Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  Thanks for joining us for another weekly installment of 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!

New excavations at Uxmal in the Yucatan reveals that one of its main buildings sits atop a platform covering three earlier buildings.  The world’s oldest arrowheads found outside Africa have turned up at a 48,000-year-old site in Sri Lanka. Human bones found inside a 17th-century French ship off the Texas coast surprisingly appear to be Native American.  And a stunning result of DNA analysis of human remains found inside a 5000-year-old Newgrange burial monument in Ireland suggests the presence of a royal family practicing incest..

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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 June 14th through June 20th, 2020.

Our first story takes us to the jungles of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, where ongoing excavation of one of the most popular archaeological sites in the Maya world continues in spite of the global pandemic.  The site contains some of the finest Maya stonework yet discovered.  This is also one of the stops on the Yucatan tour of Maya cities offered by our nonprofit, Archaeological Legacy Institute.

Located 385 km west of Cancun, Uxmal was a seat of power in the Puuc region, a low range of hills in the otherwise flat grasslands of the Yucatan.

Evidence suggests construction of the city began around the 6th century AD, and for centuries the area enjoyed more rainfall and richer soils than the rest of the northern Yucatan.  Agriculture prospered, allowing the people to cultivate the materials and land needed for Uxmal’s signature buildings, some of which were designed specifically for rainwater storage.

But sometime in the 10th century, construction ceased, and even before the Spanish came, the Maya had gone.

Uxmal reached the height of its power in the 8th and 9th centuries under a ruler known as Lord Chac — taking the name from the Maya rain god.  He appears to have commissioned elaborate buildings such as the House of the Governor, a palace supported by an enormous platform that likely required several decades to complete.  

According to Smithsonian Magazine, in 2019, Jose Huchim and archaeologist Lourdes Toscano, who together direct the Uxmal Project, focused their efforts on excavating beneath this platform.

The pair found that the platform covers what were originally three separate buildings.  Their foundations were joined, along with the addition of stairs on all four sides to provide access to the upper parts of the building.  A vaulted passageway unites the underground chambers.  

In total, the length of the chamber was measured at 25 meters, and several archways measured above 6 meters.  It’s estimated that the underlying foundations predate the grand palace structures above by at least 200 years. 

At some point, staircases in the basement and the main upper stairway were sealed off, likely in order to restrict access by invaders.   The team hypothesizes that this was done during 9th century conflicts with the peoples of the Maya city of Chichen Itzá, some 200 kilometers east.

Despite having once been the second-most visited archaeological park in Mexico, Uxmal is now closed due to COVID-19.   Huchim still monitors the site and reports that in the absence of tourists a variety of indigenous animals have reclaimed their places amongst the ruins.

As reported by ScienceAlert.com, archaeological excavations within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence outside Africa of hunting with bows and arrows.

At Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in the heart of Sri Lanka's wet zone forests, numerous stone and bone tools were discovered – including a few 48,000 year old arrow points carved from bone.

Currently, the oldest evidence for the use of the bow and arrow are 64,000 year old stone points found in Sibudu cave, in South Africa. However, outside Africa, such finds typically have been much younger.  For example, the previous oldest finds were parts of bows found in Germany which were no more than 18,000 years old.

The bow and arrow made it possible for people to hunt prey at a much greater distance than before.  This innovation greatly increased the chances of a safe and successful hunt.  Yet the origins of this weaponry are poorly understood and remain unclear.

Because bows and arrows mainly comprise perishable wood, sinew, and fibers, they don't leave behind much long-term evidence.  The small bone points recovered from Fa-Hien Lena are therefore an important piece of this puzzle, adding timeline data to finds on other continents.

These bone points show evidence of being fixed to a small shaft and launched at high speed towards prey, which included small monkeys and giant squirrels.

The team also found well-preserved knives, scrapers, and awls made from the bones and teeth of deer and monkeys, which were likely used to soften animal skins or plant materials.

Hard tools are our only way to learn about the softer items produced that wouldn't have survived 48,000 years in the humidity, such as hides, baskets, or netting.  For example, one of the artefacts is an unusual implement with carefully spaced notches down each side.  It appears to be a shuttle for weaving nets, for catching fish and tree-dwelling prey.

