Tag: Ice age

University Team Finds Prehistoric East Midlands Settlement

A prehistoric settlement, which could date back 11,000 years, has been discovered near in England’s East Midlands region. The site, unearthed by a University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) team, was excavated in advance of building works at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

The team’s experts believe the site would have been inhabited by hunter-gatherers, who journeyed to Britain over the icy remnants of a giant super-river we reported yesterday (sadly they weren’t quite around at the time of Stone Age GPS). Britain would only become an island thousands of years later, when the final chills of the last ice age subsided.

The dig’s first work found flint blades embedded in Mesolithic soil, buried by much later ploughsoil. Thanks to the intact prehistoric soil, the group were confident they could find a wider range of objects, casting a light over the Midlands’ earliest residents.

Work then began on a 10m patch of land, which produced startling results. A charcoal-rich former hearth was found, alongside postholes and arcs of stone which suggest tent-like structures. Yet it was the worked flint haul which provided the team with their biggest coup. Over 5,000 chunks of the stone were recorded, including those used as tools, blades, flakes, scrapers, piercers and arrowheads.

Further work is scheduled at the site, which promises to delve deeper into the domestic and hunting lives of the Mesolithic residents of Leicestershire.

Bones excavated will be examined, allowing us a unique insight into the diets of our prehistoric British ancestors.

The origins of Europe’s earliest settlers is one of anthropology’s hottest topics. Some reports suggest modern Scandinavians are the descendants of Stone Age immigrants, and recent DNA evidence claims Europe’s first farmers weren’t related to hunter-gatherers or the farmers of the Cradle of Civilization.

As the above map shows, routes and landmasses throughout Europe have changed dramatically over the past few thousand years – Neanderthals have even been discovered at the bottom of the North Sea, widely believed to have been an ancient super-highway through the continent’s northern climes.

English Channel Carved out by Ancient Super-River

Brits might scoff at the suggestion they’re from the same continent as their mainland European neighbours. But a new report claims the two masses are linked by a low-lying range of hills that flooded over thousands of years, leaving the English Channel that separates England and France today.

Thousands of layers of sheet (ice)

An Anglo-French study (would you believe it) has revealed that the hilly range ran between Kent and Artois, in northern France, some half a million years ago. Yet ice ages beginning 450,000 years ago coated northern Europe in thick layers of ice, trapping water in a giant lake between Kent and France’s Artois region.

Many of the region’s great lakes, such as the Thames and Rhine, flowed into this massive lake, which overflowed, sending vast torrents of water and sediment crashing down towards the Atlantic Ocean. The water, which scientists have named ‘Fleuve Manche’, carved a path through the chalky rock as it went. Eventually the river, and rising tides, would tear Britain from France permanently, creating ‘La Manche’ or ‘The Sleeve’ – the French name for the Channel.

The Door to Prehistoric Britain

“This provides the final piece in the puzzle.”

Using sedimentary deposits, the team have been able to calculate when the Fleuve Manche had existed during three ice ages: 450,000, 160,000 and 90-30,000 years ago. Each time the surge of debris into the Bay of Biscay increased, showing how the Channel – and no shortage of national stereotypes – were literally being cut deeper into the European landmass.

Professor Phil Gibbard from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Geography says the work could be a vital clue in understanding how Britain was populated. “Essentially we are talking about the colonisation of the British Isles,” he tells the Daily Mail. “One of the things that arises from this study is our ability to understand what arrived in Britain and when.”

“It provides the final piece in the puzzle,” Prof Gibbard adds, “forming a complete record that reconstructs the dramatic events that cut Britain off from Europe and gave it its island status.”

The early population of Britain and Europe has been one of anthropology’s biggest questions for decades. Recent DNA evidence seems to show the continent’s first farmers, in central Europe, weren’t related to Stone Age hunter-gatherers or Near Eastern Neolithic revolutionaries (though Scandinavians are thought to be Stone Age immigrants).

