Archaeology

[Dani]

WOW! Interesting stuff! I never pictured archeologists as sitting back and analyzing chemicals. I always pictured strange and mysterious writings that you have to break like a code, tombs holding ancient forgotten knowledge, only partially intact buildings and structures with unknown functions...

Maybe I've just watched too many movies

Dani

[Kinslaughterer]

Well, that does happen just not on a daily basis.

Newswise — Johns Hopkins University archaeologists, a photographer and an information technology specialist will once again work together to bring the university's 10th annual Egyptian dig to the World Wide Web with "Hopkins in Egypt Today," located online at

www.jhu.edu/~neareast/egypttoday.html.

[Dani]

I will have to go check that out when I have a little more time on my hands!

[Kinslaughterer]

Although it seems only a few members pay attention to my beloved archaeology thread, I continue to dutifully post here.

Bid to find lost Persian armada

By Paul Rincon
BBC News Online science staff



The jar that contained the sauroter was also home to an octopus
Archaeologists have embarked on an epic search for an ancient fleet of Persian ships that was destroyed in a violent storm off Greece in 492 BC.
The team will search for sunken remains of the armada - sent by Persian king Darius to invade Greece - which was annihilated before reaching its target.

Waters off Mount Athos in northern Greece, the site of the disaster, have yielded two helmets and a spear-butt.

Experts will return to the site in June to look for more remains of the fleet.

"This is an extraordinarily target-rich area for ancient shipwrecks," Dr Robert Hohlfelder, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, US, told BBC News Online.


The amphoras presumably come from a shipwreck
"Usually, when shipwrecks are found, the archaeologists are asked to create the history around them. We have the history, now we've got to find the shipwrecks."

Historical cue

An account of the 492 BC disaster is related in The Histories, by the 5th Century BC Greek writer Herodotus. He says the ships were smashed against Mount Athos.

Last year, the team discovered a shipwreck containing amphoras, pottery containers used for transporting foodstuffs. How, if at all, this wreck relates to the disaster is not known.

The archaeologists also found a bronze spear-butt, called a sauroter, at a site where, in 1999, local fisherman raised two Greek classical helmets from the seafloor.

The sauroter was found in the possession of an octopus, which had dragged the spear-butt inside a jar in which it had made its sea-floor home.

The survey could help resolve arguments about how triremes - ancient galley warships used by the Persians and Greeks - were constructed.


The sauroter, held by Katerina Dellaporta, fitted a spear
Recycled boats

In trireme battles, victory hinged on slamming other ships with a heavy bronze ram on the front of the ship.

Not a single trireme wreck has ever been found and archaeologists on the survey are divided over the likelihood of finding one on this expedition.

"We will not find a trireme. They contained very little ballast so they floated. Although the rams may have sunk," team member Michael Wedde told BBC News Online.

Classical texts refer to triremes being rescued, towed to dry land and repaired to be reused.

"There's some question over whether they sank," said Dr Shelley Wachsmann of Texas A&M University in College Station, US. "Most ships we find have cargoes because those bring them to the bottom,"


Archaeologists explored the ocean floor using a submersible
But Dr Hohlfelder said there was a possibility a trireme could have sunk to the sea bed: "Underwater archaeologists have wish lists. A trireme is certainly one of the top ones on most people's lists. And I think this is one of the best places to look for them."

It is also possible that supply ships - which supported the warships - were carried to the bottom, weighed down by their cargoes.

The project is a collaboration between the Canadian Institute of Archaeology and the Greek Archaeological Service.

Katerina Dellaporta, of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities in Greece, and Dr Wachsmann are leading the research.

Around 20,000 men were lost in the disaster, which shook Persia at a time when it had its sights on assimilating mainland Greece within its empire.

[Dani]

I wouldn't worry too much, Kin. Archeology is not for the small minded, so that excludes most of the people I know...

[Kinslaughterer]

After all these years it was just the cold...

The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service



Big chill killed off the Neanderthals


19:00 21 January 04

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

It is possibly the longest-running murder mystery of them all. What, or even who, killed humankind's nearest relatives, the Neanderthals who once roamed Europe before dying out almost 30,000 years ago?

