Archaeology

[Kinslaughterer]

Utah Canyon Holds Secrets of Ancient Civilization
Sep. 18, 2004
RANGE CREEK CANYON, Utah (AP) -- The newly discovered ruins of an ancient civilization in this remote eastern Utah canyon could reveal secrets about the Fremont people, descendants of the continent's original paleoindians who showed up before the time of Christ to settle much of present-day Utah.

Archaeologists estimate as many as 250 households occupied this canyon over a span of centuries ending about 750 years ago. They left half-buried stone-and-mortar houses, cob houses and granary caches, and painted colorful trapezoidal figures with spiky hair styles on canyon walls.

"It's like finding a Van Gogh in your grandmother's attic," said Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones.

The Fremont, named after a Spanish explorer who never met them, remain a poorly understood collection of widely scattered archaic groups. Yet they represent a tenuous link to the earliest inhabitants of North America, who are believed to have arrived by way of the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago.

As a culture, the Fremont were distinguished by their style of basket weaving, animal-claw moccasins and dual survival strategy of farming and hunting.

Their everyday tools and gray pottery were different from the farming-dependent Anasazi south of the Colorado River -- even as they shared a similar fate. Both cultures packed up and left about the same time for reasons not fully explained -- the conventional explanation of drought is coming under question. What became of the Fremont and Anasazi also is a mystery.

The earliest traces of Fremont life show up three centuries before the birth of Christ, but they disappeared around A.D. 1250. This unlooted canyon -- turned over by a rancher who kept it secret for more than half a century -- could have been one of their final strongholds.

It could reveal why the Fremont were driven out of Utah and possibly left in isolated pockets to die off. More recently, makeshift sites found in northwest Colorado suggest to archaeologists they were forced into exile from their homelands by Numic-speaking Ute, Pauite and Shoshone tribes.

Utah's Indian leaders take exception to that, believing the Fremont are their ancestors who were absorbed into their more modern tribes. "The sacred belief is that we are all related," said Mel Brewster, an archaeologist and historic preservation officer for Utah's tiny Goshute tribe of Skull Valley.

Already, archaeologists in Range Creek have documented about 300 sites -- pit houses, granaries and rock art panels -- but they've surveyed only about 5 percent of the canyon drainage and expect its upper reaches and side canyons to yield evidence of hunting and gathering, of stone tools and wild plant foods.

Range Creek differs from other, better-known ancient sites in Utah, Arizona or Colorado because it has been left virtually untouched by looters, with the ground still littered in places with arrowheads, beads and pottery shards.

But the scenery of Range Creek is more spectacular than the ruins, which consist mostly of stubby remains of pit houses. "You could stand right on it and not know it," said Corinne Springer, an archaeologist and Range Creek's new caretaker.

Still, this researcher's canyon offers a glimpse of the full "effervescence" of Fremont life and a rare opportunity to witness "so many places where people lived and worked and farmed and got resources," Jones said.

Among recent finds are a paddle-like wood shovel; a rare bundle of arrow shafts, found wedged in a canyon wall; a perfectly preserved beehive-shaped granary with a cap stone, still a third full with piles of parched wild grass seed and corn; and a pair of human remains from surrounding federal land.

The remains were covered with dirt and left in place.

"My dad told me we owned the land, but not the dead people," said Waldo Wilcox, 74, who kept outsiders at bay with a gate that went up in 1947. Earlier this year his 4,200-acre ranch was turned over to state ownership. Wilcox moved to Green River and retired.

A few weeks ago Wilcox showed some American Indian leaders how he kept the ancient sites undisturbed "so I won't take the blame 20 years from now." Among items taken by other, previous landowners from the canyon are unfired clay figurines, usually impressed with facsimiles of hair bobs and jewelry.

Until recently, Range Creek was all but unknown. An expedition from Harvard's Peabody Museum made a stop in 1929, but visited only a few sites before calling it a day. Only in the past three summers have archaeologists and graduate students quietly conducted a labor-intensive survey. They kept the full significance of Range Creek under wraps until news reports surfaced about the land transfer in June.

Despite the publicity, Range Creek over the summer had only one suspected case of looting -- two knife blades flagged on the ground are missing -- and few random visitors outside of organized tours, Springer said.

The ranch is a two-hour, axle-breaking crawl over rock-strewn roads -- 34 jarring miles from the nearest unbroken pavement, which happens to be the most remote stretch of U.S. Route 6, a highway that traces the 50-mile crescent of the nearly impenetrable Book Cliffs.

Up this road, where Wilcox says two head of cattle were lost over the side, the road plunges 1,500 feet into Range Creek.

To safeguard the canyon, the Utah Department of Natural Resources is rushing to adopt an interim management plan that will restrict hunting, prohibit camping and require visitors on foot or horseback to get permits and guides. On Wednesday the Utah Legislature appropriated $152,000 for regular ground patrols and aircraft surveillance over the winter.

So far, the canyon's subtle charms tell two tales: traces of larger villages just off the canyon bottom and defensive retreats as high as 900 feet atop pinnacle and mesa tops, Jones said.

On low canyon terraces the Fremont lived more sensibly, keeping watch on crops that produced a gritty diet of corn, squash and wild grass seeds. They could also keep watch for game, and judging by the animal waste bone left around pit houses, they were proficient hunters, favoring bighorn sheep.

