Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Pompeii

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Pompeii Sep 10th 2011, 10:00 The most famous archaeological site in the world is not hard to name. If there has ever been a site as well preserved, as evocative, as memorable as that of Pompeii, the luxurious resort for the Roman Empire, buried under the ash and lava erupted by Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 AD. Pompeii as a Thriving Community At the time of its destruction, Pompeii was a thriving commercial port at the mouth of the Sarno River in southwestern Italy. While the first occupations at Pompeii date to the 6th century BC, the city grew slowly over the centuries, blossoming with the Roman occupation beginning in 81 BC. Pompeii's known buildings--and there are many that were preserved under the mud and ashfall--include a Roman basilica, built ca 130-120 BC, and an amphitheater built circa 80 BC. The forum contained several temples; the streets included hotels and eating places and gardens within the city walls. But probably of most fascination to those of us today are the details of the private homes, the eerie negative images of people caught in the eruption, the utter humanness of the tragedy seen at Pompeii. Pompeii and Archaeology Of interest to archaeologists is the fact that Pompeii was among the earliest of archaeological excavations, tunneled into by the Bourbon rulers of Naples and Palermo first beginning 1738. Full scale excavations were begun at Pompeii in 1748. Archaeologists associated with Pompeii and Herculaneum include Karl Weber, Johann-Joachim Winckelmann, and Guiseppe Fiorelli; a team was sent there by the Emperor Napoleon as well. Excavations today are being conducted in the streets of Pompeii by the University of Bradford. One of the benefits of such a long excavation is a wealth of images you can find on the Internet. Current research at Pompeii has been undertaken by the Anglo-American Project in Pompeii, led by Rick Jones at the University of Bradford. Field schools have been led at Pompeii by Bradford since 1995. Pompeii Walking Tours House of the Faun Streets of Pompeii

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Machu Picchu

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Machu Picchu Sep 10th 2011, 10:00 Machu Picchu is the name of the residential palace of the Inca Empire. The name means "Old Mountain", and it refers to one of two mountains on which Machu Picchu liesâ€"the other is Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain), located 3,000 feet above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Machu Picchu lies on a perennially cloud-draped ridge between the two peaks, part of the royal estate of the Inca king Pachacuti [AD 1438-1471]. The site is made up of single buildings arranged in groups, along streets, adjacent to plazas and terraces. Most of the buildings are residences, some of white granite masonry such as that seen in the city of Cuzco. Some of the buildings, which must have been built for special purposes, are partly carved into the bedrock and partly built from finely cut white granite. Machu Picchu and Empire Building While Machu Picchu is mostly known for its architectural beauty and its near inaccessibility, it is the empire-building career of its builder which provides a great deal of the site's importance. The Inca empire had its foundations around 1200 AD. It remained small, one of several competing regional polities, until late in the reign of the eighth Inca king, Viracocha, about 1438 AD. At that time, the Inca capital at Cuzco was attacked by the Chancas, a powerful group who lived to the north. Viracocha fled, but his son, Inca Yupanqui, refused to cede and fought his way to victory. Machu Picchu and Pachacuti's Cataclysm After his victory, Inca Yupanqui took the name Pachacuti (which means "cataclysm"), and began the empire building for which the Inca are renowned. His campaign of conquest and diplomacy extended Inca control out over the Central and Southern Highlands of Peru. Over the next 55 years, Pachacuti and his son Topa Inca conquered major portions of the southern coast of Peru, the northern half of Chile, northwest Argentina, and eastern Bolivia. It was Pachacuti who began the fabulous white granite constructions in Cuzco itself as well as at Machu Picchu that are known as Inca architecture. Inca architecture, as seen in Cuzco, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu, is characterized by cut masonry without mortar. The faces of the stone are cut so finely that you can't insert a needle between them. Machu Picchu 'Discovered' The "discovery" of the site is usually ascribed to Hiram Bingham, adventurer/explorer/archaeologist/military man/state senator, who first visited the ruins in 1911; but it is pretty clear that the site was never really "lost." Bingham got a lot wrong in his book on Machu Picchu, but there is no doubt that his work in Peru brought the world's attention to the ancient culture of the Inca. Sources See the Walking Tour of Machu Picchu for more details about this amazing site. This glossary entry is part of the Guide to the Inca Empire and the Dictionary of Archaeology. A Walking Tour of Machu Picchu has been assembled for this project. Berger, K. and et al. 1988 Radiocarbon dating Machu Picchu, Peru. Antiquity 62:707-710. Cuadra, C., M. B. Karkee, and K. Tokeshi 2008 Earthquake risk to Inca’s historical constructions in Machupicchu. Advances in Engineering Software 39(4):336-345. Gordon, Robert and Robert Knopf 2007 Late horizon silver, copper, and tin from Machu Picchu, Peru. Journal of Archaeological Science 34:38-47. Shinoda, Ken-ichi, Noboru Adachi, Sonia Guillen, and Izumi Shimada 2006 Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of Ancient Peruvian Highlanders. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 131(1):98-107. Turner, Bethany L., George D. Kamenov, John D. Kingston, and George J. Armelagos 2009 Insights into immigration and social class at Machu Picchu, Peru based on oxygen, strontium, and lead isotopic analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(2):317-332. Wright, Kenneth R., Alfredo Valencia Zegarra, and William L. Lorah 1999 Ancient Machu Picchu Drainage Engineering. Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering 125(6):360-369.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Archaeology Quiz: Tutankhamun's Tomb

