A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
|
|
Cologne’s Historic Jewish Quarter
COLOGNE, GERMANY—For 1,000 years, Cologne was home to a prosperous Jewish community. Recent excavations have uncovered Hebrew-inscribed fragments of slate, ceramics, tools, toys, animal bones, and jewelry. “Excavations show that the Jews in Cologne for a very long time were on good terms with the Christians, that their cohabitation saw long phases of peace and harmony,” said archaeologist Sven Schuette. The community was eventually weakened by a crusader massacre in 1096, and then wiped out in 1349, when Christians blamed the Jews for a bubonic plague epidemic. Schuette would like a new museum to be built to house the 250,000 artifacts from his research, but many are opposed to the idea.
TÜBINGEN, GERMANY—Fossils of Neanderthal adults and children have been unearthed from Greece’s Kalamakia Cave, along with flint, quartz, and seashell scrapers. The cave is located on the western coast of the Mani Peninsula, and would have had a mild climate during the Ice Age. “Greece lies directly on the most likely route of dispersals of early modern humans and earlier hominins into Europe from Africa via the Near East,” said Katerina Havarti of the University of Tübingen. She thinks further excavation could yield evidence about the last Neanderthals and their possible interactions with modern humans. These are the first Neanderthal remains to be identified in Greece.
KHARTOUM, SUDAN—The ancient kingdoms of Kush and Nubia are yielding discoveries that archaeologists say are critical to the understanding of the history of Africa. “The history of Sudan can play a role for Africa that Greece played for the history of Europe. People have been living here for 5,000 years,” said Claude Rilly of the French Archaeological Unit in Sudan. The Sudanese government has signed an agreement with Qatar to fund additional archaeological missions, renovate the Sudan National Museum, and develop tourist areas. Tourism could become a new, much needed source of income for Sudan, which has been hard hit by the loss of oil revenue since the split with South Sudan.
Jaw Bone May Be From Modern Human/Neanderthal Hybrid
MONTI LESSINI, ITALY—Silvana Condemi of the University of Ai-Marseille and her colleagues claim that a jaw from the Riparo di Mezzena rock shelter in northern Italy is from the first-known Neanderthal/modern human hybrid. “From the morphology of the lower jaw, the face of the Mezzena individual would have looked somehow intermediate between classic Neanderthals, who had a rather receding lower jaw (no chin), and the modern humans, who present a projecting lower jaw with a strongly developed chin,” she said. Genetic analysis of the bone shows that the individual’s mitochondrial DNA was Neanderthal, indicating a Neanderthal mother. The team speculates that the individual’s father may have been an invading modern-human male that lived between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago.
LOS OSOS, CALIFORNIA—Human remains were discovered last week during the construction of a new sewer line. The project had been designed to avoid as many archaeological sites as possible, but this particular Chumash burial area was in the middle of a roadway, so workers had been using shovels rather than heavy equipment to prevent as much damage as possible. “The site is covered and we are making sure it is protected. There may be additional remains than those found in the trench alignment,” said Mark Hutchinson of the Public Works Department. The Northern Chumash Tribal Council, and the Odom-Tucker family of the Northern Chumash, had been monitoring the project. The two groups have requested that the remains be reinterred as soon as possible, as close to the original cemetery as possible.
Monastery Is Older, Larger, Than Previously Thought
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN—New carbon dates taken from charcoal at the only Buddhist monastery in the Taxila Valley suggest that it was built in the third century B.C., or at least 300 years earlier than previously thought. At its height in the third century A.D., 55 monk cells were not enough to house all of the monks that came to study, and so an annex, or “mini monastery,” was added. “When we cleared bushes from the area south of the main monastery, there were visible signs that a structure could be buried underneath,” said Muhammad Ashraf Kahn of the Institute of Asian Civilizations. A stucco figurine of Buddha, iron door knockers, pottery, coins, and a grinding stone were found in the small monastery. Animal bones at the site indicate that the monks kept domesticated animals.
Looters’ Tunnels Dot Egyptian Landscape
CAIRO, EGYPT—This video footage from Egyptian police shows several illegal tunnels dug by people looking for archaeological treasures near the Great Pyramids of Giza, in Luxor, and in Dahshur. The tunnels have even been found within people’s homes. Reporter Aleem Maqbool from BBC News was able to find a tunnel on his own, in addition to artifacts for sale on the black market. Hosni Hussain, Head of the Tourism and Antiquities Police in Luxor, says that illegal digging has always happened, and although it increased after the revolution, the police are aware of the problem and have recovered all stolen items.
Historic Shipwrecks Emerge from Stockholm Harbor
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN—Low water levels along Stockholm’s waterfront have revealed the hulls of two historic wrecks, thought to be seventeenth-century Danish warships. “If it had only been one or two beams sticking up, I may not have noticed it. But I saw immediately that it was a shipwreck. You could clearly see the bow and the stern,” said marine archaeologist Jim Hansson of Stockholm’s Maritime Museum. He spotted the wrecks while out for a walk with his girlfriend. Samples of the vessels have been taken for testing.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA—The renovation of an auditorium uncovered 37 sets of human remains thought to represent slaves or indentured servants buried between 1690 and the 1750s. Only one of the bodies had been buried in a coffin; the rest are thought to have been buried in shrouds. Buttons, coins, ceramics, gun flint, and iron objects were also found in the graves. When the investigation is completed, the Charleston City Council will decide where to reinter the remains.
Snow Cover Reveals Bronze Age Monuments
ABERYSTWYTH, WALES—Low levels of sun and snow cover helped archaeologists to spot some 40 new Bronze Age structures from the air, including a burial mound and a site with a moat. “Snow evens out the colors of the landscape allowing complex earthwork monuments to be seen more clearly and precisely,” said archaeologist Toby Driver of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. His team also mapped and photographed previously recorded sites. “So far well over 5,000 new archaeological sites have been discovered across Wales in 25 years of flying. We can now appreciate that Wales was intensively farmed and settled from the Neolithic era 6,000 years ago,” he added.
Foreign Archaeologists Return to Ur
BAGHDAD, IRAQ—A satellite image has led British archaeologists to a large palace or temple on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ten miles from the ancient city of Ur. They have uncovered a corner of the structure, which is thought to be 4,000 years old and to consist of rooms with nine-foot-thick walls arranged around a central courtyard. “The size is breathtaking,” said Jane Moon of the University of Manchester. The area has been closed to foreign scholars since the 1950s, when a military air base was constructed nearby.
German U-Boat Discovered Near Norway
OSLO, NORWAY—A German submarine has been found off the coast of Norway by Statoil, a Norwegian oil company. The “U-486” broke in two when it was torpedoed in April 1945 by a British submarine. It sank in 820 feet of water with 48 people on board. There were no survivors. “The submarine had a special coating on the hull. It was a synthetic rubber coating designed to significantly reduce its radar signal,” said Arild Maroey Hansen of the Bergen Maritime Museum.