The inhabitants also left behind evidence of their social lives.  White shell beads similar to those found in Africa and Eurasia were collected or traded from the coast about 25 km away.  People used blocks of mineral pigments in bright red, yellow and silver to decorate their bodies.

Notably, three of the bright red pigment nodules were drilled to be strung as beads – something that hasn't yet been found anywhere else on the planet.  These discoveries highlight how much still remains to understand about ancient human communities and their lifestyles.

In 1682, the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle reached and explored an estuary in what is known now as the Gulf of Mexico and re-named it La Louisiane, in honor of King Louis.  

Two years later, La Salle set sail once again from France to the area, this time with 400 sailors and colonists aboard four ships, in an effort to colonize the mouth of the Mississippi River. 

However, according to a written on-board history cited by Hakai Magazine’s website, things did not go smoothly.

Details of the doomed expedition exist in accounts written by the expedition’s chronicler, Henri Joutel, and five other survivors who escaped and reached Canada before sailing back to France.  

In 1995, archaeologists recovered La Belle and its current contents.  The bottom third of the ship was buried in mud, which had prevented aerobic organisms, such as shipworms, from decomposing the vessel completely.

Along with the nearly two million artifacts found was a complete human skeleton perched on top of a coil of anchor rope.  And, in a nearby cargo hold, were the leg, foot, and hand bones from another set of human remains.  These bones appeared altogether different—of larger size and denser mass—than an average 17th-century French sailor who might have been on the ship’s manifest.

And now, with modern DNA analysis techniques, forensic scientists are able to extract and analyze the DNA preserved in these bones for the first time.

As was expected, the complete skeleton belonged to someone of Western European descent. The genes identified were common to people from the part of France where the expedition began.  

However, the other skeleton did not fit the existing narrative, as the extracted DNA had features common among North American indigenous peoples, not Europeans.

According to Brad Jones, a research team member from the Texas Historical Commission, historical accounts held no indications that an adult male Native American was present aboard the ship at the time of the wreck.

However, according to Jones, some indigenous peoples attempted to salvage wrecked colonial vessels and their contents, and that the Spanish expedition that followed La Salle described La Belle in 1687 as only partially above water, indicating that the holds may have been accessible.

The team plans to further investigate regional DNA databases, archival records, and genealogies to identify the origins of both sets of remains.

And in our final story this week: new DNA analysis of human remains found at Newgrange – an impressive Stone Age burial mound in Ireland - has revealed evidence of incest, which raises questions about the hierarchy and cultural practices during the period.

The Newgrange burial mounds date to around 5,000 years ago, and include three large passage tombs as well as other monuments.  The Stone Age tomb mounds in the valley of the River Boyne lie about 25 miles north of Dublin, and are so vast the area has been dubbed the Irish Valley of the Kings.  The similarities don’t stop there.

As in Egypt, the ancient peoples of Ireland created stunning monuments to their dead, some with precise astronomical orientations.  The Newgrange site pre-dates the most recent configuration of Stonehenge, a site renowned for alignment to both the summer and winter solstice cycles.  

And in the central underground room at Newgrange, when the sun rises around the time of the winter solstice, the entire chamber is illuminated through what is called a roof box.

Archaeologists have long pondered what kind of society might have built such structures, and how similar architecture has developed worldwide.

As reported by the New York Times, a team of Irish archaeologists and geneticists analyzed DNA extracted from cremated remains which were interred at the very heart of Newgrange.  The results indicated an incestuous union, either between brother and sister, or parent and child.  

Their study, published in Nature, also included evidence of Down syndrome.  The authors believe that this is the oldest known record of this condition.  In addition, the researchers found genetic connections among people interred in other Irish passage tombs, suggesting that the ruling elite were closely related genetically to one another.

Daniel G. Bradley, of Trinity College, Dublin, specialist in ancient DNA, led the team, along with Lara M. Cassidy, specialist in population genetics and Irish prehistory, also with Trinity College.  

The final piece of evidence that the researchers reported was folkloric.  An account of Irish place names written around AD 1100 tells a tale of a King Bressal, who had slept with his sister. 

The creation of European megaliths such as Newgrange occurred well after agriculture appeared in Europe, spurred on by a vast migration of Anatolian farmers that started about 9,000 years ago.

The combination of these discoveries implies a highly developed social structure and a unique culture traveled with this incoming wave as they gradually settled the European continent.

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!