Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  To give you something fresh to think about in these coronavirus days, our show features four top news stories that came out this past week on Archaeologica.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

A complex society in southern Florida used giant ponds containing fish as food staples instead of agriculture.  A Bronze Age treasure has come to light in a Cretan cave.  We remember the remarkable story of the huge ships built by Roman Emperor Caligula that once floated on a lake. And excavators uncover the ritual site of a Mesopotamian war god..

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And now, here’s Laura Pettigrew with the Audio News from Archaeologica.  We hope you find this to be a valuable part of your day.

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Pettigrew and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news from March 29th through April 4th, 2020.

The mighty Calusa ruled south Florida for centuries and unlike the Aztecs, Maya and Inca, who built their empires on agriculture, Calusa society was founded on fishing.  

The Calusa needed a surplus of food to underwrite their large-scale construction projects.  But it’s hard to keep fish from spoiling in the balmy subtropics. The University of Georgia archaeological team has completed a painstaking analysis of how the Calusa built watercourts, huge enclosures where they kept fish so they always had that valued food on hand.

Built on a foundation of oyster shells, these rectangular pens walled off portions of the estuary and likely served as short-term enclosures for fish before they were eaten, smoked or dried.  As reported by Heritage Daily, the largest of these structures is about 36,000 square feet – with a berm of shell and sediment about three feet high.

According to William Marquardt, curator emeritus of South Florida Archaeology and Ethnography at the Florida Museum of Natural History, societies that relied on fishing, hunting and gathering long were assumed to be less advanced.  But the watercourts might explain how the Calusa developed a politically complex society with sophisticated architecture, religion, a military, long-distance trade, and social ranking – all without being farmers.

According to lead author of the study, Victor Thompson, the fact that the Calusa were fishers, not farmers, created tension between them and the Spaniards, who arrived in Florida during the 16th century, when the Calusa kingdom was at its zenith.  The Spanish were used to dealing with agriculturalists, like the people they colonized in the Caribbean who grew maize surpluses for them.  This would not have been possible with the Calusa.

Thompson, Marquardt and colleagues analyzed two watercourts along the southwest shore of Mound Key, an island in Estero Bay off Florida’s Gulf Coast and the former seat of Calusa power.  Fish bones and scales found in the western watercourt show that the Calusa were capturing mullet and likely pinfish and herring, which are all schooling species.  Both courts have openings, possibly to allow Calusa to drive fish into the enclosures, which could then be closed with a gate or net.  

Radiocarbon dating suggests that the watercourts were built near the end of a second phase in the construction of a king’s manor, which possibly held 2,000 people.

According to Karen Walker, Florida Museum collection manager of South Florida Archaeology and Ethnography, fifty years before AD 1300, sea level dropped.  This could have impacted fish populations and thus inspired innovation. 

Arkalochori Cave, outside the village of the same name in Heraklion Prefecture, is one of Crete’s most important archaeological sites. The site is most famous for an unusual horde of weapons and votive offerings found there in the early 20th century.  Much has been written about these discoveries, but the cave’s contents and their significance seems lost in the greater inquiry into who the Minoans were. 

Arkalochori Cave was discovered when locals found Bronze Age weapons there and sold them in Heraklion.  Archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos took over the site when a child found a golden double axe, prompting villagers to start plundering the cave.  Marinatos discovered the side chambers, which had been blocked with debris from the collapse of the cave’s natural roof.  In these chambers, researchers found hundreds of bronze axes, twenty-five golden ones, seven made of silver, and some fantastic bronze long swords dating between 1500 and 1425 BC.

As reported by Argophilia, a travel news website based in Germany, Dr. Marinatos believed that the cave had been a worship center to the war god Ariadne, or Astarte, since around 2500 BC, as most of the objects were weapons.  Alternatively, it could have been part of a center for metalworking.

The fragmented evidence from the Late Minoan period seems to link Minoan culture to that of Canaan.  At Tel Kabri in Israel, for instance, archaeologists unearthed a palace dated to the 19th century BC, where they found Aegean-style wall frescos.

The new finds are unique, and the cave’s proximity to other Minoan sites amplifies their importance.  Dr. George Rethemniotakis has associated the objects of Arkalochori Cave with a structure he recently discovered, Galatas Palace, another mysterious and unique find among Minoan sites.

