Tag Archives: archaeology

Ancient Europeans Were First to North America?

This announcement might upset some apple carts.

Actually, the idea that some of the early settlers of North America might have come from Europe as well as Asia has been kicking around for a while.

Now the claim is made that based on analyses of stone tools, they were first.

The similarity between other later east coast US and European Stone Age stone tool technologies has been noted before. But all the US European-style tools, unearthed before the discovery or dating of the recently found or dated US east coast sites, were from around 15,000 years ago – long after Stone Age Europeans (the Solutrean cultures of France and Iberia) had ceased making such artefacts. Most archaeologists had therefore rejected any possibility of a connection. But the newly-discovered and recently-dated early Maryland and other US east coast Stone Age tools are from between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago – and are therefore contemporary with the virtually identical western European material.

What’s more, chemical analysis carried out last year on a European-style stone knife found in Virginia back in 1971 revealed that it was made of French-originating flint.

An archaeologist whom I know adds, “I’ve met [Stanford and Bradley] both, they are not crackpots.”

Based on what I understand about DNA evidence, however, the bulk of the people who  first settled the Americas must still have come from Asia. After all,  they could have walked across the tundra on the Ice Age land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Hence:

As a result of these [geographical and travel] factors the Solutrean (European originating) Native Americans were either partly absorbed by the newcomers or were substantially obliterated by them either physically or through competition for resources.

Read the rest.

 

 

The Cat Buried in the Wall

One of the most fascinating papers I heard at an archaeological conference in England once was about the early modern (say 1500s-1700s) practice of putting items in buildings under construction, apparently for good luck.

Cats are well-documented, but so are items of clothing—in fact, such deposits are often the only way to find specimens of ordinary clothing of the period.

But when you have cat and a possible connection to a well-known case of folk witchcraft, then you have a news story.

Is This Ancient Image an Etruscan Mother Goddess?

Etruscan image of woman giving birth

Image from Discovery,.com

Archaeologists have found an ancient Etruscan pottery fragment that appears to be the oldest-known image of a woman giving birth. The piece of a large pottery vessel might be 2,600 years old.

The Etruscan civilization dominated northern Italy before being eventually absorbed by Rome. They used Greek letters to write their non-Indo-European language, so as a result, we know sort of how it sounded, but not what the words meant—beyond some lists of kings and things of that nature.

 The image show the head and shoulders of a baby emerging from a mother. Portrayed with her face in profile and a long ponytail running down her back, the woman has her knees and one arm raised.

The image could be the earliest representation of childbirth in western art, according to Phil Perkins, professor of archaeology at the Open University, in Milton Keynes, England.

Some scholars want to see it as a goddess rather than a woman. Regardless, you will probably be able to buy a reproduction in the Sacred Source catalog in a year or two.

(Via Caroline Tully.)

Viking “Sunstones” Were Icelandic?

Now everyone will want a “Viking sunstone.”

Sunstones (BBC News)

This bit of information about the polarizing rocks has been around for a while. As far as I can tell, the “news hook” is just that a specific Icelandic source is suggested.

Expect a Llewellyn book on how to use them in about two years.

The First (Pagan) Museum

To the list of Things Created by Pagans (democracy, etc.), add the profession of museum curator.

That honor goes to Princess Ennigaldi, the daughter of King Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. As was traditional for the daughters of Mesopotamian kings, her primary duties were religious in nature, both as the high priestess of the moon god Nanna and as the administrator of a school for young priestesses. It was around 530 BCE that Ennigaldi created her museum. That comes dangerously close to being everything we know about the woman behind the world’s first museum.

Dad was into restoring ziggurats. Read the rest.

Another Blowhard Religious Leader, But Pagan

To Bo, the current Arthur Pendragon, “the nom d’épée of deluded old sponge John Rothwell,” holds up a Pagan mirror to religious leaders everywhere.

And in the long run, the attempt by some British Pagans to play the NAGPRA-derived “reburial of the sacred dead” card is going to be a public-relations disaster.

Mother Goddess Temple or Brothel?

From the fascinating”mortuary archaeology” blog Bones Don’t Lie, diverse explanations for the collection of babies’ skeletons in a ruin from Roman Britain.

Dr. [Jill] Eyers continues to argues for the brothel hypothesis, finding that further research and the combination of the human remains with archaeological evidence only further supports her conclusions. However this has been called into question by archaeologists, like Brett Thorn, who argue that the site also has evidence of a Mother Goddess cult, and may represent an area where women went to give birth.

Read more.

Pour Me Another

 

Old-school brewing ingredients (Smithsonian)

Researchers create old brews. Really old brews.

The truest alcohol enthusiasts will try almost anything to conjure the libations of old. They’ll slaughter goats to fashion fresh wineskins, so the vintage takes on an authentically gamey taste. They’ll brew beer in dung-tempered pottery or boil it by dropping in hot rocks. The Anchor Steam Brewery, in San Francisco, once cribbed ingredients from a 4,000-year-old hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian beer goddess.

And here I am drinking a bottle of Heineken—it seems so bland without the  mugwort. Do those Amsterdam brewers have a beer goddess?

“I keep telling people that beer is more important than armies when it comes to understanding people.”

Online Egyptological Magazine

Egyptological is a free online magazine devoted to ancient Egypt.

It offers “papers, articles, brief items, reviews and reports, all discussing the rich world of Ancient Egypt.”

One current article discusses how civil unrest in Egypt right now leads to (surprise!) more looting of archaeological sites.

‘At Least It Was Dry’

Photos from this year’s summer solstice revels at Stonehenge.