Study confirms prehistoric cheese-making

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Bob Berwyn
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Chunks of Swiss cheese. Photo via Wikipedia and the Creative Commons.

Researchers analyze fatty acids extracted from pottery found in northern Europe

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with being a choice gourmet item for foodies, cheese has been a staple in many cultures around the world for centuries, as a transportable and digestible dairy product.

New research shows that cheese-making probably pre-dates previous estimates by quite a while. After analyzing fatty acids extracted from unglazed ceramic pottery, scientists say prehistoric people in northern Europe were making cheese as long as 7,000 years ago.

“Before this study, it was not clear that cattle were used for their milk in Northern Europe around 7,000 years ago,” said Mélanie Salque, a PhD student from the University of Bristol and one of the authors of the paper. “However, the presence of the sieves in the ceramic assemblage of the sites was thought to be a proof that milk and even cheese was produced at these sites<” Salque said. “Of course, these sieves could have been used for straining all sorts of things, such as curds from whey, meat from stock or honeycombs from honey. We decided to test the cheese-making hypothesis by analysing the lipids trapped into the ceramic fabric of the sieves,” she said. (more…)

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New find confirms location of Julius Caesar’s assassination

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Spanish archaeologists pinpoint a memorial erected by Augustus Caesar

Spanish researchers find memorial at the Curia of Pompey erected by Augustus Caesar.

By Summit Voice

FRISCO — Rome has always been a nexus of history, art, culture and politics, and now, Spanish researchers they’ve confirmed the exact location where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death on the Ides of March in 44 BC.

A concrete structure of three meters wide and more than two meters high, placed by order of Augustus (adoptive son and successor of Julius Caesar) to condemn the assassination of his father, was  the key for the scientists.

“We always knew that Julius Caesar was killed in the Curia of Pompey on March 15th 44 BC because the classical texts pass on so, but so far no material evidence of this fact, so often depicted in historicist painting and cinema, had been recovered,” said Antonio Monterroso, CSIC researcher from the Institute of History of the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences. (more…)

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President Obama urged to use Antiquities Act to designate SW Colorado’s Chimney Rock as national monument

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Chimney Rock, Colorado.

New study shows designation could significant economic benefits for the region

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Despite early bipartisan support, a bill to designate southwest Colorado’s Chimney Rock as a national monument appears to be stuck in pre-election political gridlock.

Chimney Rock, between Pagosa Springs and Durango, likely was an important settlement and spiritual site in the Chacoan culture.

With local community support for the designation, as well a new report showing the economic benefits of the designation, Democratic Colorado senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, along with Republican Representative Scott Tipton, are asking President Obama to make the designation under the Antiquities Act. (more…)

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The mystery of Stonehenge … solved?

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Research project yields new clues to origins of megalithic circle

Stonehenge may have been built as monument to the unification of civilization in Britain. Photo courtesy Gareth Wiscombe via Wikipedia and the Creative Common.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A 10-year research project into the origins of Stonehenge has concluded that the famous array of stones was built as a monument to mark the growing unification of culture in Britain at the end of the Stone Age.

The stones may have symbolized the ancestors of different groups of earliest farming communities in Britain, with some stones coming from southern England and others from west Wales.

Previous theories have suggested the great stone circle was used as a prehistoric observatory, a sun temple, a place of healing, or a temple of the ancient druids. But research teams from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth and University College London — collectively called the Stonehenge Riverside Project — rejected those theories after studying not just the stones themselves, but also the wider social and economic context of the monument’s main stages of construction around 3,000 BC and 2,500 BC. (more…)

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Ancient skull gives new clues on history of dogs

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Research suggests multiple origins of domestic breeds

A profile of the Siberian dog skull shows the shortened snout and crowded teeth that helped scientists determine this ancient animal was domesticated. PHOTO COURTESY NIKOLAI D. OVODOV.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Archaelogists who found a well-preserved, 33,000-year-old dog skull in Siberia and compared with similarly aged skull found in Belgium have come closer to discovering how man domesticated his best friend.

The new evidence suggests that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event. Different breeds of dogs may have originated from more than one ancient ancestor, contrary to what some DNA evidence previously has indicated — inother words, chihuahuas may not have much in common with a rottweilers. (more…)

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Should Sex Pistols graffiti be a punk-rock heritage site?