Archaeologists believe more carbon-dating will show the Fremont retreated to the higher positions toward the end of their tenure here, suggesting they were feeling pressure from other tribes moving through their territory.

The Fremont would have used ladders, ropes or cords to reach some of their granaries, set at impossible heights "where you risk life and limb getting to them," said Utah journalist and archaeologist Jerry Spangler. Many cliffside caches are inaccessible today except by use of modern climbing gear and haven't been visited.

The Fremont may have been expert climbers, but at other sites in Utah some of their skeletons exhibited the trauma of falling injuries, Jones said.

[Kinslaughterer]

Genghis Khan's mausoleum found
Wednesday, October 6, 2004 Posted: 1114 GMT (1914 HKT)



TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Archaeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's palace and believe the long-sought grave of the 13th century Mongolian warrior is somewhere nearby, the head of the excavation team says.

A Japanese and Mongolian research team found the complex on a grassy steppe 150 miles east of the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said Shinpei Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo's Kokugakuin University.

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) united warring tribes to become leader of the Mongols in 1206. After his death, his descendants expanded his empire until it stretched from China to Hungary.

Genghis Khan built the palace in the simple shape of a square tent attached to wooden columns on the site at around 1200, Kato said.

The researchers found porcelain buried among the ruins dated to the warrior's era, helping identify the grounds, Kato said. A description of the scenery around the palace by a messenger from China's Southern Tang Dynasty in 1232 also matched the area, he added.

Genghis Khan's tomb is believed to be nearby because ancient texts say court officials commuted from the mausoleum later built on the grounds to the burial site daily to conduct rituals for the dead.

Kato said his group was not aiming specifically to find the grave. Still, he said finding it would help uncover the secrets of Genghis Khan's power.

"Genghis Khan conquered Eurasia and built a massive empire. There had to have been a great deal of interaction between east and west at the time, in terms of culture and the exchange of goods," Kato said in an interview. "If we find what items were buried with him, we could write a new page for world history."

Genghis Khan's grave site is one of archaeology's enduring mysteries. According to legend, in order to keep it secret, his huge burial party killed anyone who saw them en route to it; then servants and soldiers who attended the funeral were massacred.


Kato said an ancient Chinese text says a baby camel was buried at the grave in front of her mother so the parent could lead Khan's family to the tomb when needed.

Archaeologists have been forced to abandon their searches for Khan's grave in the past, however, due to protests excavation would disturb the site.

An American-financed expedition to find the tomb stopped work in 2002 after being accused by a prominent Mongolian politician of desecrating traditional rulers' graves.

In 1993, Japanese archaeologists terminated a search for the tomb after a poll in Ulan Bator found the project unpopular.

According to Mongolian tradition, violating ancestral tombs destroys the soul that serves as protector.

If researchers do find the tomb, they would also likely discover the graves of Kublai Khan -- Genghis' grandson who spread the Mongol empire to southeast Asia and became the first emperor of China's Yuan Dynasty -- at the same time.

According to ancient texts, 13 or 14 Khan warriors, including Genghis and Kublai, are buried in the same place.

Kato said he would step aside and leave the matter of how to proceed up to his Mongolian colleagues if the team discovered the tombs.

"We will consult our Mongolian colleagues and decide what the best next step would be -- we may have to escape back to Japan," Kato said, laughing.

"Excavation should be done by Mongolians -- not by those of us from other countries. It is up for Mongolians to decide."

[Kinslaughterer]

I am diligently posting articles...hopefully someone is reading them
Anyway another tidbit to add to the Atlantean mythology

Searching for the 'Mayan Atlantis'

October 12 2004 at 09:44AM

Mexico City - A team of international archaeologists have set sail from Mexico to seek a sunken city that has been dubbed the "Mayan Atlantis", press reports said on Monday.

Quoted by the Mexican newspaper Milenio, team leader Paulina Zelintzky, a Russian archaeologist, said sonar equipment had given indications there could be ancient structures on the ocean floor between Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and Cuba.

According to Milenio, resonances showed geometric images similar to pyramids and round structures. The archaeologists will search the area using a mini-submarine known as "Deep Worker".

Signs there could be Mayan remains on the seabed first surfaced in 2000 when the area next to Cuba's westernmost tip was being explored for petroleum.

Before beginning their project, the archaeologists had to raise $2-million (about R13-million). They set sail from the port of Progreso in eastern Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula. - Sapa-dpa

[Kinslaughterer]

Digging away at Mayan mystery
Twice-discovered city poses puzzles for research team Site could hold key to cultural and linguistic riddles


CALGARY—The words Maya and mystery are never far apart when looking at the civilization that dominated Central America for at least seven centuries before collapsing — mysteriously — around AD 900.

Archaeologist Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a University of Calgary professor, is currently digging into one of the most intriguing of all those many mysteries, a "lost" city that not only survived being caught between two warring Mayan superpowers but also may have blazed a new path culturally and linguistically.

Working with researchers from Australia and Guatemala, Reese-Taylor co-directs a team excavating the ruins of Naachtun, an ancient city situated at the geographical heart of the Mayan civilization.

The location in northern Guatemala — between the Mayan centres of Tikal and Calakmul, across the border with Mexico — is so remote that Naachtun has been rediscovered twice.

