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History News of the Week: Earthquakes Shaped Ancient Greek Culture

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Did Earthquakes Shape Ancient Greek Culture? New research claims that earthquake faults could have played a central role in shaping the culture of Ancient Greece. Professor of Geoscience Communication Iain Stewart MBE, Director of Plymouth University’s Sustainable Earth Institute, has presented a host of documentaries about how the power of earthquakes has shaped landscapes and communities. Now, he claims the Ancient Greeks could have deliberately built sacred or treasured sites on land affected by seismic activity. It has previously been argued that Delphi, once home to a legendary oracle, gained its important role in Classical Greek society as a result of a scared spring and intoxicating gases that emanated from a fault line formed by an earthquake. Stewart argues that Delphi might not be the only such case, suggesting that the cities of Mycenae, Ephesus, Cnidus and Hierapolis could have all been constructed around fault lines. “Earthquake faulting is endemic to the Aegean world, and for more than 30 years, I have been fascinated by the role earthquakes played in shaping its landscape. But I have always thought it more than a coincidence that many important sites are located directly on top of fault lines created by seismic activity,” Professor Stewart said. “The Ancient Greeks placed great value on hot springs unlocked by earthquakes, but perhaps the building of temples and cities close to these sites was more systematic than has previously been thought.” The Aegean region has an abundance of fault lines and ruined ancient settlements, but Stewart claims that many seismic fault traces in the region run through the heart of some ancient settlements’ most sacred structures. In Delphi, for instance, a sanctuary was destroyed by an earthquake in 373BCE. The city’s temple was subsequently rebuilt directly on the same fault line. It’s previously been suggested that legendary tales of individuals descending into the underworld to gain oracular status, could be referring to caves or grottoes formed by seismic activity. Professor Stewart concludes: “I am not saying that every sacred site in ancient Greece was built on a fault line. But while our association with earthquakes nowadays is that they are all negative, we have always known that in the long run they give more than they take away. The ancient Greeks were incredibly intelligent people and I believe they would have recognised this significance and wanted their citizens to benefit from the properties they created.” Frog and Salamander Ancestors had a Full Mouth of Teeth Modern frogs and salamanders are close to toothless, but a new study from the University of Toronto highlights that this was far from the case with some of their ancestors. According to the study, published online in the journal PeerJ, the ancient amphibian ancestors had a full array of teeth, large fangs and thousands of tiny hook-like structures called denticles on the roofs of their mouths that would snare prey. The authors of the paper, Professor Robert Reisz and his colleagues Bryan Gee and Yara Haridy, two graduate students, believe that the tooth bearing plates “were ideally suited for holding on to prey, such as insects or smaller tetrapods, and may have facilitated a method of swallowing prey items via retraction of the eyeballs into the mouth, as some amphibians do today.” In many vertebrates, ranging from fish to early synapsids (ancestors of mammals), denticles are commonly found in dense concentrations on the bones of the hard palate (roof of the mouth). However, in one group of tetrapods, temnospondyls (which are thought to be the ancestors of modern amphibians), these denticles were also found on small, bony plates that filled the large soft part of the palate. Suspended in soft tissue, these toothy palettes are often lost during the process of fossilisation. “Denticles have all of the features of the large teeth that are found on the margin of the mouth,” says Reisz. “In examining tetrapod specimens dating back ~289 million years, we discovered that the denticles display essentially all of the main features that are considered to define teeth, including enamel and dentine, pulp cavity and peridontia.” The team’s study saw them analyse specimens unearthed from the fossil rich Dolese Brothers Limestone quarry near Richards Spur, Oklahoma. Reisz and colleagues claim that the next area of study will be determining why modern amphibians have reduced or no teeth, but their ancient ancestors had mouths full of them. Nazi Relics Discovered in Austrian Parliament A range of Nazi artefacts have been discovered in the Austrian parliament building in Vienna during renovation works, the Jerusalem Post reports. Two busts of Hitler, four Nazi era paintings and a relief were discovered in a box hidden in the building’s basement, reports claim. Following the Anschluss, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the parliament building was turned into a “Gauhaus”, a local Nazi party headquarters. It continued to serve as the Nazi base in Vienna until the end of the Second World War. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Nazi artefacts have now been handed to University of Vienna historians Bertrand Perz and Verena Pawlowsky, who are exploring the building’s Nazi history. They will make recommendations on how best to preserve the relics for the future, the Jerusalem Post writes, citing Austrian newspaper Der Standard. Image courtesy of Free On Line Photos [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons]]>

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History News of the Week – Viking Women, Cultural Exchange in the Bronze Age and a Discovery at Hadrian’s Wall