Suspects have ranged from the climate to humans themselves, and the mystery has deeply divided experts. Now 30 scientists have come together to publish the most definitive answer yet to this enigma.

They say Neanderthals simply did not have the technological know-how to survive the increasingly harsh winters. And intriguingly, rather than being Neanderthal killers, the original human settlers of Europe almost suffered the same fate.


The last ice age
Led by Tjeerd van Andel of the University of Cambridge, a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, geologists and climate modellers have compiled a vast new set of biological, environmental and social evidence on life between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.

It includes data from sediment cores and 400 or so archaeological sites, and information gleaned from fossil bones and stone tools. To this they have added the most up-to-date climate models, and radiometric dates of human and Neanderthal sites and artefacts.


Seasonal migration


The result is a definitive series of maps covering climate change over time, the appearance of animal and plant populations, and how human and Neanderthal communities migrated with the seasons. The resolution is so good that, for the first time, researchers can reliably trace the movements of both hominid species.

Ice cores recovered from Greenland in the 1970s show that Europe's climate varied hugely during the last ice age, especially in the period between 70,000 and 20,000 years ago. Cold glacial periods were punctuated by warmer times, and the average temperature could rise and fall several degrees within a decade or so.

Studies of permafrost patterns, the remains of small animals and pollen grains, as well as fossil bones, show that such changes had a dramatic effect on the flora and fauna of the time, including Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.

The maps show that, facing temperatures that plummeted to -10°C in winter (see map), Neanderthals retreated south from northern Europe 30,000 years ago, a migration which coincided exactly with the southern march of the ice sheets (Neanderthal and Modern Humans in the European Landscape of the Last Glaciation: Archaeological Results of the Stage 3 Project).

It is surprising "the extent to which Neanderthals seem to have been deterred by the cold, and retreated as the going got tough," says archaeologist William Davies, a co-editor of the report based at University of Southampton, UK.


Last refuge


The maps also reveal that the earliest modern humans, the Aurignacian people, who appeared around 40,000 years ago, could not cope with the glacial cold either. They retreated south until 25,000 years ago when they were reduced to a few refuges, such as southwest France and the shores of the Black Sea.

The new maps show that even at the height of the last glacial period, 18,000 to around 22,000 years ago, continental Europe supported extensive grasslands which were fodder for huge numbers of migrant animals such as reindeer and bison.

The archaeological evidence strongly suggests that both hominids coexisted in southern Europe for thousands of years, but competed for ever diminishing resources. And that might have been the end for both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals but for the arrival of the technologically advanced Gravettians.

The Gravettians appeared in eastern Europe 29,000 to 30,000 years ago complete with flash new tools, such as javelin-like throwing spears and fishing nets, which allowed them to catch a greater range of prey.

They also had clothing to keep the cold out, such as sewn furs and woven textiles, and possibly more specialised social structures. Their ability to tough out the colder climes dominating Europe 18,000 to 25,000 years ago revitalised the human population.


The Neanderthals, however, without either new blood or new technology, found it impossible to survive and died out, probably around 28,000 years ago.

For Neanderthal expert Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield, UK, the evidence that climate adversely affected the Aurignacian people as much as the Neanderthals is fascinating. When the going got tough in northern Europe, says Pettitt, both adopted a "get out of the kitchen strategy".

In contrast, Gravettians used their technological prowess "to reorganise the way the kitchen was used". Pettitt says that step was just as revolutionary as becoming modern Homo sapiens in the first place.


Douglas Palmer

[Dani]

Well, isn't that cool?

Thanks for the info, Kin. I can't wait until they do another special on this stuff on the Science Channel (my favorite channel EVER!).

[Kinslaughterer]

Fabulous Finds as Saxon King's Tomb Is Unearthed

By Tony Jones, PA News


The tomb of an East Saxon king containing a fabulous collection of artefacts has been unearthed, it was announced today.

The burial chamber, believed to date from the early 7th century, has been described by experts as the richest Anglo-Saxon find since the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk – one of Britain’s most important archaeological locations.

