
Fear of Reanimated Corpses May Explain Mysterious Burials at 1,600-Year-Old Cemetery — A 1,600-year-old burial ground is being excavated in the ruins of a Roman villa at the site of Poggio Gramignano in Italy, and the remains of infants, children, and sacrificed puppies have been found. As if that’s not nightmare enough, many of the burials are quite grim and unusual. One child was buried with mortar in their mouth, leading to the nickname “Vampire of Lugnano” a few years back. Others had their limbs weighed down with stones. But according to new research, many of these individuals had malaria. And rather than the community being frightened of vampires, they were probably trying to avoid revenants (zombies), or ward off evil and generally protect the rest of the community from the disease.
Extremely Rare Roman Cavalry Parade Mask Discovered in Romania — A Roman parade mask was discovered in Romania. It is made of iron, which is unusual, and it is the first of its kind found in Romania. It dates to the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Soldiers would have used this for certain combat exercises, celebrations, or parades.
Ancient Road Found Beneath New Town in Devon — An ancient (probably Roman) road, along with Bronze-Age (2700 - 700 BCE) homes, and Roman farmsteads have been located in Devon, England. Pottery dating to 1500 BCE was also found. The homes were circular and made of organic materials, while the farmsteads were square. Experts are saying this was a “key route” for humans thousands of years ago. The road is made of crushed slate and has drainage points reflecting the construction methods used at the time.
Researchers Examine Discarded Roman Tiles — While this article boasts what is possibly the most boring title of all time, it’s actually quite interesting. While examining discarded tiles at a 3rd-century tile factory in England’s East Midlands, researchers found a tile with a partial footprint of a woman’s sandal, and a tile with the words “Potentius fecit”, or “Potentius made me”. This indicates that a literate man worked there. And a woman with well-made shoes may have as well. Also found were animal prints and imprints of leaves, which helped the researchers understand the surrounding environment and the seasonality of the work.
Ayazma Unearthed in Church in Kadıkalesi, Türkiye — A “pipeline” of holy water was found in a section of a historical church in Kadıkalesi, Turkey. The section dates to the 5th century. Apparently, this particular type of water channel is unique in Turkey, but I’m having trouble finding what exactly makes it so unique. Still interesting, though, so it made the cut.
Mudlarker Discovers Cup in Thames that May Be Rare Roman Find — An intact Roman cup was found in the River Thames by a mudlarker (someone who looks for valuable items in river mud). It probably dates to the 2nd century CE.
Gold Glass ‘Roma’ Unearthed in the Excavations of the Rome Subway — A rare piece of gold glass was discovered during construction in Rome’s subway. It depicts “Roma”, the feminine personification of Rome, in an Amazonian outfit with a diadem, helmet, and spear. The glass would have come from the base of a drinking glass.
Image credit: Roberto Gualtieri Unique 1,600-Year-Old Gold Bead Found By Teenager In Jerusalem’s City Of David — A unique gold bead that may date to over 1,600 years ago was discovered in the City of David, Jerusalem. Tiny balls were affixed together in a circle to make a bead. It was found by a volunteer working the sieve during an excavation. It’s an interesting find thanks to the complex technique used to create it, along with the unusual style.
Roman Mithraeum Discovered in Southern Spain — A sanctuary dedicated to the Roman god, Mithras, was discovered at the Villa del Mitra in Cabra, Spain. The villa dates to the 1st century CE and the Mithraeum is dated to the 2nd century, with renovations in the 3rd century. It is roughly 24 x 8 feet, with two stone benches that would have been used during feasts and rituals. Animal bones were found on the floor. If you noticed that the villa gets its name from Mithras, it’s because of a statue originally discovered there 20 years ago.
Volcanic Quartet Linked to Bad Times in Ancient Egypt — Here’s another data point in the difficulties experienced during the Ptolemaic dynasty’s rule in Egypt. According to new models, four closely spaced volcanic eruptions caused a decrease in the Nile River’s pattern of flooding, interfering with agriculture in the area. The eruptions took place between 168 and 158 BCE. It’s likely that this created unrest in the already turbulent Ptolemaic dynasty.
LiDAR Reveals Medieval Fortress in Spain, Rewriting History — Lately, a lot of dates are being pushed back. But here’s a story of a structure that’s actually more recent than we thought. A settlement in Spain known as Castro Valente was thought to date to the Iron Age (1500-500 BCE), but LiDAR has revealed that it’s actually medieval, probably from the 5th-7th centuries. In short, the surveys showed that the ways the settlement, its walls, and its 30 towers were built are in keeping with a medieval settlement. They do not match what we would expect from the Iron Age.
❤️ Recommended Content
Here’s a one-star review about the ancient Greek (and later Roman) city of Cyrene in Libya: “Grow up.” Ok, fine. 😞
Here’s an article about the (127+) 8,000-year-old Turgai geoglyphs in northern Kazakhstan. Fascinating stuff. There are plenty of photos in there if you’d like to see them.
Many of us are probably aware that the pyramids at Giza once had beautiful casing stones and electrum pyramidions (capstones) at the top. What a sight that would have been to see! Here’s an article with more info and a rendering of what they would have looked like.
This is kind of a fun one for the treasure-hunting kid in all of us. Here’s a list of the most valuable buried treasure ever found.
If you’ve ever wanted to visit Menorca, here’s an article with some beautiful photos of their ruins, as well as the famous megalithic T-shaped “taulas”.
And here’s an article on the ethics of ancient human DNA research — a tricky and important subject.
Thoughts? Complaints? Crackpot theories? Let’s hear ‘em!
And until next time, thanks for joining me.
-James
(newish twitter: @jamesofthedrum)
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