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Viking Woman was a Warrior and a Leader Viking society was not as male dominated as one might expect, a new study claims. According to new research from the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, Viking women took on leadership roles on the battlefield. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, who led the study, explained: “What we have studied was not a Valkyrie from the sagas but a real life military leader, that happens to be a woman”. At the heart of the research, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is the grave of a woman Viking warrior, complete with the remains of two horses and a selection of weapons. Significantly, the burial also contained a set of gaming pieces and a gaming board among the remains. “The gaming set indicates that she was an officer,” said Hedenstierna-Jonson. “Someone who worked with tactics and strategy and could lead troops in battle”. Buried in the Viking town of Birka during the mid-tenth century, isotope analysis has shown that the woman had an itinerant lifestyle, commonplace in the martial society that was prevalent throughout Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries. First discovered in the 1880s, it was long assumed that the Viking warrior in the burial had been a man. Thanks to new research techniques however, that assumption has been comprehensively put to bed, allowing the remains to present a fascinating new dimension to Viking culture. Anna Kjellström, who also participated in the study, said: “The morphology of some skeletal traits strongly suggests that she was a woman, but this has been the type specimen for a Viking warrior for over a century, [which was] why we needed to confirm the sex in any way we could.” The team turned to genetics to confirm the Viking woman’s sex, retrieving a molecular sex identification based on X and Y chromosomes. “This burial was excavated in the 1880s and has served as a model of a professional Viking warrior ever since. Especially, the grave-goods cemented an interpretation for over a century,” said Jan Storå, lead author of the study. “The utilisation of new techniques, methods, but also renewed critical perspectives, again, shows the research potential and scientific value of our museum collections”. Women drove Bronze and Stone Age Cultural Exchange A new study has shown the importance of female social mobility for cultural exchange in Bronze Age Europe. Findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal a fascinating trend among Bronze Age families in the Lechtal, south of Augsburg in what is now Germany. While the men in these families had tended to stay in the region of their birth, many of the women came from outside the area, possibly from Bohemia or Central Germany. According to the findings, the pattern of female mobility was not a short-term trend, but one that can be observed over an 800-year period during the transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. “Individual mobility was a major feature characterising the lives of people in Central Europe even in the 3rd and early 2nd millennium,” stated Philipp Stockhammer from the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology and Archaeology of the Roman Provinces of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the leader of the collaborative research project. The researchers suggest in their study that this mobility was significant in the exchange of ideas and objects, something which increased significantly in the Bronze Age and in its wake encouraged the development of new technologies. For this study, the researchers examined the remains of 84 individuals using genetic and isotope analyses in conjunction with archaeological evaluations. The individuals were buried between 2500 and 1650 BCE in cemeteries that belonged to separate homesteads, and that contained between one and several dozen burials made over a period of several generations. “We see a great diversity of different female lineages, which would occur if over time many women relocated to the Lech Valley from somewhere else,” remarked Alissa Mittnik from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, a contributor to the study. Corina Knipper, from the Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry explained: “Based on analysis of strontium isotope ratios in molars, which allows us to draw conclusions about the origin of people, we were able to ascertain that the majority of women did not originate from the region.” The burials of the women did not differ from that of the native population, suggesting that the formerly foreign women were integrated into the local community. As well as shedding new light on the role female mobility played in cultural exchange in the Bronze Age, the new findings point to the immense scale of human mobility in general in the period. “It appears that at least part of what was previously believed to be migration by groups is based on an institutionalised form of individual mobility,” concluded Stockhammer. Roman Barracks Unearthed Near Hadrian’s Wall Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old Roman Barracks near Hadrian’s wall, the Guardian reports. Over the course of the last two weeks a “treasure trove” of thousands of artefacts has been unearthed, including military and personal possessions from Roman soldiers and their families, according to the Guardian. Remarkably, the barracks itself actually predates Hadrian’s Wall, allowing the findings to provide unique insight into the military build-up in the area prior to the Wall’s construction. Cavalry lances, arrowheads and ballista bolts are among the weapons found at the site, alongside combs, bath clogs, hairpins, brooches and stylus pens. The barracks, which date from 105CE, were discovered under the fourth century fort of Vindolanda, south of Hadrian’s near Hexham in Northumberland. According to the Guardian, the artefacts survived because they were concealed beneath a concrete floor laid by the Romans about 30 years after the barracks was abandoned, shortly before 120CE. The concrete created oxygen-free conditions that helped preserve materials such as wood, leather and textiles. Featured Image: Reconstruction of the Grave in Birka – The drawing is a reconstruction of how the grave with the woman originally may have looked. Credit:The illustration is made by Þórhallur Þráinsson (© Neil Price).]]>

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History News of the Week – A New Titanosaur, the Oldest Trigonometric Table, and the Fate of the H.L. Hunley