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Archaeology Quiz: Tutankhamun's Tomb Sep 10th 2011, 10:00 Archaeology Quiz Stumped? The answers can be found here: Tutankhamun's Tomb Thanks to Tutankhamun fan Christopher Townsend for his assistance with this puzzle For More Games, Visit About Archaeology's Puzzles and Games

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Archaeology: Australopithecus sebida: New Ancestor?

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Australopithecus sebida: New Ancestor? Sep 9th 2011, 08:32 This week, scholars writing in Science magazine announced a new date for the hominin Australopithecus sebida. Au. sebida was reported last year, with a bracketed date between 1.78 and 1.95 million years ago. The new date pushes Au. sebida to 1.977 mya, meaning that it is the oldest hominid fossils ever found. But the story doesn't really end there: because Au. sebida, although currently classified as Australopithecus, has several important skeletal features that are more similar to our human ancestors, including hand, cranium and pelvic changes that are more commonly associated with Homo erectus. How early is early? The earliest probable H. erectus remains are from Swartkrans, 1.8-1.9 mya in Africa, and Dmanisi at 1.78-1.85 mya in the Republic of Georgia; the earliest firmly dated ones are from Koobi Fora in Kenya, at 1.88-1.9 mya. The earliest evidence for H. habilis is A.L. 666-1, dated to 2.33 mya; but it is represented only by a fragmentary maxilla. Whether or not Au sediba is truly the linchpin a to scholarly revamp of our entire human evolutionary tree is yet to be determined: but if there was ever a news story crying out for a photo essay, this is one. Photo Essay: Australopithecus sebida. More coverage from elsewhere Special Collection: Australopithecus sediba, in Science magazine. Human Ancestor May Put Twist in Origin Story, New Studies Say, National Geographic African fossils put new spin on human origins story, Jonathan Amos for the BBC New Fossils May Redraw Human Ancestry, Nicholas Wade in the New York Times Extensive A. sebida coverage from John Hawks.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Kennewick Entrada

