To Save a Cathedral, Marinate in Olive Oil

York Minster, a Gothic masterpiece is crumbling due to a relatively recent enemy: acid rain.

One of the most beautiful and revered cathedrals in Christendom, York Minster in northern England has survived war, looting, fire, pillaging and other threats over the centuries. But the Gothic masterpiece is crumbling due to a relatively recent enemy: acid rain. Preservationists, however, may have found a way to protect it using a common kitchen item.

The limestone rock used to build the church is vulnerable to acids, and has been under attack since the Industrial Revolution began filling the skies of England with acidic pollution, according to Gizmag.com. The result is acid rain that can wreak havoc on earthly structures.

And despite their best efforts, preservationists have found no protective coating that could keep the towering spires of York Minster safe, until they hit upon a novel treatment: olive oil.

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New Online Israel Archaeology Archive

From the new Israel Archaeology Archive

Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) has launched a new Israel Archaeological Archive, to be accessible on the Internet in English, with a general explanation also available in Hebrew.        
                    
A Heritage Program jointly initiated by the Prime Minister’s Office and the IAA, the digital archive will feature tens of thousands of documents, photos, maps and plans from the period of British Mandate (1919-1948), ranging from Akko to Jerusalem.

“The archive is an invaluable project, a site that will consolidate some 30,000 Israeli antiquities web sites into one location for worldwide access,” explained Dr. Uzi Dahari, deputy director of the Antiquities Authority. “The scientific importance of the archive is invaluable; it is the only one of its kind in Israel and in the world. In Israel there are approximately 30,000 known and declared antiquities sites that constitute our heritage – the largest and most important asset of the State of Israel.”

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Report: Vikings ‘abandoned Greenland due to loneliness and limited foods’

Researchers have a new theory on why the Vikings ultimately decided to abandon Greenland after five centuries. The news comes via a report recently published in the Journal of the North Atlantic, in which scientists claim that the infamous group of explorers may have simply got tired of the isolation of Greenland and having to survive almost exclusively on seal meat.

The theory is the result of a new Danish-Canadian project, for which scientists carried out isotope analysis on the bone remnants of Vikings and the animals that were living beside them.

Longstanding theories as to why the Vikings chose to leave the icy landmass suggested that starvation amid a mini ice age and ongoing battles with the local Inuit population were the central causes of the uprooting.

Research leader Niels Lynnerup, an anthropologist from the University of Copenhagen, told the media that he believes they may have had a wealth of food, but added, “perhaps they were just sick and tired of living at the ends of the earth and having almost nothing but seals to eat,” The Daily Mail reports.

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Mesolithic people adapted their environment in Severn Estuary

Mesolithic footprint from Goldcliff. Image: Reading University

New and exciting evidence has been found at a threatened archaeological site on the Severn Estuary that seems to show Mesolithic  people knew how to adapt their environment to suit their needs.

Encouraging specific plants

Researchers from the University of Reading found 7500 year-old worked flint tools, bones, charcoal and hazelnut shells while working at Goldcliff, near Newport, south Wales, in September 2012.

Charcoal remains discovered on the site suggest these people used fire to encourage the growth of particular plants, such as hazelnuts, crab apples and raspberries. This evidence may indicate that Mesolithic people were deliberately manipulating the environment to increase their resources, thousands of years before farming began.

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War was central to Europe’s first civilisation - contrary to popular belief

Dr Barry Molloy

Research from the University of Sheffield has discovered that the ancient civilisation of Crete, known as Minoan, had strong martial traditions, contradicting the commonly held view of Minoans as a peace-loving people.
 
The research, carried out by Dr Barry Molloy of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Archaeology, investigated the Bronze Age people of Crete, known by many as the Minoans, who created the very first complex urban civilisation in Europe.

“Their world was uncovered just over a century ago, and was deemed to be a largely peaceful society,” explained Molloy. “In time, many took this to be a paradigm of a society that was devoid of war, where warriors and violence were shunned and played no significant role.

“That utopian view has not survived into modern scholarship, but it remains in the background unchallenged and still crops up in modern texts and popular culture with surprising frequency.

