Jolie Rouge
03-18-2003, 02:10 PM
by Cathryn Conroy, Netscape News Editor
Before Prescott, Arizona officials spend $15 million to build ramadas, rails, parking lots, restrooms, and boat docks at Willow Lake, archaeologists are excavating the area. And they have made a find. A big one. The dig has unearthed American Indian ruins that provide firm evidence of a once-thriving hilltop village with 20 or so pit houses, reports The Associated Press.
"It was a great place to live," archaeologist Scott Courtright told AP. "With the alluvial valley down here, they were probably growing crops there." A trash mound next to the houses is packed with the bones of deer, which means the area was plentiful for hunters. The pit houses, where were likely used for several hundred years, have indentations in the ground with entryways.
AP reports that archaeologists also found outside cooking pits, a number of large, bell-shaped underground storage areas, stone tools for grinding grain, decorative stone pendants, ceramic figurines, pieces of turquoise, and thousands of shards of plain and decorated pottery. One house even had stone masonry walls. Charred wood posts inside it show that it burned down. But those wood posts are among the most intriguing finds since the tree rings will help date the ruins. "These pieces are about as good as gold," Courtright said.
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Something very unusual has been found on the remote Scottish isle of South Uist.
Ancient Brits mummified dead too
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Posted: 5:29 AM EST (1029 GMT)
www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/03/17/britain.mummification.reut/index.html
Four Bronze Age bodies were found in the Scottish isle of South Uist.
The fact that these ancient remains were preserved with their skeletons intact shows that Bronze Age Britons knew exactly how long to leave their dead suspended in the peat bog's murky depths.
-- BBC Documentary "Meet the Ancestors"
LONDON (Reuters) -- Ancient Britons started mummifying their dead at around the same time as the ancient Egyptians, according to a British archaeologist. Dr Mike Parker-Pearson, who will feature in a BBC documentary "Meet the Ancestors" on Tuesday, discovered four Bronze Age bodies showing signs of mummification in the remote Scottish isle of South Uist.
The 3,000-year-old bodies are believed to be the first ever discovery of mummification in Britain. "The Cladh Hallan bodies lay beneath the floor of a Bronze Age roundhouse, deep underneath layers of old jewelry, whalebone lamps and tools, and deeper still under animal remains," said a BBC preview on Sunday.
Unwrapping a mystery
While the Egyptians used hot sand and natural salts to preserve their dead and ancient Peruvians cured their dead in dry mountaintop winds, Parker-Pearson believes Britons used naturally-occurring acids in peat bogs.
Wrappings have since rotted, but proof they were mummified comes from the fact that the bodies were gutted and carbon dating shows them to have died up to 600 years before burial. Only mummification could have prevented them from rotting in the meantime.
"The female, bizarrely, held two of her own front teeth in her hands," said the preview. "So-called bog bodies found preserved in peat bogs are distinctive by their leathery skin and the almost complete absence of bones which are eroded and dissolved over the years by the bogs' complex chemicals," it added.
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You won't believe what explorers found in this shipwreck--the oldest ever found in the Black Sea!
Thursday, January 16, 2003 Posted: 3:01 PM EST (2001 GMT)
www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/16/blacksea.shipwreck/index.html
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- It's the oldest shipwreck ever found in the Black Sea with relics from between the third and fifth centuries B.C. containing clues to the diet of ancient Greeks. Explorer Bob Ballard -- best known for finding the remains of the Titanic -- announced the discovery this week in the United States.
A team headed by Ballard, working with the Bulgarian government, discovered the wreck in August. "This discovery provides historians with the first look at an actual wreck from a key era of trade in the Black Sea known previously only through written records," said Ballard, president of the Institute of Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.
The wooden ship itself was gone, having rotted away through the millennia. But its scattered contents remained on the sea floor in testament to the ship's sinking. Dwight Coleman, chief scientist on the expedition, said three Bulgarian team members in a submarine spotted the wreck on August 1, the final day of the expedition.