Recent studies have shown that the North Sea was a prehistoric highway for our early ancestors some 60,000 years ago. Yet this report drives deeper into the divisions separating Britons from their French neighbours for thousands of years. Why, for example, Hugh Grant is perpetually employed; or why some feel it’s ok to reach the World Cup by cheating shamelessly. Les petits ruisseaux faissent les grand rivieres – ‘the smallest streams make the biggest rivers’ – as they say a few dozen miles from here.

ArchaeoVideo: Prehistoric Paintings, The Swimmers and The Beast in Gilf Kebir

Its hard to imagine that anyone could have once lived on the Gilf Kebir, an arid, remote, desolate sandstone plateau the size of Switzerland, located in the far southwest of Egypt. Yet, as we discover in an exclusive new Heritage Key video report by Nico Piazza, around 10,000 years ago water, and with it vegetation and animal and human life, once ran through the barren land Egyptians today call the Great Barrier.

This long-forgotten prehistoric civilization that once called Gilf Kebir home left their mark in the form of cave paintings and other forms of rock art, in locations such as the spectacular Cave of Swimmers. Located in the 1930s by Hungarian Count and explorer Lszl Almsy (who was later fictionalised as the core character in Michael Ondaatjes book The English Patient, which was adapted into a multi-Academy Award-winning movie) it features images of scores of tiny people swimming elegantly across the walls.

The big question everyones asking is: what the heck are these animals?

Even they pale in comparison to the scenes depicted in the Foggini-Mestekawi Cave, however, discovered much more recently in 2003 by members of a party led by desert tours company Zarzora Expeditions. It bears silhouettes of dozens of hands (not dissimilar to Cueva de la Manos in Argentina) as well as representations of hunting, fishing, games, parents holding their childrens hands even, in some cases, what looks a bit like people taking dancing lessons.

Animals feature heavily too gazelles, giraffes, dogs and lions. Most strange and fascinating of all is the beast a weird, headless creature, with a body like a bull or elephant and the legs of a man. It features frequently, and often appears to be feasting on humans. The big question everyones asking, ponders tour guide Mahmoud Nour El Din in the video, is: what the heck are these animals?

ArchaeoVideo: Prehistoric Paintings in the Gilf Kebir

(What’s said in this short docu? If in doubt, check out the video’s transcription here,
or press the arrow in the right below corner of the player, chose ‘CC’ – close captions – and turn the subtitles on!)

They were probably imagined by the prehistoric Egyptian artists, and somehow represent their understanding of the transition from life to death. Hybrid creatures such as the god of the desert and chaos Set were a common element in the belief system of later Egyptian civilizations, many of whom worshipped animal cults. As Foggini-Mestekawi Cave proves, the germ of the idea of the afterlife and mans ability to communicate with it clearly began to gestate very early in the minds of Egyptians, in a long-forgotten corner of the cradle of civilization.

Fascinated by ‘hidden heritage’ locations in Ancient Egypt?

Then make sure to watch this video, where Sandro Vannini and Nico Piazza take you on a journey exploring the Lost Tombs of the Theban necropolis.

Dr Janice Kamrin and Dr. Zahi Hawass supply us with more information on the over 800 tombs that can be found in the necropolis.

Each one of them is unique and offers us a glimpse into what life on earth must have been like in the Egypt of the Pharaohs.

Follow these experts while they explore TT69, TT79, TT104 and TT100, the tomb of Rekhmire.

Blonde Bombshell: Scandinavians Descended From Stone Age Immigrants

If youre wondering where Scandinavians got their blonde hair and impressive bone structure from then you can tick hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region at the end of the Ice Age off your list. It seems that an immigrant people from the Eastern Baltic region, who drifted into modern Scandinavia in the Stone Age around the time of the advent of farming are the real genetic ancestors of modern Swedes, Danes and Norwegians and even the Saami people of northern Scandinavia, according to new research straddling the boundaries of genetics and archaeology.

The study, published recently in the journal Current Biology, is the work of groups from Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and is led by Anders Gtherstrm from the Department of Evolutionary Biology at Uppsala University and Eske Willerslev, of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

It involved examining DNA from Stone Age remains to try and determine whether agricultural process were developed by hunter-gatherer communities the so-called Pitted-Ware culture themselves or brought in by new arrivals to the region, who co-existed beside Pitted-Ware people for a millennium until about 2000 BC. The evidence pointed firmly to population replacement by that stage. The hunter-gatherers who inhabited Scandinavia more than 4,000 years ago had a different gene pool than ours, stated Gtherstrm, speaking to ScienceDaily.