The site in Prittlewell, Southend, Essex was filled with everything a King might need in the afterlife, from his sword and shield to copper bowls, glass vessels and treasures imported from the farthest corners of the then known world.

The remains of the nobleman’s body have dissolved in the acidic soil, but two gold foil crosses were found which suggest he was a newly-converted Christian.

Ian Blair, the senior archaeologist on the site who carried out the work for the Museum of London Archaeology Service, said: “To find an intact chamber grave and a moment genuinely frozen in time is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

“The fact that copper-alloy bowls were still hanging from hooks in the walls of the chamber, where they had been placed nearly 1,400 years ago, is a memory that I’m sure will remain with all of us forever.”

He added: “Two foil crosses, probably originally laid on the body or sewn to a shroud, suggest that the King had converted from paganism to Christianity.”

The tomb was discovered last autumn when Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s consultants Atkins Heritage and the Museum of London Archaeology Service began an evaluation survey in an area due for road improvements.

Saxon artefacts had been found at the site in the past, and on a verge between a road and a railway line they discovered the burial chamber, which measured about four metres square by one and a half metres high.

The contents of the tomb had been held in place because the sand from the mound sealing the grave gradually seeped into the chamber, silting up the air spaces and supporting the roof-timbers.

Most of the organic material on the site had been destroyed by the acidity of the soil, but fragments of wood from the burial chamber and from some of the vessels had survived.

A spokesman for the Museum of London Archaeology Service said: “The find is spectacular in its size and quality, but what makes it unique is that all the objects were in their original positions, just as they had been arranged on the day of the funeral.”

He added: “The burial is probably contemporary with the Sutton Hoo burial (c.AD 630) and it is quite possible that the two men knew each other.

“This is the period when royalty flaunted their wealth at extravagant feasts in smoky halls, and epic poems like Beowulf told of heroic feats of valour.”

The most exotic finds are a decorated flagon and at least one bowl that were both imported from the eastern Mediterranean, possibly Asia Minor.

Other highlights among the sixty or more finds are a hanging bowl decorated with metallic strips and medallions, and two cauldrons, one small and one very large.

There are also two pairs of coloured glass vessels, eight wooden drinking cups decorated with gilded mounts, buckets and the remains of a large casket that may have originally contained textiles.

A particularly unusual item is the frame of a folding stool, which could be from Asia Minor or Italy.

The dead man had also been provided with two Merovingian gold coins from northern France.

Conservation and study of the material that has been found is continuing but a selection of the objects found in the burial chamber will be on display free of charge at the Museum of London, from tomorrow, and at the Southend Central Museum from February 21.

[Dani]

oooooOOOoooo...that is soooo coool!

[matrixman]

Cruising around the Watch, I finally checked out this thread, and I'm glad I did. Very thought-provoking ideas and theories laid out here, Kin. Keep posting those news articles! My knowledge of archaeology is basically limited to what I glean from the Discovery Channel or PBS, so I probably can't contribute much to this discussion. Some of the stuff here is way over my head.

The Neanderthal story is very interesting to me, however. My understanding is that there are two camps of thought on the Neanderthals: one is a "chauvinist" view that sees them as mere brutes who really didn't have a culture or technology (which seems to be the view expressed in the article) and whose line is distinctly separate from humanity. The other view sees Neanderthals as people who did possess culture and may have indeed "mingled" with Homo sapiens.

Does that sound right? This was an episode of Nova, but it was a while back, so I may have gotten some things confused.

Anyway, I find it comical that, according to the news item, early modern humanity was reduced to a few refuges trying to survive against the cold. We think of our species as being very clever, but by a mere whim of nature, we were on the edge of extinction. Ha ha.

Of course, these mysteriously advanced "Gravettians" then showed up and saved the day. So I guess at least some humans were pretty clever back then.

[Kinslaughterer]

The other view sees Neanderthals as people who did possess culture and may have indeed "mingled" with Homo sapiens.

