The end of the year typically brings with it an emotional look back at the days gone by. For archaeologists, looking back into the past is pretty much an every day thing. That said, here are 10 of the most interesting archeological findings that Popular Science covered this year.
Neanderthals and early humans intermingled Europe earlier
In January, a new genetic analysis of bone fragments from an archaeological site in central Germany found that modern humans had reached northern Europe 45,000 years ago. This new timeline means that their arrival overlapped with the Neanderthals who had been living there for several thousand years before going extinct. It also bolsters the theory that the movement of modern humans into Europe and Asia about 50,000 years ago helped drive Neanderthals into extinction. The findings were described in three separate papers published in the journals Nature and Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Mysterious Iron Age burials
A team of archeologists from Italy and Switzerland found that animals buried alongside humans might have been intended to be a meal or companion in the afterlife. They also may have been part of a complex funeral rite during the Iron Age, according to their study published in February in the journal PLOS ONE.
Of the 161 people buried at the Seminario Vescovile site in Verona, Italy, 16 were buried alongside animals. Four of the people at this site were buried alongside the remains of dogs and/or horses. These animals were not commonly eaten and the presence of horses and dogs was significant to the team. Earlier Iron Age findings in France and Switzerland indicate that horses and dogs were symbolic at the time and were often present in what appears to be sacrificial rituals, funeral rites, and are frequently associated with specific deities from the time. For the team on this study, the characteristics of a plot called Burial 46 were particularly interesting.
“It includes the complete skeleton of a horse positioned above a woman, along with the cranium of a dog and the remains of additional horses,” Marco Milella, a co-author of the new study and anthropologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, told Popular Science. “This discovery provides a glimpse into a remarkably complex funerary ritual. While drawing scientifically robust conclusions from just two cases is challenging, we are prompted to consider whether this occurrence is merely coincidental or indicative of a deeper pattern.”
Ancient Maya ballcourts were for more than games
Ancient Mayans may have made ceremonial offerings during the construction of the ballcourts that they used for sporting events. Advances in environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis helped a team of scientists detect evidence of several plants that are known for both medicinal and religious purposes. The team found evidence of four different plants that are associated with ancient Maya medicine and divination rituals.
These microscopic fragments of ancient plants were found beneath the floor of a Mayan ballcourt in present day Mexico and collecting them was likely purposeful. The findings were described in a study published in the journal PLOS One in April.
The ball courts in this study were used for several ball games, including pok-a-tok. This combination of soccer and basketball is also undergoing a present day revival. Players likely tried to get a ball through a ring in a hoop affixed to a wall. Ballcourts were considered significant places within cities and even built near some of the largest temples, including in ancient Maya cities like Tikal in Guatemala.
[Related: Tooth powder unlocks clues to an 800-year-old mystery of man thrown into well.]
Decoding the Norton Disney Dodecaheadron
In the spring, the largest known Roman dodecahedron went on display in England.The cast bronze object was uncovered in the village of Norton Disney in the Midlands of eastern England It is hollow at its middle and roughly the size of a clenched fist and has 12 flat faces are shaped like pentagons. At roughly three inches tall and weighing half a pound, it is one of the largest of these strange Roman objects ever discovered.
The dodecahedron was sitting among the ruins of a Roman pit and was likely placed there about 1,700 years ago. It was found “in situ,” or deliberately placed among 4th Century CE Roman pottery in some sort of hole or quarry. More archeological excavation is needed to clarify exactly what this pit was used for.
“Roman society was full of superstition, something experienced on a daily basis,” the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group wrote in a statement. “A potential link with local religious practice is our current working theory. More investigation is required though.”
Archaeology in space?
The icy cold reaches of space is not exactly the first place to come to mind for archaeological discoveries. That didn’t stop a team from California’s Chapman University to see what they could find on the International Space Station (ISS). The team applied a traditional field strategy aboard the ISS for the first time. They applied the shovel test pit to analyze how the ever-changing “microsociety” aboard the ISS has adapted and changed over time.
Back here on Earth, these projects typically involve digging small excavations at regular intervals across a site to gather information on how artifacts are distributed, then pick particularly promising pits for more thorough study. Since there really isn’t anything to “dig” on the ISS, the team selected six locations throughout the space station and tasked astronauts to take daily photos of each space over roughly two months in 2022.
Their study published in August in the journal PLOS ONE identified 5,438 examples of “artifacts” including an augmented reality headset, Post-It notes, gloves, tools, and writing tools like Sharpie pens. While it is only an initial survey into this subject matter, it’s the first of its kind to document how humans adapt to a novel environment completely removed from what we as a species evolved to handle.
