Unique workshop of Palaeolithic hunters discovered in Silesia

Topic: Flint tools

The flint workshops, remains of which were found by archaeologists, had been used by Neanderthals. The researchers are waiting for more detailed information on the site dating. The workshop is certainly more than 45 thousand years old.

“Tools were made by a specific canon of Neanderthals living in Central Europe. These items have a cutting edge on both sides, they are bifacial” – said Dr. Wiśniewski.

Tools, including bifaces and asymmetric blades, are made of siliceous rocks, commonly called flint. According to head researcher, Neanderthals made their tools with holders made of antlers, wood or other materials. This is evidenced by the results of the microscopic analysis of similar items discovered in Germany. Among the flint, archaeologists also found fragments of coarse grained crystalline rock used as pestles – support tools in the manufacture of other tools. This is one of few places in Poland, where archaeologists discovered tools of this kind.

“We believe that a thorough analysis of the remains of biface and knife workshop will allow us to better understand the procedures for making these complex tools. We are also going to compare our finds with the ones from Moravia, because we would like to answer the question asked for a long time: how were the Neanderthals living the present territory of Silesia connected with the group from Moravia? Was it the same population or a completely separate community?” – added the scientist.

According to archaeologists, the place the discovery is not accidental. Further south is the Moravian Gate, known migration route of nations from southern European over the millennia. This is one of the Central Europe’s largest corridors intersecting Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains.

“In this territory, we are finding traces of various activities: from hunting and slaughtering migrating wild game, to places of prolonged stay of Neanderthal groups of hunters and gatherers” – said the archaeologist. However, this is the first site so rich in finds from the Paleolithic period found in this area.

Archaeological work on the site began in August 2012 and will continue this summer. One of the first tasks will be to take samples needed for more accurate dating of the site. The analyses will be carried out by thermoluminescence (TL). It is used to determine the age of deposition of particular layers. Also involved in the work in the area of the site is Dr. Janusz Badura, responsible for natural research.

“We also need to learn more about the natural and climatic conditions accompanying the Neanderthals. This is the purpose of the search for sediments containing pollen from the period of interest. Our dream is to discovery skeletal remains of the game of the period” – concluded the researcher.

naukawpolsce.pap.pl

Light cast on lifestyle and diet of first New Zealanders

Topic: Ancients in New Zealand

A University of Otago-led multidisciplinary team of scientists have shed new light on the diet, lifestyles and movements of the first New Zealanders by analysing isotopes from their bones and teeth.

In research published today in the prestigious international journal PLOS ONE, the team are able to identify what is likely to be the first group of people to colonise Marlborough’s Wairau Bar possibly from Polynesia around 700 years ago. They also present evidence suggesting that individuals from two other groups buried at the site had likely lived in different regions of New Zealand before being buried at Wairau Bar.

The researchers, co-ordinated by the Department of Anatomy’s Associate Professor Hallie Buckley, undertook isotopic analyses of samples recovered from the koiwi tangata (human remains) of the Rangitane iwi tupuna prior to their reburial at Wairau Bar in 2009.

The Wairau Bar Koiwi Project is part of a larger archaeological project being conducted in collaboration with the Rangitane iwi, the Canterbury Museum and the University of Otago. The interpretation of these new data was strengthened by collaboration with colleagues from SPAR, the University of Otago archaeologists who undertook the more recent archaeological excavations at the site.

“By examining ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes present in bone collagen we were able to estimate individuals’ broad dietary makeup over a 10-20 year period prior to death. Our analysis of strontium isotopes in teeth allowed us to distinguish between people growing up in geologically different landscapes,” says Dr Rebecca Kinaston, who conducted the isotope analyses on the bones and teeth.

The tupuna were originally buried in three separate groups in a large village at the Wairau site. First excavated over 70 years ago, this ancient settlement is one of the most important archaeological sites in New Zealand because of its age and the range of east Polynesian type artefacts found there.

Previous research found that one of the burial groups displayed distinct cultural differences to the two other burial groups at the site. These included the positions in which they were interred and the presence of more numerous and rich grave offerings, including whale bone ornaments and moa eggs generally not found with the other two groups.

