Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  I’m happy to introduce you to 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!

Hominid bones from South African caves are adding new species to the human family tree.  New research at an Australian cave that includes input from Aboriginal people has dramatically changed the interpretation of how ancient people used the site.  Squatters living in the ruins of Caral, the New World’s oldest city, have made death threats against Peruvian archaeologist, Ruth Shady, who is famous for excavating that site.  And a treasure hunter who vandalized a historic cemetery in Yellowstone National Park faces stiff penalties in U.S. federal court after pleading guilty.

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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, and we wish you all the best for 2021!

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Pettigrew, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news from January 3rd to the 9th, 2021.

Our first story this week comes from South Africa, where new hominid remains suggest not only new specimens, but perhaps a new species. 

The work begins in the caves of Johannesburg, South Africa, where many ancient human remains have been found.  Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and his research team from the University of the Witwatersrand [vit-VAH-ters-rand] have already unearthed two new hominid species.  Now they may have discovered another.  

As reported by the website, Syfy.com, the new bone fragments come from a cave called UW 105.  What made them stand out from other known hominids or modern humans is their teeth.

The first clue came from a lower jaw fragment with just one tooth, which was initially set aside with bones and rubble from another excavation.  Further analysis pulled out 100 to 150 pieces of ancient human bone.  Pieces of skulls, shoulder blades, teeth, and limb bones represented at least four individuals, including an adult and two juveniles.  

Efforts to match them to known hominids failed.

The closest match to the molar is found in Gondolin cave, and belonged to Paranthropus robustus, but was not a total match.  P. robustus [PEE Ro-BUST-us] appeared sometime between 1 and 2 million years ago and has large, tough teeth with thick enamel and a strong jaw, ideal for its plant-heavy diet. 

Difficulties in matching the unknown species continues beyond the teeth.  While its back teeth were large like P. robustus, so were the front teeth, unlike P. robustus.  By contrast to the robust teeth, the bones from the rest of the body were much slimmer.  Most hominids with huge teeth also had robust bones to match. 

This goes against a longstanding assumption that so-called primitive features, like large heavy teeth and bones, go together and precede species with smaller teeth and slimmer or more gracile forms.  This assumption may be quite incorrect.

These contrasting features are not necessarily uncommon in finds of the region, and are found in the other species discovered by Berger, Australopithecus sediba [A-sed-EE-buh], and Homo naledi [nah-LED-ee], which had a smaller skull and more australopith-like trunk and lower body. 

According to Berger, the difference between so-called primitive versus more evolved features could have much to do with how ancient hominids adapted to their environments.  Though Homo naledi lived later than other species with small skulls, this part of its morphology may have been an environmental advantage.  

Similarly, on the unknown new hominids, they may have needed their teeth to withstand the wear and tear of tough plants and possibly meat, while the rest of their environment might not have demanded a bulky body for survival.

Finding out the fossil’s age will reveal something more, and Berger’s team is working to discover that now.

Next we go to Australia, where new work at an Aboriginal cave in eastern Victoria state shows how contemporary, collaborative archaeological research has deepened our understanding and corrected past assumptions.

As reported on The Conversation.com, the original excavations of Cloggs Cave and its associated rock shelter took place in the early 1970s.  The dig found remains of now-extinct giant kangaroos, along with Aboriginal stone tools dating back to the last Ice Age, and buried fireplaces. 

Cloggs Cave belongs to the Krauatungalung [crau-a-TUNG-a-lung] clan of the GunaiKurnai [GOO-nye-KER-nye] nation.  But in the 1970s, Australian government agencies, along with most of Australian society, ignored the rights of traditional owners to oversee research into their cultural places.

The first studies written on Cloggs Cave in the mid-1970s described it as an Ice Age refuge from which local plant and animal resources were exploited.

According to these earlier interpretations, people left the cave as the climate warmed, around 10,000 years ago.

The GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation has now revised and extended this understanding after new work at Cloggs Cave.  GunaiKurnai cultural heritage workers used new technologies, but even more importantly, the research now includes GunaiKurnai cultural knowledge passed down from generation to generation.

The GunaiKurnai partnered with researchers from nine Australian and international universities including Monash University and the Université Savoie Mont Blanc in France.

In 2019, archaeologists began mapping the cave with a 3D Light Detection and Ranging scanner and drone.  Then new excavations began.  The team began dating artifacts and ecofacts from the site using radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence, as well as uranium-series dating on the cave’s stalactites.

These new findings have drastically changed the interpretation of this cave site. 

In a small alcove at the back lay a stone arrangement, including a layer of crushed minerals.  Most of the stalactites on the ceiling had been intentionally broken off beginning more than 23,000 years ago.

Towards the cave’s entrance, the new excavations uncovered a buried standing stone with fires lit to surround it 2,000 to 1,600 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of animal bones also surrounded the stone, all of which died of natural causes, suggesting the site was not used for eating or cooking. 