“Having worked on excavation and other projects in Crete for many years, it triggered my curiosity about how such a complex society, controlling resources and trading with mighty powers like Egypt, could evolve in an egalitarian or cooperative context. Can we really be that positive about human nature? As I looked for evidence for violence, warriors or war, it quickly became obvious that it could be found in a surprisingly wide range of places.”

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Storms expose iron age skeleton

2,000 years old human remaions were exposed by the storms - Photos: Shetland Amenity Trust

SHETLAND’S pre-Christmas storms have revealed remains of an iron age building and a human skeleton believed to be 2,000 years old.
 
Archaeologists said a structure was briefly exposed at Channerwick before being buried again by a rockfall over the festive period.

Before it disappeared from view, police officers and archaeologists were able to investigate the site and take a bone sample for radiocarbon dating.

Shetland Amenity Trust assistant archaeologist Chris Dyer said: “The skeleton, initially reported by a local resident, looked as if it were contemporary with the Iron Age remains.

“The original burial now lies under several tons of fallen bank and the Iron Age structures have also disappeared from view.”

County archaeologist Val Turner added that during the investigation she and freelance colleague Samantha Dennis discovered evidence of at least one, and possibly two other burials.

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Ancient Rome's hairdo for vestal virgins re-created

A modern woman models the Roman vestal virgin hairstyle and headdress.

For the first time, the hairstyle of the Roman vestal virgins has been re-created on a modern head. 

The vestal virgins were priestesses who guarded the fire of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, among other sacred tasks. Chosen before puberty and sworn to celibacy, they were free from many of the social rules that limited women in the Roman era. Their braided hairstyle, the "sini crenes," symbolized chastity and was known in ancient texts as the oldest hairstyle in Rome. 

"These were the six most important women in Rome, with the possible exception of the emperor's wife," said Janet Stephens, the Baltimore hairdresser and amateur archaeologist who unraveled the secrets of the Vestals' trademark braids. [See Video of the Braiding Process]

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Archaeological finds reveal ancient Balkan civilizations

Numerous gold items have been recovered at archeological sites in Bulgaria. [AFP]

Bulgarian archaeologists announced two major finds at the close of the 2012 excavation season, and hope to obtain state and other financial support to shed more light on the life and culture of the early Balkan civilisations. 

Vasil Nikolov, former head of the country's National Archaeology Institute, unearthed Europe's oldest urban settlement near Provadia, 50 kilometres west of Varna on the Black Sea, which is dated between 4700 and 4200 BC. 

The site is more than 100 metres in diameter, is encompassed by a 3-meter high stone wall and has two-story structures housing nearly 350 residents. 

The settlement is one part of a much larger complex from the same period, which includes a salt production unit, a sanctuary and a necropolis.

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Indians inhabited Australia 4 000 years ago, study shows

New research shows ancient Indians migrated to Australia and mixed with Aborigines 4 000 years ago, bringing the dingo's ancestor with them.

The research re-evaluated the continent's long isolation before European settlement.

The vast southern continent was thought to have been cut off from other populations until Europeans landed at the end of the 1700s, but the latest genetic and archaeological evidence throws that theory out.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, reported "evidence of substantial gene flow between Indian populations and Australia about 4 000 years ago".

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RAI Archaeology Journal now online at ADS

The ADS and the Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI) are pleased to announce that the first 120 volumes of the Archaeological Journal are now available to view online at the ADS.

The RAI are a leading national archaeology society and have annually published the Archaeological Journal since 1844. The journal contains papers on the Institute's interests, which span all aspects of the archaeological, architectural and landscape history of the British Isles. It presents the results of archaeological and architectural survey and fieldwork on sites and monuments of all periods as well as syntheses and overviews of such work in the British Isles.

This is an excellent resource for all those interested in British archaeological, architectural and landscape history as well as the development of the disciplines themselves. Follow this link to take a look.

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/archjournal/

Unlocking secrets from Jane Austen's Steventon home

The dig unearthed the foundations and objects from the site of Steventon Rectory

Finds from an archaeological dig at the birthplace of Jane Austen are beginning to reveal details of the author's early home life.

