Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  Thanks for joining us to catch the latest batch of top news stories that appeared this past week on Archaeologica!  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

A Buddhist temple in northern Pakistan is older than any found there before.  A new forensic method applied to human bone shows that a fisherman in northern Chile died of drowning 5000 years ago.  Excavators on the Swedish island of Gotland have come up with a very rare medieval Papal seal.  And a newly discovered site in Arizona is yielding artifacts from the Coronado expedition of the 1540s.

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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 February 13th through 19th, 2022.

Our first story this week takes us to northwestern Pakistan, where archaeologists have unearthed an approximately 2,000-year-old Buddhist temple believed to be one of the oldest in the country.

As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, the structure likely dates to the second century BC, and was built atop an earlier Buddhist temple dated to as early as the third century BC.  This date puts the construction of the earlier temple within a few hundred years of the death of Siddhartha Gautama, Buddhism’s founder.

The excavation site is in the historical region of Gandhara.  A crucial crossroads in the ancient world, Gandhara was controlled by Hindu, Buddhist, and Indo-Greek rulers at different points throughout the first millennium BC.  Researchers suspect that the temple was abandoned in the third century AD, following an earthquake.

The town where the temple was discovered, Barikot, appears in classical Greek and Latin texts as “Bazira” or “Beira.”  Previous research suggests the town was active as early as 327 BC, around the time that Alexander the Great invaded what is today Pakistan and India.  Because Barikot’s climate supports the harvest of grain and rice twice each year, the conqueror likely relied on the town’s agricultural wealth to sustain his armies. 

Shortly after his death in 323 BC, Alexander’s conquered territories were divided up among his generals. Around this time, Gandhara returned to Indian rule under the Mauryan Empire, which lasted until 185 BC.

The temple’s ruins stand around ten feet tall and comprise a once-domed ceremonial platform typical of Buddhist shrines.  At its peak, the temple boasted a second dome at the front, a special room for monks, a podium, a staircase, vestibule rooms, and a public courtyard.  In addition to the temple, the team unearthed coins, jewelry, statues, seals, and pottery fragments.  

According to Live Science.com, Buddhism had gained traction in Gandhara by around 150 BC, but may have been practiced solely by the elite.  The area eventually emerged as a sacred Buddhist center under the Kushan Empire, which stretched from what is today Afghanistan into northern India.  At the time, Gandhara was known for its Greco-Buddhist style of art, which rendered Buddhist subjects with Greek techniques.

Luca Maria Olivieri, an archaeologist at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, led the dig in partnership with the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies.  Italian archaeologists have been digging in the area since 1955.  Since then, excavations in Barikot have revealed two other Buddhist sanctuaries along a road that connected the city center to the gates.

It’s likely that this area still has much more for us to find. 

Our second story takes us to northern Chile, where a new study has confirmed saltwater drowning as the cause of death for an ancient man whose remains came to light in a mass grave.  The method developed to arrive at this conclusion opens up new possibilities for assessing the remains of our ancestors.

Modern forensic science can identify drowning as the cause of death in recent victims by testing bones for a type of algae called diatoms.  If a victim’s bones contain diatoms, then the victim probably drowned.  We know this because someone who dies before being submerged will not swallow water the way a person drowning would. 

As reported by Phys.org, this research, carried out by a team from the University of Southampton, marks the first successful application of this forensic method on ancient remains.   The team examined the remains of a man found in a 5000-year-old mass burial site.  In addition to the diatom analysis, the team also performed a wide-ranging microscopic analysis of the man’s bone marrow.  This allowed them to search for a greater range of microscopic particles that could provide more insight into the cause of his death.

The results, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, found a variety of marine particles that suggest he drowned in saltwater.  The particles found include fossilized algae, parasite eggs and sediment, which would not have been detected by the standard diatom test.

According to Professor James Goff of the University of Southampton, who led the study, mass burials were common after natural disasters.  The team decided to apply this forensic method to see if they could verify that a mass grave was linked to some natural disaster, perhaps a tsunami.

After scanning archaeological papers for records of mass burial sites near coastlines, Goff and his team worked with Professor Pedro Andrade of the Universidad de Concepción in Chile.  Andrade had previously studied an archaeological site known as Copaca One located on the Chilean coastline.  The site contains a grave with three well preserved skeletons.

The individual they chose to study was a male who died between the ages of 35 and 45.   The condition of his bones suggest he was a fisherman, as there were signs of frequent harpooning, rowing and harvesting of shellfish.  This made him an ideal candidate to study for signs of drowning and other evidence surrounding his cause of death.

According to Goff, the evidence in his bone marrow reveals the man drowned in shallow salt water.  The analysis showed that he swallowed sediment, which is not found in significant concentrations in deeper water.

