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Archaeology has had an amazing month: Here are 7 of the most exciting discoveries
Erin Brodwin
Mar. 19, 2015, 3:39 PM
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When they aren't digging up ancient graves or unearthing the body parts of early human ancestors, archaeologists are combing the Earth for clues about how the people who came before us lived, worked, played, and died.
This month, researchers in South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have found evidence of everything from secret fortresses to the capitals of vanished civilizations, entire underground cities, and even ancient recipes.
Together, the findings provide a fascinating look into the thriving communities that preceded us.
The corner of a lost civilization found deep in the Honduran rain forest
eos color unfiltNCALM/University of Houston
Some 1,000 years ago in the middle of Honduras, a thriving populace once built giant statues, homes, and even a complex network of irrigation channels and reservoirs.
The flourishing enclave, uncovered using laser scanning technology by a team of researchers from the University of Houston, was likely part of a network of other dwellings throughout this part of the Honduran rain forest. Together, these sites would have formed an active community that bustled with hundred of people long before the arrival of European explorers.
So far, the researchers have already found evidence of the tips of more than 50 objects, including giant stones possibly used for construction purposes, the head of a large statue resembling a combination of a werewolf and a jaguar, stone seats for ceremonies, and containers that had been intricately etched with the figures of vultures and snakes. They estimate the community was active in sometime between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1400.
A secret fortress of Genghis Khan found in southwest Mongolia
genghis khan statueFlickr/Ludovic Hirlimann
Genghis Khan's Mongolian Empire, the largest of its kind in history, stretched from the Sea of Japan to as far west as Arabia and from Siberia to as far south as India and Iran.
How did he come to control such a vast domain?
A team of archaeologists recently uncovered a clue that may help answer that question: A secret fortress that may have been used to help expand the empire during its westward march toward Europe.
The large fortress, located near what was once rich farmland and key parts of the silk trade route, would have played a key role in providing supplies and carrying information to the Mongolian army as they expanded west.
Inside the fortress, which measures about the size of three football fields and was likely built in 1212, researchers uncovered a vast array of Chinese pottery, wood fragments, and animal bones.
The oldest-ever-preserved beer from an 1840s shipwreck
beer barrel headFoursquare
Ever wonder what a bottle of 170-year-old beer would smell like?
Thanks to the recent discovery of a shipwreck off the coast of Finland, you don't have to keep guessing.
A team of researchers uncorked two bottles of the 19th-century-brew in early March, unleashing powerful odors of cabbage, burnt rubber, over-ripe cheese, and sulfur. When chemists analyzed the bottles' contents, they found the cause of the stench: bacteria that had likely been growing inside the bottles for decades, taking over any malty, beer-like smells they may once have had.
Bacteria aside, the beer probably tasted much like the beers we drink today, according to the researchers' chemical analysis of its other ingredients. Both brews were produced with hops but had a bit more of a rose-flavoring compound than we might be used to.
An ancient Celtic prince unearthed from his lavish tomb
celtic tomb 2Denis Gliksman/Inrap
Some 2,500 years ago, an ancient prince got a lavish burial in France.
His body was recently uncovered inside his chariot, along with pottery and a gold-tipped drinking vessel decorated with intricate images of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine and revelry.
The prince is not buried alone, however.
The burial site, located a few hours' drive south of Paris, houses many other ancient bodies. Nearby, researchers recently uncovered another grave dating to about 800 BC holding the body of an ancient warrior and his sword and a woman with bronze jewelry, Tia Ghose wrote in a recent post for LiveScience.
The tombs build on existing evidence that the Celtic and Mediterranean peoples exchanged goods. Mediterranean merchants were thought to have used Greek pottery frequently as gifts, contributing to the Celts' growing wealth inland.
A vast, underground city found in central Turkey
turkey_2Wikimedia Commons
Deep in central Turkey in a region successively ruled by Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, more than a hundred square miles of once-hidden passages snake beneath the ground.
The subterranean tunnels link thousands of underground homes and temples. Archaeologists who first discovered the hidden city in 2013 estimate the network once housed up to 200 villages and was most likely occupied until around 5,000 years ago, according to Hurriyet Daily News.
This March, a team of archaeologists and engineers began mapping the details of the underground terrain using machinery that sends radar pulses beneath the surface. Once it's mapped completely, the Anatolian government plans to open the area to the public.
Uncovered: A 250-year-old pretzel and other pastries
high res pretzelBLfD/Thomas Stöckl/Bavarian State Conservation Office
Archaeologists recently unearthed a pretzel that was likely served up sometime around 1765 in the southern German state of Bavaria. It could be the oldest surviving remnant of the doughy snack ever discovered in Europe.