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Kennewick Entrada Sep 8th 2011, 10:00 Kennewick Man Table of Contents | Part 3: But is the Kennewick Man Caucasoid? | Part 4: How Were the Americas Populated? | Part 5: What does "PreClovis" Mean? Only a couple of years ago, archaeologists knew, or thought they knew, when and how human beings ended up in the American continent. The story went like this. About 15,000 years ago, the Wisconsinan glacier was at its maximum, effectively blocking all entrance to the continents south of the Bering Strait. Somewhere between 13,000 and 12,000 years ago, an "ice free corridor" opened up in what is now interior Canada between the two main ice sheets. That part remains undisputed. Along the ice free corridor, or so we thought, people from Northeast Asia began to enter the North American continent, following megafauna such as woolly mammoth and mastodon. We called those people Clovis, after the discovery of one of their camps near Clovis, New Mexico. Archaeologists have found their distinctive artifacts all over North America. Eventually, according to the theory, Clovis descendants pushed southward, populating the southern 1/3 of North America and all of South America, but in the meantime adapting their hunting lifeways for a more generalized hunting-and-collecting strategy. The southerners are known generally as Amerinds. Around 10,500 years BP, a second big migration came across from Asia, and became the Na-Dene peoples settling the central portion of the North American continent. Finally, around 10,000 years ago, a third migration came across and settled in the northern reaches of the North American continent and Greenland and were the Eskimo and Aleut peoples. Evidence supporting this scenario included the fact that none of the archaeological sites in the North American continent predated 11,200 BP. Well, some of them actually did, like Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, but there was always something wrong with the dates from these sites, either context or contamination was suggested. Linguistic data was called upon and three broad categories of language were identified, roughly paralleling the Amerind/Na-Dene/Eskimo-Aleut tri-part division. Archaeological sites were identified in the "ice free corridor." Most of the early sites were clearly Clovis or at least megafauna-adapted lifestyles. Monte Verde and the First American Colonization And then, in early 1997, one of the occupation levels at Monte Verde, Chile--far southern Chile--was unequivocally dated 12,500 years BP. More than a thousand years older than Clovis; 10,000 miles south of the Bering Strait. The site contained evidence of a broad-based subsistence, including mastodon, but also extinct llama, shellfish, and a variety of vegetables and nuts. Huts arranged in a group provided shelter for 20-30 people. In short, these "preClovis" people were living a lifestyle far different than Clovis, a lifestyle closer to what we would consider Late Paleo-Indian or Archaic patterns. Recent archaeological evidence at Charlie Lake Cave and other sites in the so-called "Ice Free Corridor" in British Columbia indicates that, contrary to our earlier assumptions, peopling of the interior of Canada did not take place until after the Clovis occupations. No dated megafauna fossils are known in the Canadian interior from about 20,000 BP until about 11,500 BP in southern Alberta and 10,500 BP in northern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. In other words, settlement of the Ice Free Corridor occurred from the south, not the north. Migration When and From Where? The resulting theory begins to look like this: Migration into the Americas had to have taken place either during the glacial maximum--or what is more likely, before. That means at least 15,000 years BP, and likely around 20,000 years ago or more. One strong candidate for primary route of entrance is by boat or on foot along the Pacific coast; boats of one sort or another have been in use at least 30,000 years. Evidence for the coastal route is slim at present, but the coast as the new Americans would have seen it is now covered by water and the sites may be difficult to find. The people who traveled into the continents were not primarily dependent on megafauna, as Clovis peoples were, but rather generalized hunter-gatherers, with a broad base of subsistence. Most astonishingly, the human skeletal remains recovered dating to these times, such as the Kennewick Man, are providing genetic and morphological proof that the earliest peoples on the continent were not typically Asian, as was expected. I'll address that in Part V: So who was "pre-Clovis"? Kennewick Man Table of Contents | Part 3: But is the Kennewick Man Caucasoid? | Part 4: How Were the Americas Populated? | Part 5: What does "PreClovis" Mean?

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Asmar Sculpture Hoard (Iraq)

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Asmar Sculpture Hoard (Iraq) Sep 8th 2011, 10:00 Definition: The Tell Asmar sculpture hoard is a collection of 12 human effigy statues, discovered at the Mesopotamian site of Tell Asmar. The hoard was discovered during Henri Frankfort's Oriental Institute excavations in the 1930s. They were stacked in several layers within an 85x50 cm hole 1.25 meters (about 4 feet) below the floor of the structure known as the Square Temple. The statues average about 42 centimeters in height. They are of men and women with large staring eyes, upturned faces, and clasped hands, dressed in the skirts of the Early Dynastic period of Mesopotamia. They are believed to represent gods and goddesses and their worshipers. The largest male figure is thought to represent the god Abu, based on symbols carved into the base. The Asmar statues were modeled from processed gypsum (calcium sulphate). The ancient technique involves firing gypsum at about 300 degrees Fahrenheit until it becomes a fine white powder (called plaster of Paris). The powder is then mixed with water and then modeled and/or sculpted. The exact location of the hoard with regard to the temples is somewhat in question. Most sources refer to it as either below the Abu or Square temples at Asmar. Evans (cited below) believes the hoard, discovered well beneath the floors of the Square Temple, predates both temples. Sources The Metropolitan Museum's exhibit sculpture of the Early Dynastic period has a large image of one of the Asmar statues, on its website. Evans's article has an image of the complete hoard. Evans, Jean M. 2007 The Square Temple at Tell Asmar and the Construction of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia, ca. 2900-2350 B.C.E. American Journal of Archaeology 111(4):599-632. Free download. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst. Also Known As: Square Temple Hoard, Abu Temple Hoard, Asmar hoard