Plimpton 322

New Species of Titanosaur Discovered in Tanzania A new species of titanosaur has been discovered in Tanzania. A member of the gigantic, long-necked sauropod group, the creature’s fossil remains were discovered in Cretaceous period (70-100 million years ago) rocks in southwestern Tanzania. Although titanosaur remains have been found across the globe, they are most common in South America and rarely found in Africa. The new dinosaur has been named Shingopana songwensis, derived from the Swahili term ‘shingopana’, which means wide neck. The second part of the name comes from the Songwe region of the Great Rift Valley, where the remains were discovered. “There are anatomical features present only in Shingopana and in several South American titanosaurs, but not in other African titanosaurs,” said Eric Gorscak, a paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the lead author of a paper in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology detailing the find. “Shingopana had siblings in South America, whereas other African titanosaurs were only distant cousins.” Fascinatingly, Shingopana songwensis seems more closely related to sauropods found in South America than those that have been discovered in Africa. “This discovery suggests that the fauna of northern and southern Africa were very different in the Cretaceous Period,” said Judy Skog, a program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences, which supported the research. “At that time, southern Africa dinosaurs were more closely related to those in South America, and were more widespread than we knew.” Mysterious Babylonian Tablet Is the World’s Oldest Trigonometric Table Scientists have revealed that a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet is the world’s oldest trigonometric table. The researchers from UNSW Sydney believe the tablet could have been used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces, temples and canals. The findings unveil a previously unknown level of mathematical sophistication among the ancient Babylonians, showing they had begun to study the mathematics of triangles long before the ancient Greeks. Named Plimpton 322, the small tablet, which was discovered in what is now southern Iraq, has four columns and 15 rows of numbers written on it in the cuneiform script of the time using a base 60, or sexagesimal, system. Previously, scientists argued the tablet would have been a teaching aid for checking solutions to quadratic problems. “The huge mystery, until now, was its purpose – why the ancient scribes carried out the complex task of generating and sorting the numbers on the tablet,” said UNSW’s Dr. Daniel Mansfield, co-author of the study published in the journal Historia Mathematica. “Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius.” The Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lived circa 120 years BCE, is typically regarded as the father of trigonometry, with his “table of chords” on a circle considered the oldest trigonometric table. “Plimpton 322 predates Hipparchus by more than 1000 years,” said Dr Wildberger, the study’s other coauthor. “It opens up new possibilities not just for modern mathematics research, but also for mathematics education. With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own.” “A treasure-trove of Babylonian tablets exists, but only a fraction of them have been studied yet. The mathematical world is only waking up to the fact that this ancient but very sophisticated mathematical culture has much to teach us.” Confederate Submarine Crew Were Killed by Shockwave from Their Own Torpedo On 17th February, 1864, the Confederate H.L Hunley became the first combat submarine to sink an enemy vessel when it torpedoed a 1,200-ton Union warship, the USS Housatonic, outside Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The torpedo blast, below the waterline of the Housatonic, was enough to sink the ship in under five minutes. Five seamen were killed in the attack, the rest were saved, rescued thanks to the fact the stricken ship came to rest upright in the water. For years, the fate of the Hunley crew remained a mystery. The 40-foot vessel was found in 1995, about 300 metres away from Housatonic’s resting place, and raised in 2000. Scientists from Duke University now think that firing the explosive torpedo instantly killed the submarine’s own eight-man crew. When the vessel was first unearthed, scientists were shocked to find the skeletons of the crew still at their stations. They had suffered no broken bones, the ships bilge pumps hadn’t been used and the air hatches remained closed. Except for some slight damage, the submarine was largely intact. Thorough research from Duke University, which has included modelling blasts next to a scale model of the Hunley, shooting Civil War weapons at iron plates and studies on the transmission of blast energy, has led Rachel Lance, a Duke Engineering graduate, to conclude that a powerful shockwave from the torpedo killed the submarine’s crew instantly. “This is the characteristic trauma of blast victims, they call it ‘blast lung,'” said Lance, who worked as a biomechanist at the U.S. Navy’s base in Panama City, Florida for three years before entering graduate school at Duke. “You have an instant fatality that leaves no marks on the skeletal remains. Unfortunately, the soft tissues that would show us what happened have decomposed in the past hundred years.” Lance observes that the physical evidence backs up her conclusion, showing no sign the crew took actions in response to either a flood or loss of air. “If anyone had survived, they may have tried to release the keel ballast weights, set the bilge pumps to pump water, or tried to get out the hatches, but none of these actions were taken,” she writes in her paper, which is part of her dissertation research and has been published in the journal PLOS ONE. Featured Image: The 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York. Credit: UNSW/Andrew Kelly]]>

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History News of the Week – USS Indianapolis Discovered

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USS Indianapolis Shipwreck Discovered 72 years after its sinking, the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis has been discovered 18,000 feet beneath the surface of the Philippine Sea, according to the New York Times. In July 1945, in the final months of the Second World War, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese torpedo, as it returned from a secret mission to deliver parts that were used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The ship’s sinking was the worst loss of life in the history of the US Navy. Of the 1,196 crew on board, just 316 were rescued. Although somewhere between 800 and 900 people escaped the sinking ship, no distress signal was sent. When the survivors were found by chance four days later in shark infested waters, just a fraction were left alive. On Saturday 19th September, a civilian team led by Paul G. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, announced that it had found unmistakable wreckage of the Indianapolis. They had been directed to the site by new research from a naval historian which determined a specific region of the ocean where the ship had been sited the night before its destruction. “To be able to honour the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role during World War Two is truly humbling,” Allen told the BBC. Ancient Pompeii’s Water Supply was Poisonous New research claims that the water transported through the pipelines of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was probably poisonous on a scale that would have likely led to diarrhea, vomiting and liver and kidney damage for anyone who drank it. Kaare Lund, a chemist from the Southern University of Denmark (SDU), analysed water pipes from Pompeii and found high levels of the toxic element antimony, which he believes may have poisoned the drinking water. Antimony is acutely toxic, meaning it causes a quick reaction in anyone who consumes it. According to a statement from SDU, the element is particularly irritating to the bowels, and the reactions are excessive vomiting and diarrhea that can lead to dehydration. In severe cases it can also affect the liver and kidneys and, in the worst-case scenario, can cause cardiac arrest. Pompeii’s location, close to Mount Vesuvius, likely meant the concentration of antimony was higher there than elsewhere in the Roman Empire, as the toxic chemical element naturally occurs in groundwater close to volcanoes. Lund and colleagues’ findings have been published in the journal Toxicology Letters. Hannibal’s defeat and the rise of Rome written in coins Chemical analysis of Roman coins has found that the defeat of Hannibal led to a flood of wealth through the Empire from the silver mines of Spain. According to scientists, the discovery tracks Rome’s transition from regional power to empire. Regarded as a key event in European history, the Second Punic War saw Hannibal lead his formidable Carthaginian army across the Alps in 218 BCE in a failed assault on Rome. Hannibal’s defeat saw the Romans conquer the Iberian Peninsula, with the Romans slowly gaining control over the region’s lucrative silver mines circa 211 BCE. War reparations from Carthage combined with the revenue taken from the Spanish mines ultimately funded Rome’s rapid territorial expansion. The new geochemical analysis has now provided clear proof of the importance of the Spanish silver in funding Roman conquest. A group of scientists based in Germany and Denmark and led by Prof Fleur Kemmers and Dr Katrin Westner (Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt) analysed 70 Roman coins dating from 310-300 BCE to 101 BCE, the period surrounding the Second Punic War. Using Mass Spectrometry, the team determined that the lead in the coins from after 209 BCE had distinctive isotope signatures which identified them as presumably originating from Spain. “Before the war we find that the Roman coins are made of silver from the same sources as the coinage issued by Greek cities in Italy and Sicily2. In other words the lead isotope signatures of the coins correspond to those of silver ores and metallurgical products from the Aegean region”, said Katrin Westner. “But the defeat of Carthage led to huge reparation payments to Rome, as well as Rome gaining high amounts of booty and ownership of the rich Spanish silver mines. From 209 B.C. we see that the majority of Roman coins show geochemical signatures typical for Iberian silver”. “This massive influx of Iberian silver significantly changed Rome’s economy, allowing it to become the superpower of its day. We know this from the histories of Livy and Polybius and others, but our work gives contemporary scientific proof of the rise of Rome. What our work shows is that the defeat of Hannibal and the rise of Rome is written in the coins of the Roman Empire.” ]]>

