EMAS Archaeological Study Tour to Orkney

EMAS Archaeological Study Tour to Orkney

14 – 23 April 2020

Guide: David Beard MA, FSA, FSA Scot

The 2020 EMAS spring study tour will be to Orkney. We will travel by coach from Baker Street, London stopping overnight at Middlesbrough and Inverness and visiting archaeological sites on the way.

We will be based in Kirkwall, and will visit sites on Orkney Mainland and the islands of Egilsay, Rousay and Wyre. The sites that we will visit include Maes Howe, Skara Brae, Midhowe Broch, the Brough of Birsay, Cubbie Roo’s Castle, the Earl’s Palace at Birsay and Kirkwall Cathedral.

The cost of this study tour will be £1036 per person for people sharing a twin room, and £1305 per person for a single room.

Please note that hotel accommodation is limited, so an early reply is advised.

Click here for a complete itinerary

Archaeologists unearth ancient settlement in SE Turkey

An ancient historical site dating back 11,800 years was unearthed on Thursday in southeastern Turkey.

Now part of the province of Mardin, the area has been home to many different civilizations including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Urartians, Romans, Abbasids, Seljuks and Ottomans.

Archeologist Ergul Kodas said his team was excavating the site as part of a project focusing on documenting and rescuing cultural sites located in the Dargecit district, when they came across the 11,800-year-old sewer system and over two dozen architectural artifacts.

A total of 15 restorers and archaeologists as well as 50 workers are currently excavating the area, which was designated a historical and cultural site by Turkish authorities.

Kodas, the head of the excavation team, said the historical site was inhabited for a long period around 9800 B.C. and that there were eight-story historical buildings reaching up to seven meters in height.

He noted that the sewer system was the oldest known in history, saying: "We were only able to unearth a certain portion of the sewer system, and confirmed it was [located] in a public use area."

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3000-year-old sword discovered in north-east Bohemia

Credit: David Tanecek, CTK

A sword dating back to the early Bronze Age has been unearthed in the region of Rychnov nad Kneznou in north-east Bohemia, according to a recent report by the Czech News Agency.

According to the archaeologist Martina Bekova from the Rychnov museum, the weapon has an ornamental engraving and a very sharp blade.

"The bronze sword with its tongue handle is dated around 1200 BC, it belongs to the Lusatian culture. The findings of this culture are numerous in East Bohemia, but this is not true of swords," said Bekova.

"Only five prehistoric swords have been found in the Czech Republic over the last decade," she adds.

Archaeologists are keeping the exact location of the discovery a secret to protect the site.

A search of the area also yielded several rivets which were used to secure the sword handle to the blade, and a bronze spear head from about the same period.

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Caithness Iron Age stone tower to be conserved

Over the years Ousdale Burn Broch has fallen into a poor state of preservation

CAITHNESS BROCH PROJECT

An Iron Age drystone tower damaged by Victorian archaeologists is to be conserved.

The ruins of Ousdale Burn Broch, north of Helmsdale in Caithness, has fallen into further disrepair over the last 120 years.

A wall near the entrance to the broch has collapsed and a tree is growing inside the structure.

Archaeological charity Caithness Broch Project has secured £180,000 of funding towards its conservation.

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Römischer Münzschatz auf dem Zugerberg entdeckt

.Gut versteckt in einem abgelegenen Waldstück auf dem Zugerberg: Zwölf römische Silbermünzen geprägt zwischen 241 und 255 nach Christus. Erkennbar sind die mit Strahlenkrone bekränzten Büsten der Kaiser Gordian III., Volusian und Valerian I. sowie die auf einer Mondsichel ruhende Büste der Kaiserin Otacilia Severa (Ehefrau von Philipp I.). Die sichtbaren Münzrückseiten zeigen die Gottheiten Sol mit Globus, Jupiter mit Zepter und Blitzbündel, Mars mit Speer und Schild, Concordia sitzend mit Opferschale und Füllhorn sowie Victoria mit Palmzweig und Schild, unter dem ein Gefangener am Boden sitzt. Foto: © Amt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Zug

Die Münzen lagen eng beieinander, was darauf hinweist, dass sie sich ursprünglich in einem Behältnis aus einem vergänglichen Material befunden haben dürften, z.B. in einem Beutel aus Stoff oder Leder oder in einem Holzgefäss. Geprägt wurden die Münzen - es handelt sich um sogenannte Antoniniane - im Namen verschiedener Kaiser und einer Kaiserin. Sie können in die Zeit zwischen 241 und 255 nach Christus datiert werden

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Sunken Ships Reveal Iceland’s Trading History

Photo: Image: A screenshot from RÚV.