The new isotopic analysis of bone collagen and teeth suggests that members of this first group shared similar diets and childhood origins, while individuals in Groups 2 and 3 displayed highly variable diets and spent their childhood in geologically different areas to Group 1.

“Interestingly, Group 1 individuals showed a dietary trend similar to that identified in prehistoric individuals from a site in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, with both sets of people sharing a low diversity in protein sources,” Dr Kinaston says.

In contrast, dietary patterns in Groups 2 and 3 were found to be in line with individuals who spent most of their lives eating from a wide range of protein sources, such as would be available through New Zealand’s then bountiful seal, moa and other bird populations.

The large range found in Group 2 and 3’s strontium isotope ratios could reflect that they grew up in regions outside of Wairau Bar—but not where Group 1 did—and also that they were hunting and gathering across a wide geographical range, says Associate Professor Hallie Buckley.

“This is consistent with other archaeological evidence that the first settlers in New Zealand were highly mobile. That members of Groups 2 and 3 were still buried back at Wairau suggests that this village may have fulfilled both a ceremonial and home base function.”

If this is the case, this may represent the roots of the tangihanga ritual, in which Maori are buried in their ancestral lands, developing among these first New Zealanders, Associate Professor Buckley says.

Original article:
otago.ac.nz
May 16, 2013

Info on Wairau Bar

This site is known as Wairau Bar, because a bar or bank of gravel has formed where the Wairau River meets the sea. Early Polynesians used the site as a moa-hunting camp, and archaeological excavations have revealed the butchered remains of countless huge birds, together with human skeletons. As the moa is now thought to have become extinct very quickly, possibly within 100–200 years of human settlement, those who hunted it must have been among the first generations of Polynesian arrivals. In addition, the types of cultural objects (artefacts) found with skeletons at Wairau Bar are of a distinct early form that has close affinities with artefacts from the Cook, Society and Marquesas islands in East Polynesia.

Found on:
teara,govt.nz

Ancient Ale, Modern Brewer

Topic Ale

Once upon a time in the back garden, I started to do some archaeological grain processing experiments. It was the summer of 1995. I’d just finished an archaeology degree. Now I was enrolled on a master’s degree course at Manchester University and I was beginning my investigations into how people may have made the ale in prehistory.

In my final year as an undergraduate, I had chosen the British Neolithic and Bronze Age as my specialist subject. We were told that, in Bronze Age Britain- Beakers were for Beer! Warriors buried with wristguards and bows and arrows and fine beaker pots for their ale! It got a laugh from the class, as any mention of beer and brewing seems to do.I’m still not sure why – but that was when I first began to wonder. “OK. So, how did they make it?”

Being married to a craft brewer, I was used to living in a brew house. The sacks of crushed malt. The delicious aroma of the mash. The rituals. The water and wort spilled on the kitchen floor. Steam emanating from the out house door as he mashed the malt and boiled the wort. We lived in a big, old Victorian house and the dining room was where the beer was fermented. We had a cellar to keep it in. He would bring a sack of crushed malt in through the front door and transform it into beer. It was very good beer. It was a fairly simple process.

I spent months hunting around the John Rylands Library for any reference, anything at all, in the rows of archaeology books about prehistoric Britain for anything to do with
malt

ale

beer

brewing

maltster

barley

malting floor

etc etc etc ???

I found nothing about how ale was made. Anywhere. There’s my research topic, I thought.

How did they make the ale in Bronze Age Britain? All the paper work was done, I was accepted as a Post Graduate student and I got a desk – nothing else, just a desk. In the late 1990s there were just a handful of computers in the Archaeology & Art History Department. None at all in the John Rylands University Library. But plenty of books, journals and excavation reports. So I applied myself to reading excavation reports and to understanding how ale is made.

With three young children, it was always going to take a while. It would always be part time.

Within a couple of months, reading about the organic residues described in excavation reports that had been identified on both Bronze Age Beakers and Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery, I realised that brewing might perhaps be a neolithic thing … but more of that particular excitement another time.

To make ale from the grain, you must transform it into sugars. Sugar ferments into alcohol, we all know that. The transformation of cereal into alcohol is done by heating up crushed malt with water to make a wort. That is what craft brewers do. But I had to use equipment that would have been available to a Bronze Age or a Neolithic brewer.

