Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew to deliver the latest 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!

A new LIDAR survey in the Yucatan has revealed another amazing view of the ancient and very complex Maya landscape.  An Egyptian mummy turns out to be a pregnant woman.  A new analysis of data from the American Southwest concludes that social conflict added to drought was the fatal mix for Ancestral Puebloan societies. And a boat-shaped stone hearth in Iceland gives insight into the mindset of the earliest Viking settlers.

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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 April 25th to May 1st, 2021.

Scientists working in the Puuc region of the northern Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico have used emerging laser scanning technologies to survey the structural remains of a highly sophisticated Maya community first discovered in the 1840s, revealing a distinct city layout here unlike other known Maya sites throughout the region.

As reported at LiveScience.com, a team of Mexico- and U.S.-based researchers used billions of lasers to create highly detailed 3D images of a site in a hilly section of the otherwise flat Yucatán Peninsula.  LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, easily penetrates the thick vegetative overgrowth to detect unseen structures or underground disturbances.

The study, published by the journal, PLOS One, demonstrates how new research techniques can provide fresh insights at even the most well known of archaeological sites.  Lead researcher William Ringle, a professor emeritus of anthropology at Davidson College in North Carolina, noted that the two-day aerial survey revealed more archaeological evidence than his and colleagues’ previous 20 years of traditional ground-based field work.

The scans revealed a myriad of masonry structures, including intricate reservoir systems known as aguadas, a handful of stepped terraces for farming, and nearly 8,000 platforms where individual houses once stood.  These terraces are the earliest known examples of tiered farming in the entire northern Yucatan.

The survey found no evidence of defensive structures, such as gates or barriers, and revealed that communities were located in relatively close proximity, which together suggest a peaceful and interwoven society.  Elaborate compounds, assumed to be habituated by more affluent residents, appear to be evenly distributed amongst districts, rather than clustered exclusively or grouped towards the city center.

Other structures identified in the area include chultunes, cisterns lined with stucco plaster used for water storage, as well as acropolises and pedestrian walkways.  A widespread and sophisticated stone-working industry was discovered, with multiple quarries used to supply the raw materials and hundreds of newly identified ovens.

It’s likely that some of the over 1,200 round ovens noted in the study were used in the production of calcium oxide, more commonly referred to as lime, which would have been a highly prized commodity when processing corn for food production.

The number of stone masonry structures found suggests that, in addition to being highly populated, the area was likely quite prosperous, and rich with natural resources.  Maya civilization developed in places that now are in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, and existed for more than 2,500 years before people mysteriously abandoned many of their cities. 

While the precise reasons for this remain unclear, this study’s authors suggest that the LIDAR evidence found here does not support environmental degradation, such as deforestation or water resource mismanagement, as major contributing factors towards the society’s eventual collapse.

The area examined by this LIDAR study lies within the area to be visited by our tour called “Ancient Maya Cities of the Yucatan,” beginning November 30, 2021.  You can find details about that at archaeologychannel.org/tours.

Researchers at Warsaw’s National Museum in Poland have made a surprising discovery which revealed that a mummy long thought to be that of a male priest is actually the remains of a woman who was around seven months pregnant when she was embalmed. 

The identification was made using a series of non-invasive radiological examinations and other computer imaging techniques that had never been used on the specimen, which is believed to have been discovered at royal tombs at Thebes, in northern Egypt, and originally arrived in Poland in 1826.  

The body enclosed came from the elite of the Theban community, and was carefully mummified, wrapped in fabrics, and equipped with a rich set of amulets.  The researchers say the excellent quality of the embalming suggests it could have been performed well before the first century B.C., which is the current dating estimate.

As reported by ABC News, these and other findings from years of work by the Warsaw Mummy Project were recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, detailing new discoveries about a number of the mummies in the museum's possession. 

This particular mummy was encased in a coffin inscribed with the name of a male priest, and because of this fact alone, many researchers assumed that the remains contained within the casing were that of the named priest himself. 

However, when researchers conducted scans of the mummy, they realized that the body was not a male, but rather that of a female aged between 20 and 30 years old.  The images also showed a fetus, whose size indicated that the adult had been between 26 and 30 weeks of pregnancy at time of her death. 