An abundance of shipwrecks off the coast of Eyrarbakki, South Iceland, suggest it was likely Iceland’s largest trading post until the 20th century, RÚV reports. Archaeologist Ragnar Edvardsson is working to map shipwrecks in the shallow waters around Iceland’s coast. Ragnar has mapped 400 large shipwrecks that occurred between 1200-1920, but believes there could be as many as 1,000 since the island’s settlement.

“I am of course first and foremost trying to get an idea of the number of large ships which I do through working with written sources. Icelanders were of course so good at writing so they often describe the damage to the ships, how many died, and also gave a geographic location,” Ragnar describes.

With the help of these written clues, the archaeologist sets out to sea with a diver to find the shipwrecks and investigate how well they have been preserved.

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Frozen moss reveals fatal final journey of 5,300-year-old ice mummy

Fresh clues have emerged about the final journey of a European glacier mummy shot dead by an arrow before his body was preserved in ice for thousands of years.

The latest study, published Wednesday in the journal Plos One, examined "subfossils" of pieces of vegetation that had frozen on or around the 5,300-year-old mummy, known as Otzi the Iceman.

Otzi's body was frozen in ice until it was discovered by a couple hiking in the North Italian Alps in 1991. Since then, nearly every part of him has been analyzed -- from what he may have sounded like, to the contents in his stomach and how he died. For the past 25 years, his mummified body has been a window into early human history, providing a peek into what life in the Alpine region was like during the Copper Age.

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Many imperial Romans had roots in the Middle East, genetic history shows

Many people from the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East settled in the city of Rome, with its famous Forum, during the imperial period. 

ISTOCK.COM/MUSTANG_79

Two thousand years ago, the streets of Rome bustled with people from all over the ancient world. The empire's trade routes stretched from North Africa to Asia, and new immigrants poured in every day, both by choice and by force. Now, an ancient DNA study has shown those far-flung connections were written in the genomes of the Romans.

People from the city's earliest eras and from after the Western empire's decline in the fourth century C.E. genetically resembled other Western Europeans. But during the imperial period most sampled residents had Eastern Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ancestry. At that time, "Rome was like New York City … a concentration of people of different origins joining together," says Guido Barbujani, a population geneticist at the University of Ferrara in Italy who wasn't involved in the study. "This is the kind of cutting-edge work that's starting to fill in the details [of history]," adds Kyle Harper, a Roman historian at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

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Archaeologists unearth ancient settlement in SE Turkey

Sewer system dating back 11,800 years, over 20 architectural structures found in Mardin province

An ancient historical site dating back 11,800 years was unearthed on Thursday in southeastern Turkey.

Now part of the province of Mardin, the area has been home to many different civilizations including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Urartians, Romans, Abbasids, Seljuks and Ottomans.

Archeologist Ergul Kodas said his team was excavating the site as part of a project focusing on documenting and rescuing cultural sites located in the Dargecit district, when they came across the 11,800-year-old sewer system and over two dozen architectural artifacts.

A total of 15 restorers and archaeologists as well as 50 workers are currently excavating the area, which was designated a historical and cultural site by Turkish authorities.

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New human ancestor discovered in Europe

A male Danuvius guggenmosi probably looked something like this

[Credit: Universitat Tubingen]

Our upright posture may have originated in a common ancestor of humans and great apes who lived in Europe - and not in Africa, as previously thought. That’s the conclusion reached by an international research team headed by Professor Madelaine Bohme from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tubingen in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature and the Journal of Human Evolution. Bohme has discovered fossils of a previously unknown primate in southern Germany. The fossils of Danuvius guggenmosi, which lived 11.62 million years ago, suggest that it was well adapted to both walking upright on two legs as well as using all four limbs while climbing. The ability to walk upright is considered a key characteristic of humans.

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Stave churches in Norway older than thought

Hopperstad Stave Church in Sogn og Fjordane county is dendro-dated to 1131-1132. Previously, the date was estimated at 1125-1250 

[Credit: Jan Michael Stornes]

Recently, researchers have used a different measurement method called photodendrometry. With this technique, the material can be photographed in place. The method has the advantage of not needing to take core samples, and scientists can photograph large amounts of material in a protected building and procure larger amounts of data. This provides more precise knowledge of the estimated construction date, because it allows wood that cannot be core sampled to also be dated.

Through the Stave Church Preservation program headed by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage, dendrochronologists at NTNU received money to study the country's stave churches more closely. The program has yielded results.

"We now know the age of some stave churches almost to the year," says Terje Thun. He is an associate professor at the NTNU University Museum in Trondheim. Thun is one of the country's foremost experts in dendrochronology, or tree ring dating.