Dr. Rethemniotakis believes that the region surrounding Galatas Palace succumbed to a cataclysm from which the area’s past glory never resurfaced.  His opinion was that the objects perhaps were religious items from Galatas Palace itself, hidden at Arkalochori Cave to prevent theft.  The artifacts from Arkalochori Cave remind us of a culture steeped in religion. 

The Nemi ships were gigantic Roman vessels, essentially floating palaces built in the 1st century at Lake Nemi, 20 miles south of Rome, by the Roman Emperor Caligula.

According to Heritage Daily, it was long held that they were pleasure barges, though as the lake was sacred, no ship could sail on it under Roman law, implying a religious exemption.

Although the ships in the volcanic lake of Lake Nemi in the Lazio region of Italy became known in 1446, it wasn't until 1927 that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the engineer Guido Ucelli to drain the lake and recover the ships with the help of armed forces and regime contacts.  The recovery process was fraught with calamity, from mud eruptions to subsidence in the lake floor.  The ships weren’t fully recovered until 1932.

Prima Nave [PREE-ma NAH-vay] was 70 meters, or 230 feet, long with a width of 20 meters, or 66 feet.  The hull was divided into three main sections.  The superstructures appear to have been made of two main blocks of two buildings each, connected by stairs and corridors, built on raised parts of the deck at either end.  This distribution gives the ship a discontinuous look, and it doesn’t resemble any other ancient construct.

Seconda Nave [say-COON-da NAH-vay] was the largest at 73 meters or 240 feet long, and 24 meters or 79 feet wide.  Here, the superstructure had a main section amidships, a heavy building at the stern and a smaller one at the prow.  It contained elaborate quantities of marble, mosaic floors, heating and plumbing.

A lead pipe found on one of the wrecks had the words “Property of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus” stamped on it — that’s Caligula —  while many tiles had dates of manufacture.  The ancient Roman historian Suetonius described two ships built by Caligula as ten banks of oars, the props of which were blazed with jewels.  They were filled with baths, galleries, and saloons, and were supplied with a great variety of vines and fruit trees.  

A year after their launch, after Caligula was assassinated, the Nemi ships were stripped of precious objects, ballasted and then intentionally sunk.

In 1944, during World War II, the museum where the ships were stored was allegedly struck by shells from the US army aiming at an adjacent German artillery post.  That evening, the Nemi ships were engulfed in flames, and only the bronzes, a few charred timbers, and some material stored in Rome survived the fire.  A report filed in Rome stated that the ship's tragic end was an intentional act by fleeing German soldiers.

The Daily Mail reports that archaeologists uncovered a 5,000-year-old sacred plaza in Iraq that was used for rituals to appease a Mesopotamian warrior-god.

The archaeological team working at the site in Telloh believes it was used for feasts, animal sacrifices and other processions dedicated to Ningirsu – the hero god of war, hunting and weather. 

However, LiveScience reported. that a bronze object shaped like a duck also was found that may have been dedicated to Nanshe, a goddess associated with water, marshlands and aquatic birds.

The ritual site is located in what once was Girsu, an important city in ancient Sumer.  It may have been founded as early as 5500 BC, but intense activity there began around 5000 years ago.

The area has been of interest to archaeologists for years, and recently experts have been investigating the center of Girsu, where the temple of Ningirsu once stood.  Here they found over 300 ceremonial ceramic cups, bowls, jars, and spouted vessels, all which have been damaged over time.  Archaeologists believe that a trove of animal bones hiding under the dirt were animal sacrifices to appease the Mesopotamian war god.

The excavation was led by Sebastien Rey, director of the British Museum's Ancient Girsu Project, and Tina Greenfield, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Saskatchewan.

After finding a thick layer of wood ash in the ground, the team speculates that massive feasts were held in the area.

These clues connect the area to the place where, according to cuneiform tablets, a religious feast in honor of Ningirsu was held twice throughout the year and lasted for three or four days.

That wraps up the news for this week!

For more stories and daily news updates, visit Archaeologica on the World Wide Web at www.archaeologica.org where all the news is history!

I’m Laura Pettigrew and I’ll see you next week!