Based on their initial findings, the team believes that he died in a marine accident rather than in a major disaster.  This is because other individuals from the grave did not contain the same levels of marine particles, so it is unlikely they all died by saltwater drowning.  The team could investigate further by testing other human remains in the site and studying geological records for evidence of natural disasters in the area.

Although they did not find clear evidence of a disaster, Goff and his team are optimistic for this new technique to be applied to remains found in coastal areas around the world, to learn more about individual cases of drowning as well as events on a mass scale.

Our third story this week brings us to the Swedish island of Gotland, where researchers have discovered a papal seal belonging to Pope John the Twenty-second. 

Gotland is Sweden's largest island, located in the Baltic Sea.  Its capital city of Visby was a major commercial center from the Viking Age onwards.  Gotlanders are one of the earliest groups of modern Swedes and today still retain a distinct local identity and unique accent. 

As reported by Swedish news outlet SVT, the seal is an incredibly unusual find in the country.  Only eight total papal bull seals, or seals used for public decrees and other official documents, have ever been found in the country. 

The seal in question is about four centimeters long and dates back to the 14th century and coincides with a letter Pope John the Twenty-second sent on the 28th of April in 1334.  It features the apostles Paul and Peter on one side, with the name of the pope on the other, and is broken—most likely from the time the letter was opened. 

In 1164, Sweden became formally connected with the Catholic Church, solidifying the religion’s important role in the region.  Catholicism became firmly established at that time.  After the advent of Catholicism here, Swedes even participated in their own versions of the crusades and launched expeditions on behalf of the Church.  Later on, in the 1500s, Sweden largely converted to Protestantism and became an important center for Lutheranism.

The research team is part of the Roma project, an initiative run by the Gotland Museum in collaboration with the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala.  One key objective of the project is to find the site of the governing assembly, also known as a folkmoot, in which elected "law speakers" gathered from the entire island and legislated until the 17th century.  

Our last story this week takes us to the Southwestern United States, where an archaeologist has unearthed hundreds of artifacts linked to the 16th century Spanish Coronado Expedition.

According to the Associated Press, the discovery includes pieces of iron and copper crossbow bolts, distinctive caret-headed nails, a horseshoe and spur, a sword point, bits of chain mail armor, and a bronze wall gun more than three feet long and weighing roughly 40 pounds.

Independent archaeologist Deni Seymour revealed the find in a recent lecture.  Seymour has not disclosed the exact location of the site, but her description in the Santa Cruz Valley places it at least 40 miles west of Coronado National Memorial, which overlooks the San Pedro River and the U.S.-Mexico border.

In 1540, Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led an expedition of more than 2,500 Europeans and Mexicans through what is now Mexico and the American Southwest in search of riches.  The two-year journey took them as far north and east as present-day Kansas and brought them into contact — and often conflict — with indigenous cultures.

Coronado’s exact route through Arizona to the elaborate Zuni pueblos of northern New Mexico remains a mystery.

The consensus among scholars is that the expedition most likely followed the Rio Sonora through northern Mexico and the San Pedro River into what is now Arizona.

Seymour believes her discovery proves once and for all that Coronado and company entered Arizona along the Santa Cruz River before eventually heading east.  According to the historians and Coronado experts Richard and Shirley Cushing Flint, the new discovery is probably evidence of the Coronado Expedition, but doesn’t necessarily mean the prevailing understanding of a northern route is discredited.

Relics at the find site have been unearthed across an area that stretches for well over half a mile.  Seymour believes she has found the remains of Suya, also known as San Geronimo Three, the third and northernmost location of a Spanish outpost established to support the expedition.

Along with the central structure where the wall gun was found, she said she has identified what appear to be six surrounding lookout stations, three of which show “clear evidence of being attacked.”

Seymour is convinced the outpost was overrun by the Sobaipuri (so-bai-POOR-i) people.  According to Seymour, she found clear evidence of battle, featuring remains of lead shot and Sobaipuri arrowheads.  Excavation at the site has yielded more than 120 caret-headed nails and more than 60 crossbow bolts so far.  Such a battle is attested to in the written accounts of the Coronado expedition.

Seymour expects to publish the first of several peer-reviewed papers on her discovery sometime this spring. She said she has already received a few radiocarbon results and other dating test results, with more testing planned.

We cover the subject of Coronado and other Spanish conquistadors venturing as far as Kansas in our own film, “Quivira: Conquistadors on the Plain,” which we will release on Heritage Broadcasting Service on February 28.

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! Also, be sure to check out our new subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org!

I’m Laura Pettigrew and I’ll see you next week!