Neanderthals were clearly a people with an expansive culture. The had religious ceremonies, they buried their dead, made cave paintings, survived in the most difficult climatic regions, and evidence shows they have in fact interbred with homo sapiens at various points in history. I think anyone suggesting otherwise is ignoring a huge wealth of evidence.

My work as of late is with a colonial era site in Northern Virginia. Ironically, there are prehistoric native american artifacts, late colonial artifacts, a civil war era camp, and a turn of the century (1911) house that still stands. The Native American site appears to be Late Woodland Period judging by the projectile points found to date. This wide ranging work is on about 30 acres.

Since most of my present work is with purely american historic and prehistoric excavations, I really like to keep up with other areas of archaeology (most spell it with just an e but I like the ae).

[Damelon]

I don't think that all of our ancestors would have been wiped out by the last ice age. Our ancestors migrated from Africa and the Near East around 100,000 years ago, according to the last theory I read.

The latest theories that I've read is that Neanderthal DNA hasn't transmitted itself into the modern Homo Sapiens population. Their DNA was found to be too different. Not that the two populations didn't intermingle on a cultural level, but that any physical union would be fruitless either by being sterile, or giving birth to individuals who were.

[Kinslaughterer]

Neanderthals were clearly a people with an expansive culture. The had religious ceremonies, they buried their dead, made cave paintings, survived in the most difficult climatic regions, and evidence shows they have in fact interbred with homo sapiens at various points in history. I think anyone suggesting otherwise is ignoring a huge wealth of evidence.

Whoops, the last sentence was referring to the statement that Neanderthals did not possess a form of culture. As for Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals intermingling I certainly think that they did but as Damelon stated they probably were either sterile or quite possibly unsuited for the environment in which they lived, time will tell:

a recent excavation at Abrigo do Lagar Velho in Portugal, Duarte et al (1999) unearthed what was later to be recognized as early human skeletal remains which pointed to interbreeding between Neanderthal and Modern Humans during the mid - upper Palaeolithic transition. The morphology of the remains, belonging to a child of approximately 3-4 years old, indicates a Neanderthal typology in post-cranial features, and more modern cranial features. The find has been cited as evidence of hybridization between the two traditionally separate human lines, and offers an explanation to the question of Neanderthal extinction. (Trinkaus

1999) Anthropologists are now offered a line of evidence pointing to the contemopranity of Moderns and Neanderthals in parts of Europe and assumptions can be made about their contact: "The discoverers...are making a ground-breaking claim, that the skeleton shows traces of both Neanderthal and modern human ancestry, evidence that modern humans did not simply extinguish the

Neanderthals, as many researchers had come to think. Instead the two kinds of human were so alike that in Portugal, at least, they intermingled...for thousands of years." (Kunzig, 1999) By examining the theories of human evolution, and looking at the cultural evolution of tool technology as well as the biological transitions and differences between the two types of humans, we can see that this hybridization just might be the answer. Perhaps this find will be able to tell us what exactly did happen to the Neanderthals.

[Kinslaughterer]

Suspected Viking burial fills a hole in English history

Martin Wainwright
Tuesday February 17, 2004
The Guardian

One of the great missing pieces of Britain's archaeological jigsaw may finally have fallen into place with the discovery of swords, ship nails and a silver Baghdad coin in a Yorkshire field.
Tight security has been put on the site since metal detecting enthusiasts came upon what is thought to be the first known Viking ship burial south of Hadrian's Wall.

An exploratory dig is being organised for traces of rotted timber and other fragments.

"I am 95% certain it is a boat burial," said Simon Holmes, archaeologist at the Yorkshire Museum in York where the initial finds went on show yesterday.

"If this is indeed the case, it will be the first discovered in England and therefore one of the most important Viking discoveries ever made in the British Isles."

The trove was found in a ploughed riverside field, whose location is not being made public, by detectors who followed the regulations designed to protect archaeological sites.

The 130 items were reported to the national Portable Antiquities Scheme and the British Museum was told.

The hoard dates to the 9th century, when burying leading figures in their longships was a high caste ritual.

The finds are typical of the personal treasures for use in the afterlife found in Scotland, Ireland and mainland Europe but not previously in England.