Volunteers excavated the field in Steventon in the Hampshire countryside in 2011 where the village's old rectory once stood.

The process of cleaning and interpreting the finds has yielded a clearer idea of what the house looked like and even what the family ate their meals off. 

Austen was born in the village where her father was rector in 1775, and lived there for 25 years. It was there she drafted stories which were eventually published as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.

The house was demolished soon after her family moved to Bath.

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DNA technique reveals ancient hair and eye color

Researchers have discovered that a new method of establishing hair and eye color from modern forensic samples can also do the same for ancient human remains.

 

Using the HIrisPlex DNA analysis system, they say, a team of researchers from Poland and the Netherlands has been able to reconstruct hair and eye color from teeth up to 800 years old. The system looks at 24 DNA polymorphisms, ornaturally occurring variations, which can be used to predict eye and hair colour.

 They had already tried out the technique on the remains of the Polish general Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881 to 1943) confirming his blue eyes and blond hair. Now, though, they say that the system's accurate enough to work on older and more degraded samples from human remains such as teeth and bones. 

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Frescos hacked-off walls of post Byzantine church

Parts of a 1552 wall painting were removed in an orthodox church at Elbasan, Albania 

[Credit: Archaiologia Onlone]

The violent removal by primitive means of wall paintings dating back to 1554, made by the famous iconographer Onoufrios, from the orthodox church of Aghia Paraskevi in Gjinari of Elbasan, caused a series of various reactions.

University professors, researchers, archaeologists, and scholars raise their voices against this vandalism act, that damaged another rare cultural monument of orthodox heritage in Albania.
The Historical Heritage Forum in Albania organized a protest rally in front of the Ministry of Culture.
However, the reactions do not refer to the religious aspect of the event, but only to its cultural significance.

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2,000-year-old treasure found in Black Sea fortress

The citadel was torched by the Roman army in A.D. 45, with many of its inhabitants likely killed. Some time afterward Artezian was rebuilt with stronger fortifications although it, along with the rest of the Bosporan Kingdom, was under the sway of Rome
[Credit: Russian-Ukrainian Archaeological Artezian Expedition]

Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town's citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with "various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels" inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.
"The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans. They had buried their hoards inside the citadel," Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained.

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Archeologist who found 1,400-year-old grave of princess signs copies of his new book

ROYAL FIND: Dr Steve Sherlock, who discovered the Saxon Princess jewellery at Loftus, a piece of which is shown below, signs copies of his book at Kirkleatham Museum 

 
THE archaeologist behind one of the most important discoveries ever made in the region held a book signing session this weekend. 

Dr Steve Sherlock discovered a striking 7th century gold pendant, which would have belonged to a princess, as well as glass beads, pottery, iron knives and other objects, in Loftus, East Cleveland between 2005 and 2007. 

The finds, which were described as “unparalleled” by experts, now form the Saxon Princess display at Redcar’s Kirkleatham Museum. 

The Princess was buried with her jewellery about 1,400 years ago and the haul was discovered at the only known Anglo-Saxon royal burial site in the North-East.

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Death, Narrative and Understanding the Viking Mind

We think we understand the Vikings and their ways as a culture of warriors and pirates. The Vikings plagued the coast of early medieval Britain, robbing from monastic and secular sites until they finally set up permanent residence in the Danelaw.

 
In reality, however, the Vikings inhabited a nebulous dichotomy between violent warrior and peaceful merchant.

Yet these views of the Norsemen originate from sources outside Viking culture, they originate from the victims, such as the monasteries that were attacked. As a result, our view of the Viking world is rarely from the perspective of people who were part of it. In a series of lectures to Cornell University, delivered in September 2012, Professor Neil Price of Aberdeen University attempts to bridge this gap and get inside the Viking mind.

Professor Price puts forward the argument that stories are at the heart of the Viking consciousness and that the Vikings perceived the world as a series of interconnected stories passed orally and lived out day to day. What modern scholars interpret as “Norse myths”, i.e. tales of the gods collected in what we call the Prose and Poetic Edda, were not only stories to entertain on the long Scandinavian nights, they were also a very real part of the nature of the world.