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Tell, Til, Tel, or Tal

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Tell, Til, Tel, or Tal Sep 8th 2011, 10:00 What is a Tell? Many of the oldest cities in the world are called tells (also spelled tel, til or tal). The word 'tell' is from the Arabic language, meaning mound or mount. Ancient cities, like modern ones, experience natural and cultural disasters, such as fires, earthquakes, and assaults from enemies. If a city's structures were demolished in prehistory, there was no way to remove all the demolition rubble; people built right on top of the ruins. In many ancient cities, such as the site of Hisarlik thought to be ancient Troy and shown in the figure, there are many many layers of old building debris, as citizens rebuilt again and again in the same locations. Archaeologists call the layers in an archaeological site the 'stratigraphy'. Modern Cities Modern cities today are also tells, although no-one calls them that. Beneath the streets of most modern cities have been found cemeteries, streets, and building foundations from centuries ago. For example, in New York City recently was discovered the 19th century streets and building foundations of the notorious Five Points neighborhood several feet below the modern city streets. The medieval remains of a hospital were discovered six feet below the modern surface of Spitalfields in London. Urban Archaeology Because of the complex stratigraphy found by archaeologists in modern cities, a special branch of archaeology has developed called urban archaeology, with its own set of tools and processes. Buried cities, whether modern or ancient, develop extremely complex stratigraphy as buildings fall and are rebuilt. One very useful tool archaeologists use to keep track of the levels in an urban or tell situation is called a Harris Matrix.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Library of Ashurbanipal

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Library of Ashurbanipal Sep 8th 2011, 10:00 The Library of Ashurbanipal (also spelled Assurbanipal) is a collection of clay tablets recovered by Austen Henry Layard in the mid-19th century at the Mesopotamian city of Nineveh. The library included 25,000 clay tablet fragments adding up to about 1200 texts written in cuneiform. The texts cover information on all kinds of things-- including religion, bureaucracy, science, mathematics, poetry, medicine. The tablets were written during the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal's reign between about 668-627 BC. Many of the texts involve recipes and technical instructions on how to do things, such as make glass and perfume. Also included were dictionaries and lists of proverbs. A version of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh was also among the documents, as were myths, astronomical observations, prayers, administrative documents and letters. Sources Quotations from the Library of Ashurbanipal are found in several places in the Internet, including Babylonian Proverbs at the Ancient History Sourcebook ("The life of day before yesterday has departed today"). The Epic of Gilgamesh is available in glorious detail on the Ancient Texts site. A brief description of the library is available at the Library of King Ashurbanipal Web Page. A few images of the tablets can be seen on the Sackler Gallery at the British Museum website, where many of the tablets are stored. Others are at the Iraq Museum of Antiquities and the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Researcher Jeanette C. Fincke has a useful webpage called Nineveh Tablet Collection, with a catalog of the texts (although the database doesn't seem to work). Eleanor Robson's Assurbanipal's Library at the Knowledge and Power website is also quite useful. British Museum welcomes Iraq library project (BBC News, 10 May 2002 Cogan, Mordechai and Hayim Tadmor. 1988. Ashurbanipal Texts in the Collection of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 40(1): 84-96 Shortland, A. J. 2007 Who were the glassmakers? Status, theory and method in mid-second millennium glass production. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 26(3):261-274.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Multiregional Hypothesis

