Archaeology
Study challenges the narrative of Cahokia’s abandonment
A new study, published in the Sage Journal, casts doubt on the popular theory of why Cahokia was abandoned.
Cahokia was the largest urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, a mound-building pre-Columbian civilisation that emerged in the Midwestern, Eastern, and South-eastern United States.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the city was founded around 1050 along the banks of the Mississippi River, located near present-day St. Louis, Missouri.
The city covered an area between six to nine square miles (notably larger than many contemporary European cities such as London), and was home to up to 50,000 inhabitants at its peak.
By around 1400, Cahokia saw a significant population decline, resulting in the settlement’s abandonment. The reasons for this decline are debated among academics, with the prevailing theory suggesting that a prolonged drought led to a large crop failure.
A new study led by Natalie Mueller, an assistant professor of archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, now challenges this narrative and presents new findings.
According to the study authors, all plants use one of two types of carbon for photosynthesis – Carbon 12 and Carbon 13. Plants adapted to dry climates, including prairie grasses and maize, incorporate carbon into their bodies at rates that leave behind a tell-tale signature when the plants die and decay
The plants that the Cahokia people harvested, such as squash, goosefoot, and sumpweed, all have a different signature, one similar to plants from wetlands and native forests.
By collecting soil samples in the strata from the period of abandonment, the researchers analysed the levels of isotopes of carbon left behind. This revealed that the ratios of Carbon 12 and Carbon 13 stayed relatively consistent, contradicting the drought theory.
“We saw no evidence that prairie grasses were taking over, which we would expect in a scenario where widespread crop failure was occurring,” Mueller said.
As to the question on why Cahokia was abandoned, Mueller added: “I don’t envision a scene where thousands of people were suddenly streaming out of town. People probably just spread out to be near kin or to find different opportunities.”
Header Image Credit : Shutterstock
Sources : Rankin, C. G., & Mueller, N. G. (2024). Correlating Late-Holocene climate change and population dynamics at Cahokia Mounds (American Bottom, USA). The Holocene, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836241254488
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia.
A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting.
The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men.
The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone.
At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads.
The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population.”
Header Image Credit : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sources : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt are currently excavating the site of a former gallows in Quedlinburg, Germany.
Gallows are usually wooden structures made of two vertical posts, a horizontal crossbeam, and a hanging noose. They have been used for executing criminals by hanging, a prevalent form of capital punishment in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a gallows site on Galgenberg, or ‘Gallows Hill,’ which was used for public executions by the courts in Quedlinburg from 1662 to 1809.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Image Credit : LDA
According to the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt, “these discoveries provide unique insights into penal practices from the Middle Ages and early modern times.”
A burial unrelated to the gallows has also been unearthed, featuring a wooden coffin containing the skeletal remains of an individual buried with a rosary chain.
Archaeologists propose that the burial’s characteristics suggest that the individual was likely a suicide victim, denied burial in consecrated ground so was placed in the cemetery near the gallows.
Also discovered is a so-called ‘revenant grave’, where the skeletal remains of a man was found placed on his back with several large stones placed across his chest.
According to the researchers, the stones were likely placed to prevent the individual from rising as a revenant, which are described as animated corpses in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.
In medieval times, those inflicted with the revenant condition were generally suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit, or the victim of a vampiric attack.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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