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History News of the Week – Does an Ancient Petroglyph Depict a Total Eclipse?

Possible Eclipse Petroglyph in Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon Petroglyph Could Depict Total Eclipse A petroglyph carved into a rock face by the ancient Pueblo people could depict an ancient eclipse, according to a professor from the University of Colorado at Boulder. The carving depicts a circle that resembles the sun’s outer atmosphere known as the corona, with tangled protrusions looping off the edges. According to Professor Emeritus J. McKim Malville, the image, which was first unearthed in 1992, may illustrate the total eclipse of the sun that occurred over the region on 11th July 1097. “To me it looks like a circular feature with curved tangles and structures,” said Malville of CU Boulder’s astrophysical and planetary sciences department. “If one looks at a drawing by a German astronomer of the 1860 total solar eclipse during high solar activity, rays and loops similar to those depicted in the Chaco petroglyph are visible.” Malville and colleagues used several sources to assess the activity of the sun around the time of the eclipse, to confirm if the image corresponded to how the sun would have looked at the time. This included looking at tree rings, which can provide an insight into the number of cosmic rays hitting the earth’s surface, and records of naked eye observations of sunspots dating back thousands of years in China. “This possible eclipse petroglyph on Piedra del Sol is the only one we know of in Chaco Canyon,” Malville said. “I think it is quite possible that the Chacoan people may have congregated around Piedra del Sol at certain times of the year and were watching the sun move away from the summer solstice when the eclipse occurred.” The Battle of Lewisham 40 Years On 13th August marks the anniversary of the Battle of Lewisham, a violent clash between a far-right march and counter-protestors in the south London borough. The right wing National Front organised a national march through Lewisham in the southeast of London, calling members from across the country to take part in the protest which they claimed was directed at a rise in crime in the area. At the time, Martin Webster, an organiser for the National Front, told the press: “We believe that the multi-racial society is wrong, is evil and we want to destroy it.” Huge swathes of the local community opposed the march, with Lewisham Council and the Bishop of Southwark leading thousands of peaceful demonstrators in holding a counter march close to the site of the National Front’s. At the same time, another group of counter-demonstrators, comprised of anti-fascists and members of progressive and radical left groups, sought to take more direct action, determined to block the National Front march itself. Violence erupted on the streets of London as the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators met. National Front members clashed with the protesters who then clashed with police as running battles took place through the area. Ultimately, the National Front were forced to abandon their demonstration, and were escorted to trains by the police. In total, 111 people were injured, including 56 police officers, and 214 were arrested. The event was a humiliation for the National Front, revealing the massive, determined opposition to their beliefs, and tarnishing their tough image with well documented reports of police having to usher them to safety. At the same time, the event was significant in the history of policing in the UK. Tactics were used which had never been seen before in England, with baton charges and mounted police used to disperse crowds, and riot shields on display for the first time outside of Northern Ireland. On 13th August a plaque was unveiled in New Cross, close to the site of the clash, to commemorate the community’s stand against fascism and racism. Humans Arrived in Asia Thousands of Years Earlier than Thought Humans may have left Africa and arrived in Asia up to 20,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Nature. The same study, led by Macquarie University, also suggests that humans arrived in Australia significantly earlier than is generally accepted. Dating of a cave site in West Sumatra, named Lida Ajer, has provided the first evidence for human rainforest use. It is this that has led to the rethink on the history of human migration. “Rainforests aren’t the easiest place to make a living, especially for a savannah-adapted primate, so it suggests that these people were ahead of the curve in terms of intelligence, planning and technological adaptation,” said Dr. Gilbert Price, from the University of Queensland’s School of earth and environmental sciences. Dutch paleo-anthropologist Eugene Dubois, renowned for the discovery of ‘Java Man’, visited a series of caves in Sumatra in the late 1800s, discovering human teeth there. Price said he and his colleagues are building on Dubois’ work, finally determining the significance of those teeth. “Fast forward over 100 years later, both the team of lead author Dr Kira Westaway of Macquarie University and my crew (separately) were lucky enough to re-discover and visit the caves. “It was quite an adventure. We ended up sharing notes and the collaboration was born.” Through thorough analysis of the teeth and dating of the sediments in the caves, the team determined not only that the teeth belonged to anatomically modern humans, but that they date back to as far as 73,000 years ago. Southeast Asia was a key region in the human dispersal out of Africa and through to Australia. However, until now most archaeological evidence has shown no sign of anatomically modern humans reaching the region earlier than 60,000 years ago. Feature image: A petroglyph of what may be a total solar eclipse in the year 1097 as recorded by the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico Pueblo people. Courtesy of University of Colorado]]>