Where did Stonehenge’s altar stone come from?
In August, a new hypothesis for where Stonehenge’s six-ton Altar Stone originated was published in the journal Nature. It likely originated 400 miles north in Scotland and not from Wales or other closer areas of southern England as scientists previously thought. This long trek points to the possibility that more advanced transportation methods and societal organization existed here about 5,000 years ago.
The Altar Stone is about 16 feet long and 19 inches thick and sits at the center of the circle. While it is not currently standing upright like the other stones, scientists are still uncertain if it stood vertically at some point. It arrived in the area sometime around 2,500 BCE, but its exact arrival date is still a mystery.
Chemical fingerprints within the grains matched rocks from northeast Scotland and were very different from Welsh bedrock. Specifically, with the age of the zircon minerals in the stone, the team is over 95 percent certain that it came all the way from northeastern Scotland.
Cheesy mummies
At least three embalmed bodies buried with some cheese on them were discovered at an ancient burial site in Xinjiang in northwestern China. The small lumps of fermented dairy, laid around the necks of the deceased, represent the longest-aged cheese ever discovered–at roughly 3,500 years old.
The ancient cheese was incredibly well-preserved, but a new assessment of the chunks reveals some long-obsecured knowledge about human culture and a potential path for how dairy may have spread across Asia. The findings were published in the journal Cell in September.
A new look at an Ancient Egyptian mummy
A team from Chicago’s Field Museum used a CT scanner to determine Ancient Egyptian Lady Chenet-aa’s burial procedure. Lady Chenet-aa lived roughly 3,000 years ago amid the 22nd Dynasty during Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period. Soon after her death, one of the ways funerary experts prepared her for the afterlife was by constructing a cartonnage—a paper mache-like box housing a deceased person’s body.
However, Chenet-aa’s lacks any hint of a visible seam, leaving Egyptologists to wonder for years exactly how embalmers placed her inside the casing. Field Museum senior conservator JP Brown likened the mummy and its cartonnage coffin to a model ship inside a bottle.
“It was clearly important that the inner coffin appeared whole and smooth without any external seams (unlike the outer coffin which was made of wood),” Brown explained to Popular Science. “… [and] if you look at the shape of cartonnage, the opening at the foot is too narrow for the mummy’s shoulders to fit through.”
Pompeii DNA tells a different story
A new genetic analysis of 14 bodies recovered from Pompeii shed doubt on some of the initial interpretations of who these people were before the cataclysmic volcanic eruption. Using a new genomic analysis, a team of scientists found that their biological sexes and family relationships don’t match up with the initial interpretations. The findings were published in November in the journal Current Biology.
One notable example is an adult wearing a golden bracelet found holding a child. This was traditionally interpreted to be a mother and child, but the new analysis found that it was an unrelated adult male and child. Additionally, a pair believed to be sisters or mother and daughter, included one genetic male.
[Related: Focaccia likely originated in Mesopotamia, not Rome.]
Neanderthals also loved to collect things
The act of collecting objects may stretch at least as far back as our Neanderthal ancestry, according to relics uncovered in a cave in Iberia, Spain.
An archeological team analyzed 15 small marine fossils found in the fourth level of the Prado Vargas Cave system. While one artifact showed physical evidence of use as a hammer, the other 14 fossils displayed no obvious physical wear or utilitarian value. Additional evidence in the caves also points to the site serving as a semi-permanent Neanderthal encampment likely used for toolmaking, hunting, or perhaps even ritualistic activities.
Earlier research shows Neanderthals engaged in cultural rituals such as ornamental crafting, cave wall art, and even familial and social funeral burials. Due to these rituals, experts argue that it stands to reason the human ancestors likely participated in pastimes such as collecting items they thought were interesting or special in some way.
Making clothes fit for the ice age
In November, a team in Wyoming proposed the idea that Paleolithic North Americans likely made needles using the bones of foxes, hares, rabbits, bobcats, mountain lions, lynx, and even the now-extinct American cheetah.
Bone needles like the ones from this study are common during this period in the North American archaeological record because sewing complex weather garments for freezing weather was a necessity in response to the cold climate shift brought on by the last ice age. There has been little direct evidence of such garments, but bone needles and the bones of the fur-bearing animals used to make pelts provide some indirect evidence of this early tailoring.
“They were complex garments fringed with the furs of red fox, hare, and cat, some of which with feet still attached as is common among modern trappers,” study co-author and Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton told Popular Science. “They were likely comparable to similar garments worn by the Inuit, able to withstand the cold and windy conditions of Wyoming’s last Ice Age.”
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