Ancient traces of food are tough to find — once they're discarded, edible goods are quickly consumed by small animals and bacteria. But this pretzel was unique because it had been burned. The carbon in the burned remnant preserved it against the forces of time.
While digging for other remains in the city of Regensburg, archaeologists also found a handful of blacked rolls and other pretzel bits that suggests they were tossed from a bakery that was once located there, reports the Guardian. Carbon dating suggests the toasty treats were baked sometime between 1700 and 1800.
A hoard of ancient coins and jewelry in northern Israel
israel coins jewelryClara Amit/Israel Antiquities Authority
In the middle of their underground adventure in northern Israel, a group of amateur cavers accidentally discovered a stockpile of ancient coins and jewelry from the time of Alexander the Great.
Along with the stash of 2,300-year-old coins and silver rings, bracelets, and earrings, archaeologists who later excavated the site uncovered pottery dating back as far as 6,000 years.
Officials from the the Israel Antiquities Authority think people living in the area at the time may have stashed the valuables in the cave during the period of political turmoil that followed Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC.
This wouldn't be the first time someone stumbled across a mass treasure trove in the area. In February, amateur divers accidentally discovered a store of 2,000 gold coins off the coast of the ancient harbor city of Caesarea.
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Dr. Al Goodyear examining artifacts in the terrace.
Credit: Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina
Radiocarbon
tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed last
May along the Savannah River in Allendale County by University of South
Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear indicate that the sediments
containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that
humans inhabited North American long before the last ice age.
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The findings are significant because they suggest that humans
inhabited North America well before the last ice age more than 20,000
years ago, a potentially explosive revelation in American archaeology.
Goodyear, who has garnered international attention for his discoveries of tools that pre-date what is believed to be humans' arrival in North America, announced the test results, which were done by the University of California at Irvine Laboratory, Wednesday (Nov .17).
"The dates could actually be older," Goodyear says. "Fifty-thousand should be a minimum age since there may be little detectable activity left."
The dawn of modern homo sapiens occurred in Africa between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of modern man's migration out of the African continent has been documented in Australia and Central Asia at 50,000 years and in Europe at 40,000 years. The fact that humans could have been in North America at or near the same time is expected to spark debate among archaeologists worldwide, raising new questions on the origin and migration of the human species.
"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," Goodyear says. "However, other early sites in Brazil and Chile, as well as a site in Oklahoma also suggest that humans were in the Western Hemisphere as early as 30,000 years ago to perhaps 60,000."
In 1998, Goodyear, nationally known for his research on the ice age PaleoIndian cultures dug below the 13,000-year Clovis level at the Topper site and found unusual stone tools up to a meter deeper. The Topper excavation site is on the bank of the Savannah River on property owned by Clariant Corp., a chemical corporation headquartered near Basel, Switzerland. He recovered numerous stone tool artifacts in soils that were later dated by an outside team of geologists to be 16,000 years old.
For five years, Goodyear continued to add artifacts and evidence that a pre-Clovis people existed, slowly eroding the long-held theory by archaeologists that man arrived in North America around 13,000 years ago.
Last May, Goodyear dug even deeper to see whether man's existence extended further back in time. Using a backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear's team dug through the Pleistocene terrace soil, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Goodyear found a number of artifacts similar to the pre-Clovis forms he has excavated in recent years.
Then on the last day of the last week of digging, Goodyear's team uncovered a black stain in the soil where artifacts lay, providing him the charcoal needed for radiocarbon dating. Dr. Tom Stafford of Stafford Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., came to Topper and collected charcoal samples for dating.
"Three radiocarbon dates were obtained from deep in the terrace at Topper with two dates of 50,300 and 51,700 on burnt plant remains. One modern date related to an intrusion," Stafford says. "The two 50,000 dates indicate that they are at least 50,300 years. The absolute age is not known."
The revelation of an even older date for Topper is expected to heighten speculation about when man got to the Western Hemisphere and add to the debate over other pre-Clovis sites in the Eastern United States such as Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pa., and Cactus Hill, Va.
In October 2005, archaeologists will meet in Columbia for a conference on Clovis and the study of earliest Americans. The conference will include a day trip to Topper, which is sure to dominate discussions and presentations at the international gathering.USC's Topper: A Timeline
May, 1998 — Dr. Al Goodyear and his team dig up to a meter below the Clovis level and encounter unusual stone tools up to two meters below surface.
May 1999 — Team of outside geologists led by Mike Waters, a researcher at Texas A&M, visit Topper site and propose a thorough geological study of locality.