The Bulgarian government supplied the submarine that located and retrieved some of the artifacts. "The Bulgarians reported up to the ship's control room that they were seeing amphorae (large containers used to store wine or olive oil) down there, and when I heard the translation, I got really excited," Coleman said. "I knew they'd be ancient."
By analysing the contents of one of the amphorae, scientists were able to pin down the approximate time frame in which the vessel sank. The clue came in the surprise find of bones of freshwater catfish in one of the containers. Researchers said the bones were butchered and indicate the fish had been filleted like modern fish steaks and preserved in salt. They believe this was not a delicacy but a common, well-preserved food that may have fed the Greek army and the general population.
Archaeologist Fred Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania analysed one of the amphorae and said he thought the ship was headed for the Mediterranean, where dried fish steaks -- called tarichos in ancient Greece -- were a common food for the masses. The amphora's design is characteristic of artwork found in Sinop, Turkey, he said.
Hiebert said he believes the ship may have started its voyage in Turkey and stocked up on fish in Crimea, southern Ukraine, as it headed north. His theory is that the ship was on its way to Greece when it sank off the Bulgarian coast. "The Black Sea was a vibrant crossroads of trade that was cut off from the world at the end of the Ottoman period, early last century," Hiebert said. "Since then, the Black Sea has been rather mysterious and difficult to study because of global politics. We're finally getting a chance to piece together what happened there over many centuries."
Ballard, who has been studying the Black Sea since 1997, previously found evidence of settlements off Turkey in shallow areas that were once above sea level. Some have suggested the rising sea levels that swamped these settlements may have given birth to the great flood stories in many cultures of the region. Ballard said he plans to return to this and three other shipwreck sites in the Black Sea next summer and expects the latest finds will not be the oldest Black Sea artifacts for long.
"It is the oldest ship found in the Black Sea, but there is evidence of earlier sailing there. It's only time until an older shipwreck is found," Hiebert said.
-- CNN Science Correspondent Ann Kellan contributed to this report
Before Prescott, Arizona officials spend $15 million to build ramadas, rails, parking lots, restrooms, and boat docks at Willow Lake, archaeologists are excavating the area. And they have made a find. A big one. The dig has unearthed American Indian ruins that provide firm evidence of a once-thriving hilltop village with 20 or so pit houses, reports The Associated Press.
"It was a great place to live," archaeologist Scott Courtright told AP. "With the alluvial valley down here, they were probably growing crops there." A trash mound next to the houses is packed with the bones of deer, which means the area was plentiful for hunters. The pit houses, where were likely used for several hundred years, have indentations in the ground with entryways.
AP reports that archaeologists also found outside cooking pits, a number of large, bell-shaped underground storage areas, stone tools for grinding grain, decorative stone pendants, ceramic figurines, pieces of turquoise, and thousands of shards of plain and decorated pottery. One house even had stone masonry walls. Charred wood posts inside it show that it burned down. But those wood posts are among the most intriguing finds since the tree rings will help date the ruins. "These pieces are about as good as gold," Courtright said.
------------------
Something very unusual has been found on the remote Scottish isle of South Uist.
Ancient Brits mummified dead too
Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Posted: 5:29 AM EST (1029 GMT)
www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/03/17/britain.mummification.reut/index.html
Four Bronze Age bodies were found in the Scottish isle of South Uist.
The fact that these ancient remains were preserved with their skeletons intact shows that Bronze Age Britons knew exactly how long to leave their dead suspended in the peat bog's murky depths.
-- BBC Documentary "Meet the Ancestors"
LONDON (Reuters) -- Ancient Britons started mummifying their dead at around the same time as the ancient Egyptians, according to a British archaeologist. Dr Mike Parker-Pearson, who will feature in a BBC documentary "Meet the Ancestors" on Tuesday, discovered four Bronze Age bodies showing signs of mummification in the remote Scottish isle of South Uist.