The hoard has been designated treasure trove and will go to the British Museum.

The finders, who are remaining anonymous, will be paid compensation.

The hoard includes two silver pennies minted by Alfred the Great, seven other silver pennies, part of a silver dirham coin from Baghdad, swords, two sets of scales with weights, and a pile of small silver ingots.

A collection of clinch nails, used on Viking longships, is the strongest clue to a ship burial.

Mr Holmes said: "I believe this is a burial of a trader-warrior who when he wasn't fighting was involved in commercial activities across the Viking world.

"The coins are dated towards the end of the 9th century, a time we know comparatively little about.

"Previous finds have mainly related either to the earlier period when the Vikings were just raiding, or to later when they began settling."

The ship burial found at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk in 1939 dated from the 7th century and contained the treasure of an Anglo-Saxon warrior, not a Viking.

"Experts in the period are salivating at the prospect of excavating the site," Mr Holmes said.

The finds will be on display at the Yorkshire Museum until the end of the month, when British Museum staff will take them to London for further study.

[matrixman]

Thanks for the news, Kin. The Vikings have loomed large in my imagination since I was a kid. Of course, I had the usual stereotypical view of them as thoughtless barbarians who went around destroying villages and doing not much else. But I've at least learned enough since then to realize the important role the Vikings had in helping to establish much of modern European culture. NOVA had a great show about them a few years ago, which helped to separate fact from fiction for a popular audience (me, for example. ) So far, archaeological research apparently points to the Vikings as entrepreneurs and traders, not just simple pillagers. They also spread their own ideas into Europe (er, whatever they were).

Oh yeah, the Viking longships. Awesome things! Apparently a lot faster and more manueverable than other sea vessels of the time (such as the British ships). A Viking burial ship must be one of the coolest coffins one can have.

Interestingly, I happened to catch The 13th Warrior on TV a couple of nights ago. Have you seen this film? It's about an Arab ambassador or something (Antonio Banderas) who joins forces with a noble group of Norsemen to fight off an evil, supernatural race of creatures. Neat movie, if a little confusing. I wonder how authentic the Norsemen in the movie were, compared with the real thing. They certainly seemed very smart, even compassionate.

Anyway, Kin, your post and the movie just triggered these rambling thoughts on the Vikings.

[Kinslaughterer]

Ok, you egyptophiles need to check out this site: www.eternalegypt.org

Its a combined effort by IBM and the Egyptian government to detail aspects of Egypt's history and such so look away!

If I'd have to guess many of you fellow watchers closely associate archaeology with Egypt. It is after all where some of the earliest archaeology was actually done.

[Kinslaughterer]

Invasion of the Kennewick Men

By Jackson Kuhl Published 02/24/2004

After almost eight years of labyrinthine litigation the case of Kennewick Man has ended with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and archaeological science is the winner -- for now.


In a February 4 decision, the Ninth upheld the district court ruling stating that since no relationship could be established between modern American Indians and Kennewick Man -- physically, contextually, or otherwise -- he is not a Native American as defined under NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, thus NAGPRA isn't applicable. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) therefore applies and the bones can once again be studied by anthropologists. The tribes, who argue that any and all pre-Columbian remains are Native American regardless if the individual's tribe or culture still exists in modern times, are sure to appeal.



Kennewick Man is the mostly complete skeleton found in 1996 in Kennewick, Washington, by two college students wading up the Columbia River to watch a series of hydroplane races. Analysis of his size -- he stood about 5 ft. 10 in. in life -- build, skull shape, and other characteristics differentiated him from known Native American populations. Radio-carbon testing revealed he had died between 8,340 and 9,200 years ago (Kennewick Man is an old-timer but not the oldest found in the Americas; that honor currently belongs to an Idaho skeleton, dated to 10,600 years ago).



All of this intrigued anthropologists curious to uncover how the Americas were peopled, whether it had been by members of a single culture and ethnicity, perhaps even arriving in successive waves; or if the New World had been settled by different populations entering at different times. If the latter is true, perhaps Kennewick Man is a representative of one of these other groups.