This case is believed to be the first known instance of the mummified remains of a pregnant woman, and is considered by the researchers to be the most significant finding of this project so far.

Research team member Wojciech Ejsmond [VOY-check ICE-mond], of the Polish Academy of Sciences, was particularly interested in the possibilities of learning more about maternity and the potential treatment of delivery complications during ancient times.

Recent research findings suggest that social tensions played a role in Ancestral Puebloan societies’ development and ability to survive through periodic climate challenges such as drought from 500 through 1300 AD. 

An article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences acknowledges that Ancestral Puebloan farmers successfully persevered through occasional drought events during this time period.  However, when the societies already were faced with increased social tensions, even modest drought conditions could spell the end of eras of stable development.

Prior to the arrival of Spanish colonizers, Ancestral Puebloan communities occupied what is now the Four Corners area of the United States, the meeting point of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Study author Tim Kohler, a Washington State University archaeologist, believes that a combination of environmental stress combined with societal divisions degraded living conditions, from which the groups could not fully recover.

The study draws on research from Marten Scheffer, a complexity scientist from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, whose work had previously explored environmental systems ranging from rain forests to ice caps, as well as the human brain.

These Ancestral Puebloan communities were often quite stable for decades, yet experienced at least three major instances of social upheaval and transformation.  These disruptions coincided with evidence of drought, and until now almost all noted societal changes have been exclusively attributed to these climatic challenges. 

The first period of weakened recovery from a disruption in construction activity occurred around the year AD 700, and was followed by a subsequent disruptive period around 900.  The final period of noted social fragility was around 1140.  The findings indicate that it was the two factors together that spelled trouble for these societies.

By examining tree ring dating of the wooden beams used in Puebloan architecture ,the study extrapolates the tree-cutting activities across several centuries, and provides evidence that these periods simultaneously saw decreases in building activities in addition to reduced rainfall.

Conflict with neighboring groups likely pushed these societies towards a tipping point that ultimately led to abandoning the area in the late 1200s.

The findings suggest that, while climate factors can play a critical role in the stability of societies, intersecting issues of social tension and slowed urban development can be just as important, highlighting an area of potential research for modern human existence.

As reported at LiveScience.com, our final story of the week takes us to an Icelandic cave where a large boat-shaped stone structure believed to have been used by early Vikings for ceremonial purposes over 1,000 years ago has recently come to light.

Known as Surtshellir, the 1600-meter-long lava cave in the interior of Iceland contains a unique archaeological site located nearly 300 meters from the cave’s entrance and more than 10 meters below the surface of the Hallmundarhraun lava field.  

Kevin Smith, deputy director and chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, led the excavating team, and their work was recently published by The Journal of Archaeological Science.

The cave is located near a now-dormant volcano which last erupted around 1,100 years ago. Around that same time, early Vikings settlers had recently reached Iceland, and the eruption likely resulted in many terrifying and unforeseen challenges for the new residents. 

Archaeological evidence shows that, once the lava in the area had cooled, Vikings entered the cave and constructed a boat-shaped structure from rocks, subsequently burning animal bones within the structure, likely as a part of ritual ceremonies. 

Historical records show that the cave was associated with the mythological giant Surtr, and it is presumed that the Vikings’ efforts were intended to ward off Ragnarök, the apocalyptic end times predicted in traditional Norse lore. 

Archaeologists were surprised to find rare beads here, with some originating from as far away as the Middle East.  Although the exact reasons these items were placed in the cave remains unclear, typical hypotheses suggest that they were intended either as gifts to appease the elemental being Surtr, thus delaying him from destroying the world, or to strengthen the fertility god Freyr, who was believed to battle against Surtr in the Ragnarök saga. 

Iceland converted to Christianity around 1,000 years ago, and some Christian items such as a scale adorned with a cross also were found in the cave.  Researchers believe that, even after people in the area were forced to change their religious system, the cave continued to be associated with a Christian version of the apocalypse, a place where Satan would emerge on Judgement Day.

The study provides important new insights into Viking Age ritual practice, Iceland's settlement and conversion, and the cultural responses of Iceland's newly-arrived settlers to the existential challenges posed by previously unimagined catastrophic volcanism.

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!