"It's completely unexcavated except for what we've done," says the 47-year-old archaeologist, the latest in a series of top Maya scholars at the university.

"What also makes it different is that a lot of the buildings are still standing. They're not collapsed as at other Maya sites."

Simply reaching the site can involve a 30-kilometre trek by foot and mule when heavy rains make a rudimentary logging road impassable even for all-terrain vehicles. Added problems include lack of potable water, poisonous snakes and predatory grave-robbers.

"The looting has been huge, including several early tombs. The very artifacts that I need to answer many of the mysteries may have been taken away," says Reese-Taylor.

The 40-member team tackled 25 excavations during its first three-month expedition this spring and has only scratched the surface. Researchers estimate that Naachtun has at least 100 public buildings.

Overall, the ancient city probably covered a circular area that stretched a dozen kilometres from side to side and contained as many as 500 buildings for a population of as many as 40,000 people at its height.

Reese-Taylor thinks Naachtun could help fill in some of the blanks about the final collapse of the classic Mayan civilization, which is especially intriguing because the Maya were so advanced.

They charted the heavens, developed the only writing system native to the Americas and mastered mathematics and the calendar — all while the Dark Ages enveloped Europe.

At the height of their civilization in the 8th century, the Mayan heartland in northern Guatemala and the Yucatan was probably the most densely populated region in the world.

As a 1995 exhibition at the Museum of Civilization in Hull declared:

"Without advantage of metal tools, beasts of burden or even the wheel, they were able to construct vast cities with an astonishing degree of architectural perfection and variety. Their legacy in stone, which has survived in a spectacular fashion at places such as Palenque, Tikal, Tulum, Chichen Itza, Copan and Uxmal, lives on, as do the 7 million descendants of the classic Maya civilization."

The Maya actually suffered two major collapses: the first between AD 150 and 200; the second, final one, a century-long decline beginning in roughly AD 800 that emptied many of their great cities.

"There is a high probability that we're going to find out what caused the final collapse," says Reese-Taylor, referring to archaeologists studying Mayan sites in Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and Mexico.

Researchers generally believe that a combination of three factors — what Reese-Taylor calls "the one-two-three punch" — triggered the decline of many Mayan cities: continual warfare between rival kings, over-exploitation of fragile wetland ecosystems and decades of drought.

The result was famine beginning around AD 750 and mass migrations to the north.

Yet some Mayan cities were still functioning when Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

The last independent Mayan state did not fall until 1697.

Long before the Spanish assault, the Maya in Naachtun had honed their political survival skills. For nearly three centuries, they thrived despite being in the crossfire of continual warfare between two superpower neighbours: Tikal, 65 kilometres to the south, and Calakmul, 45 kilometres to the north.

These shifting affiliations left their mark culturally as well.

Various buildings display architectural influences from both of the superpowers, but there is also a third style drawn from the region around Rio Bec, a city even farther north.

Those particular buildings appear after AD 630.

Four decades later, Naachtun somehow defeated superpower Calakmul in a war.

"This piggy-in-the-middle may have had a powerful friend in Rio Bec and was able to break through with that help," says Reese-Taylor.

Still more clues about the cultural diversity of the lost city are emerging from the deciphering of hieroglyphics incised into ceremonial stone slabs.

Known as stelae, the slabs commemorate events in the lives of Mayan kings, such a births, deaths and the assumption of office. Naachtun is especially well-endowed, with more than two dozen surviving slabs.

Already there are hints in the chosen symbols or "glyphs" of a mixing of courtly writing style from one region with a vernacular style from another. The archaeologists are busily cataloguing pottery and other artifacts with an eye to gaining further evidence that Naachtun was a cultural and ethnic melting pot.

"What drives me is trying to understand the complexity of the area," says Reese-Taylor.

"How did different languages, different ethnicities, different political systems all pull together to form a coherent region?"

Today's researchers can tackle such over-arching issues only because of decades of previous field work, in which Canadian archaeologists played substantial roles. The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, for instance, carried out pioneering investigations at Lamanai, a Mayan city in Belize.

And unlocking the secrets of the writing system with its 600 glyphs is a riveting tale of syllabic detective work, academic feuds and forceful personalities recounted in several books, including Michael Coe's Breaking The Maya Code.

All the accounts credit a key breakthrough to Dave Keeley, now retired from Calgary's archaeology department, and his then-student Peter Mathews.

Now a professor of archaeology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, Mathews is a collaborator in the Naachtun research. The Guatemalan co-director of the project is Martin Rangel, an archaeologist at the University of San Carlos.

The annual budget for the Naachtun research is about $150,000, with the bulk coming from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, a federal granting agency

[Kinslaughterer]

Science@NASA -- Where the rain forests of Guatemala now stand, a great civilization once flourished. The people of Mayan society built vast cities, ornate temples, and towering pyramids. At its peak around 900 A.D., the population numbered 500 people per square mile in rural areas, and more than 2,000 people per square mile in the cities -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County.

This vibrant "Classic Period" of Mayan civilization thrived for six centuries. Then, for some reason, it collapsed.

The fall of the Maya has long been one of the great mysteries of the ancient world. But it's more than a historical curiosity. Within sight of the Mayan ruins, in the Petén region of Guatemala near the border with Mexico, the population is growing again, and rain forest is being cut to make farmland.