So, all I needed was some crushed malt, an earthenware bowl and a fire. I took some of the household brewing ingredient – Maris Otter Pale Crushed Malt. I went to the local garden centre and bought an earthenware bowl. The bowl was heated, and sealed with beeswax.

Making a small hearth and a fire, I put some crushed pale malt into the bowl and let it gently heat up on the warm ashes. At first the mixture was starchy and white.

After about half an hour, it began to turn golden brown and there was that familiar aroma of the mash. The liquid in the bowl began to taste sweet. I was making malt sugars. Then, I mixed up some crushed malt and water into a slightly thicker mixture and put it on the flat stone by the fire. The stone had become quite warm by now. If I sprinkled water on the “barley malt cakes” they began to change colour and become golden brown.

This is known, officially, as the saccharification. My craft brewer husband had been telling me, for months, that I had to understand the saccharification before I could understand the brewing process. Now that I had done it for myself, I understood it – at least superficially.

By doing something, experimentally, for myself, I had learned that:

Malted barley could be easily made into liquid malt sugars using simple equipment.

All that was needed was water, crushed malted grain, the application of gentle heat and a heat proof and watertight container for the mash.

But it was also possible to make malt sugars on a hot stone by the fire.

As with any archaeological experiment, it had thrown up many new questions for me to consider. And my investigations into ancient ale were underway.

Could these be the so called “beer bread” of the Egyptians or the “bappir” of the Sumerians? How far back did this fundamental technology go? What is so special about the malted grain that you could make sugars from it? I had lots and lots to learn yet!

Original article:
merryn.dineley.com

Comment by the above author:

I am archaeologist with a special interest in ancient and traditional crafts of malting and brewing, skills that go back to the Stone Age, to the dawn of agriculture over 10,000 years ago
Should be a good blog to check now and again even if it is on Blogger.

EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF HUMAN ANCESTORS HUNTING AND SCAVENGING

Topic:Early man

Beginning around two million years ago, early stone tool-making humans, known scientifically as Oldowan hominin, started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures, including an increase in brain and body size, heavier investment in their offspring and significant home-range expansion.

Demonstrating how these early humans acquired the extra energy they needed to sustain these shifts has been the subject of much debate among researchers.

A recent study led by Joseph Ferraro, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology at Baylor, offers new insight in this debate with a wealth of archaeological evidence from the two million-year-old site of Kanjera South (KJS), Kenya. The study’s findings were recently published in PLOS One.

Facilitated brain expansion

“Considered in total, this study provides important early archaeological evidence for meat eating, hunting and scavenging behaviour -cornerstone adaptations that likely facilitated brain expansion in human evolution, movement of hominins out of Africa and into Eurasia, as well as important shifts in our social behaviour, anatomy and physiology,” Ferraro said.

Located on the shores of Lake Victoria, KJS contains “three large, well-preserved, stratified” layers of animal remains. The research team worked at the site for more than a decade, recovering thousands of animal bones and rudimentary stone tools.

Increased reliance on meat eating

According to researchers, hominins at KJS met their new energy requirements through an increased reliance on meat eating. Specifically, the archaeological record at KJS shows that hominins acquired an abundance of nutritious animal remains through a combination of both hunting and scavenging behaviours. The KJS site is the earliest known archaeological evidence of these behaviours.

“Our study helps inform the ‘hunting vs. scavenging’ debate in Palaeolithic archaeology. The record at KJS shows that it isn’t a case of either/or for Oldowan hominins two million years ago. Rather hominins at KJS were clearly doing both,” Ferraro said.

Transported as whole carcasses

The fossil evidence for hominin hunting is particularly compelling. The record shows that Oldowan hominins acquired and butchered numerous small antelope carcasses. These animals are well represented at the site by most or all of their bones from the tops of their head to the tips of their hooves, indicating to researchers that they were transported to the site as whole carcasses.

Many of the bones also show evidence of cut marks made when hominins used simple stone tools to remove animal flesh. Some bones also bear evidence that hominins used fist-sized stones to break them open to acquire bone marrow.