Our findings show that todays Scandinavians are not the direct descendants of the hunter-gatherers who lived in the region during the Stone Age.

Petra Molnar, at the Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University, concurred. Our findings show that todays Scandinavians are not the direct descendants of the hunter-gatherers who lived in the region during the Stone Age. This entails the conclusion that some form of migration to Scandinavia took place, probably at the onset of the agricultural Stone Age. The extent of this migration is as of yet impossible to determine.

The process by which humans populated the planet is being constantly revised, and this new finding may cause pre-historians to scribble out an extra line on their human migration map.

Picture by Candida.Performa. Some rights reserved.

Will Italian Caves Reveal the Secrets of Hunter-Gatherer Lifestyles?

Subsistence Habits of Prehistoric Man

A team of archaeologists is hoping to find out how prehistoric man survived in central Italy at the end of the last ice age. The researchers are about to set out on a study tour of 10 different locations throughout Italy where they hope to find clues to the lifestyles and habits of early hunter-gatherer humans between 18,000 BC and around 6,000 BC.

Until now their hunting and travelling patterns have been in question with two contradictory theories about how the hunter-gatherers would have got their food in an era of extreme environmental change before humans began farming.

Conflicting Theories

One theory claims that the palaeolithic societies would have relied on a wide variety of local food sources, including small animals such as fish, which would have meant they had no need for much travel or seasonal migration. The other theory sets out the idea that the pre-agricultural society would have depended on seasonal food sources with humans moving periodically between uplands and lowlands or following herds (such as deer) over long distances.

Dr Randy Donahue, senior lecturer in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Bradford, is the principal investigator on the research project and he is intending to test some of the hypotheses using advanced techniques such as high precision dating with stable isotope analyses.

He explained that so far the pilot study has shown that an obvious source of food for prehistoric man large herbivores is unlikely to migrate over long distances. This suggests that humans were also unlikely to have travelled far following a herd of animals. Dr Donahue said: They could be moving long distances seasonally simply to be where animals and plants may be found in large quantities. Or they could be relatively sedentary and sending hunting parties out (long distances if necessary) to bring back game. However he adds: There does seem to be quite a bit of small game being exploited so they may be becoming more focused on regional resources.

Ten Italian Caves to be Expolored

The Italian universities of Pisa, Florence, Rome (La Sapienza) and Siena, plus the British universities of Oxford and Royal Holloway are also collaborating on the project, as well as the Pigorini Museum, the Max Planck Institute and the British National Isotope Geosciences Laboratory. The team will investigate 10 archaeological caves, most of them in southern Italy. They will be analysing animal bones found in the caves as well as human tools to try to establish the hunting habits of humans. The caves to be excavated are:

Grotta Cavallo (Puglia)

Grotta Paglicci (Puglia)
Grotta della Madonna (Calabria)
Grotta Romito (Calabria)
Grotta della Cala (Camerota)
Grotta della Serratura (Camerota)
Grotta Continenza (Abruzzo)
Grotta del Pozzo (Abruzzo)
Grotta di Settecannelle (Lazio)
Grotta di Vado all’ Arancio (Toscana)

Photo and map by Dr Randolph Donahue.

Rediscovered: The Best Aboriginal Books

Prehistory of oz Some 35,000 years before Stonehenge mysteriously appeared on the Salisbury Plains, there was human life Down Under, in the outback and in the bush. Before markings were made at Chauvet or Lascaux, before the pyramids and before Rome rose and fell, what is now known as Australia was inhabited by pockets of tribal hunter-gatherers. They went about their business, surviving one of the harshest environments on Earth, for thousands of years until the white man came along, thrusting them from an ancient world and into a modern one.

For one of the oldest known (and surviving) civilisations, there is surprisingly little written about ancient Aboriginal history. Certainly this is true compared to other ancient civilisations, and it is especially true of publications released in the last 10 years. The overwhelming majority of historic reference material, and of scholarly writing in the fields of archaeology and anthropology, were written and released in the 1980s and the 1990s.

