Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew with the top news stories that appeared on Archaeologica this past week!  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

New analysis of sediments in a famous South African cave has pushed back the age of early human ancestors by more than a million years.  Re-examination of evidence inside a cave in Belize appears to show that the Maya used the place for ritual re-enactment of a key creation myth. Harvard University has returned a famous historic tomahawk to the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.  And a study of 7000-year-old Neolithic grave goods and skeletal remains in the Netherlands reveals that some tools considered related to men were found in women’s graves.

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Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Kennedy, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news for the week of June 26th through July 2nd, 2022.  

We first go to Johannesburg, South Africa, where a new study suggests many of the ancient hominin remains from the “Cradle of Humankind” caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, may be much older than previous estimates suggested.  

The site comprises a variety of fossil-bearing cave deposits, including the famous Sterkfontein Caves – where the remains of the first adult Australopithecus was made in 1936.  The Sterkfontein cave system has since yielded hundreds of Australopithecus fossils that are profoundly significant to the study of human evolution. 

New dating techniques used in the study indicate that the remains date back nearly 4 million years – making them possibly older than the famous Australopithecus afarensis individual Dinkinesh [ DEEN – kin – ESH ], famously nicknamed Lucy.  Lucy, who was unearthed in Ethiopia, is 3.2 million years old, and her species, Australopithecus africanus, hails back to about 3.9 million years old.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Purdue University College of Science, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the University Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France,  found that cave sediment samples from caves bearing Australopithecus remains date from about 3.4 to 3.7 million years old, rather than 2 to 2.5 million years old as scientists previously estimated. 

Darryl Granger, a member of the study’s international team of scientists and a professor in Purdue University’s College of Science, specializes in dating geologic deposits, including those in caves.  He is credited for developing a method for dating buried cave sediments that is now used by researchers all over the world. 

According to Granger, Sterkfontein is a deep and complex cave system that preserves a long history of hominin occupation of the area.  Understanding the dates of the fossils here can be tricky, as rocks and bones tumbled to the bottom of a deep hole in the ground, and there are few ways to date cave sediments. 

Typically, researchers would use calcite flowstone deposited in the cave or other animal fossils found around the hominin remains to estimate their age.  However, bones can shift in the cave, and young flowstone can be deposited in old sediment, making those methods potentially incorrect. 

A more accurate method is to date the actual material in which the fossils were embedded, called breccia [BRECH- ee - uh  ] – a sedimentary rock composed of large broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix.  Specifically, they investigated the radioactive decay of two rare isotopes in quartz – aluminum-26 and beryllium-10.

Granger and the research group at the Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Laboratory, known also as PRIME Lab, study cosmogenic nuclides, which are extremely rare isotopes produced by cosmic rays.  Incoming cosmic rays have enough energy to cause nuclear reactions inside rocks at the ground surface, creating new, radioactive isotopes within the mineral crystals.  

In addition to the new dates at Sterkfontein based on cosmogenic nuclides, the research team made careful maps of the cave deposits.  The maps showed how animal fossils of different ages would have been accidentally mixed during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to decades of confusion with the previous ages. 

The age of the fossils matters because it influences scientists’ interpretation of the living landscape of the time.  How and where humans evolved, how they fit into the ecosystem, and who their closest relatives were are complex questions.  Putting the fossils at Sterkfontein into their proper context is one step towards solving the entire puzzle

Next, we go to Central America, where new research methodology reveals insight into how the ancient Maya utilized one of Belize’s most sacred cave sites to reenact their creation story. 

The Actun Tunichil Muknal [  AK – toon  TOON – eech – ill  mook – NAAL ] Cave, commonly referred to as ATM Cave, in western Belize marks the sacred entrance to Xibalba [ shee – BAHL – buh ], the Maya underworld.  For over 1000 years, the cave remained undisturbed until locals rediscovered the entrance in 1986.  Soon after, explorers found skeletons inside, and scientists began to conduct studies inside the cavern. 

ATM Cave is a popular tourism destination where travelers to Belize visit and take a glimpse into Maya religion and society dating about AD 700 to 900, but the specific details of the rituals and ceremonies was largely a mystery, even to researchers.  However, earlier this year archaeologists introduced a new approach to unravel some of the cave’s mysteries. 

According to a report by Professor Holley Moyes from the University of California and Belizean archaeologist Dr. Jaime J. Awe, they were able to develop an intricate picture of the religious ceremonies by studying the spatial layout of 21 skeletons and approximately 1500 artifacts left behind. 

Moyes and Awe proposed that the Maya were staging elaborate, theatrical and deadly reenactments of the Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth. – and that they were doing it to prompt their gods to “rebirth" the world.

In the Popol Vuh creation myth, two god-like figures known as the Hero Twins travel to the underworld to challenge the Lords of Xibalba to a ball game.  The siblings lose and are sacrificed, but one of the brothers had left twin children of his own behind.  The second set of Hero Twins travel to avenge their father and eventually win.  

Their avenged father is reborn as the Maize God, from whom all human life is created, and the Hero Twins punish the Lords of Xibalba, who from then on can only receive offerings that are damaged in some way. 