In addition, modern studies in the Serengeti–an environment similar to KJS two million years ago–have also shown that predators completely devour antelopes of this size within minutes of their deaths. As a result, hominins could only have acquired these valuable remains on the savanna through active hunting.

Wildebeest-sized antelopes

The site also contains a large number of isolated heads of wildebeest-sized antelopes. In contrast to small antelope carcasses, the heads of these somewhat larger individuals are able to be consumed several days after death and could be scavenged, as even the largest African predators like lions and hyenas were unable to break them open to access their nutrient-rich brains.

“Tool-wielding hominins at KJS, on the other hand, could access this tissue and likely did so by scavenging these heads after the initial non-human hunters had consumed the rest of the carcass,” Ferraro said. “KJS hominins not only scavenged these head remains, they also transported them some distance to the archaeological site before breaking them open and consuming the brains. This is important because it provides the earliest archaeological evidence of this type of resource transport behaviour in the human lineage.”
Original article:
past horizons
May 10, 2013

In ancient China, sago palms were major plant food prior to rice cultivation

Topic: rice

Starch granules on Neolithic tools resemble those of sago palms, bananas, tubers

Before rice cultivation became prevalent, ancient populations on the southern coast of China likely relied on sago palms as staple plant foods, according to research published May 8 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Xiaoyan Yang and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China.

Little is known about prehistoric diets of those who lived in southern subtropical China, as the acidic soils and humid climate of the region cause poor preservation of plant remains. Though literature and archaeological discoveries have suggested that roots and tubers were the staple foods in this region, no direct evidence has so far been found. In this study, researchers analyzed starch granules recovered from Neolithic stone tools used approximately 3,350-2,470 BC, and found these to resemble starches typically found in sago-type palms. They found that people at this time also likely relied on bananas, acorns and freshwater roots and tubers as important plant foods prior to the cultivation of rice.

Original Article:
eurekalert
May 8, 2013

Below is an excerpt from the original research article published on PLOS one:

Abstract

Poor preservation of plant macroremains in the acid soils of southern subtropical China has hampered understanding of prehistoric diets in the region and of the spread of domesticated rice southwards from the Yangtze River region. According to records in ancient books and archaeological discoveries from historical sites, it is presumed that roots and tubers were the staple plant foods in this region before rice agriculture was widely practiced. But no direct evidences provided to test the hypothesis. Here we present evidence from starch and phytolith analyses of samples obtained during systematic excavations at the site of Xincun on the southern coast of China, demonstrating that during 3,350–2,470 aBC humans exploited sago palms, bananas, freshwater roots and tubers, fern roots, acorns, Job’s-tears as well as wild rice. A dominance of starches and phytoliths from palms suggest that the sago-type palms were an important plant food prior to the rice in south subtropical China. We also believe that because of their reliance on a wide range of starch-rich plant foods, the transition towards labour intensive rice agriculture was a slow process.

Introduction

The orthodox view of the spread of agriculture in southern China and southeast Asia is that Neolithic farmers spread south from mainland China on to Taiwan and then into island Southeast Asia. In doing so, they are argued to have spread a cultural package of domesticated rice, pigs, forms of pottery, along with Austronesian languages. The initial cultural migration from southern China is thought to have occurred sometime around or prior to 5,000 years ago, ultimately terminating in the colonization of remote Oceania by 1,200 AD [1]–[3].This model is built upon evidence from archaeological, as well as linguistic and genetic data [1]–[5], but importantly, from many sites used in the model, archaeobotanical data is lacking. Because of poor organic preservation at many of these southern subtropical sites, we know very little about the typical plant diets south of the Yangtze River Basin. As a result archaeologists have been forced to rely on data from historic sites and written records to infer the nature of subsistence in this region [3].

According to the historic records it is generally presumed that roots and tubers were the likely staple plant foods during the prehistoric period [6]–[8]. This view has been supported by limited archaeological evidence of charred roots and tubers, although unidentified to species recovered from Zengpiyan cave, an early Holocene site in Guangxi, south China [9]. Xincun site, reported here, clarifies for the first time, the plant use traditions that dominated southern subtropical China and by reference other parts of Southeast Asia, before the spread of rice cultivation.