May 2000 — Geology study done by consultants; ice age soil confirmed for pre-Clovis artifacts.
May 2001 — Geologists revisit Topper and obtain ancient plant remains deep down in the Pleistocene terrace. OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dates on soils above ice age strata show pre-Clovis is at least older than 14,000.
May 2002 — Geologists find new profile showing ancient soil lying between Clovis and pre-Clovis, confirming the age of ice age soils between 16,000 - 20,000 years.
May 2003 — Archaeologists continue to excavate pre-Clovis artifacts above the terrace, as well as new, significant Clovis finds.
May 2004 — Using backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear and his team dig deeper, down into the Pleistocene terrace, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Artifacts, similar to pre-Clovis forms excavated in previous years, recovered deep in the terrace. A black stain in the soil provides charcoal for radio carbon dating.
November 2004 — Radiocarbon dating report indicates that artifacts excavated from Pleistocene terrace in May were recovered from soil that dates some 50,000 years. The dates imply an even earlier arrival for humans in this hemisphere than previously believed, well before the last ice age.DR. ALBERT C. GOODYEAR III
University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert C. Goodyear joined the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology in1974 and has been associated with the Research Division since 1976. He is also the founder and director of the Allendale PaleoIndian Expedition, a program that involves members of the public in helping to excavate PaleoAmerican sites in the central Savannah River Valley of South Carolina.
Goodyear earned his bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida (1968), his master's degree in anthropology from the University of Arkansas and his doctorate in anthropology from Arizona State University (1976). He is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the Archaeological Society of South Carolina, and the Florida Anthropological Society. He has served twice as president of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and is on the editorial board of The Florida Anthropologist and the North American Archaeologist.
Goodyear developed his interest in archaeology in the 1960s as a member of the F1orida Anthropological Society and through avocational experiences along Florida's central Gulf Coast. He wrote and published articles about sites and artifacts from that region for The Florida Anthropologist in the late 1960s. His master's thesis on the Brand site, a late PaleoIndian Dalton site in northeast Arkansas, was published in 1974 by the Arkansas Archeological Survey. At Arizona State University, he did field research on Desert Hohokam mountain hunting and gathering sites in the Lower Sonoran desert of Southern Arizona.
Goodyear, whose primary research interest has been America's earliest human inhabitants, has focused on the period of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition dating between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago. He has taken a geoarchaeological approach to the search for deeply buried early sites by teaming up with colleagues in geology and soil science. For the past 15 years he has studied early prehistoric sites in Allendale County, S.C., in the central Savannah River Valley. These are stone tool manufacturing sites related to the abundant chert resources that were quarried in this locality.
This work has been supported by the National Park Service, the National Geographic Society, the University of South Carolina, the Archaeological Research Trust (SCIAA), the Allendale Research Fund, the Elizabeth Stringfellow Endowment Fund, Sandoz Chemical Corp. and Clariant Corp., the present owner of the site.
Goodyear is the author of over 100 articles, reports and books and regularly presents public lectures and professional papers on his PaleoIndian discoveries in South Carolina.
Goodyear, who has garnered international attention for his discoveries of tools that pre-date what is believed to be humans' arrival in North America, announced the test results, which were done by the University of California at Irvine Laboratory, Wednesday (Nov .17).
"The dates could actually be older," Goodyear says. "Fifty-thousand should be a minimum age since there may be little detectable activity left."
The dawn of modern homo sapiens occurred in Africa between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of modern man's migration out of the African continent has been documented in Australia and Central Asia at 50,000 years and in Europe at 40,000 years. The fact that humans could have been in North America at or near the same time is expected to spark debate among archaeologists worldwide, raising new questions on the origin and migration of the human species.
"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," Goodyear says. "However, other early sites in Brazil and Chile, as well as a site in Oklahoma also suggest that humans were in the Western Hemisphere as early as 30,000 years ago to perhaps 60,000."
In 1998, Goodyear, nationally known for his research on the ice age PaleoIndian cultures dug below the 13,000-year Clovis level at the Topper site and found unusual stone tools up to a meter deeper. The Topper excavation site is on the bank of the Savannah River on property owned by Clariant Corp., a chemical corporation headquartered near Basel, Switzerland. He recovered numerous stone tool artifacts in soils that were later dated by an outside team of geologists to be 16,000 years old.
For five years, Goodyear continued to add artifacts and evidence that a pre-Clovis people existed, slowly eroding the long-held theory by archaeologists that man arrived in North America around 13,000 years ago.