"By learning what the Maya did right and what they did wrong, maybe we can help local people find sustainable ways to farm the land while stopping short of the excesses that doomed the Maya," says Tom Sever at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).

Sever, NASA's only archeologist, has been using satellites to examine Mayan ruins. Combining those data with conventional down-in-the-dirt archeological findings, Sever and others have managed to piece together much of what happened:

From pollen trapped in ancient layers of lake sediment, scientists have learned that around 1,200 years ago, just before the civilization's collapse, tree pollen disappeared almost completely and was replaced by the pollen of weeds. In other words, the region became almost completely deforested.

Without trees, erosion would have worsened, carrying away fertile topsoil. The changing groundcover would have boosted the temperature of the region by as much as 6 degrees, according to computer simulations by NASA climate scientist Bob Oglesby, a colleague of Sever at the MSFC. Those warmer temperatures would have dried out the land, making it even less suitable for raising crops.

Rising temperatures would have also disrupted rainfall patterns, says Oglesby. During the dry season in the Petén, water is scarce, and the groundwater is too deep (500+ feet) to tap with wells. Dying of thirst is a real threat. The Maya must have relied on rainwater saved in reservoirs to survive, so a disruption in rainfall could have had terrible consequences.

(Changes in cloud formation and rainfall are occurring over deforested parts of Central America today, studies show. Is history repeating itself?)

Using classic archeology techniques, researchers find that human bones from the last decades before the civilization's collapse show signs of severe malnutrition.

"Archeologists used to argue about whether the downfall of the Maya was due to drought or warfare or disease, or a number of other possibilities such as political instability," Sever says. "Now we think that all these things played a role, but that they were only symptoms. The root cause was a chronic food and water shortage, due to some combination of natural drought and deforestation by humans."

Today, the rain forest is again falling under the axe. About half of the original forest has been destroyed in the last 40 years, cut down by farmers practicing "slash and burn" agriculture: a section of forest is cut down and burned to expose soil for planting crops. It's the ash that gives the soil its fertility, so within 3-5 years the soil becomes exhausted, forcing the farmer to move on and cut down a new section. This cycle repeats endlessly ... or until the forest is gone. By 2020, only 2% to 16% of the original rain forest will remain if current rates of destruction continue.

It seems that modern people are repeating some of the Maya's mistakes. But Sever thinks disaster can be averted if researchers can figure out what the Mayans did right. How did they thrive for so many centuries? An important clue comes from space:


NASA archeologist Tom Sever.
IKONOS satellite image revealing linear features that may have been Mayan irrigation canals. Image courtesy NASA/MSFC Sever and co-worker Dan Irwin have been looking at satellite photos and, in them, Sever spotted signs of ancient drainage and irrigation canals in swamp-like areas near the Mayan ruins. Today's residents make little use of these low-lying swamps (which they call "bajos," the Spanish word for "lowlands"), and archeologists had long assumed that the Maya hadn't used them either. During the rainy season from June to December, the bajos are too muddy, and in the dry season they're parched. Neither condition is good for farming.

Sever suspects that these ancient canals were part of a system devised by the Maya to manage water in the bajos so that they could farm this land. The bajos make up 40% of the landscape; tapping into this vast land area for agriculture would have given the Maya a much larger and more stable food supply. They could have farmed the highlands during the wet season and the low-lying bajos during the dry season. And they could have farmed the bajos year after year, instead of slashing and burning new sections of rain forest.

Could today's Petén farmers take a lesson from the Maya and sow their seeds in the bajos?

It's an intriguing idea. Sever and his colleagues are exploring that possibility with the Guatemalan Ministry of Agriculture. They're working with Pat Culbert of the University of Arizona and Vilma Fialko of Guatemala's Instituto de Antropología e Historia to identify areas in the bajos with suitable soil. And they're considering planting test crops of corn in those areas, with irrigation and drainage canals inspired by the Maya.

A message from 900 A.D.: it's never too late to learn from your ancestors.

[Avatar]

Post away KinSlaughterer. I for one am reading them. Fear not that your efforts are in vain.

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

Well this could affect the peopling of the Americas theory quite abit...
This is not a new theory however and has a few powerful proponents. Let's see if it stands up to hard scrutiny first. Let me also stress what a tremendous deal this is in the archaeological community.

Scientist: Man in Americas earlier than thought
Archeologists put man in North America 50,000 years ago
By Marsha Walton and Michael Coren
CNN
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Posted: 12:34 PM EST (1734 GMT)

(CNN) -- Archeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years.

An archeologist from the University of South Carolina today announced radiocarbon dating results of burned plant material dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago.

"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

That would make it significantly older than previously discovered sites, which were thought by most scientists to be from man's earliest venture into the Americas, about 13,000 years ago.

CNN is gathering reaction from archeologists and others in the field to today's announcement.

Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal next year which is the standard method by which scientists announce their findings

Until research is peer-reviewed, objective experts in the field have not necessarily had an opportunity to evaluate a scientist's methods, or weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.

But at least one other scientist said that the evidence - amassed over several years -- appears to suggest the artifacts are more than 13,000 years old.

"There have been a number of archeologists to see (the Topper site) and support it as a pre-Clovis site," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum.

Archeologists will meet in October of 2005 for a conference in Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss the earliest inhabitants of North America, including a visit to the Topper Site.