The Xincun site (112°59′E, 21°54′N) is located at 7.0 m a.s.l. along the crest of a coastal sand dune, approximately 180 km southwest of Guangzhou City (Figure 1). The site was excavated from July 2008 through April 2009, ahead of a major industrial development in the area, uncovering ~8,000 m2 a series of village occupations. This settlement was located near a remnant of an older lagoon into which freshwater streams flew from surrounding hills (Figure 1). During the excavations six late Neolithic layers were identified alternating with sandy layers, 15–40 cm thick, indicating periods of site abandonment. Ten AMS dates derived from charcoal and soot from the exterior faces of pottery fragments placed the site occupations between ca.3,500 aBC and 2,470 aBC (Table 1). Features included living surfaces, postholes, pits of various types and hearths were systematically uncovered. The material culture is characterized by sand tempered pottery, stone tools including grinding slabs and pestles, grooved pebbles, net weights, and pierced pebble sinkers for fishing.

For more information go to:plod one.org

Origins of Chinese agriculture pushed back by 12,000 years

Topic Agriculture in Ancient China,

The first evidence of agriculture appears in the archaeological record some 10,000 years ago. But the skills needed to cultivate and harvest crops weren’t learned overnight. Scientists have traced these roots back to 23,000-year-old tools used to grind seeds, found mostly in the Middle East.

Now, research lead by Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology at Stanford, reveals that the same types of tools were used to process seeds and tubers in northern China, setting China’s agricultural clock back about 12,000 years and putting it on par with activity in the Middle East. Liu believes that the practices evolved independently, possibly as a global response to a changing climate.

Stones for processing

Professor Li Liu and graduate student Hao Zhao take residue and use-wear samples from a grinding slab in China. Image: Stanford University

The earliest grinding stones have been found in Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites around the world. These consisted of a pair of stones, typically a handheld stone that would be rubbed against a larger, flat stone set on the ground, to process wild seeds and tubers into flour-like powder.

Once the stones are unearthed, use-wear traces and residue of starch grains on the used surfaces can be analysed to reveal the types of plants processed.

Liu focused on stones discovered at a roughly 23,000-year-old site in the middle of the Yellow River region in northern China. Most of the agricultural research in this area has focused on the Holocene period, roughly 10,000 years ago, when people were domesticating animals and farming.

“The roots of agriculture must be much deeper than 10,000 years ago,” Liu said. “People have to first be familiar with the wild plants before cultivating them. The use of these grinding stones to process food indicates that people exploited these plants intensively and became familiar with their characteristics, a process that eventually led to agriculture.”

Indeed, the starch analysis has shown traces of grasses, beans, wild millet seeds, a type of yam and snakegourd root – the same types of food that people in the region would domesticate thousands of years later. Domesticated millet, in particular, became the main staple crop that supported the agricultural basis of ancient Chinese civilization.

Using a microscope, Professor Li Liu finds and records starch grains extracted from ancient tools. Image: Stanford University

Human adaptation to climate change

Similar patterns of activity existed around the world at the same time, but this is the first evidence that people in northern China were practising comparable methods. In particular, the extensive use of seeds by people in China and elsewhere could help paint a picture of humans adapting to a worldwide changing climate during an ice age.

“Wild millet seeds are very, very small, and people would need to spend a lot of time to gather enough seeds to be useful,” Liu said. “This suggests either that they were under some pressure and better foods were not readily available, or that seeds had suddenly become more abundant and easier to collect.

“We know that during the Ice Age, populations were under pressure. I think that our finding suggests that there was some general evolutionary trend, and that people around the world reacted to climate change in a similar way, although independently.”

Incidentally, the presence of tubers could point to the dawn of another discipline.

“Yam and snakegourd root that we found can be used both as food and as traditional herb medicine in China,” Liu said. “Whether or not they were used as medicine, we don’t know yet, but this discovery could suggest that people understood, or were developing an understanding of, the medicinal properties of some of those roots.”

The study was published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Stanford University

For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases
Original article:
past horizons
May 3, 2013

New Evidence Unearthed for the Origins of the Maya

Topic: Early origins

Photograph courtesy Takeshi Inomata
Archaeologists excavate through the A-24 platform to reach the foundations, dated to about 1,000 B.C.

Civilizations rise and fall, often in dramatic fashion. Their origins, though, are subtler and tend to be overlooked or poorly understood.