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Ancient poop tells story of how urbanisation changed the intestine

Image by: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Research by US scientists into the composition of dried human faeces from archeological sites shows that the increasingly urban and cosmopolitan way of modern life has led to dramatic changes in the make-up of human intestinal flora.

Raul Tito and his colleagues from the University of Oklahoma analysed the microbial composition of coprolite samples (faeces retrieved from archaeological contexts) from three locations in the Americas.

The sites were chosen because they provided a broad range of environmental conditions.

The samples taken from Hinds Cave in the southwestern United States were the oldest, at around 8,000 years, while those recovered from Rio Zape in northern Mexico were 1,400 years old.

The samples taken from naturally preserved mummies in Caserones in northern Chile were 1,600 years old.

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Neolithic remains discovered in Istanbul

A team of Turkish archeologists has unearthed ruins of a Neolithic settlement dating back over eight millennia in Pendik district in Istanbul.

The relics were uncovered during the construction process of a project in Istanbul’s Marmaray railway.

The findings include ancient houses, skeletons, cemeteries and various tools such as spoons, needles and axes that indicate a history of 8,500-year-old settlement at the area.

Most of the found skeletons were buried in a fetal position, where the arms are embracing the lower limbs.

As thousands of mussel shells were discovered in the area, the experts suggest that the residents of the ancient village must have consumed large amounts of mussels.

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Clay pot fragments reveal early start to cheese-making, a marker for civilization

The presence of milk byproducts found in clay fragments from central Europe provides compelling evidence that farmers used the perforated pots to separate cheese curds from whey, said Bogucki, whose early theory was substantiated by recent research in Europe. Credit: Mélanie Salque

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-clay-pot-fragments-reveal-early.html#jCp

The presence of milk byproducts found in clay fragments from central Europe provides compelling evidence that farmers used the perforated pots to separate cheese curds from whey, said Bogucki, whose early theory was substantiated by recent research in Europe. Credit: Mélanie Salque

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-clay-pot-fragments-reveal-early.html#jCp

The presence of milk byproducts found in clay fragments from central Europe provides compelling evidence that farmers used the perforated pots to separate cheese curds from whey, said Bogucki, whose early theory was substantiated by recent research in Europe. Credit: Mélanie Salque

While working as director of studies at one of Princeton University's residential colleges in the 1980s, Bogucki theorized that the development of cheese-making in Europe—a critical indicator of an agricultural revolution—occurred thousands of years earlier than scientists generally believed. His insight, based on a study of perforated potsherds that Bogucki helped recover from dig sites in Poland, promised to change the scientific understanding of how ancient Western civilization developed. 

Bogucki published his theory in a 1984 article in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology. Although his detective work was extensive, it was impossible to prove the bits of pottery were the remains of a cheese maker, rather than some other type of strainer. 

There the matter lay, until researchers at the University of Bristol used a new type of test to measure ancient molecular remnants embedded within the pottery.

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Famed Roman Shipwreck Could Be Two

First discovered in the early 1900s by local sponge divers, the wreck is most famous for the Antikythera mechanism, which contains a maze of interlocking gears and mysterious characters etched all over its exposed faces. Originally thought to be a kind of navigational astrolabe, archaeologists continue to uncover its uses and now know that it was, at the very least, a highly intricate astronomical calendar. CREDIT: Courtesy Wikipedia Commons 

Content provided by Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
A dive to the undersea cliff where a famous Roman shipwreck rests has
turned up either evidence that the wreck is enormous — or a suggestion
that, not one, but two sunken ships are resting off the Greek island of
Antikythera.

"Either way, it's an exciting result," said study researcher Brendan
Foley, an archaeologist at Woods Hold Oceanographic Institution who
presented the findings Jan. 4 at the annual meeting of the
Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle.

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Dig will root out secrets of Viking past

A two-mile stretch of land between Arrochar and Tarbet could hold vital clues to the Vikings' occupation of Scotland. 

An archaeological project hopes to shed new light on how the Vikings used the narrow isthmus between Loch Lomond and Loch Long to expedite their notorious plundering exploits. 