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Multiregional Hypothesis Sep 7th 2011, 10:00 Definition: The Multiregional Hypothesis argues that our earliest hominid ancestors radiated out from Africa and Homo sapiens evolved from several different groups of Homo erectus in several places throughout the world. The main proponent of the multi-regional hypothesis is Milford Wolpoff. But, growing genetic and archaeological evidence seems to suggest that of all the different evolutionary pathways, the Multiregional Hypothesis is looking less and less likely. There actually are more than three theories, but there are three main strains of the argument about how first Homo erectus and then Homo sapiens left Africa. Leaving Africa: Three Theories Multiregional Hypothesis Out of Africa Theory Southern Dispersal Route Sources Curnoe, D. 2007 Modern human origins in Australasia: Testing the predictions of competing models. HOMOâ€"Journal of Comparative Human Biology 58:117â€"157. Rose, Jeffrey I. 2004 The Question of Upper Pleistocene Connections between East Africa and South Arabia. Current Anthropology 45(4):551-555. Soriano, Sylvain, Paola Villa, and Lyn Wadley 2007 Blade technology and tool forms in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa: the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort at Rose Cottage Cave. Journal of Archaeological Science Straus, Lawrence G. 1999 Iberia: Bridge or cul-de-sac? Implications of the Iberian record for the debate on the middle to upper paleolithic transition. Human Evolution 14(1-2):139-149.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Mixed Cropping

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Mixed Cropping Sep 7th 2011, 10:00 Mixed cropping, also known as inter-cropping or co-cultivation, is a type of agriculture that involves planting two or more of plants simultaneously in the same field. In general, the theory is that planting multiple crops at once will allow the crops to work together. Possible benefits of mixed cropping are to balance input and outgo of soil nutrients, to keep down weeds and insect pests, to resist climate extremes (wet, dry, hot, cold), to suppress plant diseases, to increase overall productivity and to use scarce resources to the fullest degree. Mixed Cropping in Prehistory Monocultural cropping is a recent invention of the industrial agricultural complex: it is thought that most agricultural field systems of the past involved some form of mixed cropping, although unambiguous archaeological evidence of this is difficult to come by. Even if archaeological evidence of multiple crops are discovered in a field, it would be difficult to differentiate between the results of mixed cropping and rotation cropping. Both methods are believed to have been used in the past. The primary reason for prehistoric multi-cropping probably had more to do with the needs of the farmer's family, rather than any recognition that mixed cropping was a good idea. It is possible that certain plants became amenable to multicropping over time, as a result of the domestication process. Classic Mixed Cropping: Three Sisters The classic example of mixed cropping is that of the American "three sisters", maize, beans, and curcurbits (squash and pumpkins). These three plants, domesticated at different times, were together an important component of Native American agriculture, historically documented by the Seneca and Iroquois, and probably beginning sometime after 1000 AD. All three seeds are planted in the same hole. The maize provides a stalk for the beans to climb on, the beans are nutrient-rich to offset that taken out by the maize, and the squash grows low to the ground to keep weeds down and water from evaporating from the soil in the heat. Modern Mixed Cropping Agronomists studying mixed crops have had mixed results determining if yield differences can be achieved with mixed versus monoculture crops. If a combination of say, wheat and chickpeas works in one part of the world, it might not work in another. But, overall it appears that measurably good effects result, when the right combination of crops are cropped together. Sources This glossary entry is a part of the Guide to Ancient Farming and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Daellenbach, G.C. et al. 2005. Plant productivity in cassava-based mixed cropping systems in Colombian hillside farms. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 105(4):595-614 Horrocks, M., et al. 2004. Microbotanical remains reveal Polynesian agriculture and mixed cropping in early New Zealand. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology131(3-4):147-157. Jahansooz, M.R. et al. 2007. Radiation- and water-use associated with growth and yields of wheat and chickpea in sole and mixed crops. European Journal of Agronomy 26(3): 275-282. Sahile, Samuel et al. 2008 Effect of mixed cropping and fungicides on chocolate spot (Botrytis fabae) of faba bean (Vicia faba) in Ethiopia. Crop Protection 27(2): 275-282

