Archaeology
Researchers find oldest bone projectile point in the Americas
A team of researchers from the Texas A&M University have found the oldest bone projectile point in the Americas.
The projectile point is made from bone and dates from 13,900-years-ago, predating other projectile points found to be associated with the Clovis people by 900 years.
The team were studying bone fragments embedded in a mastodon rib bone, previously excavated by archaeologists at the Manis site in Washington state from between 1977 to 1979.
A study, published in the journal Science Advances, conducted a CT scan and 3D models on the bone fragments, revealing the tip of a projectile point made from the bone of a Mastodon from the extinct genus Mammut.
Image Credit : Centre for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University
Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene, until their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. Modern reconstructions based on partial and skeletal remains suggest that mastodons were very similar in appearance to elephants and, to a lesser degree, mammoths, though not closely related to either one.
Dr. Michael Waters, Director of Texas A&M’s Centre for the Study of First Americans said: “We isolated the bone fragments, printed them out and assembled them,” Waters said. “This clearly showed this was the tip of a bone projectile point. This is this the oldest bone projectile point in the Americas and represents the oldest direct evidence of mastodon hunting in the Americas.”
“What is important about Manis is that it’s the first and only bone tool that dates older than Clovis. At the other pre-Clovis site, only stone tools are found. This shows that the First Americans made and used bone weapons and likely other types of bone tools,” added Waters.
The projectile point is made from a mastodon’s leg bone and was intentionally shaped into a projectile point form. When it was thrown, the hunter’s intention was to get between the ribs and impair lung function, however, the hunter missed and it became lodged in the mastodon’s rib.
Not much is known about the people who used the Manis spear point other than they were some of the first Indigenous people to enter the Americas.
“It is looking like the first people that came to the Americas arrived by boat,” said Waters. “They took a coastal route along the North Pacific and moved south. They eventually got past the ice sheets that covered Canada and made landfall in the Pacific Northwest.”
“It is interesting to note that in Idaho there is the 16,000-years-old Coopers Ferry site, in Oregon is the 14,100-year-old site of Paisley Caves. And here we report on the 13,900-year-old Manis site. So there appears to be a cluster of early sites in the Northwestern part of the United States that date from 16,000 to 14,000 years ago that predate Clovis. These sites likely represent the first people and their descendants that entered the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age.”
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ade9068
Header Image Credit : Centre for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University
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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