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History News of the Week – Where the Minoans and Mycenaeans came from

View from the Canopy Floor in the Cloud Forest Sanctuary, Xalapa, Mexico

Minoan and Mycenaean Origins Revealed The ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, with both peoples descended from early Neolithic farmers, according to new DNA research. Dating back to the Bronze Age, the archaeological remains of both the Minoans and Mycenaeans show they were culturally, artistically and technically advanced. The Minoans flourished on Crete, beginning around the third millennium BCE, while the Mycenaeans developed on mainland Greece from the second millennium BCE. The origins of these two remarkable Greek cultures has remained a mystery, but the new analysis is providing fresh insights. Published in the journal Nature, the new findings point to the Mycenaeans’ and Minoans’ origins being in Neolithic Farmers who migrated from Anatolia to Greece and Crete thousands of years prior to the Bronze Age. “Minoans, Mycenaeans, and modern Greeks also had some ancestry related to the ancient people of the Caucasus, Armenia, and Iran. This finding suggests that some migration occurred in the Aegean and southwestern Anatolia from further east after the time of the earliest farmers,” said Iosif Lazaridis, a scientist from Harvard Medical School who worked on the study. The research results also show that modern Greeks are largely descendants of the Mycenaeans. For the study, an international group of researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Max Planck Institute and the University of Washington, as well as a range of universities in Greece and Turkey extracted tooth DNA from the remains of 19 ancient individuals who archaeological evidence revealed as Minoans of Crete, Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, and people who lived in southwestern Anatolia. These samples were then analysed, with scientists from the Max Planck Institute and Harvard Medical School comparing Minoan and Mycenaean genomes with each other, 330 other ancient genomes and over 2,600 genomes of modern day humans from around the world. The study itself can be found here Tropical Forests have felt Human Touch for over 45,000 years A pioneering study of the global impact of humans on tropical forests shows that mankind has been altering these environments for over 45,000 years. The findings challenge the widely held view that tropical forests were pristine, untouched environments prior to the advent of agriculture and industrialisation. Looking at distinct phases of human impact on tropical forests, the scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Liverpool John Moores University, University College London, and École française d’Extrême-Orient found evidence of techniques such as controlled burning of sections of forest, plant and animal management, and clear-cutting dating back thousands of years. The three phases focused on by the study correspond to hunting and gathering activities, small scale agriculture and large scale urban settlement. The hugely significant findings have the potential to change attitudes to conservation. By showing that an untouched forest ecosystem doesn’t exist, and hasn’t existed for thousands of years, it suggests there is no ideal forest environment that conservationists can use as a basis when setting conservation standards. The authors argue that instead modern efforts should be informed by a past understanding of how forests have been manipulated by humans. “Indigenous and traditional peoples – whose ancestors’ systems of production and knowledge are slowly being decoded by archaeologists – should be seen as part of the solution and not one of the problems of sustainable tropical forest development,” said Patrick Roberts of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, lead author of the paper. Published in the journal Nature Plants, the study is available here: Forgotten Trenches Unearthed in England A new archaeological survey has revealed for the first time the true extent of the network of trenches and fortifications built to defend England during the First World War, according to the Guardian. The new study aimed to detail the concentration of resources along England’s eastern and southern coasts, the region anticipated to receive the brunt of the German forces in the event of an invasion. Cutting edge LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data gathered by the Environment Agency were used in conjunction with more traditional methods – analyses of periodicals and local history, to plot the defensive network, the Guardian reports. Revealing trenches, gun batteries, and fortified naval bases among other defences, the scientists behind the new research say the biggest surprise was the extent of the defence network uncovered. Titled First World War Fieldworks in England, the findings have been published by Historic England as part of its contribution to the national Centenary Partnership programme about the First World War. Image courtesy of Patrick Roberts ]]>

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History News of the Week: The Biblical Canaanites' Modern Descendants

