Archaeology
Archaeologists discover 7000-year-old Neolithic mega-site
Archaeologists have discovered a 7000-year-old Neolithic mega-site near the village of Jarkovac in Serbia.
The discovery was made by a team from the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS, an initiative launched by several research institutions from across academia.
In a press statement announced by the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU), a geophysical study has led to the discovery of a 13-hectare settlement with defensive ditches near the Tamiš River in Serbia’s Vojvodina province.
Based on the objects found in situ, the settlement is associated with the Vinča culture (also known as Turdaș culture), a Neolithic people that lived in Southeast Europe between 5400 to 4500 BC.
Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo (a large tell settlement in Belgrade), the culture is most known for constructing mega-site settlements, many of which were considerably larger than most other contemporary culture settlements in Europe.
ROOTS doctoral student and co-team leader Fynn Wilkes, said: “A settlement of this size is spectacular. The geophysical data also gives us a clear idea of the structure of the site 7000 years ago.”
Black angular anomalies apparent in the geophysics indicate a large number of burnt houses, suggesting that the settlement may have been abandoned or destroyed during conflict.
Archaeological evidence from other Vinča sites have led archaeologists to speculate that intergroup competition, conflict, and likely violence might have been a characteristic of the region during the Neolithic period.
Also uncovered are material traces of the Banat culture (5400-4400 BC), a regional people that emerged in the Banat area of the Pannonian Basin. “This is also remarkable, as only a few settlements with material from the Banat culture are known from what is now Serbia,” added Fynn Wilkes.
During the same research campaign, the team investigated several Late Neolithic circular features in Hungary together with partners from the Janus Pannonius Museum in Pécs. These so-called “rondels” are attributed to the Lengyel culture (5000/4900-4500/4400 BC).
Header Image Credit : ROOTS
Sources : CAU
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeology
Ornate grave goods found in Murom burial ground
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
Archaeology
Ghastly finds at gallows execution site
![](https://conspirazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/gast2-S78Iej.jpeg)
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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