Last May, Goodyear dug even deeper to see whether man's existence extended further back in time. Using a backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear's team dug through the Pleistocene terrace soil, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Goodyear found a number of artifacts similar to the pre-Clovis forms he has excavated in recent years.
Then on the last day of the last week of digging, Goodyear's team uncovered a black stain in the soil where artifacts lay, providing him the charcoal needed for radiocarbon dating. Dr. Tom Stafford of Stafford Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., came to Topper and collected charcoal samples for dating.
"Three radiocarbon dates were obtained from deep in the terrace at Topper with two dates of 50,300 and 51,700 on burnt plant remains. One modern date related to an intrusion," Stafford says. "The two 50,000 dates indicate that they are at least 50,300 years. The absolute age is not known."
The revelation of an even older date for Topper is expected to heighten speculation about when man got to the Western Hemisphere and add to the debate over other pre-Clovis sites in the Eastern United States such as Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pa., and Cactus Hill, Va.
In October 2005, archaeologists will meet in Columbia for a conference on Clovis and the study of earliest Americans. The conference will include a day trip to Topper, which is sure to dominate discussions and presentations at the international gathering.USC's Topper: A Timeline
May, 1998 — Dr. Al Goodyear and his team dig up to a meter below the Clovis level and encounter unusual stone tools up to two meters below surface.
May 1999 — Team of outside geologists led by Mike Waters, a researcher at Texas A&M, visit Topper site and propose a thorough geological study of locality.
May 2000 — Geology study done by consultants; ice age soil confirmed for pre-Clovis artifacts.
May 2001 — Geologists revisit Topper and obtain ancient plant remains deep down in the Pleistocene terrace. OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) dates on soils above ice age strata show pre-Clovis is at least older than 14,000.
May 2002 — Geologists find new profile showing ancient soil lying between Clovis and pre-Clovis, confirming the age of ice age soils between 16,000 - 20,000 years.
May 2003 — Archaeologists continue to excavate pre-Clovis artifacts above the terrace, as well as new, significant Clovis finds.
May 2004 — Using backhoe and hand excavations, Goodyear and his team dig deeper, down into the Pleistocene terrace, some 4 meters below the ground surface. Artifacts, similar to pre-Clovis forms excavated in previous years, recovered deep in the terrace. A black stain in the soil provides charcoal for radio carbon dating.
November 2004 — Radiocarbon dating report indicates that artifacts excavated from Pleistocene terrace in May were recovered from soil that dates some 50,000 years. The dates imply an even earlier arrival for humans in this hemisphere than previously believed, well before the last ice age.DR. ALBERT C. GOODYEAR III
University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert C. Goodyear joined the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology in1974 and has been associated with the Research Division since 1976. He is also the founder and director of the Allendale PaleoIndian Expedition, a program that involves members of the public in helping to excavate PaleoAmerican sites in the central Savannah River Valley of South Carolina.
Goodyear earned his bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida (1968), his master's degree in anthropology from the University of Arkansas and his doctorate in anthropology from Arizona State University (1976). He is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, the Archaeological Society of South Carolina, and the Florida Anthropological Society. He has served twice as president of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and is on the editorial board of The Florida Anthropologist and the North American Archaeologist.
Goodyear developed his interest in archaeology in the 1960s as a member of the F1orida Anthropological Society and through avocational experiences along Florida's central Gulf Coast. He wrote and published articles about sites and artifacts from that region for The Florida Anthropologist in the late 1960s. His master's thesis on the Brand site, a late PaleoIndian Dalton site in northeast Arkansas, was published in 1974 by the Arkansas Archeological Survey. At Arizona State University, he did field research on Desert Hohokam mountain hunting and gathering sites in the Lower Sonoran desert of Southern Arizona.
Goodyear, whose primary research interest has been America's earliest human inhabitants, has focused on the period of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition dating between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago. He has taken a geoarchaeological approach to the search for deeply buried early sites by teaming up with colleagues in geology and soil science. For the past 15 years he has studied early prehistoric sites in Allendale County, S.C., in the central Savannah River Valley. These are stone tool manufacturing sites related to the abundant chert resources that were quarried in this locality.
This work has been supported by the National Park Service, the National Geographic Society, the University of South Carolina, the Archaeological Research Trust (SCIAA), the Allendale Research Fund, the Elizabeth Stringfellow Endowment Fund, Sandoz Chemical Corp. and Clariant Corp., the present owner of the site.
Goodyear is the author of over 100 articles, reports and books and regularly presents public lectures and professional papers on his PaleoIndian discoveries in South Carolina.
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The above story is based on materials provided by University Of South Carolina. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The above story is based on materials provided by University Of South Carolina. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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