But examination of the bones ceased when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who manage the federal land where they were found, sided with four Native American tribes who demanded that as one of their own, "the Ancient One" must be reburied under NAGPRA -- legislation intended to repatriate thousands of Native American remains held in museums and prevent fresh spoliation by archaeologists accustomed to using Indian graveyards as dissertation Wal-Marts. The Corps yoinked the bones away from the anthropologists and prepared to turn Kennewick Man over for reburial. The anthros sued and the case landed in the courts.



Kennewick Man is a seminal case, not just for what the bones themselves can tell us about human arrival in the Americas but primarily for its post-NAGPRA implications. More Kennewick Men are bound to surface in the coming years.



Jumping Off a Land Bridge



Everybody who has watched more than 30 minutes of the Discovery Channel knows the prevailing story of how the Americas were populated: sometime during the sunset years of the Wisconsin glaciation, Paleo-Indians emigrated from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, traveling through a passage between the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the east and the Cordilleran Glacier to the west.



But there are a couple of problems with this theory. First, modern mapping and analysis have shown that there was little incentive to keep on truckin' the "ice-free corridor" -- the terrain was rough, treeless, windy, and at times blocked by the ice sheets themselves, which indeed apparently merged at some spots. So any settlers to the New World traveling an inland route probably came after 13,000 BC, when the glaciers composing the Laurentide Ice Sheet were in rapid retreat; they weren't entering an ice-free corridor so much as an ice-free ballroom. The earliest habitation sites in Alaska, dating from 11,700 BC, bear this out.



Yet an even older site is Monte Verde. Lying in a modern peat bog in southern Chile, Monte Verde is a settlement where bone and wooden artifacts have been consistently radio-carbon dated to between 11,800 and 12,000 BC. There are other sites that make claims to the earliest occupancy (most notably Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania) but so far only Monte Verde has withstood scrutiny. So is it possible folks power-walked from Asia to the ends of South America, through severe terrain, within a millennium of the Laurentide's recession?



One If by Land, Two If by Sea



Archaeologists have long assumed that these early immigrant cultures were terrestrially based since no evidence of canoes or other maritime artifacts has ever been uncovered in association with them. But that's a big assumption based on a gaping hole in the record; after all, it's doubtful anyone's going to find kayaks and harpoons in the Great Plains, where most Paleo-Indian sites are best understood. Even many of the "coastal" sites excavated in modern times were far inland at the end of the last glaciation when water locked in ice sheets lowered sea levels by as much as 330 ft.



Perhaps instead of traveling inland, humans entered the New World along the coast of the Bering Land Bridge and down North America's western shore. Perhaps these populations exploited sea mammals along the way, and maybe -- maybe -- they utilized canoes or other small watercraft that would allow them to skirt areas where glaciers ran into the sea, blocking land access. If so, then questions regarding an ice-free corridor become moot. Questions about entry into the Americas prior to 13,000 BC become more interesting.



The only reason the possibility of coastal migration has been ignored is because any relevant evidence is along the ancient shoreline, now underwater. Recently, though, advances have allowed underwater archaeology programs at schools like Texas A&M, Florida State University, and SUNY-Stony Brook to expand beyond shipwrecks and tackle prehistoric archaeology in Davy Jones's locker. "Advances" as in "cash advances," since the programs' development has had more to do with supplying staff and students with scuba gear than with technological updates. Many of the same techniques applied to terrestrial archaeology -- mapping and surveying with compass and tape measure, opening square test units or rectangular trenches -- are also used 20,000 leagues under the sea.



No earth-shattering finds have resulted from any of these investigations, but the recovery of projectile points, flakes, and other evidence of stone technology has borne out the underlying supposition that ancient Americans were active along the now-submerged continental shelves. So it's only a matter of time before somebody pulls a skeleton out of the drink. And somebody else will want to rebury it.



Such a discovery would neither prove nor disprove either migration theory, and in fact the coastal-migration theory may not pan out altogether. Yet it will certainly add grist to the mill, particularly if a date can somehow be extracted from it. In preparation for those future Kennewick Men, it's a good thing we're setting the legal precedents now.