Bronze Age Iberia Received Fewer Steppe Invaders Than the Rest of Europe

Present day Lebanese are descendants of Biblical Canaanites A new genome study of ancient remains from the Near East suggests that present day Lebanese people are direct descendants of the Biblical Canaanites. The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, sequenced the entire genomes of 4,000 year-old Canaanites who inhabited the region during the Bronze Age, and compared them to other ancient and present day populations. Despite the Canaanites creating the first alphabet and establishing colonies throughout the Mediterranean, historians and archaeologists only have a limited knowledge of them. They are mentioned several times in the Bible, as well as in ancient Greek and Phoenician texts, but experts know little about their genetic identity, who their ancestors were, and if they have any descendants today. The study by the researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute determined that more than 90% of present Lebanese ancestry is likely to be from the Canaanites, with a small proportion coming from a different Eurasian population. The researchers estimate that new Eurasian people mixed with the Canaanite population about 2,200 to 3,800 years ago at a time when there were many conquests of the region from outside. Details about the Canaanites own ancestry have also been revealed. The study claims that they were a mixture of local people who settled in farming villages during the Neolithic period and eastern migrants who arrived in the area around 5,000 years ago. “For the first time we have genetic evidence for substantial continuity in the region, from the Bronze Age Canaanite population through to the present day.” Dr Claude Doumet-Serhal, co-author of the study and Director of the Sidon excavation site in Lebanon, said. “These results agree with the continuity seen by archaeologists. Collaborations between archaeologists and geneticists greatly enrich both fields of study and can answer questions about ancestry in ways that experts in neither field can answer alone.” Meanwhile, Dr. Chris Tyler-Smith, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: “Genetic studies using ancient DNA can expand our understanding of history, and answer questions about the likely origins and descendants of enigmatic populations like the Canaanites, who left few written records themselves. “Now we would like to investigate the earlier and later genetic history of the Near East, and how it relates to the surrounding regions.” Bronze Age Iberia spared the brunt of Steppe invaders New DNA analysis of people who lived in the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age has revealed that they received only minor genetic input from Steppe invaders, suggesting the Steppe migrations played less of a role in the cultural and genetic makeup of Iberian people than they did in populations elsewhere in Europe. Between the Middle Neolithic (4200-3500 BCE) and the Middle Bronze Age (1740-1430 BCE), Central, Northwestern and Northern Europe received a massive influx of people from the Steppe regions of Eastern Europe and Asia. Archaeological digs have gained insights into some of the impacts of these influxes on Iberia, in the form of changing cultural practices and funeral rituals, but the genetic effect has remained hitherto unexamined. The genomes of fourteen people who lived in Portugal in the Neolithic and Bronze Age were sequenced for the study, which has been published in the journal PLOS Genetics. These genomes were then compared with other ancient and modern genetic data, revealing only subtle changes between the Portuguese Neolithic and Bronze Age DNA, suggesting a minor genetic influence from the Steppe. Surprisingly, the changes were significantly more pronounced in paternal lineage. “It was surprising to observe such a striking Y chromosome discontinuity between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, such as would be consistent with a predominantly male-mediated genetic influx” says first author Rui Martiniano. Height was also estimated from the samples, based on relevant DNA sequences, revealing that genetic input from Neolithic migrants decreased the height of Europeans, which subsequently increased steadily through later generations. By showing that migration into the Iberian Peninsula occurred on a much smaller scale than elsewhere in Europe, the study raises questions about the impact this had on language, culture and technology. For example, the fact that the Basque region of Spain speaks a pre-Indo-European language could be explained by these findings. The discovery also supports a theory which says Indo-European languages spread through Europe from the Steppe heartland. The study was carried out by Daniel Bradley and Rui Martiniano of Trinity College Dublin, in Ireland, and Ana Maria Silva of University of Coimbra, Portugal. New project aims to highlight importance of The Indian Army in the First World War In the UK, The Soldiers of Oxfordshire (SOFO) Museum and Oxford University’s History Faculty have received a £12,000 grant from the Arts & Humanities Research Council ‘Voices of War & Peace’ WWI Engagement Centre, for their project titled: The Indian Army in the First World War: An Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Perspective. The project aims to shed new light on the British Indian Army’s role in the war on the Eastern Front in Iraq through an outreach programme and touring exhibition. Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus of all ages in the local community are being called upon to engage with researchers by sharing stories, experiences and memorabilia. The touring exhibition will then showcase the findings in November. Photographs that have never been displayed before will explore the experiences of British and Indian soldiers in the conflict, as well as the Iraqi prisoners. Featured image: Archaeological remains of individual MC337 excavated from the site of Hipogeu de Monte Canelas I, Portugal, and analysed by the archaeologist Rui Parreira and the anthropologist Ana Maria Silva. Courtesy of Rui Parreira ]]>

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History News of the Week – A Cover-up of a Nazi Plot, a Ghost Species, and a Rethink on Australia

Winston Churchill at Potsdam Conference

Churchill Tried to Cover-up Nazi Royal Plot Newly released papers from the UK’s National Archives have revealed that Winston Churchill wanted to “destroy all traces” of telegrams about a Nazi plot to reinstate the abdicated King Edward VIII to the throne in return for his support during the Second World War. According to the Guardian, the telegrams reveal a plan to kidnap the Duke of Windsor – as the abdicated monarch was then known, and his wife Wallis Simpson, in Portugal in 1940. The Cabinet Office papers released by the National Archives reveal a 1953 appeal from Churchill to US president Dwight D Eisenhower and the French government to prevent publication of the telegrams for at least “10 to 20 years”, the Guardian reports. Churchill believed the telegrams were likely to give the misleading impression that the duke was in regular touch with German agents, and open to ideas which were disloyal. The prime minister’s appeal was made after he’d learnt a microfilm of the documents had fallen into the hands of the US State Department, and were being considered for inclusion in the US’ official history of the war. Although Churchill succeeded, and publication of the telegrams was delayed by a few years, they still eventually came to light in 1957. “Ghost” Species Points to Interbreeding Between Humans and Other Hominins Through studying saliva, scientists have discovered clues to a “ghost” species of archaic humans that may have contributed genetic material to the ancestors of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa today. The new findings add to growing evidence that sexual relationships between different species of archaic humans might not have been unusual, and in fact the norm. Previous research has already concluded that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with other hominin species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, in Asia and Europe. The latest research, published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, adds to other recent genetic analyses indicating ancient Africans also interbred with other early hominins. “It seems that interbreeding between different early hominin species is not the exception — it’s the norm,” said Omer Gokcumen, PhD, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. “Our research traced the evolution of an important mucin protein called MUC7 that is found in saliva,” he said. “When we looked at the history of the gene that codes for the protein, we see the signature of archaic admixture in modern day Sub-Saharan African populations.” The MUC7 protein gives spit its slimy consistency, as well as binding to microbes, which may help the body get rid of disease-causing bacteria. The team of scientists were researching the purpose and origins of the protein by examining the gene in more than 2,500 human genomes, when they discovered that one group from Sub-Saharan Africa had a significantly different version to that found in other humans. “Based on our analysis, the most plausible explanation for this extreme variation is archaic introgression – the introduction of genetic material from a ‘ghost’ species of ancient hominins,” Gokcumen says. “This unknown human relative could be a species that has been discovered, such as a subspecies of Homo erectus, or an undiscovered hominin. We call it a ‘ghost’ species because we don’t have the fossils.” The study was led by Gokcumen and Stefan Ruhl, DDS, PhD, a professor of oral biology in UB’s School of Dental Medicine. Humans May Have Arrived in Australia 10,000 Years Earlier than Thought Newly discovered artefacts suggest humans arrived in Australia 10,000 years earlier than previously believed. Exactly when Australia was first settled by humans has long been shrouded in ambiguity, with recent studies seemingly pushing the approximate date further and further back in time. A team of researchers led by the University of Queensland, and including scientists from the University of Washington, found and dated artefacts from Madjedbebe, Northern Australia that suggest humans arrived there 65,000 years ago. A paper detailing the artefacts and the dating method has been published in the journal Nature. The new findings could have a significant impact on theories about the emergence of early humans and how they coexisted with their environment. In particular, according to the researchers it throws serious doubt on the idea that humans caused the extinction of megafauna such as giant kangaroos, wombats and tortoises. “Previously it was thought that humans arrived and hunted them out or disturbed their habits, leading to extinction, but these dates confirm that people arrived so far before that they wouldn’t be the central cause of the death of megafauna,” co-author and UW associate professor of anthropology Ben Marwick said. “It shifts the idea of humans charging into the landscape and killing off the megafauna. It moves toward a vision of humans moving in and coexisting, which is quite a different view of human evolution.” Among the artefacts discovered were ochre crayons and other pigments, as well as objects believed to be the world’s oldest edge-ground hatchets, potential evidence that these ancient humans ground seeds and processed plants. The artefacts were dated using radiocarbon dating and optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) – a technique used on minerals that can reveal a variety of things, such as the last time a grain of sand was exposed to sunlight – useful for determining when an artefact was buried. Featured Image courtesy Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14059-0005 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons ]]>