The fierce Norsemen are said to have dragged their boats across the isthmus - now the route of the busy A83 - to raid the rich Lomond settlements before encountering defeat at the Battle of Largs in 1263. 

Now an appeal has gone out for volunteers to come forward and help archaeologists in their quest for Viking clues.

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Ancient Pompeians Could Go Upstairs to Pee

A few second-story toilets survived the lava that covered Pompeii, such as this one.

A. Kate Trusler

The residents of the ancient city of Pompeii weren't limited to street-level plumbing, a new study finds. In fact, many in the city may have headed upstairs when nature called.

Most second floors in the Roman city are gone, claimed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in A.D. 79. But vertical pipes leading to lost second stories strongly suggest that there were once toilets up there, according to a new analysis by A. Kate Trusler, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Missouri.

"We have 23 toilets that are connected, that are second-story preserved, that are connected to these downpipes," Trusler told LiveScience on Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Seattle, where she presented her research.

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Pompeii 'Wall Posts' Reveal Ancient Social Networks

Think of it as the earliest version of the Facebook wall post: Ancient Pompeii residents revealed their social networks through graffiti on actual walls.

Now, a new analysis of some of these scribbled messages reveals the walls of the wealthy were highly sought after, especially for political candidates hoping to drum up votes. The findings suggest that Pompeii homeowners may have had some control over who got artistic on their walls, said study researcher Eeva-Maria Viitanen, an archaeologist at the University of Helsinki.

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2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town's citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with "various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels" inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.

"The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans.  They had buried their hoards inside the citadel," Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained. [See Photos of the Buried Treasure]

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Scale Model Discovered for Florence Cathedral

Italian archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a mini dome near Florence’s cathedral — evidence, they say, that the structure served as a scale model for the majestic structure designed by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446).

Found during excavations to expand the Cathedral museum, the model measures 9 feet in circumference and it’s made of bricks arranged in a herringbone pattern.

“This building technique had been previously used in Persian domes, but Brunelleschi was the first to introduce it into Europe when he worked at the dome,” Francesco Gurrieri, professor of Restoration of Monuments at the University of Florence, told Discovery News.

“Although at the moment we cannot confirm the small dome was the demostration model for Brunelleschi’s plans, it did belong to the yard he created between 1420 and 1436, when he worked at one of the most incredible feats of engineering,” Gurrieri said.

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Ancient graffiti found inside the Colosseum

Italian archaeologists have found brightly coloured fragments of frescoes depicting heroic and erotic scenes inside a corridor of the Colosseum in Rome, along with samples of ancient graffiti.

"We have found traces of decorations in blue, red and green," Rossella Rea, director of the 2000-year-old amphitheatre, said.
The fragments "seem to depict the glory of the gladiator world, with laurels, arrows, victory wreaths and even erotic scenes," the Repubblica newspaper said.
The frescoes were found in a corridor currently closed to the public while archaeologists were working to restore an area between the second and third floor of the Colosseum, which has fallen into disrepair in recent years.

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Neolithic remains unearthed in Istanbul

Workers helping to upgrade Istanbul’s Marmaray railway project have discovered the priceless ruins of a Neolithic settlement dating back well over eight millennia in the city’s Pendik district.

The 8,500-year-old foundations of ancient houses, cemeteries and various tools such as spoons, needles and axes were found during the construction process of the Gebze-Haydarpaşa section of the Marmaray. The Istanbul Archaeology Museum is currently leading a dig to shed light on the district’s past inhabitants.
Culture and Tourism Provincial Manager Ahmet Emre Bilgili said discovering the ancient history of Istanbul, which dates back thousands of years, was a cause for great joy, adding that a new museum was required for the discoveries belonging to the Neolithic period.

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Ancient Olympia to get a facelift

A further 50-70 m of the Gymnasium at Olympia are expected to be revealed [Credit: To Vima]

The face of global symbol and most sacred place of ancient Greece, Ancient Olympia, is changing, after the decisions made by the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) about the excavations in the area and the approval of proposed studies.  