In the case of the Maya, a new paper in Science magazine sheds surprising light on that murky early period.

The classic period of the lowland Maya in Mesoamerica (A.D. 300 to 950) is a popular topic in archaeology, but little is known about the early preclassic era (before 1000 B.C.). Scientists are typically split between two theories on the subject: Either the Maya developed directly from an older “mother culture” known as the Olmec, or they sprang into existence independently.

Takeshi Inomata, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona and a National Geographic research grantee, disagrees with both theories. In his work at the archaeological site of Ceibal in Guatemala, he has unearthed evidence for a more complex origin story.

Early Ritual Spaces

The Maya are usually associated with monumental architecture. Massive pyramids and immense plazas testify to a complex and fascinating culture. One can hardly hear the word “Maya” without imagining elaborately decorated kings and priests climbing the long, steep stairs of pyramids like those at Tikal.

But pyramids don’t just spring out of the jungle overnight, nor does a complex culture merely appear. Inomata and his team dug below the monumental architecture at Ceibal to see how such structures began.

Inomata assumed that the now iconic classic architecture probably stood on earlier sites used for similar purposes. His assumption turned out to be correct. He found smaller platforms built of earth beneath the pyramids of stone, signaling a formal ritual complex at Ceibal dating to around 1000 B.C.

The presence of ritual architecture early in the development of the Maya is an indication of a settled lifestyle with complex agriculture, religion, and a stratified society—all of which add up to a unified culture and the beginnings of a larger civilization.

Redefining the Olmec Connection

Experts have traditionally believed that when the Olmec were busy building their civilization at large sites such as La Venta, near the Gulf coast in modern Mexico, the people who would become the Maya were living in loosely associated nomadic groups in the jungles to the east and southeast. This theory holds that the Maya derived their entire society—including their architecture and social structure—directly from the Olmec.

But Inomata’s work has revealed that the Olmec is not an older civilization. In fact, Ceibal pre-dates La Venta by as long as two centuries. And although some Olmec cities are indeed older than both La Venta and Ceibal, they likely did not interact with the Maya.

“This does not mean that the Maya developed independently,” Inomata says. Instead, he believes, the influence flowed both ways. La Venta and Ceibal appear to have developed in tandem in a great cultural shift throughout the region. “It seems more likely that there was a broad history of interactions across these regions, and through these interactions, a new form of society developed.”

More Flexible Definitions

To further complicate matters, Inomata stresses that the evidence doesn’t show clear distinctions between the Olmec and Maya at the preclassic stage.

The two civilizations are easy to differentiate during the classic period, since the Maya had by then developed a distinct language and culture. But the period between 1000 and 700 B.C. is more transitional. With La Venta and Ceibal freely trading ideas, technologies, cultural elements, and perhaps even population, it’s difficult to call one Olmec and the other Maya.

“Determining labels for these early people is quite a tricky question—we’re not sure if residents of early Ceibal were wholly Mayan,” says Inomata. “We have decided to take a much more flexible approach, avoiding fixed labels in favor of looking at patterns of interaction and how more stable identities developed.”

An Agricultural Revolution

Inomata and his team will spend the next three years analyzing the findings from Ceibal. They will then begin to excavate outside the site’s center, hoping to gain an understanding of what day-to-day life was like in the preclassic period.

The peripheral areas, separated from the ritual plazas and temples, could hold more keys to the origins of the Maya. Inomata believes that the residential and agricultural areas are particularly important.

Around 1000 B.C. the previously nomadic groups that became the Maya began to build urban ritual areas. “Instead of starting with villages,” Inomata says, “they made a ceremonial center.” The idea for that may have come from the people who later created La Venta.

A radical shift in agriculture at that time may also have played an important role in the move to a more settled lifestyle. Corn, the principal crop of the Maya, “became much more productive,” says Inomata. “And then it made sense to cut down forests and increase agriculture.”

Inomata believes this agricultural revolution may have been rooted in genetic changes in the corn plant itself. But this, like so many other ideas about the rise and fall of the Maya civilization, still requires much more evidence to prove.

Original article:
nationalgeographic
By Nicholas Mott, April 25, 2013