Archaeology
Ritual hoard found in Ukraine’s Verteba Cave
Archaeologists from the Borschivskyy Local History Museum have uncovered a ritual hoard in Verteba Cave in the Ternopil province, Ukraine.
The cave contains up to 8km’s of passageways which was used as a Sanctuary by the Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture.
The Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture emerged during the Neolithic–Chalcolithic (5500 to 2750 BC) in Eastern Europe, extending from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, centred on modern-day Moldova, and covering substantial parts of western Ukraine and northeastern Romania.
A mysterious characteristic of the culture was the regular dismantling or burning of settlements, where each individual dwelling site had a lifespan of approximately 60 to 80 years.
Scholars debate the reason behind the burning of these settlements. Some settlements were reconstructed multiple times on pre-existing habitational levels, maintaining the form and direction of the prior structures.
Some of the settlements, such as Talianki, grew to be as large as the city-states of Sumer in the Fertile Crescent, and these Eastern European settlements predate the Sumerian cities by more than half of a millennium.
Little is known as the religious practices of the Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture, and examples of ceramics discovered are very rare. However, archaeologists excavating in Verteba Cave have uncovered a gigantic clay storage jar containing a white organic material (yet to be analysed).
Near the jar the team noticed a small niche in the cave wall, which upon a closer examination led to the discovery of a ritual hoard consisting of five female “goddess” clay figurines.
Many figurines have been found across Cucuteni-Trypillia sites, but the term “goddess” may not be entirely appropriate for every female anthropomorphic clay figurine. The archaeological evidence indicates that distinct figurines served various functions (such as protection) and therefore not all of them embody a goddess.
The researchers also found jewellery and tools (for pottery production) made of boar teeth, which is relatively unique as the culture’s rituals are normally focused more on domesticated animals like cattle, sheep, goats and dogs. When wild animals were represented, they are usually bears or deer.
Header Image Credit : Mykhailo Sokhatskyi
An archaeological survey has identified three clusters of ancient qanats in the Diyala Province of Iraq.
A qanat, also known as a kārīz, is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well over long distances in hot dry climates without losing water to evaporation.
Qanats use a sequence of vertical shafts resembling wells, linked by a gently inclined tunnel that serves as a conduit for channelling water. Qanats efficiently transport substantial volumes of underground water to the surface without requiring pumps.
The water naturally flows downhill by gravity, with the endpoint positioned at a lower level than the origin. When the qanat is still below ground, the water is drawn to the surface via water wells or animal driven Persian wells.
Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage
Some Qanats are divided into an underground network of smaller canals known as kariz, functioning similarly to qanats by staying beneath the surface to prevent contamination and evaporation. In certain instances, water from a qanat is stored in a reservoir, usually with nighttime flow reserved for daytime usage.
The technology for qanat’s first emerged in ancient Iran around 3,000-years-ago and slowly spread westward and eastward.
A recent survey within the Diyala Province has discovered three clusters of qanats stretching between the areas of Jalulaa and Kortaba. Initial studies dates the clusters to around AD 1000, a period known as the “Iranian Intermezzo”, when parts of the region were governed by a number of minor Iranian emirates.
The first cluster consists of 25 wells on a linear alignment connected to an adjacent 10 metre deep water channel. The second cluster also has 25 wells and is connected to a 13 km long hand dug channel, while the third cluster consists of 9 wells connected to water canals dug on both sides.
Header Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists have discovered a 16,800-year-old Palaeolithic dwelling in the La Garma cave complex, located in the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte in Spain’s Cantabria province.
The La Garma cave complex is a parietal art-bearing paleoanthropological cave system on the southern side of the La Garma Hill.
The cave complex is noted for one of the best preserved floors from the Palaeolithic period, containing more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units.
A project led by Pablo Arias and Roberto Ontañón from the University of Cantabria has recently announced the discovery of a Palaeolithic dwelling within the cave system, described as “one of the best preserved Palaeolithic dwellings in the world.”
The dwelling is an oval space and is delimited by an alignment of stone blocks and stalagmites that supported a fixed structure of sticks and skins leaning against the cave wall. The total area of the space is around 5 square metres that centred on a camp fire.
Archaeologists also found vestiges of various daily activities associated with Magdalenian hunters and gatherers at the dwelling, including evidence of stone manufacturing, bone and antler instruments, and the working of fur.
In total, over 4,614 objects have been documented, such as dear, horse and bison bones, 600 pieces of flint, needles and a protoharpoon, shells of marine mollusks, as well as numerous pendants worn by the cave dwelling inhabitants.
Additionally, the researchers also found a number of decorated bones, including a remarkable pierced aurochs phalanx engraved with a depiction of both the animal itself and a human face—a distinctive artefact unique to the European Palaeolithic era.
Due to the national importance of the discovery, the team used innovative non-intrusive techniques in their study of the dwelling. This includes continuous tomography of the soils, 3D cartography, the molecular and genetic analysis of soils and Palaeolithic objects, mass spectrometry, and hyperspectral imaging.
Header Image Credit : University of Cantabria
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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