The project which was unanimously approved by the members of KAS is structured in three parts:

• Unearthing and enhancement of the East Arcade of the Gymnasium (new entrance and facilities for audience services).

• Conservation of the retaining wall of the Treasuries.

• Conservation of the excavation slopes at the Sanctuary of Demetra Chamyne.

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Staffordshire Hoard grows as 81 further pieces declared treasure trove

Some of the pieces of gold and silver which have been declared part of the Staffordshire Hoard. Photograph: Staffordshire County Council/PA

 

Anglo-Saxon gold and silver found in a field in the West Midlands has been declared treasure trove and part of the Staffordshire Hoard.

The 81 items, which date to the seventh century, will be handed to the British Museum's valuation committee to assess their worth, South Staffordshire coroner Andrew Haigh told an inquest in Stafford on Friday. It will then be up to Staffordshire county council and neighbouring councils to raise the money to buy the new items for the nation. The original hoard, with 3,900 items, was bought for £3.3m after being found in a field near Lichfield in 2009 by metal detectorist Terry Herbert. He split the money with Fred Johnson, the farmer who owned the land. Though a team from Archaeology Warwickshire discovered the second haul last year, proceeds from the sale will once again go to Herbert and Johnson. The most interesting finds included an eagle mount, whose use is not known, and a cheek piece from a helmet.

Philip Atkins, leader of Staffordshire council, said it and the owners of the original hoard, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham councils, would now have to look at raising money to buy the new items.

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Staffordshire Hoard duo in fresh windfall from new 'treasure' find

Terry Herbert from Burntwood, Staffordshire, with some of the pieces which made up 

an Anglo-Saxon hoard

More than 80 Anglo-Saxon gold and silver items found buried in a field near Lichfield were ruled to be part of a collection dubbed the Staffordshire Hoard. 

After they were yesterday declared a treasure trove, experts from British Museum's valuation committee were instructed to assess their worth. 

Staffordshire County Council and neighbouring councils will also attempt to raise the money to buy the new items, which date to the 7th century, for the nation. 

The haul will likely to end up in museums with the original Staffordshire Hoard, which was found in a field in 2009 by metal detectorist Terry Herbert, 57.

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Silbury Hill trespassers causing 'spectacular' damage

Floodwater surrounding Silbury Hill is nothing to worry about, says English Heritage 

[Credit: BBC]

Trespassers on a rain-soaked monument in Wiltshire are causing "spectacular" damage, an archaeologist has warned.

Heavy rain has led to standing water around Silbury Hill in Avebury and very soft ground which is being eroded by people climbing the monument.

Jim Leary, an archaeologist for English Heritage, said that illegal climbers on the sodden hill were "leaving some really rather hideous scars".

The hill dates back to 2400 BC and is the largest man-made mound in Europe.

Mr Leary said access to the mound had been prohibited for a number of decades and people should not be attempting to climb it.

"They are going up and it is very wet and they are eroding the side of the hill," he added.

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Archaeologists Find Clues to Viking Mystery

Until now, many experts had assumed that the cooling of the climate and the resulting crop failures and famines had ushered in the end of the Scandinavian colony. But now a Danish-Canadian team of scientists believes that it can refute this theory of decline. 

Here, archaeologists dig up skeletons in Greenland.

For years, researchers have puzzled over why Viking descendents abandoned Greenland in the late 15th century. But archaeologists now believe that economic and identity issues, rather than starvation and disease, drove them back to their ancestral homes.

On Sept. 14, 1408, Thorstein Olafsson and Sigrid Björnsdottir were married. The ceremony took place in a church on Hvalsey Fjord in Greenland that was only five meters (about 16 feet) tall. 

It must have been difficult for the bride and groom to recognize each other in the dim light of the church. The milky light of late summer could only enter the turf-roofed church through an arched window on the east side and a few openings resembling arrow slits. After the ceremony, the guests fortified themselves with seal meat.



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'Exceptional' find of Roman statues linked to poet Ovid

The head of Niobe has been described as an "exceptional" find

 

Archaeologists in Italy say they have discovered what they've called a "very important" series of statues dating back to the Roman era.