Goodyear has been excavating the Topper dig site along the Savannah River since the 1980s. He recovered artifacts and tools last May that are expected to push the date of colonization back before most of the earliest known settlements on the continent.

Goodyear dug four meters (13 feet) deeper than the soil layer containing the earliest North American people, known as the Clovis culture, and began uncovering a plethora of tools.

Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed hundreds of implements, many stone chisels and tools likely used to skin hides, butcher meat, carve antlers, wood and possibly ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance called chert, a flint like stone that is found in the region.

These discoveries could push that date back thousands -- maybe even tens of thousands -- of years and demand a new explanation for how the Americas were first settled.

Since the 1930s, archeologist have generally believed North America was settled by hunters following large game over a land bridge from Russia during the last major ice age about 13,000 years ago.

"That had been repeated so many times in text books and lectures it became part of the common lore," said Dennis Stanford, curator of archeology at the Smithsonian Institution. "People forgot it was only an unproven hypothesis."

Land-bridge assumption challenged
A growing body of evidence is prompting some scientists to challenge that assumption.

A scattering of sites from South America to Wisconsin have detected human presence before 13,000 years ago -- or the first Clovis sites -- since the first groundbreaking discovery of human artifacts in a cave near Clovis, New Mexico in 1936.

These discoveries have led archeologists to support alternative theories - such as settlement by sea -- for the Americas.

Goodyear and his colleagues began their dig at the Topper Site in the early 1980s with a goal of finding out more about the Clovis people, long thought to be the earliest people to settle the Americas.

Goodyear thought that because of the resources available along the Savannah River and the moderate climate it would be a good place to look for even earlier human settlers than the Clovis people.

[duchess of malfi]

I've always thought that 13,000 years was not enough for the populating of two continents on foot, and building up the very complex nations that existed here in the Americas before European contact. I hope the new dates work out.

[Avatar]

A very good point, especially considering the well-developed civilisations that existed on the southern continent.

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

Evidence of 16th-Century Spanish Fort in Appalachia?

Willie Drye in Plymouth, North Carolina
for National Geographic News
November 22, 2004


A long-standing theory says that more than four centuries ago Spanish explorers ventured into the foothills of what is now North Carolina. They stayed long enough to possibly change the course of European settlement in the New World, then vanished into the fog of time, the story says.
Until recently historians regarded a 16th-century Spanish presence this far north in North America as more theory than fact. But archaeologists working in a farm field near the tiny community of Worry Crossroads might change that perception.

Combining detective work with old-fashioned digging, the team may have unearthed ruins and artifcats—evidence that Spanish soldiers did, indeed, roam the Appalachian Mountains. The researchers think they've found the site of Fort San Juan, where Spanish explorers reportedly stayed from 1566 to 1568. The outpost was near the American Indian village of Joara, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of present-day Asheville.


Possible ruins of Spanish forts—ike those shown above of burned wall posts and roof timber fragments from what is thought to have been Fort San Juan in North Carolina—have led archaeologists to suggest that Spanish soldiers roamed the Appalachian Mountains in the 16th century. The archaeologists believe the Spanish built forts near Indian villages to be closer to food.


While the Spaniards' stay in western North Carolina would have been brief—about 18 months—it would have been long enough to perhaps have had a profound impact. Scholars think the Spanish may have brought diseases such as smallpox to the area, which decimated the Native Americans, who lacked immunity to the contagions.

"We don't have lots of data," said David Moore, an archaeologist at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa. "But what we do have suggests that it may have been a region where early European diseases contributed to a loss of the native populations."

The dramatic decline of Indian populations, plus the Spaniards' decision to abandon Fort San Juan and several other settlements, may have helped England's later colonization efforts.

English settlers tried and failed to establish a colony in 1587 on Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina. They established their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.

"Had these forts been established [and lasted] in the interior of North Carolina, the Spaniards would have fought harder to hold the East Coast against the English," Moore said.

And when English settlers ventured farther inland, the Indian tribes that might have opposed them were either gone or too weak to fight, he said.

Moore and several colleagues spent decades looking for clues about 16th-century Spanish incursions into North America and how those expeditions may have affected Native Americans. Among Moore's colleagues are Chester DePratter and Marvin Smith at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and Charles Hudson, now an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia.

The researchers knew that the Spanish liked to build forts near Indian villages, where they could obtain food. The team thought there were several Indian villages that might have attracted the explorers.

But the best known expedition, that of Hernando de Soto in 1539, left behind very little documentation about where the Spaniards went. The researchers had little to work with to determine where the Indian villages may have been.

About 20 years ago, however, DePratter came across a detailed account of a later expedition commanded by Captain Juan Pardo. The account was written by Juan de la Vandera, a scribe on the expedition who told the story of Pardo's attempt in 1566 to find a route from the Spanish port of Santa Elena (now Parris Island, South Carolina) to the Spanish gold mines in Mexico.

The scholars compared de la Vandera's account with what they already knew about 16th-century Native Americans in the area and pieced together a theory about where the Spaniards went and where Indian villages may have been. Still it was only a theory.

Then in the early 1980s the scholars got a break in their search for clues. Robin Beck, a student, showed some artifacts he'd found near Worry Crossroads to Hudson and others. Hudson, who wrote a book about Pardo's expedition, wondered if Beck had found the location of the Indian village of Joara. And if that was true, a Spanish fort might have been nearby.