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History News of the Week – New Insights on the fate of the Rapa Nui

New Isotopic Analyses of Bones

Easter Island mystery – ‘Ecocide’ didn’t lead to the Rapa Nui’s demise New scientific research is challenging the popular belief that the ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui, aka Easter Island, were wiped out due to over exploitation of natural resources. It is often proposed that the Rapa Nui islanders cut down giant forests of palm trees on Easter Island, leaving them without wood to build canoes for fishing. The theory states that the absence of fish forced them to eat chickens, rats and agricultural crops. The island’s climate and infertile soil meant crop productivity started to decrease as the island’s inhabitants ate more and more. Conflict erupted as competition arose over the dwindling resources, and the population essentially wiped itself out through having destroyed the island’s ecosystem, a theory of their fate dubbed ‘ecocide’. New research from scientists at the University of Bristol, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is throwing the ecocide theory into question, showing through isotopic analysis of bones, soils and plant remains from Rapa Nui that the population had a diet of equal parts seafood and terrestrial food. Catrine Jarman, lead author of the study and PhD student at the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, said: “We also discovered that agricultural crops consumed must have been planted in soils that were deliberately managed and manipulated to provide better yields. “Previous work has shown that plants of Rapa Nui were grown in rock mulch gardens and planting enclosures known as manavai. These had been carefully constructed and deliberately managed, and our study showed that the islanders may have added fertilisers.” Put simply, the new results suggest the Rapa Nui islanders adapted to the island’s harsh environmental conditions by managing their gardens and manipulating soils for better crops. Contrary to the idea of this ancient people recklessly wiping out the environment that had sustained them, it shows they demonstrated astute environmental awareness and stewardship to overcome nutrient poor soils. Jarman concluded: “This research highlights the unique and varied environmental adaptations that Pacific Islanders have shown through time. “Polynesians developed sustainable economies in ways that we are now better understanding through interdisciplinary research. Lessons from the past and from traditional island societies have value and relevance today.” Ancient Greek theatre had a wooden stage thousands of years ago An investigation by a Japanese architectural researcher suggests a high possibility that a wooden stage existed in the theater of the ancient Greek City of Messene during the Greek Classical period (ca. 369 BCE). During the Messene theatre’s 2007 excavation, a large storage room and three stone rows were discovered beside the stage by a group from the History of Western Architecture Laboratory of Kumamoto University. Similar features had also been discovered in Ancient Greek theatres at Megalopolis and Sparta. After studying the three sites in depth, a Kumamoto University researcher determined the stone rows remaining in the Megalopolis theater would have been used to set up wooden background picture panels, and the stage storage room would have likely been the custodian of such panels. In Hellenistic theatre, a one-story construction known as a proskenion was installed on the stage as background, behind which was another two story construction known as a skene that served as both a dressing room for actors and additional stage background. Traditionally, it’s been assumed that the skene and proskenion were wheeled around the stage as a single, large construction. The new research however, suggests they might have been moved separately. “A large force would have been required to move stage equipment as large as the proskenion and skene,” said Associate Professor Ryuichi Yoshitake who led the research project. “In previous studies, there was a theory that the proskenion and skene were simultaneously moved along just three stone rows, but I think it is more logical that the proskenion and skene each had their own set of two stone rows to move along. I came to this conclusion due to the positions of three stone rows and the fact that it would have been quite difficult to move the heavy proskenion and skene together using a single axle with three wooden wheels.” The findings have been published in the German language science journal Archäologischer Anzeiger. A new method to chart humans’ domestication of seeds Scientists from University College London have used synchrotron light to document for the first time the rate of evolution of seed coat thinning, a major mark of crop domestication, from archaeological remains. It marks the first-time scientists have been able to measure coat thickness throughout an entire seed. Published in the journal Science Reports, the authors present evidence for seed coat thinning between 2,000 BCE and 1,200 BCE in the legume horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum), a bean commonly eaten in southern India. “Seed coat thickness is a great indicator of domestication, as thinner coats will mean faster germination of a seed when it is watered,” explained Dorian Fuller, co-author on the paper. “But conventional methods of looking at the seed coat require breaking and destroying archaeological specimens.” “Being able to look at the seed coat thickness without breaking the sample is possible by other methods, but you can only look at a spot on the seed,” added Charlene Murphy, co-author on the paper. “The beamline at Diamond has allowed us to look at the entire seed, and has shown considerable variation within individual specimen’s seed coat thickness.” The team’s results suggest that domestication of horsegram took place during the second millennium BCE, with seed coats fairly fixed in thickness by the early centuries CE. The findings also suggest that the high-resolution X-ray computed tomography method could be used to study a variety of domesticated grains and pulses. Featured image: New isotopic analyses of bones, soils and plant remains from Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provide evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment. Courtesy of Terry Hunt ]]>