[[Syl]]

Great article, Kins.

[Kinslaughterer]

Thanks, Syl. I'm glad to see someone is reading about archaeology

Tuscan 'Excalibur' Mystery to be Unearthed
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

The Sword in The Stone

March 1, 2004 — Archaeological digging might soon unveil the mystery surrounding a sword buried in a Gothic abbey in Tuscany, Italian researchers announced.

Known as the "sword in the stone," the Tuscan "Excalibur" is said to have been plunged into a rock in 1180 by Galgano Guidotti, a medieval knight who renounced war and worldly goods to become a hermit.

Built in Galgano's memory, the evocative Gothic abbey at Montesiepi, near the city of Siena, still preserves the sword in a little chapel. Only the hilt and a few centimeters of the blade protrude from the rock.


"The sword has been considered a fake for many years, but our metal dating research in 2001 has indicated it has medieval origins. The composition of the metal doesn't show the use of modern alloys, and the style is compatible with that one of a 12th century sword," Luigi Garlaschelli, a research scientist at University of Pavia, told Discovery News.

By the summer, Garlaschelli hopes to excavate the area around the stone, in search of the knight's body. Indeed, ground penetrating radar analysis revealed the presence of a 6 1/2-foot by 3-foot room beneath the sword.

"It could well be Galgano's tomb, [sought] for about 800 years," Garlaschelli said.

The figure of Galgano Guidotti, who is said to have be born in 1148 in Chiusdino, near Siena, is shrouded in mystery and legend. Evidence of his historical identity has never been found and no records exist in documents from his time.

Galgano Guidotti was said to have been an arrogant and lustful knight who isolated himself in a cave and became a hermit after seeing a vision of the Archangel Michael.

Legend has it that, Galgano was lured out by his mother who convinced him to meet with his former beautiful fiancée; on the way to her house, Galgano was thrown by his horse while passing Montesiepi, a hill near Chiusdino. There, another vision told him to renounce material things. Galgano objected that it would be as difficult as splitting a rock with a sword. To prove his point, he struck a stone with his sword. Instead of breaking, the sword slid like butter into the rock. Galgano once again became a recluse, isolating himself by the sword's side. There he remained until he died in 1181.

Garlaschelli admitted that the excavation would not unveil another mystery over the sword: the one of the Tuscan "Excalibur" predating the legend of King Arthur.

If the sword really dates to 1180, decades before the first literary reference to the "sword in the stone," it would support the theory that the Celtic myth of King Arthur and his sword Excalibur developed in Italy after the death of Galgano.

"Further evidence may lie underneath the rock, but the Arthurian link is almost impossible to prove. It will remain one of the many mysteries that surround St. Galgano. More multidisciplinary studies are needed to understand what the hill of Montesiepi hides. Meanwhile, we are all anxious to see what results this excavation will bring," Maurizio Cali, president of the "Project Galgano" association, told Discovery News.

[Kinslaughterer]

New data: Gladiators were barefoot vegans



VIENNA, March 2 (UPI) -- An anthropological autopsy of 70 gladiators found the Romans to be overweight vegetarians who fought barefoot, according to University of Vienna scientists.

Dietary analysis of the bones of more than 70 gladiators recently found near Ephesus, the Roman capital of Asia Minor, in modern western Turkey, dispels traditional Hollywood images of macho, muscular carnivorous fighters, London's Telegraph reported Tuesday.

The findings, which will air March 10 on Britain's Channel Five on "The True Gladiators: Revealed," instead indicate a vegetarian diet of beans and barley which produced a thick layer of fat.

"They got enough of this food every day to make them very fat and strong," said Karl Grossschmidt, a forensic anthropologist at Vienna University.

Grossschmidt said the diet likely provided protection from slashing wounds and damage to nerves and blood vessels, with the layer of fat augmenting their scant armor.

Significant bone enlargement found in the feet indicates that gladiators fought barefoot in the arena sand rather than in strappy sandals often depicted in modern illustrations.