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Social Organization

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Social Organization Sep 7th 2011, 10:00 Definition: As an outgrowth of the social evolutionism movement of the nineteenth century, archaeologists still make a point of trying to define the elements of social organization for each site they investigate. Social organization of a group includes how people interact, the kinship systems they use, marriage residency patterns, how they divide up the various tasks that need to be completed, who has access to specific goods and knowledge, what ranking strategy is being used. Archaeologists look for clues to the social organization of the people who occupied a site by looking for concentrations of artifacts in a site, a comparison of grave goods, and other considerations. Sources This glossary entry is a part of the Guide to the Characteristics of Ancient Civilizations, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Blombos Cave

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Blombos Cave Sep 4th 2011, 10:00 Blombos Cave is a site at the very tip of South Africa where great strides in understanding the development of modern human beings are being taken these days. While much of the recent press attention has been on the scholarly debate on whether humans evolved once in Africa (the Out of Africa theory), or several times all over the world (the multiregional hypothesis), a quiet revolution has occurred centered on what it means to be human. Blombos Cave and the Creative Explosion For several decades--probably since the discovery of the Lascaux Caves in France--archaeologists believed that while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved somewhere between 100,000-150,000 years ago, humans didn't actually develop modern behaviors and thought processes until around 50,000-40,000 years ago. This event, known in some scientific circles as the "creative explosion," was announced by what researchers saw as a sudden blossoming of symbolic thought. What researchers mean by symbolic thought is the ability to identify--and create--representations of things. Thus, the theory went, a species really not much smarter than other hominids of the time suddenly began painting bison and mammoth on cave walls in France. Evidence of the flowering of modern human behavior is held to including fishing, the manufacture of bone tools, the use of decoration, and the production of art. Modern Behaviors in Africa Part of the trouble was, none of the major scientists was really doing much research in Africa-there was a lot to be investigated in France, after all; but in retrospect the neglect of Africa is a little weird, since we've known for a very long time that that's where the earliest humans evolved. Then, evidence of an earlier flourishing of the creative mind began to appear, in southern Africa south of the Zambezi River, dated to the Middle Stone Age, 70,000 years ago and more. Similar artifact collection types-known as assemblages in archaeological parlance-alled Howiesons Poort and Stillbay have been found at sites such as the Klasies River Caves, Boomplaas, and Die Kelders Cave I in South Africa. These sites included sophisticated bone tools, backed blades, a careful selection of raw material for stone tools and the use of a punch technique; but most of these were controversial in one respect or another. That was until Blombos Cave. Modern Behaviors at Blombos Cave Since 1991, South African researchers led by Christopher Henshilwood have been working at the Blombos Cave site. Artifacts found there include sophisticated bone and stone tools, fish bones, and an abundance of used ochre. Ochre has no known economic function; it is almost universally accepted as a source of color for ceremonial, decorative purposes. The Blombos Cave layers containing used ochre are dated 70,000 to 80,000 years before the present. Most recently (April of 2004), a cluster of deliberately perforated and red-stained shell beads dating to the Middle Stone Age has been found, and is being interpreted as personal ornaments or jewelry for the occupants of Blombos. The best and most likely interpretation of these finds, and numerous others throughout Africa, is that the growth of the human symbolic thought was a slow process that continued throughout the Middle Stone Age in Africa. How that flourishing of creative thought left Africa is still under discussion, but one way may have been through the Southern Dispersal Route. Flint Knapping at Blombos Cave On October 28, 2010, researchers writing in Science magazine reported the discovery of advanced flint knapping. The photo essay "Flint Knapping Technology at Blombos Cave" includes a description of the cave, a discussion of what pressure flaking is, and the evidence identified at Blombos for pressure flaking. Oh, and a bibliography, of course, with some great photos from the research team. Sources Blombos Cave is part of the Guide to the Middle Paleolithic, and the Howiesons Poort/Stillbay complex, as well as the Dictionary of Archaeology. See the official Blombos Cave website for a great deal of information and photos about the ongoing excavations by Chris Henshilwood. Thanks to Chris Hardaker for the suggestion and assistance in producing this article; to Scott MacEachern for his improvements, and to the (unwitting) members of Palanth-L whose fabulous archives were very helpful indeed. A brief bibliography has been collected for this project.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Dancing Girl