The theory began to take on substance when archaeologists discovered the remains of four buildings in the nearby field that likely were part of Fort San Juan. They also found artifacts that, Moore said, the Spaniards "never would have traded to the Indians." These included lead shot used in the Spaniards' primitive firearms, nails, fragments from an olive jar, and small brass clothing items.

Hudson said the evidence of the Spanish presence is "not very spectacular stuff," but he doesn't think there's any other way these artifacts could have been found in the North Carolina foothills. Hudson said he and his colleagues have "advanced the first sustained argument" for the existence of Fort San Juan.

"Who could have made sense of finding that number of pieces of Spanish material in that location, apart from what we have done?" he said.

This past summer was the fourth season for the excavation at Worry Crossroads. The National Geographic Society funded the latest dig, during which evidence of a fifth building from the old fort was apparently discovered.

The archaeologists will resume their work next summer.

[Kinslaughterer]

The never-ending search
By Brendan O'Neill


Fascination with the Holy Grail has lasted for centuries, and now the Bletchley Park code-breakers have joined the hunt. But what is it that's made the grail the definition of something humans are always searching for but never actually finding?

Could an obscure inscription on a 250-year-old monument in a Staffordshire garden point the way to the Holy Grail - the jewelled chalice reportedly used by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper?

That is one theory entertained by Richard Kemp, the general manager of Lord Lichfield's Shugborough estate in Staffs.

Kemp has called in world-renowned code-breakers to try to decipher a cryptic message carved into the Shepherd's Monument on the Lichfield estate.

The monument, built around 1748, features an image of one of Nicholas Poussin's paintings, and beneath it the letters "D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M."

It has long been rumoured that these letters - which have baffled some of the greatest minds over the past 250 years, including Charles Darwin's and Josiah Wedgwood's - provide clues to the whereabouts of Christ's elusive cup.

Spot of bother

Poussin was said by some to have been a Grand Master of the Knights Templar, named after the order that captured Jerusalem during the Crusades and who were known as the "keepers of the Holy Grail".


Oliver and Sheila Lawn, with the mysterious inscription
Yet Oliver and Sheila Lawn, a couple in their 80s who were based at the code-breaking Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire during World War II, have had a spot of bother with the Shepherd's Monument.

Mr Lawn said yesterday that deciphering the letters was "much more difficult" than cracking the Enigma code in WWII. He thinks it's a message from an obscure Christian sect, declaring their belief that Jesus was an Earthly prophet, not a divinity - while his wife Sheila thinks it could be a coded tribute from a widowed earl to his wife.

So yet another trail to the Grail seems to have run dry. What is it about the Holy Grail that so excites the popular imagination? And why are so many willing to believe that such an item exists, when there is a dearth of evidence?

Renewed interest

The Holy Grail is believed by some to have been the chalice used at the Last Supper, by others to have been a cup used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood of the crucified Christ, and by others still to have been both. Some claim that Joseph may have brought the cup to Britain in the first century CE.

Stories about the Grail have been told for centuries. There has been a renewed interest since the publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in 1982, which claims, in a nutshell, that Jesus survived the crucifixion and together with Mary Magdalene founded a bloodline in France, the Merovingians, who were protected by the Knights Templar and later by the Freemasons. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, that book has been denounced as mad conspiracy-mongering by some.)

The probability that the cup found its ways to Joseph and that he travelled with it to Britain is as near as nil as makes no difference

Eric Eve


Code points away from Holy Grail
The Holy Grail has even turned up in Hollywood. In Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the eponymous hero both fights off the Nazis and finds the Grail.

Now Ron Howard, the Happy Days actor turned film director, is making a big-screen version of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's novel about how clues in Da Vinci paintings could lead to the discovery of a religious mystery, including the Grail, and shake the foundations of Christianity. Brown's novel has become a publishing phenomenon over the past two years, feted and hated in equal measure.

Purely legendary

According to experts, this is precisely where the Grail belongs - in fiction and films. Eric Eve is a tutor in theology and a New Testament scholar at Oxford University. He says he is unaware of any evidence for the existence of a Holy Grail.


Does Leonardo's Last Supper contain clues?
"In the version of the legend I know, the Grail is meant to be the chalice Jesus used at the Last Supper, subsequently brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. But there is no 1st Century evidence about what happened either to the chalice or to Joseph - assuming he's even an historical character.

"The probability that the cup found its ways to Joseph and that he travelled with it to Britain is as near as nil as makes no difference. I would say it is purely legendary."

Richard Barber, author of The Holy Grail: The History of a Legend, published by Penguin next month, says the Grail legend came into being more than a thousand years after Christ's death.

"It is pure literature. It was imagined by a French writer, Chretien de Troyes, at the end of the 12th Century, in the romance of Perceval. His vision is at the root of all the Grail stories."

Conspiracy theories

Barber believes that 20th Century fascination with the Grail stems from "the revival of interest in medieval literature in the 19th Century, when Tennyson, Wagner and the Pre-Raphaelite artists were all enthusiasts for the Grail legends" - and that our fascination today has been boosted by the contemporary penchant for conspiracy theories and cover-ups.

