Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  What follows is another weekly batch of top news stories that appeared on Archaeologica!  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

The connection between hallucinogenic plants and rock art is now supported by finds inside a California cave.  A new study shows that a prehistoric turkey feather blanket recovered in the American Southwest required many thousands of turkey feathers.  Saudi Arabia has opened up for tourists the impressive site of Hegra, one of the leading cities of the Nabateans and famous for its rock-cut tombs.  And archaeologists in Turkey have found ten more mythological mask reliefs at an ancient theater, adding to the 33 previously uncovered.

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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 for the week of November 22nd through the 28th, 2020.

Researchers have debated for decades over the relationship between hallucinogens and rock art.  Now, as reported by National Geographic, a discovery at a site in southern California provides proof that some people centuries ago experienced the site in altered states of consciousness.

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international research team discovered chewed-up wads of plant matter, dating to around 400 years ago, stuffed into the cracks of the ceiling of a well-known site commonly referred to as Pinwheel Cave. 

Located near the edge of the traditional territory of the Chumash people, the cavern was named after the swirling red image on its curved ceiling.  Researchers think the artwork represents a datura flower, which unfurls in a pinwheel shape at dusk.

Pinwheel Cave is one of several rock art sites in the Wind Wolves Preserve, which encompasses 93,000 acres to the south of Bakersfield.  Archaeologist David Robinson and his colleagues believe that the site was occupied from around AD 1530 to 1890.  

In the United States after this time, many Indigenous peoples’ rituals were outlawed entirely, leaving a gap in traditional learning and cultural practices.

While looking for DNA evidence of human occupation at the site, archaeologists discovered that crevices in the ceiling of the cave were stuffed with wads of chewed plant fibers, called quids. 

The masticated fibers contained traces of scopolamine and atropine, hallucinogenic alkaloids found in datura, a plant with powerful psychoactive properties similar to ayahuasca or peyote. 

According to Texas State University archaeologist Carolyn Boyd, who wasn’t involved in the study, this is the first evidence of the ingestion of a hallucinogen at a rock art site.

The authors of the new study believe that the archaeological evidence inside the cave offers clues about the context in which the art was experienced.  Researchers interpret the pinwheel painting as a sign marking a place to use datura.

Lead author Robinson posits that the sheer numbers of chewed datura quids, as well as the collection of tools found on the cave floor, suggests that this site was once used communally, rather than by a lone shaman.

According to Sandra Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Tejon Tribe, which has links to the Chumash people and was consulted during research on the cave, the tribe’s archives contain records describing a ceremony during which datura would be consumed three times over the span of a few days.

In the American Southwest, turkey feather blankets or robes began to replace those made with strips of rabbit fur around 2,000 years ago.  Blankets would have been important possessions for members of Ancestral Pueblo communities who inhabited desert areas known for cold weather conditions during much of the year.

The production and use of robes or blankets made of turkey feathers wrapped around fibers was widespread in upland portions of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.  It is believed that these insulating garments served important roles in both ceremonial and functional ways.

In a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, researchers analyzed a feather blanket dating to approximately AD 1200.  They found that it required over 180 meters of yucca fiber cordage and an estimated 11,550 turkey feathers – the combined output of four adult birds.

Ancestral Puebloan settlements were commonly located at elevations above 1,700 meters, where winters were cold and nights cool, even in the warmer seasons.

According to Professor Bill Lipe, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University, blankets or robes with turkey feather insulation were widely used by the people who lived in the region.  

However, due to their perishable nature, few examples of such textiles have survived, and the goal of the study was to shed new light on the production of turkey feather blankets and to explore the economic and cultural aspects of raising turkeys to supply the required materials.

According to Dr. Shannon Tushingham, also from the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University, as Ancestral Puebloan farming populations flourished, many thousands of feather blankets would likely have been in circulation at any one time, and everyone from infants to adults in an Ancestral Pueblo community would have possessed one.