I suspect, though, that unlike the caesars or the pharaohs, tribal hunter-gatherers just arent glamorous enough for mainstream publishers.

On the other hand, there has been a recent mini-boom in the publication of (excellent) books cataloguing the resurgence in the various Aboriginal Australian art movements such as that of the Papunya.

And there is an increasing glut of (again, excellent) children’s books covering Aboriginal culture and the stories of the Dreamtime. These are important books, and ensure that the culture and beliefs of these ancient people are passed down to new generations of Australians (and others), and that children learn that Aboriginal culture was and still is about more than boomerangs and didgeridoos.

Documenting Personal Stories

Building upon this educational theme, there is nothing short of a flood of modern memoirs on Aboriginality. These are stories of survival from children of the ‘stolen generations‘ , Aboriginal survivors of British colonialism, the dispossessed reclaiming a heritage lost. The major publishers in Australia all have a cut of this action, with many of these titles making it onto school reading lists and becoming modern publishing phenomena (show me an Australian teenager of the 90s who hasnt read Sally Morgans My Place).

Another mainstay of school reading lists (and for good reason) is Bruce Chatwins 1987 classic, The Songlines. Chatwin in one of earliest and best examples of travel writing exposing the heart of a culture travels across Australia, following the stories of the songlines. These invisible and ancient tracks connect Aboriginal communities, and it was along these lines that the oral traditions of Aborigines thrived as the songs and stories of the Dreamtime made their way from tribe to tribe.

These two books, probably more than any others, helped inspire a generation of Aboriginal people to record their own stories on paper. Aboriginal culture had previously been largely confined to oral traditions, and perhaps this has something to do with the lack of accessible recent history books on the older aspects of the culture. I suspect, though, that unlike the caesars or the pharaohs, tribal hunter-gatherers just arent glamorous enough for mainstream publishers.

Even so, you would think that the beauty and international acclaim of such national treasures as Uluru (Ayers Rock) or Kakadu National Park, both deep in ancient heritage, would have inspired at least a few recent coffee table tomes of note. But no, the offerings are limited and, well, pretty uninspiring. Even Noughties academia has gone quiet on pre-colonial Aboriginal history, culture, art and archaeology.

To The Bargain Bins

Antiquarian bookshops such as the Cornstalk have an interesting range of books on these subjects, otherwise and with the exception perhaps of Peter Hiscocks thorough The Archaeology of Ancient Australia (2007) you need to dig deep in the out-of-print book bins or wade through university library shelves for more insight into the origins or Aboriginal Australia.

original australians Archaeologist Josephine Flood is among the most prolific writers on the subject, with
Archaeology of the Dreamtime: The Story of Prehistoric Australia and Its People,
The Riches of Ancient Australia: An Indispensable Guide for Exploring Prehistoric Australia
and Rock Art of the Dreamtime: Images of Ancient Australia all released in the 1990s to varying levels of acclaim. The Original Australians: Stories of the Aboriginal People is her most recent offering (2006).

Prehistory of Australia (1999) by John Mulvaney and Johan Kamminga is perhaps a more respected text, exploring the history of the continent and its people. It outlines why this often forgotten archaeological Eden has so many sites that are vital to the understanding of the evolution of man.

Tony Swains 1993 work A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being, meanwhile, is a study of the impact of outsiders on the ancient culture. He especially concentrates on Aboriginal myth, rituals and philosophy.

An often quoted and important anthropological study is Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory by Harry Lourandos. Its wide-ranging and detailed analysis argues that ancient Aboriginal societies were complex, dynamic and revolutionary.

A more widely read and reprinted text is the conservative historian Geoffrey Blaineys Triumph of the Nomads: A History of Aboriginal Australia, which became a film of the same name. It was Blainey who coined the term black armband view of history, which was a critical assessment of those who accused previous Australian governments of inflicting genocide on Aboriginal people.

So, no shortage of reading just not many recent releases to challenge previous works or progress debates. Or perhaps the move towards arts publishing, memoirs and works of children’s literature is progress in itself.