Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, ready to hand off 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 example of Easter Island’s mysterious Rongorongo script is now available, thanks to a high-tech analysis of an artifact in a Berlin museum.  DNA from Siberian dogs tells a story of longstanding cultural connections between Siberia and other regions in Eurasia.  The royal astrologer in the court of Queen Elizabeth the First used an obsidian mirror made by the Aztecs.  An excavation of a parking lot in Colonial Williamsburg uncovers the foundation of one of the first Black churches in the United States.

The Audio News Team would like to thank our friends for helping us continue this show without a break since we started more than 20 years ago!  If you’re not already a supporting member, please go to archaeologychannel.org and click on the Donate button.  Especially now, we can use all the help we can get!

We encourage our listeners to check out our answer to Netflix, which is Heritage Broadcasting Service, available at heritagetac.org and just launched at the beginning of 2021.  We now have 158 fascinating titles for you to binge upon with your smart TVs on Roku.  Again, that link is heritagetac.org.

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 October 3rd through the 9th, 2021.

Our first story of the week comes from heritagedaily.com and takes us inside the search to decipher the mysterious Rongorongo script of Easter Island.  New research created a three-dimensional model of a wooden object covered in the mysterious Rongorongo symbols.  The model reveals more clearly the shape of many glyphs that are so worn, they are otherwise barely visible, and proved that this was once one of the longest documents known in what is now a lost script of the indigenous Rapanui language.

As reported in a recent issue of The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Rongorongo is a system of squiggly glyphs or drawings that are clearly either writing, or proto writing.  Over the years, attempts at deciphering Rongorongo have been unsuccessful.  The most fruitful studies have suggested that the glyphs include some kind of calendar keeping, and may also include genealogical information.

Rongorongo is known only from Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, which was completely isolated from the rest of the world from soon after its settlement, around AD 1100, until European contact in 1722.  Thus, the Rongorongo script could be one of the only instances of the independent invention of writing, one developed completely from scratch, with no outside influences. 

To help move these studies forward, a research team led by the University of Warsaw studied the Berlin Tablet, from the Berlin Ethnographic Museum, one of only 23 objects known to have Rongorongo writing.  The team conducted a botanical analysis, carried out radiocarbon dating, and created a three-dimensional model using thousands of photogrammetric photos.

According to the radiocarbon analysis, the tablet, which measures 103 centimeters long, or over three feet, was made between 1810 and 1870.  Botanical analysis showed that it was made from the Pacific rosewood tree, or Thespesia populnea, which once grew thickly on the island.  This corrects previous beliefs that the Berlin tablet used driftwood, which would have complicated the radiocarbon dating.

The wood was badly worn, with only one side appearing to have glyphs.  The 3D model, however, showed that the entire surface area on both sides was inscribed originally.

According to the team leader, Dr. Rafał Wieczorek, from the University of Warsaw, new symbols came to light, as well as grooves similar to other Rongorongo tablets, which serve as lines to guide the text.  It’s also clear that if the Berlin Tablet were completely preserved, it would be the longest Rongorongo script in the world.  

Rongorongo is a very pictorial script.  Some signs are recognizable objects like humans, birds, different kinds of fish, turtles, and many apparent cultural objects.  The number of distinct signs could reach several hundred.  During early European contact, Rongorongo was still written by many Rapanui households, but after the devastating impacts of slave raiding, lethal epidemics, and removal of surviving people, Rongorongo writing died out so completely that many scholars thought it was only a contact-era imitation of Spanish.  

The new research and dating of the Berlin Tablet helps show that the script was an advanced and original depiction system.  Further radiocarbon dating on other surviving inscribed wood objects may pin down whether Rongorongo was developed by the Rapanui before contact.   

Our next story brings us to the Siberian arctic, where genetic testing on the bones and fur of ancient dogs reveals intermixing among breeds that suggests much broader patterns of trade by Arctic peoples than previously thought. 

As reported by ScienceNews.org, a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences determined that ancient Arctic communities may have traded with the outside world as early as 7,000 years ago. 

The study analyzed DNA from the remains of Siberian dogs, which found interbreeding had occurred with other breeds of dog from Europe and the Near East, even though they and their owners lived in one of the most remote places on Earth.  Put together with other archaeological finds, the study suggests that ancient Siberians were connected to a vast trade network, which may have extended as far as the Mediterranean and the Caspian Sea.

Researchers analyzed DNA from the remains of 49 Siberian dogs and their fur, from 11,000-year-old bone fragments to fur hoods used by Arctic explorers in the 20th century. The team found that Siberian dogs began mixing with other dog populations from the Eurasian steppes, the Near East and even Europe as far back as 7,000 years ago.