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Whale bone DNA gives new clues to Iron Age Orkney life

The vessel - made from a fin whale vertebra - contained a human jaw bone and two newborn lambs

UHI ARCHAEOLOGY INSTITUTE

When they first unearthed the container near a broch at South Ronaldsay, archaeologists knew it was a hollowed out whale vertebra.

Dr Martin Carruthers from the UHI archaeology institute at Orkney College says "it was used as a casket, or a vessel.

"And inside of that we found a human jawbone, and two newborn lambs.

"And it was deposited we think in quite a formal manner, just outside the door of the broch at the time it was going out of use."

Even more extraordinarily two sets of antlers from red deer had been jammed into place alongside the backbone, and held in place with a quern stone.

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DÉCOUVERTE D’UN LIEU D’EXTRACTION DE LA POIX VIEUX DE 1500 ANS À BOLQUÈRE

Sur le site de La Serra de les Artigues à Bolquère, situé à 1600 mètres d’altitude en Haute-Cerdagne (Pyrénées-Orientales), les archéologues de l’Inrap mettent au jour les vestiges d’une exploitation de la poix vieille de 1500 ans

UNE ACTIVITÉ ARTISANALE EN HAUTE MONTAGNE
Préalablement à la réalisation d’un centre technique d’exploitation routière,  les archéologues de l’Inrap mettent au jour les restes d’un petit four sur le site de La Serra des Artigues (Bolquère) situé à 1600 mètres d’altitude, dans un espace montagnard jusqu’alors peu documenté. Les vestiges retrouvés appartiennent à une activité spécifique, aujourd’hui disparue, celle de l’extraction de la poix. Appelé pega en catalan et pegue en occitan, la poix est un goudron végétal extrait du bois d’arbres appartenant à différentes familles de conifères, principalement des pins (pin d’Alep et pins maritimes en basse altitude et pin de type sylvestre en milieu montagnard) et des genévriers (Genévrier oxycèdre).

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Mittelalterliche Häuser und Kanäle

Mit Kellen legen die Archäologen Mauern aus Bruch- und Backstein frei. 

Foto: Archäologie am Hellweg eG/U. Holtfester

Schon in einer Tiefe von einem Meter stießen die Archäologinnen auf Spuren von städtischen Häusern aus dem 13. Jahrhundert. Senkrecht im Boden steckten zahlreiche Pfosten und Staken. Diese Hölzer bildeten Unterbauten für verschiedene Nebengebäude wie Schuppen und Kleintierställe. Erst so war es überhaupt möglich, auf dem hier sehr feuchten Boden Häuser zu errichten.

"Für die Menschen im Mittelalter bedeutete der feuchte Untergrund einen erhöhten Aufwand", erklärt LWL-Archäologe Dr. Sven Spiong, der die Ausgrabung betreut. "Für uns Wissenschaftler ist er dagegen ein Glücksfall, da in dauerhaft feuchtem Milieu organische Materialien wie Holz über sehr lange Zeiträume erhalten bleiben."

Auf der 1.200 Quadratmeter großen Grabungsfläche fanden die Archäologinnen außerdem die Überreste von Kanälen. Einst leiteten diese Kanäle die Abwässer und das Regenwasser von den ehemaligen Wohnhäusern an der Straße in die hinteren Grundstücksbereiche. Sie belegen damit indirekt die Standorte der nicht mehr erhaltenen mittelalterlichen Wohnhäuser. Die Spuren der Wohnhäuser fehlen, da sie zur heutigen Straße hin standen, wo in der Neuzeit Keller angelegt wurden.

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Space Archaeology and Remote Sensing Are Revolutionizing Archaeology

Michael Davias/Wikimedia Commons

Archaeologists are literally peeling back the sands of time using images taken from space.

Space archaeology, also known as satellite remote sensing, is the use of satellites or aircraft to take pictures of Earth's surface that show subtle hints of buried features.

The methods employed are:

• Aerial photography - which got its start in France with balloonist Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, and which really came into its own during WW I.
• Multispectral and hyperspectral sensors — multispectral Scanners (MSS) were first included in the Landsat Program in 1972; hyperspectral sensors obtain the electromagnetic spectrum for each pixel in an image.
• Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanners (TIMS) — were also first introduced in the Landsat Program, one has been included on each of the last five Landsat satellites.
• Color Infrared Film (CIR) — far-infrared refers to thermal imaging, while near-infrared uses wavelengths ranging from 700 nm to 900 nm.
• Microwave radar — uses radio waves to determine the heights of terrain.

The history of space archaeology

The roots of space archaeology are in the cold war, with the U.S.'s KH-11 Program of the 1970s. It involved satellites with cameras that used optoelectronics instead of film. They were able to view the Earth in gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet and infrared, besides visible light.