According to Moyes, the Maya possibly believed the evil lords of Xibalba were triumphing and were to blame for widespread drought that contributed to the downfall of the Maya civilization in the tenth century.  

Evidence within ATM Cave indicates that this is the myth the Maya were re-enacting in a desperate attempt to battle the Lords of Xibalba.  For example, nearly all the artifacts recovered from the cave were intentionally broken, leading the team to believe they were offerings to the deities of the underworld. 

The new research found that the radiocarbon dates of all the artifacts in the cave were right before the Maya Collapse and at the height of drought conditions.  Ritualistic sacrifice was also not common among the Maya until the eighth and ninth centuries, coinciding with drought conditions.  

According to Moyes, the Maya began using the cave when they first started moving into Belize around 1200 BC.  Caves became integral to the Maya worldview, as caves were at the bottom of a three-tiered cosmos, with the terrestrial human world above, and the gods in the sky at the top.

Our third story takes us to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the long-lost pipe tomahawk that belonged to Chief Standing Bear was returned to the Ponca [ PONG – kah ] Tribe of Nebraska.  

Standing Bear is recognized as one of the first activists for Native people’s rights as citizens.  In 1879, he convinced a federal judge to recognize that Native people are, by law, persons who are entitled to the right to sue for their freedom.  

The federal government forcibly relocated the Ponca to Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory, in 1877.  Standing Bear fought the forced eviction of his tribe, but was unsuccessful.  However, after the death of his son, Standing Bear wished to bury his child in their ancestral homeland. 

In January 1879, he and about thirty followers abandoned Oklahoma.  Because Native people were not allowed to leave a reservation without permission, his group was labeled a renegade band.  General George Crook captured the group and then incarcerated them at Fort Omaha, Nebraska.

Standing Bear found sympathetic lawyers and sued General Crook for wrongful imprisonment.  In the trial that resulted, the Ponca chief’s lawyers requested the judge grant him a writ of habeas corpus - a recourse in law that challenges unlawful detainment.  Government prosecutors responded that under federal law, Native Americans were not considered “persons” and therefore were not eligible. 

Standing Bear argued that under the protection of the fourteenth amendment, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” he and his fellow Ponca were both citizens and people, and therefore entitled to the same constitutional rights as other citizens of the United States

Federal judge Elmer Dundy was persuaded in Standing Bear's favor and ruled that the federal government had no right to hold the Poncas.

As reported by Native News Online, the historical tomahawk had been given to John Lee Webster, one of the two lawyers who represented Standing Bear in the trial, as a gift.  Following Webster’s death, the tomahawk was sold to a private collector, then changed possession several times before Harvard eventually acquired it in 1982.

Once the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska learned that the pipe-tomahawk was being held in the Peabody’s collection, they began talking to museum officials about getting it back.  Last year, the museum agreed to return it, but COVID-19 prevented the tribe from traveling to Cambridge. 

On June 3rd, several members of the Ponca Tribal Council and staff visited Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to retrieve the pipe-tomahawk.  They were joined by members of Standing Bear’s living descendants to celebrate its return home. 

Jane Pickering, director of the Peabody Museum, expressed the Museum’s commitment to do better, admitting that the Peabody directly benefited from collection practices that ignored the wishes and values of families and tribal communities.  Currently, Harvard has around 6,400 Native remains and 13,600 funerary objects. 

Our final story this week takes us to the Dutch province of Limburg, where new research on grave goods and skeletal remains sheds light on gender roles 7,000 years ago.  Analysis of the remnants of the oldest Neolithic burial field in the Netherlands found that items once thought to be gender-specific were not linked to sex.

The village of Elsloo [ ELS – low ] in Limburg is argued to be the oldest farming community in the Netherlands.  It was first settled between 4,700 and 4,300 BC by the Neolithic people of the Linear Pottery Culture.  The burial field at Elsloo belonged to that culture, and excavations over the decades have unearthed entombed and cremated remains of 113 individuals. 

The new research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from Archaeological Research Leiden, the National Museum of Antiquities and Leiden University.  The team included chemical analysts, physical anthropologists and archaeologists. 

According to Dr Luc Amkreutz, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Antiquities and Professor of Public Archaeology at Leiden University, the sex and age of some of the deceased from cremated remains could still be established. 

Knowing the demographics of the remains in each grave allowed the team to determine that flint arrowheads and stone axes - which are traditionally attributed to men - are also frequently found in women’s graves.  The findings challenge the notion that grave goods as personal items represent the gender of the deceased.  The items from Esloo field turned out to be less gender-specific than previously realized.

According to the study, status appears to be associated with age.  The graves of the elderly, especially those of women, were abundant with a variety of items.  The study also identifies burial traditions with specific grave goods and rituals, which are related to hunting, food preparation, woodworking, and body decoration.  The graves reveal a subtle but not absolute distinction in the roles of prehistoric men as hunters, herders, warriors and builders, and women as caregivers and potters.

Further findings concluded that nearly all the grave goods had been extensively utilized and seem to be items that belonged to the relatives of the deceased.  These objects were deliberately placed in the graves and reflect the role of the deceased as well as the rituals surrounding death in Neolithic Elsloo. 

That wraps up the news for this week!

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