The seven figures were found in a villa outside the city owned by the patron of the celebrated poet, Ovid.
They depict one of the myths recounted in his masterpiece, Metamorphoses, that of the proud mother Niobe.

The team unearthed the 2m-high figures at the bottom of what would have been a richly-decorated swimming pool.

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Roman theatre discovered in Kent

Remains of the day … the cockpit-style theatre was large enough to seat 12,000. 

Photographs: Kent Archaeological Field School

Remains of a huge, 2,000-year-old Roman theatre, thought to be the first of its kind in Britain, have been discovered in Kent.

Paul Wilkinson, director of the nearby Kent Archaeological Field School, and his team uncovered the remains of a cockpit-style outdoor auditorium built into a hillside in Faversham. Around 150 such theatres have been discovered across northern Europe, according to Wilkinson, but the remains are the first to be found in the UK.

In addition to the orchestra pit – in which choruses would have performed – the ruins also include a narrow stage, featuring holes that are thought to have allowed flooding for aquatic displays.
The theatre could have housed audiences of up to 12,000 people in 50 rows of seats over an area 65 metres in diameter. The site, which shows activity dating back as far as the bronze age, was probably used for religious festivals in which two nearby bathhouses, also uncovered by Wilkinson's team, would have played a part.

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Don’t underestimate Viking women

The viking women were powerful. (Drawing: Erik Werenskiold)

The status of Viking women may be underestimated due to the way we interpret burial findings.

“To assume that Viking men were ranked above women is to impose modern values on the past, which would be misleading,” cautions Marianne Moen. She has been studying how women’s status and power is expressed through Viking burial findings. Her master’s thesis The Gendered Landscape argues that viking gender roles may have been more complex than we assume.

Exploring new perspectives of Viking society is a theme which also will be the focus of the forthcoming Viking Worlds conference in March 2013, where Moen is a member of the organising committee.

Skewed interpretation

Our assumptions of gender roles in viking society could skew the way we interpret burial findings, Moen points out. She uses the 1904 excavation of the Oseberg long boat to illustrate the point. Rather than the skeleton of a powerful king or chieftain, the ship surprisingly contained two female skeletons.

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Stone Age hunters liked their carbs

The Stone Age hunter’s food contained large amounts of protein from fish, lean mean, herbs and coarse vegetables and has formed the basis of one of today’s hottest health trends: the paleo diet.

The modern version of the Stone Age diet excludes foods rich in carbohydrates. This exclusion of carbs is based on the idea that Stone Age hunters didn’t have access to bread, rice or pasta.

But is it true that Stone Age hunters and gatherers didn’t eat any carbohydrates at all?

Sabine Karg, an external lecturer at Copenhagen University’s Saxo Institute, specialises in archaeobotany. She says that Stone Age hunters, unlike many followers of the modern Stone Age diet, joyfully munched away at carbs when the opportunity presented itself.

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How Some Medieval Cultures Adapted to Rise of Islam

The medieval coin at left, minted in the Islamic center of Baghdad, bears two names. The one at right, minted at Isfahan, Iran, bears a total of five names, reflecting more complex political networks further away from the capital. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Cincinnati)

Medieval Afghanistan, Iran and the one-time Soviet Central Asian states were frontiers in flux as the Islamic Caliphate spread beyond the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh through 10th centuries.

As such, different groups, such as the new Arab ruling class, the native landed gentry and local farmers, jockeyed for power, position and economic advantage over an approximately 300-year period as the Sasanian Empire collapsed and the Caliphate took its place.

University of Cincinnati historian Robert Haug, assistant professor, will present his research on how social, cultural and political changes were manifested in these border areas that serve almost as a "perpetual frontier." He does so Jan. 3, 2013, at the American Historical Association, in a presentation titled "Between the Limits and the Gaps: Conceptualizing Frontiers in Medieval Arabic and Persian Geographies."

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Digging into 2012's archaeology

As much as science looked to the future this year in fields ranging from particle physics to planetary exploration, 2012 also gave us a rich view into the past. Here's a month-by-month view of what excited archaeologists through the year.

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