According to GunaiKurnai Traditional Owners, caves are spiritually important, and were frequented by magical practitioners called mulla-mullung.  They trained and practiced their magic, using crystals and other stones, and ground powders such as ash.

This information was not considered by archaeologists in the 1970s, as it did not fit their more secular focus on habitat and diet.  Aboriginal people did not simply eat and shelter in response to their environments.  Their rich cultural and ritual lives shaped the environment, and this is reflected in the archaeological record. 

A new picture of Cloggs Cave now emerges as not a shelter, but a theater of culturally rich, social and magical activities dating back millennia.  It was avoided by people for day-to-day living, and probably used by GunaiKurnai mulla-mullung.

The evidence was there all along, unseen by previous researchers. New ways of listening, researching and cultural knowledge sharing are transforming how we tell archaeological histories. 

Our third story takes us to the dry coastal desert of Peru, where excavations of a peaceful ancient civilization have been halted by threats of death.   

The threats come from illegal squatters in the ruins of Caral [cah-RAHL], the oldest known city in the Americas, which dates to the third millennium BC.  

The squatters made the death threats against Ruth Shady [SHAH-dee], the celebrated Peruvian archaeologist who discovered the 5,000-year-old civilization.

The threats include telephone calls and messages to workers at the archeological site, and even the site’s lawyer, saying if he continued to protect Ruth Shady they would kill both of them and bury them five meters below the ground.

As reported by The Guardian, Shady’s dog was then poisoned, to underscore the warning. 

This is not the first time the 73-year-old archaeologist has been threatened or attacked.  In 2003, she was shot in the chest while working on the site.

Caral and its surrounding settlements are part of a 626-hectare, or 1,546 acre complex, which was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 2009.

During last year’s pandemic period, the city saw nine invasions, and Shady and her team repeatedly asked the authorities to intervene.

In July, squatters used a heavy digger to knock down adobe walls and tear up the ground.  They destroyed tombs containing mummies, textiles, and ancient ceramics before police and the site’s staff were able to stop them.

A police car now patrols the archeological site day and night, but nothing has been done to punish or evict the land invaders.

The squatters are believed to belong to a single extended family, who claim the land was given to them in the 1970s during Peru’s controversial agrarian land reform movement.

Shady denies the claim, noting that the squatters have not produced a single land title. 

Land prices in the area have risen almost tenfold, and buyers have snatched up land around the major archaeological site, which is surrounded by a 56 square mile buffer zone.

Shady first visited Caral in 1978, and in 1994 identified the ancient city and began excavating.  The apparently peaceful civilization arose in the Supe [SOO-pay] river valley about 200 kilometers, or 124 miles, north of Lima, Peru, along the dry central coast.

Excavations and analysis showed that Caral and its related settlements are the oldest known civilization in the Americas.  Many of the buildings are well preserved, containing textiles of multi-colored cotton and organic artifacts such as bird and animal bone flutes.  The architecture includes monumental stone buildings, often on earthen platforms, and sunken circular courts.  

Radiocarbon dates place the occupation as early as 2627 BC.

The Supe Valley civilization includes at least two dozen related settlements, with excavations ongoing at a dozen of them.  Shady and her team have noted the lack of walls around them, suggesting that this was a very peaceful society.  

We end this week in the western United States, where a treasure hunter who dug holes in a historic cemetery has pleaded guilty to damaging archaeological resources.

The 52 year old man from Utah, Rodrick Dow Craythorn, vandalized Yellowstone National Park through his unauthorized digging in Fort Yellowstone Cemetery between October 2019 and May 2020.  Fort Yellowstone Cemetery began in the 1880s and holds about 60 graves, mainly of U.S. Army soldiers and civilian employees at the Fort and the park, along with family members.     

As reported in The New York Times, Craythorn was looking for the Forrest Fenn treasure. 

According to Mark Klaassen, the U.S. attorney in Wyoming, the decade-long quest for the Forrest Fenn treasure was meant as a challenging but harmless diversion.  In some cases, however, it led to destructive activity by treasure hunters who failed to respect public laws or private property rights.

Craythorn pleaded guilty to damaging federal property as well as excavating or trafficking in archaeological resources.  He faces penalties of up to 12 years in prison and $270,000 in fines, and will be sentenced in March.

The treasure hunt devised by Forest Fenn began with a 2010 book in which Fenn, an eccentric art dealer, said he had hidden a bronze chest filled with gold nuggets and jewels.  He wrote a lengthy but cryptic poem giving the clues, and encouraged people to seek out the treasure, which was buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

Thousands of people searched for the treasure, and at least two people died trying to find it.

In summer, 2020, Forrest Fenn announced that someone had finally found the treasure chest.  Fenn died in September, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, just three months later.

According to Fenn, he buried the treasure and encouraged the hunt in order to encourage people to get off their couches.

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!