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History News of the Week – Roman Construction Lessons

Formations of Aluminum Tobermorite Crystals

Building Lessons from the Romans New research is providing insights into how Roman harbours that are thousands of years old have withstood the ravages of time. Scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkley National Lab used x-rays to study samples of Roman concrete – from an ancient pier and a breakwater, to learn more about the make-up of their mineral cements. Having previously found that crystals of aluminous tobermorite, a layered mineral, played a key role in strengthening the concrete as they grew in relict lime particles, the team’s latest research is piecing together how, when and where these crystals formed in the long history of the ancient structures. The research may ultimately influence modern construction techniques. It could lead to a wider adoption of concrete manufacturing processes with less environmental impact than those used for modern Portland cement, while the researchers also claim that an updated version of Roman concrete could be tested for applications such as seawalls and other ocean facing structures. The concrete could even be useful for safeguarding hazardous wastes. “At the ALS we map the mineral cement microstructures,” said Marie Jackson, a geology and geophysics research professor at the University of Utah who led the study. “We can identify the various minerals and the intriguingly complex sequences of crystallization at the micron scale.” “Contrary to the principles of modern cement-based concrete, the Romans created a rock-like concrete that thrives in open chemical exchange with seawater,” she continued. The research has been published in the journal American Mineralogist. Breakthrough in dating Viking fortress Archaeologists have made a breakthrough in dating the mysterious Viking fortress in Borgring, south of Copenhagen, which was first discovered in 2014. Ever since the fortress was first unearthed, a great deal of curiosity has surrounded the life, function and fate of the Viking structure. Researchers had speculated it dated to the tenth century, possibly to the reign of Harold Bluetooth (958 – 987), but it couldn’t be proven. In June of this year, archaeologists opened new trenches in a meadow next to the fortress, uncovering in situ some 2.5m beneath the surface a roughly 1m long piece of carved oak wood with drilled holes and several wooden pegs. A specialist in dendrochronological dating, Associate Professor Aoife Daly from the University of Copenhagen said the conserved part of the tree trunk was grown in the years 829-850 in the Danish area. “Since no splints have been preserved, it means that the tree has fallen at some point after year 966” Daly said in a press release. “The wood piece was found on top of a peat layer, and is fully preserved as it is completely water-logged. We now have a date of wood in the valley of Borgring, which corresponds to the dating from the other ring fortresses from Harold Bluetooth’s reign. With the dendrochronological dating, in conjunction with the traces of wear the piece has, it is likely that the piece ended as waste in the late 900s, possibly in the early 1000’s.” said research leader Jens Ulriksen. “In the coming week, the National Museum’s environmental archaeologists will take samples of wet depositions in the valley with the aim of uncovering how the layers have evolved from the earliest strata we have dated to the Bronze Age and over time,” said excavation leader Nanna Holm. The team hope that this will reveal exactly where the nearby river was when the fortress was built in the Viking Age. Funded by a grant from the A.P. Møller Foundation, the team included researchers from the Museum of South East Denmark and Aarhus University, as well as leading experts from the Environmental Archeology and Materials Research department at the Danish National Museum and the National Police Department’s Section for arson investigation. Poland seeks extradition of man accused of heading an SS unit Prosecutors in Poland are seeking the extradition of a 98-year-old man accused of being the former commander of an SS led unit that slaughtered civilians and burnt Polish villages to the ground during World War Two. Michael Karkoc has repeatedly denied the charges leveled against him, according to the Independent. Officials from the National Remembrance Institute in Warsaw accuse Karkoc of commanding a unit of Ukrainian nationalists responsible for mass killings in villages along Poland’s eastern border during World War II. The extradition request has been handed to the Polish embassy in Washington. According to the Independent, an inquiry by the Associated Press (AP) into Karkoc triggered the IPN investigation. The AP piece pointed out that Krakoc did not have a direct role in the atrocities, but was present and witness to them as a company leader. Whether Krakoc will be extradited will be governed by the EU – US extradition treaty. Krakoc is said to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, the Independent article states, raising questions over whether he’d be fit to stand trial. Earlier this year, his son Andriy Karkoc, fervently denied the charges leveled against his father. Image is from a scanning electron microscope, shows formations of aluminum tobermite crystals in a volcanic ash sample from the Campi Flegrei Volcano in Italy. X-ray experiments at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source have helped researchers to understand how these crystals develop over time to strengthen ancient Roman concrete structures. The scale bar at lower right represents 20 microns, or 20 millionths of a meter. Courtesy of University of Utah ]]>