Archaeology
New discoveries near ancient Mogollon city
Archaeologists from Brigham Young University (BYU) have been excavating a farming hamlet called San Diego near the Mogollon city of Casas Grandes, also called Paquimé, both located in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua.
Casas Grandes is attributed to the Mogollon culture, one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico.
The culture emerged during the archaic period around AD 200, with construction at Casa Grandes occurring between AD 1130 and AD 1300. The initial settlement started as a group of 20 or more single storey house clusters, each with a plaza and enclosing wall.
After being burned around AD 1340, Casas Grandes was rebuilt with multi-story apartment buildings built of adobe, I-shaped Mesoamerican ballcourts, stone-faced platforms, effigy mounds, and a market area.
About 350 other, smaller settlement sites have been found in the Casas Grandes area of influence which extends around 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the city.
For the past 10 years, BYU researchers have studied a lesser-known time, the Viejo period, which predates the main era of Casas Grandes at the site of San Diego. In 2019, they uncovered the floor of the largest known communal structure from the Viejo period, a 9-metre-diameter building large enough to house 30 to 40 people.
Recent excavations at San Diego have found 1,000-year-old artefacts, consisting of ceramics, hammer stones, maize kernels, and a shell bead transported 250 miles from the Pacific Ocean, suggesting long distance interactions between the people of Casas Grandes and faraway cultures.
The team has employed some advanced technology to document their discoveries, including robotic surveying instruments that map artefacts with millimetre-level precision, survey-grade GPS, and unmanned aerial systems that take images of the site from the sky.
Professor Mike Searcy from BYU said: “Every shovel full of dirt that we pull out is providing new data on the ancient people who thrived in the desert.
The new excavations have enabled the researchers to learn about the resilience and ingenuity of the people living at the San Diego site, including the settlement’s organised building efforts to construct the communal structure.
Header Image – Casas Grandes – Image Credit : HJPD – CC BY-SA 3.0
A study of archaeological sites in Winchester, England, has revealed that red squirrels served as a host for Mycobacterium leprae strains that caused leprosy in people.
Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded diseases in human history and is still prevalent to this day in Asia, Africa, and South America.
It has previously been suggested that the extensive trade of red squirrel fur, greatly valued during medieval times, could have contributed to the leprosy epidemic in medieval Europe.
The results of the study, published in the journal Current Biology, studied 25 human and 12 squirrel samples from two medieval sites in Winchester.
During this period, the city had strong connections to the fur trade and housed the leprosarium, a hospital that treated people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) caused by Mycobacterium leprae bacteria.
Verena Schuenemann of the University of Basel in Switzerland, said: “With our genetic analysis we were able to identify red squirrels as the first ancient animal host of leprosy.”
The study found that the medieval red squirrel strains were more closely related to human strains in Winchester, rather than to modern squirrel strains from England – suggesting an independent circulation of Mycobacterium leprae strains.
“Our findings highlight the importance of involving archaeological material, in particular animal remains, into studying the long-term zoonotic potential of this disease, as only a direct comparison of ancient human and animal strains allows reconstructions of potential transmission events across time,” says Sarah Inskip of the University of Leicester, UK, a co-author on the study.
Header Image Credit : Shutterstock
Sources : Current Biology, Urban, Blom, and Avanzi et al.: “Ancient Mycobacterium leprae genome reveals medieval English red squirrels as animal leprosy host.” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00446-9
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the Uncovering Roman Carlisle project have discovered a rare lump of Tyrian purple at the grounds of the Carlisle Cricket Club in Carlisle, England.
The project is a community supported excavation by Wardell Armstrong, focusing on uncovering a Roman bath house found in 2017.
The bath house is located near the Roman fort of Uxelodunum (meaning “high fort”), also known as Petriana, in the Carlisle district of Stanwix.
Uxelodunum was constructed to control the territories west of present-day Carlisle and an important crossing on the River Eden. The fort was garrisoned by the Ala Petriana, a 1,000-strong cavalry unit, whose members were all granted Roman citizenship for valour on the field.
Previous excavations at the bath house have discovered colossal sandstone heads depicting Roman gods, in addition to engraved gems known as intaglios, figurines, animal bones, and imperial-stamped tiles.
During the latest season of excavations, archaeologists found a mysterious lump of a soft purple substance. The substance was tested by researchers from Newcastle University, revealing that it contained levels of Bromine and beeswax.
According to the researchers, the substance is Tyrian purple, a coloured dye associated with the Imperial Court in the Roman Empire. Tyrian purple is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails in the family Muricidae, rock snails originally known by the name Murex.
Frank Giecco, Technical Director at Wardell Armstrong, said: “For millennia, Tyrian Purple was the world’s most expensive and sought after colour. It’s presence in Carlisle combined with other evidence from the excavation all strengthens the hypothesis that the building was in some way associated with the Imperial Court of the Emperor Septimius Severus which was located in York and possibly relates to an Imperial visit to Carlisle.”
“It’s the only example we know of in Northern Europe – possibly the only example of a solid sample of the pigment in the form of unused paint pigment anywhere in the Roman Empire. Examples have been found of it in wall paintings (like in Pompeii) and some high status painted coffins from the Roman province of Egypt,” said Giecco.
Header Image Credit : Wardell Armstrong
Sources : Wardell Armstrong
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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