The 3,000-year-old bodies are believed to be the first ever discovery of mummification in Britain. "The Cladh Hallan bodies lay beneath the floor of a Bronze Age roundhouse, deep underneath layers of old jewelry, whalebone lamps and tools, and deeper still under animal remains," said a BBC preview on Sunday.
Unwrapping a mystery
While the Egyptians used hot sand and natural salts to preserve their dead and ancient Peruvians cured their dead in dry mountaintop winds, Parker-Pearson believes Britons used naturally-occurring acids in peat bogs.
Wrappings have since rotted, but proof they were mummified comes from the fact that the bodies were gutted and carbon dating shows them to have died up to 600 years before burial. Only mummification could have prevented them from rotting in the meantime.
"The female, bizarrely, held two of her own front teeth in her hands," said the preview. "So-called bog bodies found preserved in peat bogs are distinctive by their leathery skin and the almost complete absence of bones which are eroded and dissolved over the years by the bogs' complex chemicals," it added.
------------------------
You won't believe what explorers found in this shipwreck--the oldest ever found in the Black Sea!
Thursday, January 16, 2003 Posted: 3:01 PM EST (2001 GMT)
www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/16/blacksea.shipwreck/index.html
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- It's the oldest shipwreck ever found in the Black Sea with relics from between the third and fifth centuries B.C. containing clues to the diet of ancient Greeks. Explorer Bob Ballard -- best known for finding the remains of the Titanic -- announced the discovery this week in the United States.
A team headed by Ballard, working with the Bulgarian government, discovered the wreck in August. "This discovery provides historians with the first look at an actual wreck from a key era of trade in the Black Sea known previously only through written records," said Ballard, president of the Institute of Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.
The wooden ship itself was gone, having rotted away through the millennia. But its scattered contents remained on the sea floor in testament to the ship's sinking. Dwight Coleman, chief scientist on the expedition, said three Bulgarian team members in a submarine spotted the wreck on August 1, the final day of the expedition.
The Bulgarian government supplied the submarine that located and retrieved some of the artifacts. "The Bulgarians reported up to the ship's control room that they were seeing amphorae (large containers used to store wine or olive oil) down there, and when I heard the translation, I got really excited," Coleman said. "I knew they'd be ancient."
By analysing the contents of one of the amphorae, scientists were able to pin down the approximate time frame in which the vessel sank. The clue came in the surprise find of bones of freshwater catfish in one of the containers. Researchers said the bones were butchered and indicate the fish had been filleted like modern fish steaks and preserved in salt. They believe this was not a delicacy but a common, well-preserved food that may have fed the Greek army and the general population.
Archaeologist Fred Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania analysed one of the amphorae and said he thought the ship was headed for the Mediterranean, where dried fish steaks -- called tarichos in ancient Greece -- were a common food for the masses. The amphora's design is characteristic of artwork found in Sinop, Turkey, he said.
Hiebert said he believes the ship may have started its voyage in Turkey and stocked up on fish in Crimea, southern Ukraine, as it headed north. His theory is that the ship was on its way to Greece when it sank off the Bulgarian coast. "The Black Sea was a vibrant crossroads of trade that was cut off from the world at the end of the Ottoman period, early last century," Hiebert said. "Since then, the Black Sea has been rather mysterious and difficult to study because of global politics. We're finally getting a chance to piece together what happened there over many centuries."
Ballard, who has been studying the Black Sea since 1997, previously found evidence of settlements off Turkey in shallow areas that were once above sea level. Some have suggested the rising sea levels that swamped these settlements may have given birth to the great flood stories in many cultures of the region. Ballard said he plans to return to this and three other shipwreck sites in the Black Sea next summer and expects the latest finds will not be the oldest Black Sea artifacts for long.
"It is the oldest ship found in the Black Sea, but there is evidence of earlier sailing there. It's only time until an older shipwreck is found," Hiebert said.
-- CNN Science Correspondent Ann Kellan contributed to this report