Archaeology
The remains of newborn twin girls have been found in the archaeological site of Sant Miquel d'Olèrdola in Catalonia and it is expected that they belong to two girls between 38 and 40 weeks of gestation, who were buried at the same time in the same grave with their legs entwined.
The remains date between the middle of the 4th century B.C. to the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. and are the first bone remains of twins to be recorded in the Iberian peninsula.
According to the study, "none of the bone remains show pathological evidence of the cause of death but it could have been a consequence…
Hank |
Ancient sunken ships are generally found in shallow water 100 or so, but two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found almost a mile deep in waters off the islands of Corfu and Paxoi, the Ionian Sea between western Greece and Italy.
The wrecks are from the third century A.D. and lend more evidence to the idea that bolder ancient shipmasters did not just stick to coastal routes and ventured into the open sea. Of course, since they are wrecks it also explains why more cautious trade captains absolutely did stick to coastal routes when they could. Smaller vessels such as this, 80 feet long and…
During the Middle Palaeolithic, between 127,000 and 40,000 years ago, humans that lived along the banks of the river Manzanares (now Madrid, Spain) ate pachyderm meat and bone marrow, according to a study that found percussion and cut marks on elephant remains in the site of Preresa.
So if you want to try a fad paleolithic diet, get a cheap spear and see how you do bringing one of those babies down first.
In prehistoric times, hunting animals was dangerous and required a considerable amount of energy. As you can imagine, when the people of the Middle Palaeolithic bagged an elephant, they…
The Trefael Stone is an ancient monument in south-west Wales.
The stone bears multiple cupmarks, circular holes gouged into its surface associated with ritual burial activity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The stone’s shape suggests that of a capstone and the archaeologist Frances Lynch, writing in 1972, suggested the site could be a possible dolmen site. However, no geophysical survey or excavation was carried out – until now - and what was originally thought to be an ancient standing stone turns out to be the capstone of a 5,500-year-old tomb, according to new research from an…
Swiss Army Jewelry?
The recent discovery of a pendant at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest on the Iberian Peninsula. This stone is nine centimeters long and has a hole for hanging it from the neck although it would seem it was used to sharpen tools.
Irikaitz lies behind the bath spa in Zestoa, on the other side of the river Urola, 14 meters from the river bank. Irikaiz is in the open air. Unlike caves, which are likely to have archeological treasures once it is…
A prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast has been found in Alaska, apparently a buckle.
There was no Bronze Age in Alaska, though it existed several thousand years earlier in Europe and Asia. Perhaps some of the earliest Inupiat Eskimos in northwest Alaska, thought to have migrated into Alaska from adjacent Siberia some 1,500 years ago, might have brought the object with them from the other side of the Bering Strait. The Inupiat Eskimos are believed to have occupied Cape Espenberg from about A.D. 1000 until the mid-1800s, said Hoffecker. They are part of the indigenous Eskimo…
Ayurveda, the most ancient and important system of medicine in India, is important to modern natural medicine proponents(1) because it regards preserving health and curing diseases as fundamental in providing meaning to our lives. For thousands of years it has been modified based on newer information but efforts have long been made to reconstruct a more authentic version of this treatise and its content and to assess the originality of the different versions of the text, which was written in Sanskrit.
A group wants to make a renewed effort to explore Ayurveda - which…
A clay tablet discovered Greece changes what is known about the origins of literacy in the western world, obviously a good thing, and, unfortunately, also about the origins of bureaucracy. Measuring 2 inches by 3 inches, the tablet fragment is the earliest known written record in Europe, dating back to between 1450 and 1350 B.C., 100-150 years before the tablets from the Petsas House at Mycenae.The tablet was unearthed last summer during the excavation at the site in Iklaina, which sits in the middle of an olive grove in southwest Greece. Iklaina dates to the…
The Clovis people, Paleo-Indians whose tools were known for their distinctive 'fluted' points, were once thought to be the original settlers of North America about 13,000 years ago. The name originates not from the 5th century Frankish king but rather the town in New Mexico where the stone projectile points created by their distinctive percussion and pressure flaking techniques were first discovered.
While anthropologists have hinted at earlier cultures than the Clovis, few artifacts had actually been recovered so it was primarily speculation, but researchers in Texas say…
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Tsunamis are big news for the last few days and there may be an ancient reason along with a current one. A group of researchers are saying a tsunami likely destroyed the fabled lost city of Atlantis...and it is underneath mud flats in southern Spain.
The team's findings are the subject of "Finding Atlantis," a National Geographic Channel special that aired this weekend (and you can watch again tomorrow evening).
University of Hartford professor Richard Freund, who led the international team searching for Atlantis, told Reuters, "It is just so hard to understand that it can…