The scientists counted body feathers from the pelts of wild turkeys purchased from ethically and legally compliant dealers in Idaho to get an estimate of how many turkeys would have been needed to provide feathers for a typically sized blanket.  

Their efforts show it would have taken feathers from four to ten turkeys, depending on the range of feather lengths selected.

Blanket feathers were probably most frequently collected from live birds, although natural molts or recently killed birds may have also contributed.

This would have allowed sustainable collection of feathers several times a year over an individual bird’s lifetime, which might have reached about ten years.

Hegra, an ancient city in the northwestern Arabian Peninsula, which lay untouched for millennia, is now open to tourists, offering clues about the mysterious empire that constructed it and the more well-known sister city of Petra in neighboring Jordan.

Saudi Arabia launched tourist visas in September 2019, allowing visitors without a business or religious purpose into the country for the first time.  Hegra, with its mysterious and eye-catching architecture, was an obvious choice to highlight when marketing the country to tourists.

Hegra was the second city of the Nabataean kingdom, and similar to Petra, was a metropolis now turned necropolis, as most of its remaining structures are tombs.

The Nabataeans who once lived here were desert-dwelling nomads turned master merchants, controlling incense and spice trading routes through Arabia and Jordan to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia.  

They prospered from the 4th century BC until the 1st century AD, when the expanding Roman Empire annexed and subsumed their huge swath of land, including modern-day Jordan, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and parts of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Syria. 

The Nabataeans left behind little written history about how they lived or worshiped their gods, according to Laila Nehmé, an archaeologist and co-director of the Hegra Archaeological Project, a partnership between the French and Saudi governments that is excavating sections of the site.

Hegra contains 111 carefully carved tombs, far fewer than the over 600 found so far at Petra.  However, many of the tombs found here are in better condition, showing clear signs of Classical Greek and Roman influences in their stylized construction.  

Many tombs include capital-topped columns that hold a triangular pediment above the doorway, or a tomb-wide entablature.  A Nabataean “crown,” consisting of two sets of five stairs, rests at the uppermost part of the facade, waiting to transport the soul to the afterlife.  

Sphinxes, eagles and griffins hover above the tomb entrances to protect them from intruders.  Others are guarded by Medusa-like masks, with snakes spiraling out as hair.

Warnings inscribed into the façade speak of fines and divine punishment for trespassing on or within the tomb.  One of the only places where the inscribed words of the Nabataeans exist is in the inscriptions above the entrances to several of these tombs at Hegra.  

According to David Graf, a Nabataean specialist, archaeologist and professor at the University of Miami, around 7,000 Nabataean inscriptions have been found throughout their kingdom. 

The stories behind many of these tombs remain largely unknown, and the ongoing research at Hegra is just the beginning of a long research campaign.  Other nearby heritage sites, including the ancient city of Dadan, once the capital of the Dadanite and Lihyanite kingdoms, are now open to visitors as well, opening the possibilities for new research and understanding.

In our last story this week, archaeologists in southwestern Turkey’s Muğla region have uncovered 10 more rock carvings of mythological masks in the ancient city of Stratonikeia.

The excavation team, headed by professor Bilal Söğüt of Pamukkale University, has uncovered artifacts from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and later periods in their year-round work at the ancient city.

According to Turkey's pro-government paper, the Daily Sabah, the team has already cleaned and repaired 33 face carvings unearthed over the last two years and prepared them for display.

Their latest effort at the 2,200-year-old theater now brings the total number of known masks to 43.

According to Professor Söğüt, the 3,000-year-old ancient city, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, bears traces from every period of history.

He added that they have been working on different structures within the city, some dating back to Classical antiquity.

He also noted that in addition to the characters in the plays performed at the theater, some of the masks depict ancient gods and goddesses, as well as animal figures.

The team has been working here for two years, and hopes to restore all the masks found at the theater and display them in their original decorative order, surrounding the stage as they did in antiquity.

According to Söğüt these newly discovered masks will also be put on exhibition once they have been cleaned and conserved.

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!