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Dancing Girl Sep 4th 2011, 10:00 By and large, Indiana Jones notwithstanding, archaeologists deny any real attraction for specific artifacts. It's the assemblage, we'll argue, the collection of artifacts from any one site that is really interesting. It's the context, we'll say, the location of the artifacts within a particular room or area or part of the world, that fascinates us. No, no, it's the settlement patterns, the way the assemblage fits, or doesn't fit, the prevailing theory of the way humans organize their living areas. Well, that's all true, most of the time. But sometimes, we are lucky enough to run across a single artifact that seems to speak to us across the ages, seems to express a culture both distant and not so far away from our present day, in one lovely concrete moment. So it would seem to be the case with the 'dancing girl,' a 10.8 centimeter high bronze statuette, sculpted using the lost wax method around 2500 BC, and excavated in 1926 from a house in the ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan. She was British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler's favorite statuette, as you can tell in this quote from a 1973 television program: There is her little Baluchi-style face with pouting lips and insolent look in the eye. She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world. John Marshall, one of the excavators at Mohenjo-Daro, described her as a vivid impression of the young ... girl, her hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to the music with her legs and feet... The artistry of this lovely statuette crosses time and space and speaks to us of a seemingly unknowable, but at least fleetingly recognizable past. As author Gregory Possehl says, We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it. The quotes from this article come directly out of the book by Gregory L. Possehl called The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, available from Altamira Press, and published in September 2002. Thanks to Dr. Possehl, who provided the graphic of the delicate lady.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Sacred Cenote (Well of the Sacrifices)

Archaeology: What's Hot Now These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Sacred Cenote (Well of the Sacrifices) Sep 4th 2011, 10:00 The heart of Chichén Itzá is the Sacred Cenote, dedicated to the Chac God, the Maya God of rain and lightening. Located 300 meters north of the Chichén Itzá compound, and connected to it by a causeway, the cenote was central to Chichén, and in fact the site is named after it--Chichén Itzá means "Mouth of the Well of the Itzas". At the edge of this cenote is a small steam bath. The cenote is a natural formation, a karst cave tunneled into the limestone by moving groundwater, after which the ceiling collapsed, creating an opening at the surface. The opening of the Sacred Cenote is about 65 meters in diameter (and about an acre in area), with steep vertical sides some 60 feet above the water level. The water continues for another 40 feet and at the bottom is about 10 feet of mud. The use of this cenote was exclusively sacrificial and ceremonial; there is a second karst cave (called the Xtlotl Cenote, located in the center of Chichén Itzá) that was used as a source of water for Chichén Itzá's residents. According to Bishop Landa, men, women and children were thrown alive into it as a sacrifice to the gods in times of droughts (actually Bishop Landa reported the sacrificial victims were virgins, but that was probably a European concept meaningless to the Toltecs and Maya at Chichén Itzá). Archaeological evidence supports the use of the well as a location of human sacrifice. At the turn of the 20th century, American adventurer-archaeologist Edward H. Thompson bought Chichén Itzá and dredged the cenote, finding copper and gold bells, rings, masks, cups, figurines, embossed plaques. And, oh yes, many human bones of men, women and children. Many of these objects are imports, dating between the 13th and 16th centuries AD after the residents had left Chichén Itzá; these represent the continued use of the cenote up into the Spanish colonization. These materials were shipped to the Peabody Museum in 1904, and repatriated to Mexico in the 1980s.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Hattusha Lion Gate

Archaeology: What's Hot Now These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Hattusha Lion Gate Sep 4th 2011, 10:00 The south western entrance of the Upper City of Hattusha is the Lion Gate, named for the two matched lions carved from two arched stones. When the gate was in use, during the Hittite Empire period between 1343-1200 BC, the stones arched in a parabola, with towers on either side, a magnificent and daunting image. Lions were apparently of symbolic importance to the Hittite civilization, and images of them can be found at many Hittite sites (and indeed throughout the near east), including the Hittite sites of Aleppo, Carchemish and Tell Atchana. The image most often associated with Hittites is the sphinx, combining a lion's body with an eagle's wings and a human head and chest. Source: Peter Neve. 2000. "The Great Temple in Boghazkoy-Hattusa." Pp. 77-97 in Across the Anatolian Plateau: Readings in the Archaeology of Ancient Turkey. Edited by David C. Hopkins. American School of Oriental Research, Boston.

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