Dogs have played important roles in the Arctic for nearly 10,000 years, including for sledding, hunting, herding reindeer, clothing, and food.  Scientists previously believed both local dogs and their owners had largely been completely isolated from the rest of the world, an idea supported by the fact that ancient Siberians didn’t exchange much DNA with people outside the region.  

However, other archaeological evidence has found glass beads and other foreign goods in tombs from 2,000 years ago near the Yamal Peninsula in the northwestern Siberian region of Russia, suggesting trade ties well beyond the Arctic.

The researchers believe that by studying dogs we can also better understand human movement, like migrations and trade interactions.  The results suggest that Siberians brought in dogs from the outside world.  It’s possible that this trade network helped transmit new ideas and technologies to the Arctic, like metalworking, and even sparked local peoples’ transition from foraging to reindeer herding in the last 2,000 years.  

Our third story this week brings us to the British Museum in London, where researchers analyzing a spirit mirror used by an advisor of Queen Elizabeth the First have traced its origins all the way to Mexico. 

As reported by The Art Newspaper, a team of researchers recently published a report in the journal, Antiquity, on a so-called “spirit mirror” received by the British Museum in 1966.  The obsidian mirror was used by John Dee, the 16th-century polymath and astrologer in the court of Queen Elizabeth the First. 

The mirror and others like it have long been used in European magical practices.  A mirror made of such novel material would have been seen as unique and exotic, ideal for divination practices.  Dee and other European spiritualists used many such mirrors, in which the dim shapes and reflections were believed to be signs and signals from spirits. 

The research team, from the University of Manchester, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Missouri in the US, investigated four total obsidian mirrors in the British Museum’s collection using x-ray analysis, which traced the obsidian to Mexico.  John Dee’s mirror and one other were found to be from Pachuca, while the other two came from Ucareo, 170 kilometers northwest of Mexico City. 

While historians have previously suspected that Dee’s mirror was brought to Europe from Mexico, and circular mirrors are a well-known type of Aztec object, the x-ray sourcing now confirms it.  

Obsidian was used by the Aztecs for medicinal and protective purposes, including as a shield against bad spirits.  It was also associated with death and the underworld, believed to capture the image and soul of a person. 

These associations probably influenced Europeans like Dee, who likely bought the mirror in Bohemia around the 1580s and used it during his occult investigations.  Dee worked with mediums, who used mirrors and crystal balls to receive communications from angels and spirits.  Dee also served as a scientific advisor to the queen, helping to plan some of England’s voyages to the Americas.

The findings add insight into the practice of European spiritualism in the age, as well as the trade patterns that brought mystical objects from distant lands to spiritual practitioners like Dee. 

Our final story of the week takes us to Williamsburg, Virginia, where archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of one of the oldest Black churches in the U.S.

As reported by the science website, Phys.org, the brick foundation of First Baptist Church emerged from excavation at the site of Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum in the US state of Virginia that tells stories of the country’s colonial history, with more than 400 restored or reconstructed buildings. 

However, not all stories have been equally valued, as demonstrated by the history of the church both at its start, and in recent decades.

Both free and enslaved Black people formed the First Baptist Church in 1776.  In defiance of laws at the time that prevented Black people from congregating, they initially met secretly in fields and under trees.  By 1818, the church had its first building, a 16-foot by 20-foot structure that was destroyed by a tornado in 1834.

First Baptist's second structure was built in 1856, and stood there for a century.  However, the expanding Colonial Williamsburg museum bought the property in 1956, and turned it into a parking lot.

The current pastor of today’s First Baptist Church, Pastor Reginald F. Davis, believes that the uncovering of the old foundations is important for underscoring the humanity of its congregants, helping to amend the erasure of Black history in the United States. 

More than half of the 2,000 people who lived in Williamsburg in the late 18th century were Black, many of them enslaved.  Until recently, the museum had ignored the stories of colonial Black Americans.  However, beginning in 1979, the museum has placed a growing emphasis on African-American history, while also trying to attract more Black visitors.

The First Baptist Church has been at the center of an initiative to reintroduce African Americans to the museum, with excavations beginning last year.  So far, 25 graves have been located based on the discoloration of the soil in areas where plots were dug.  Some of these are earlier than the building of the second church in 1856. 

Modern congregants of First Baptist have expressed an interest in analyzing bones to get a better idea of the lives of the deceased and to discover familial connections.  For a number of them, the uncovering of the church is seen as a healing process.

Colonial Williamsburg and the congregation have expressed future plans to reconstruct the church, broadening the stories that the museum is telling about colonial Americans and sharing the value of Black histories in the area and in the U.S. as a whole.

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!