"The Grail - because it is mysterious and has always belonged in the realms of the imagination - is a marvellous focus for the new genre of 'imagined history', the idea that all history as taught and recorded is a vast cover-up. Once this kind of idea becomes current, particularly with the internet, it acquires a life of its own - regardless of whether it has any basis in reality.


Even some of those who have written of the Grail as having some "basis in reality" admit that it is difficult to say what the Grail is, never mind where it is.

Erling Haagensen is co-author (with Henry Lincoln) of The Templars' Secret Island: The Knights, The Priest and The Treasure, which claims that "something" is hidden on the tiny island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.

"I do not know what the Holy Grail is," says Haagensen. "Something very important and with strong connections to the Holy Grail is hidden on the island of Bornholm. The Ark of the Covenant might theoretically be hidden there.

"But there is something even more important, which always followed the Ark of the Covenant, and which we can now prove is found at Bornholm. This will be revealed in our coming book," he adds, mysteriously.

Yet while some authors - and a host of conspiracy websites - believe that "something" will one day be found, even men of the cloth have little faith in the existence of the Holy Grail.

"It's all good fun but absolute nonsense", says Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh. "The quest for the Holy Grail belongs with the quest for the ark Noah left on Mount Ararat or the fabled Ark of the Covenant Indiana Jones is always chasing. There ain't any objective truth in any of it - but of course it's a dream for publishers, who know the world is full of gullible people looking for miracles and they keep on promising that this time the miracle's going to come true.

"Only it isn't - but the money keeps rolling in."

[Kinslaughterer]

Discoveries made at Kincaid Mounds


By ADRIANA COLINDRES
STATE CAPITOL BUREAU

Advances in technology are opening up new possibilities of discovery at a southern Illinois archaeological site where a prehistoric culture thrived 1,000 years ago.

The existence of the Kincaid Mounds near Metropolis has been known for decades. But last year, archaeologists from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale began a renewed effort to scrutinize Kincaid and find out more about the people who once lived there.

The residents of the Kincaid site mainly were farmers - raising corn, beans, squash and other crops. They also fished and foraged for food, said Brian Butler, director of SIU's Center for Archaeological Investigations and one of the scientists studying Kincaid.

Through "remote sensing," a relatively new technology similar to radar or sonar, scientists can identify specific locations that are likely to reveal further information about the ancient civilization. They have been crafting maps by scanning the property, which measures roughly 100 to 150 acres, and analyzing changes in the underground magnetic field.

"Once you have that map, then you have a better guide to where you might excavate to recover the kinds of materials that will tell you the most about the site," said Michael Wiant, director of the Dickson Mounds Museum in Fulton County.

Wiant will discuss Kincaid and other recent archaeological discoveries in a public lecture at 7 p.m. today in the Illinois State Museum's Research and Collection Center, 1011 E. Ash St.

Butler said magnetic-field variations point to certain characteristics, such as areas that contain burned materials. Even though that stage of the Kincaid work is only about halfway done, a few surprises already have turned up, he said."We've got houses in places where we either didn't think we had them, or we weren't sure," Butler said.

That means the population of the Kincaid site and the surrounding area probably was higher than the current estimate of about 3,000, he said.

The scanning, formally known as magnetic field gradient survey, also appears to have confirmed a suspicion about a "lump" of land on the western part of the Kincaid property, much of which is state-owned, Butler said.

"We were never sure whether that was a prehistoric mound," he said. "Now we think it is."

Wiant said that platform mounds, such as those at the Kincaid and Cahokia Mounds sites, are believed to have served as the base of construction for "buildings that are occupied by very important people within these communities." Monks Mound at Cahokia is considered the pre-eminent platform mound in North America, he said.

The occupants of Kincaid were contemporaries of the Cahokia Mounds residents, Wiant said.

"Kincaid would have been a companion community. It's occupied by a different group of people who are practicing the same way of life and live in another major city at this time," Wiant said. "These big towns, they're going to be the equivalent of Chicago because they are the center of activity, and they're big places."

The recent work at Kincaid has not yet resulted in "Indiana Jones kinds of conclusions," Wiant acknowledged, referring to the popular films in which Harrison Ford portrayed a heroic archaeologist.

"It's the nature of archaeology," he said. "You have to move a whole lot of dirt sometimes to find something which is such a new piece of information that it really turns things on its head.

"But why do you keep digging? The reason is because someday you're going to make that discovery."

[duchess of malfi]

11 December 2004

Ice Age ivory flute found in German cave
A 35,000-year-old flute made from a woolly mammoth's ivory tusk has been unearthed in a German cave by archaeologists. The flute, one of the oldest musical instruments discovered, was pieced together from 31 fragments found in a cave in the Swabian mountains in southwestern Germany..
The mountains have yielded rich pickings in recent years, including ivory figurines, ornaments and other musical instruments. Archaeologists believe humans camped in the area in winter and spring. The University of Tübingen said it planned to put the instrument on display in a museum in Stuttgart.

[lhaughlhann]

Just watched Alexander yesterday, It isn't the oldest place on earth, but can you imagine rediscovering a place like Babylon!!!?? Has anyone seen it? Aside from the whole magnificance of the city, the inner palace was amazing, all that blue tile mosiac!! WOW

[Kinslaughterer]

Haven't seen it yet but I always like to see modern representations of great antiquity as you describe regardless of its correctness... sometimes its just plain cool

[matrixman]

Just caught up with all the articles since my last visit here. Like Avatar said, keep posting, Kins and duchess! It's too bad that a lot of us end up being distracted from quality threads like yours by sometimes petty matters, but I find my way back here eventually...like finding buried treasure.