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

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Archaeologists debate value of cartoons drawn by Johnny Rotten

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A trove of cartoon drawings found behind some cupboards in a London office building have been traced back to the Sex Pistols, and archaeologists are debating whether the apartment — now used as an office building — should be designated as a heritage site.

The drawings date back to the 1970s when the seminal punk-rock band rented the apartment.  A pair of researchers who wrote about the discovery in the journal Antiquity  suggest that grafitti may be of greater significance than the discovery of early Beatles recordings. They said the drawings are “a direct and powerful representation of a radical and dramatic movement of rebellion.” (more…)

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Archaeology: Where did the Neanderthals go?

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

A Neanderthal skull from an archaeological site at La Chapelle-aux-Saints. PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA VIA THE CREATIVE COMMONS.

Cambridge researchers say they were simply outnumbered by modern Homo sapiens moving north from Africa

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — After puzzling over the disappearance of European Neanderthals for decades, researchers at Cambridge University say they’ve discovered why they were displaced about 40,000 years ago.

The answer, it turns out, isn’t all that complicated. The Neanderthals simply were outnumbered by modern humans arriving from Africa, who simply swarmed the region with more than 10 times the populations of the Neanderthal inhabitants.

The archaeological evidence strongly suggests that the incoming modern groups possessed superior hunting technologies and equipment like more effective and long-range hunting spears, and probably more efficient procedures for processing and storing food supplies over the prolonged and exceptionally cold glacial winters. They also appear to have had more wide-ranging social contacts with adjacent human groups to allow for trade and exchange of essential food supplies in times of food scarcity. (more…)

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Archaeologists find evidence of pre-Clovis settlement

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

New research in Texas shows humans settled North America earlier than previously thought.

New research may change long-held views on early North American inhabitants

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — New archaeological research in Texas suggests that humans lived in North America thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

For about 100 years, archaeologists have dated the earliest human artifacts to the Clovis people, about 13,000 years ago. The new finds push this date back by about 2,500 years, into the pre-Clovis era, according to a press release from Baylor University.

“This find really rewrites history, so to speak, and changes our collective thought on the early colonization of North, Central and South America,” said Dr. Lee Nordt, professor of geology at Baylor and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who is an author on the study. “What sets this study a part is that we were able to show using geological methods that the buried artifacts dating to pre-Clovis times were in their original state. This demonstrates unequivocally that the peopling of the Americas occurred much earlier than previously thought.” (more…)

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Alaska burial site gives new clues on ice age peoples

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

The Tanana River, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo.

Researchers, Native Americans collaborate on archaeological excavation of oldest human remains found so far in North America

By Summit Voice

A newly excavated archaeological site in Alaska contains the cremated remains of one of the earliest inhabitants of North America. These remains may provide rare insights into the burial practices of Ice Age peoples, while shedding new light on their daily lives, according to a paper published Feb. 25 in the journal Science.

The find is also notable because archaeologists and Alaska Natives are working hand-in-hand to insure the excavation and subsequent examination of the remains of this child estimated to be approximately three years old at the time of death. This research will benefit science and the heritage studies while respecting traditional Athabaskan culture.

The apparent age of the remains found at the site, the researchers said, would certainly make these the oldest human remains found in Northern North America, as well as the second youngest Ice Age child on the continent. (more…)

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Coastal archaeological sites face sea level threat

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Bob Berwyn

Archaelogists say the threat of rising sea levels calls for action to protect valuable coastal sites.

Leading archaeologists call for assessment and protection plan

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Thousands of archaeological sites around the world are at risk to rising sea levels , according to leading scientists with the Smithsonian Institution, Southern Methodist University and the University of Oregon. The three archaeologists have issued a call to action for scientists to assess the sites most at risk and take steps to protect them.

Using California’s Santa Barbara Channel as a case study, the researchers showed how quantifiable factors such as historical rates of shoreline change, wave action, coastal slope and shoreline geomorphology can be used to develop a scientifically sound way of measuring the vulnerability of individual archaeological sites. They then proposed developing an index of the sites most at risk so informed decisions can be made about how to preserve or salvage them. (more…)

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