Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.   Stick around to hear 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 Lakota shirt is back in the hands of its South Dakota family after a German museum agreed to repatriate it.  Archaeologists working in southern Turkey have found a tomb dedicated to a famous Greek astronomer-poet.  New research on Easter Island concludes that the long-assumed population crash there never really happened.  And a recently excavated ancient ritual site in Cyprus appears to be a unique open-air feasting place .

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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 July 11th through the 17th, 2021.

Our first story this week comes from North America, where the leather shirt of a well known Lakota chief has been returned to his tribe by a German museum.  After spending over a century in the collection of the Weltkulturen Museum of Frankfurt, Germany, Chief Hollow Horn Bear’s dyed and beaded shirt was placed back in the hands of Duane Hollow Horn Bear, his great-grandson.

As reported by ArtNews.com, the Weltkulturen Museum cited both moral and ethical reasons for the return.  Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear, or Mato He Oklogeca, was a well respected leader among the Teton Lakota people in what is now the state of South Dakota.  In the decades before his death in 1913, he advocated for the rights of his people, often serving as a diplomat and negotiator with the United States government.

The Weltkulturen Museum came into possession of the shirt in 1908, through an exchange with the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  For the most recent 30 years, the shirt had been on permanent loan to a display in the German Leather Museum, in the nearby town of Offenbach.

Duane Hollow Horn Bear, the current chief of the Teton Lakota Indigenous community, had visited the museum in 2019.  He submitted a formal written request for the shirt’s return, including a historic portrait photograph taken by John Alvin Anderson in 1900 that shows Chief Daniel Hollow Horn Bear wearing the shirt.  The shirt has patterns of brightly colored glass beads and human hair that are attributable to the Hollow Horn Bear family, and prove personal possession prior to 1906.

In its statement, the Weltkulturen Museum noted that the shirt is a culturally specific, identity-forming object of religious significance to the Teton Lakota Indigenous community. 

In announcing the shirt’s repatriation, the Museum noted that the circumstances under which the shirt came into the possession of the original donor simply could not be adequately  reconstructed.  Provenance research is one of the great challenges facing museums in the 21st century, even as it can sometimes represent costly losses from their collections.

Institutions worldwide are placing renewed emphasis on the repatriation of objects in their respective holdings, and subjecting their archival collections to systematic review.

For Chief Duane Hollow Horn Bear and his relatives, the return of this shirt represents the return of a piece of their family history.

Next we go to Turkey, where archaeologists working in the ancient Greek city of Soli Pompeiopolis have found a tomb dedicated to a Greek poet named Aratus [AIR-uh-tus].  

As reported by the news site, GreekReporter.com, the tomb is located in southern Turkey, in the province of Mersin along the Aegean coast.  Excavations are under the supervision of Professor Remzi Yağc from Dokuz Eylül University.

The tomb was first discovered about three years ago.  Two rows of hexagonal structures and arches around the central tomb have already been uncovered.

After delays due to the pandemic, excavation at the ruins has now resumed.  

One of several cities founded or expanded under the Roman general Pompey [POMP-ee] when he governed Turkey, Pompeiopolis was in the province of Cilicia, and originally called Soli, possibly to commemorate its founding by the Athenian statesman Solon.  The city had been occupied since Neolithic times, but was eventually abandoned after a massive earthquake leveled it in AD 525.

The monumental tomb to Aratus features a stone observation platform made from carefully cut and polished rock, from which one might view the constellations.  

Born in 315 BC, Aratus was a Stoic, and his work is strongly associated with the development of Greek astronomy.  

He was a didactic poet, meaning he wrote verses that instructed people on skills, science or philosophy.  While his verses on astronomical themes have been critiqued for their scientific accuracy, his poetry was very popular during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The best known work of Aratus is called “Phenomena,” and it describes the constellations in hexameter verse.  Aratus is so well known for his poetry on astronomy, NASA named a crater on the moon in his honor.

Aratus likely died in Macedonia in 245 BC.  It is not yet known exactly when this tomb that might commemorate him was built, nor whether he is buried in it.

Our third story takes us to Easter Island, where new research suggests that the demographic collapse said to be the cause of the island’s fate never actually happened.  The new research, which comes from a team from Binghamton University, State University of New York and others, was recently published in the journal, Nature Communications. 

As reported by ScienceDaily.com, Easter Island, or Rapa Nui in the native language, has long been a focus of research related to environmental collapse. 

Sometime after it was settled between the 12th to 13th centuries, the once-forested island was completely stripped of trees.  Scholars have most often pointed to clearing for agriculture, along with the introduction of invasive species, such as rats, as the causes. 

They argue that these environmental changes reduced the island's carrying capacity, and led to a catastrophic demographic decline. 

Additionally, around the year 1500, a climactic shift in the Southern Oscillation index led to a dryer climate on Rapa Nui.  However, environmental changes occur on different time scales and in different magnitudes, and how human communities respond to these changes varies substantially.  Standard statistical methods don't work when it comes to linking radiocarbon data to environmental and climate changes, and the population shifts connected with them. 

The new research used Approximate Bayesian Computation to discover that the island experienced steady population growth from its initial settlement until European contact in 1722.  

This research shows the island never had more than a few thousand people prior to European contact, and that their population numbers were increasing, rather than falling.

No evidence suggests that the islanders used the now-vanished palm trees for food.  The current research shows that deforestation was prolonged, but didn't result in catastrophic erosion.  The trees were ultimately replaced by gardens mulched with stone, an adaptation which increased agricultural productivity. 

On an isolated island, sustainability would be crucial to survival, and a misstep in resource management could lead to catastrophic consequences such as starvation. 

Still more remains to be learned about the context in which the inhabitants of Rapa Nui were able to adapt, and ultimately survive, amid a changing climate and environment. 

We end this week on the island of Cyprus, where archaeologists working in the UNESCO-listed city of Nea Paphos discovered an ancient place of worship.

As reported at the Polish news site, Polandin.com, a team of Polish and French archaeologists first banded together in 2017 to research the Fabrika mound, an area of apparently sacred functions, located on the perimeter of the city.  Although only outlines of the temple walls survived, the archaeologists established that the edifice was rectangular, with a courtyard on a rock platform in front of it.  The building did not resemble typical Greek temples, usually flanked by tall columns.

A couple of meters away were the traces of a monumental carved stone altar.  At the center of the offering ground was a round concavity with a drainage route for libations to run out.  Because of its semicircular outline, researchers think it was a place used for public open-air banquets.

Similar installations have turned up at the ancient Nabatean capital of Petra in southern Jordan, but nothing like this has been previously found on Cypress.  However, open-air feasting is evidenced by monuments found elsewhere on Cyprus, namely at the Golgi site.

Ritual celebrations in the name of gods involved wine-drinking and sometimes feasting on the meat of offerings.  Such activities were a widespread custom across many Mediterranean cultures. 

According to the archaeologists, this temple was in active use from the second century BC until the middle of the second century AD, when it was destroyed by an earthquake.

According to the head of the excavation, Professor Jolanta Młynarczyk from the University of Warsaw’s Archaeology Department, the recent year’s research season was particularly difficult due to pandemic restrictions.

While it remains unclear precisely which deity or gods were worshipped here, suggestions are that it might have been the patron of the ancient city, Aphrodite of Paphos.

Professor Młynarczyk’s mission is carried out under the National Centre of Science’s “Harmonia 8” grant, in cooperation with the University of Avignon, France.  

The excavations at Nea Paphos began over five decades ago, under a pioneer of Polish Mediterranean archaeology, Professor Kazimierz Michałowski.  

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!