I thought your Nov.16th post about NASA scientists and the Maya was very compelling! The link between deforestation and the collapse of Mayan civilization makes sense to me. Considering what is happening today to the rainforests, being cut down by "slash-and-burn" agriculture, the article is very right to ask if history is repeating itself.

By 2020, only 2% to 16% of the original rain forest will remain if current rates of destruction continue.

Can you imagine that scenario? The prospect of little to no rainforest left is pretty alarming, and it should be. Aside from their natural beauty, if nothing else will motivate us, we need the rainforests at the very least out of pure self-interest. I'm thinking about the rare and powerful medicines that have been developed from exotic plants in the rainforests of the world. It's nature's gift to us, but we're blind to it: out of sight, out of mind.

I can't blame the farmers, though--they're just trying to scratch a living, like everyone else. I'm glad to read that the NASA scientists are working with the Guatemalan government to seek out an alternative solution for the farmers. It's wonderful that satellite imaging clued the NASA folks into possible irrigation canals the ancient Maya might have used to prolong their civilization. The idea of irrigating the "bajos" swamplands instead of clearing forests sounds promising. It could be a win-win situation for the farmers and the rainforest, if this idea is workable. If it is, then I hope the wealthy economies of the world will also pitch in some financial aid to help make it a reality for the farmers. (Yeah, pipe dream, eh?)

[Kinslaughterer]

Archaeologists believe they have discovered part of throne of Darius

Tehran Times Culture Desk
TEHRAN (MNA) -- Iranian archaeologists believe they have found a part of one leg of the throne of Darius the Great during their excavations at Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Achaemenid dynasty, the director of the team of archaeologists announced Sunday. “Four archaeologists of the team found a piece of lapis lazuli during their excavations in water canals passing under the treasury in southeastern Persepolis last year,” said Alireza Askari, adding, “The studies on the piece of stone over the past year led the archaeologists to surmise that the stone had probably been a part of a leg of the throne of Darius.”

According to historical sources, the upper parts of the throne of Darius were been made of gold, silver, and ivory and its legs were made of lapis lazuli, Askari said.

The throne had been transferred to the treasury after Xerxes I, the son of Darius, was crowned king. In addition, the figures carved on the stone are similar to the relief works in different parts of Persepolis, he stated.

Archaeologists have speculated that the piece of stone fell into the canals after Persepolis was destroyed and looted by Alexander the Great.

Persepolis was established by Darius I in the late 6th century B.C. Its ruins lie 56 kilometers northeast of Shiraz. Darius transferred the capital of the Achaemenid dynasty to Persepolis from Pasargadae, where Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, had ruled.

[Kinslaughterer]

Women warriors from Amazon fought for Britain's Roman army
By Lewis Smith


THE remains of two Amazon warriors serving with the Roman army in Britain have been discovered in a cemetery that has astonished archaeologists.
Women soldiers were previously unknown in the Roman army in Britain and the find at Brougham in Cumbria will force a reappraisal of their role in 3rd-century society.

The women are thought to have come from the Danube region of Eastern Europe, which was where the Ancient Greeks said the fearsome Amazon warriors could be found.



The women, believed to have died some time between AD220 and 300, were burnt on pyres upon which were placed their horses and military equipment. The remains were uncovered in the 1960s but full-scale analysis and identification has been possible only since 2000 with technological advances.

The soldiers are believed to have been part of the numerii, a Roman irregular unit, which would have been attached to a legion serving in Britain. Other finds show that their unit originated from the Danubian provinces of Noricum, Pannonia and Ilyria which now form parts of Austria, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia.

Hilary Cool, the director of Barbican Research Associates, which specialises in post- excavation archaeological analysis, said that the remains were the most intriguing aspects of a site that is changing our understanding of Roman burial rites.

“It seems highly probable that we have a unit raised in the Danubian lands and transferred to Britain,” she says in British Archaeology.

“Though the numerii are generally referred to as irregular units, they are not thought of as having women among their ranks. However, the unit came from the area where the Ancient Greeks placed the origin of women warriors called Amazons. Could the numerii be even more irregular than anyone has ever dreamt?”

The cemetery at Brougham served a fort and the civilian settlement of Brocavum in the 3rd century and analysis of the remains of more than 180 people showed that everybody’s ashes were buried there. Archaeologists have been able to determine the ages and gender of the dead and to build up a detailed picture of Roman funerals in Brougham.

One of the sets of women warrior’s remains were found with the burnt remnants of animals. Bone veneer, used to decorate boxes, was also found alongside evidence of a sword scabbard and red pottery. The possessions suggest that she was of high status and her age has been estimated at between 20 and 40 years old. The other woman, thought to be between 21 and 45, was buried with a silver bowl, a sword scabbard, bone veneer and ivory.

[duchess of malfi]

I've always associated Amazons with ancient Greek legend and myth. Pretty interesting that a couple of them show up in Britain as Roman soldiers!

[Dani]

Awesome Amazons! You can't beat that

I've wandered back here to check out this thread. Thanks for all the interesting reading material