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Archaeology breakthrough: 2,000-year-old Roman discovery offers major new insight into era

The remains of a horse perfectly in order was found (Image: Daily Star)

The chariot, thought to be around 2,000 years old, was discovered with the near perfect fossilised remains on the horses that would have pulled it. The discovery offered a glimpse into the world of the wealthy from ancient times and the lavish ways in which they buried their belongings.

The discovery was made near the city of Vinkovci in eastern Croatia.

The city was a small part of the mighty Roman Empire which spanned much of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Western Europe, including England and Wales.

The researchers found a large burial chamber in which the two-wheeled-carriage was unearthed.

The remains of the skeletons of two horses were also found, one strewn across the front of the carriage, the other neatly laid out in the exact position it was laid to rest.

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New technique reveals lost splendours of Herculaneum art

Herculaneum is much better preserved than its neighbour Pompeii

[Credit: Andreas Solaro/AFP]

One of the best preserved Roman houses at Herculaneum reopened on Wednesday after more than 30 years, its exquisite paintings brought back to life thanks to a revolutionary new technique.

Although much smaller than its better known neighbour outside the southern Italian city Naples, Herculaneum was a wealthier town with more exquisite architecture, much of which is still to be uncovered.

Herculaneum was buried under at least 15 metres (almost 50 foot) of rock, much more than the around four metres of ash at Pompeii, which for years made Herculaneum less attractive to looters and archaeologists alike.

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'One of the greatest finds': experts shed light on Staffordshire hoard

Items from the Staffordshire hoard of gold, weapons and ornaments found by a metal detectorist in 2009. Photograph: David Jones/PA

First major academic research finds ‘war hoard’ likely captured in battles between regional kingdoms

When an amateur metal detectorist first heard his machine beep in an unpromising field in Lichfield in July 2009 and dug down to uncover gold, it was clear this was no ordinary archaeological discovery.

But who had collected the astonishing stash of gold, garnet weapons and ornaments he had found? Why had they been buried? And why were so many of them broken?

After a decade of conservation and analysis, archaeologists have finally revealed their conclusions about these tantalising questions and others, with the publication of the first major academic research into what became known as the Staffordshire hoard.

What they have concluded, according to Chris Fern, the lead academic on the project, reaffirms the hoard’s significance as “without a doubt one of the greatest finds of British archaeology” and casts new light on one of the most turbulent periods of early English history.

The archaeologists have even tentatively identified the Mercian king they believe may have once owned the booty, and can draw a tantalising link to the dynasty of the rival Anglo-Saxon ruler who was buried at Sutton Hoo, Britain’s most famous site of the period.

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The Viking warrior WOMEN: Scientists reconstruct the face of 1,000-year-old female with a 'battle wound' on her skull who was buried with a hoard of weapons in Norway

Scientists reconstructed the face of the female warrior who lived more than 1,000 years ago by anatomically working from the muscles and layering of the skin

Scientists have re-created the face of a female Viking warrior who lived more than 1,000 years ago. 

The woman is based on a skeleton found in a Viking graveyard in Solør, Norway, and is now preserved in Oslo's Museum of Cultural History.

While the remains had already been identified as female, the burial site had not been considered that of a warrior 'simply because the occupant was a woman', archaelogist Ella Al-Shamahi told The Guardian. 

But now British scientists have brought the female warrior to life using cutting-edge facial recognition technology. 

And scientists found the woman was buried with a hoard of deadly weaponry including arrows, a sword, a spear and an axe. 

Researchers also discovered a dent in her head, which rested on a shield in her grave, that was consistent with a sword wound.  

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Meet Erika the Red: Viking women were warriors too, say scientists

Ella Al-Shamahi comes face to face with the Viking woman’s skull. Photograph: Eloisa Noble/National Geographic

Think of a Viking warrior and you probably imagine a fearsome, muscular, bearded man. Well, think again. Using cutting-edge facial recognition technology, British scientists have brought to life the battle-hardened face of a fighter who lived more than 1,000 years ago. And she’s a woman.

The life-like reconstruction, which challenges long-held assumptions that Viking warrior heroes such as Erik the Red left their women at home, is based on a skeleton found in a Viking graveyard in Solør, Norway, and now preserved in Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History. The remains had already been identified as female, but her burial site had not been considered a warrior grave “simply because the occupant was a woman”, according to archaelogist Ella Al-Shamahi.

As they worked on reconstructing her face for a 21st-century audience, scientists found that not only was the woman buried amid an impressive collection of deadly weaponry, including arrows, a sword, a spear and an axe, she also had suffered a head injury consistent with a sword wound. Her head, resting in her grave on a shield, was found to have a dent in it serious enough to have damaged the bone.

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