Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew to hand off 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!

A site in Taiwan is now the oldest known shell tool-making site in the Pacific region.  A new study of sites in the Albuquerque area shows that the Ancestral Puebloans surprisingly ate some really big fish. A newly discovered site in eastern Turkey could be a palace constructed for a grandson of Genghis Khan.  And DNA from a horse tooth found in Haiti links closely to the storied ponies of Chincoteague Island, Virginia..

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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 July 24th through the 30th, 2022  

Archeologists from the National Tsinghua [tsing -  HWAA] University's Institute of Anthropology have discovered the earliest known shell tool making site in Taiwan, which is now the oldest site of its kind in the Pacific region.  Numerous artifacts and over fifty human skeletons show the site was occupied from 4,200 to 3,800 years ago. 

The dig was carried out by Chiu Hung-lin, an associate professor at National Tsinghua University's Institute of Anthropology, and Professor Li Kuang-ti, at a site in Eluanbi [EL-yu-an-bee ]  Park in Pingtung County, from 2019 to 2021.

In the 51 graves found, 10 held coffins made from slate and contained funerary objects made of coral.  The finds added to understanding of burial customs, as well as the physical characteristics of the people, who were ancestral to native Austronesian people of Taiwan, who today represent only 3 percent of the Taiwanese population.

The shell finds reveal that shell tool and ornament manufacturing took place on site.  Debris included semi-finished products, processing waste, and even tools used to work the shells.  Among the objects found were hooks, shark tooth ornaments and shell adzes.  According to Chiu, the prehistoric people of Eluanbi had a unique set of shell tool making techniques.  This is not only the first such prehistoric shell-processing site found in Taiwan, but  also the oldest and largest known shell tool-making site in the Pacific region.

According to Chiu, similarities in the shell implements with those found on other Pacific Islands indicates that the Taiwanese culture interacted with other Austronesian groups.  We should note that Taiwan is likely the point of origin of the Austronesian peoples, who spread from Taiwan about 5000 years ago and ended up populating the huge equatorial area from Madagascar to Easter Island,

As reported by Taiwan News.com, a construction crew working on local business remodeling stumbled onto the ancient sarcophagi, shell mounds, ash pits, and various relics.  Archaeologists and local officials have been working to strike a balance between development in the area and preservation of its cultural heritage. 

According to Chiu, a suitable place to preserve and display the artifacts is also needed.  The archaeological team hopes that establishing a way to exhibit the artifacts while also remodeling the local businesses would help revitalize tourism in the area.

Our next story takes us to the deserts of the American southwest, where a new study overturns previous understandings that Ancestral Pueblo people rarely ate fish.  The new research shows not only that the Puebloans ate a lot of fish, but also that the fish were bigger than expected.  

According to Jonathan Dombrosky, assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico, the study used 3D scans of modern fishes and fragmented bones of ancient fish remains to estimate the body size of archaeological fish species.  Dombrosky applied the new method to reconstruct the body size of fish remains recovered from Ancestral Puebloan sites around the Albuquerque area to better understand the ancient people’s dietary choices. 

The data also help evaluate the connection between changing environments and Pueblo fishing decisions.  Dombrosky's previous research showed that fish consumption increased over time in Ancestral Pueblo communities as a change in climate led to the presence of more freshwater habitat in the area.  The method also served to estimate whether Ancestral Puebloans in the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico caught larger than average fish during the late pre-Hispanic period, from AD 1300 to 1600.

In the new study, specimens were sourced from four sites along the Rio Grande, including Pottery Mound Pueblo, a village of approximately 400 rooms;  Kuaua [ KWAH-wah ]  Pueblo, a massive village site of around 1200 rooms; Chamisal [CHAH – mi – sal] Pueblo, a smaller site with approximately 200 rooms; and Hummingbird Pueblo.

According to Alexandra Harris, one of the co-authors of the study, the work could make a significant impact on the field of zooarchaeology, through offering a new way to identify past human behavior, especially people’s preferences for specific foods in the various social and environmental contexts they lived in.  

Previously, it was believed that while fish were part of the Ancestral Puebloan people’s diets, they were a minor amount.  The new research, however, indicates that Ancestral Puebloan people ate different species of fish, and were also targeting large, healthy fish. 

The research indicated fish were taken from fish communities that were healthy, large in average size, and stable.  Thus, the work indicates that Ancestral Puebloan people’s fishing practices tended to be sustainable. 

According to Dombrosky, the methodology shows the value of the unconventional approach to studying the smallest of zooarchaeological fish remains. 

The research was recently chosen for the editor's spotlight in the Journal of Archaeological Science. 

Our third story takes us to eastern Turkey, where archaeologists believe they may have uncovered the palace built for Hulagu [HOO - la - goo] Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan.

Hulagu Khan was a Mongol leader who lived from AD 1217 to 1265, and led military expeditions in the Middle East.  He was best known for the sack of Baghdad in AD 1258 that led to the destruction of much of the city — including the House of Wisdom, also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad — and the execution of Baghdad's leader. 

After 1259, with the death of Möngke [MONG – kay] Khan, another grandson of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire began to fragment.  Hulagu Khan ruled a separate Mongol Empire in the Middle East, called the Ilkhanate [ il – KAA - nayt ], which encompassed about the same area as the ancient Persian Empire.  The Ilkhanate was short-lived, beginning to collapse by the early 1300s, with the last remnants destroyed in 1357.

Historical records mention a palace and summer capital in eastern Turkey, but don’t identify exactly where.  Because of this, some researchers advise that more information is needed before the newly discovered palace can be tied to the Khan family. 

According to Munkhtulga Rinchinkhorol, an archaeologist with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, the ruins of the palace have been heavily looted, with much of the complex destroyed.  Despite the damage, the team has found the remains of glazed roof tiles, bricks, pottery glazed in three colors, and porcelain. 

Among the most important finds suggesting the palace belonged to Hulagu Khan are ceramic roof tiles marked with the swastika, a symbol of power that was used by the Mongol Khans.

Several forms of swastika patterns were used in ancient and medieval times and one version was appropriated by the Nazis in the twenty-first century.  The tiles with these symbols are among the reasons why researchers believe that they have found a palace.   

As reported by Live Science.com, historical records from the thirteenth century mention a strong Mongol presence in the area, including a palace somewhere between Lake Van and Lake Urmiya in Iran, and a summer capital northeast of Lake Van.  Hulagu Khan reportedly was buried on an island in Lake Urmiya, but the tomb has never been found.

While some scholars are not yet convinced, they consider the discovery exciting and hope to see more research emerge.  What is apparent is that this was an important region for the Mongols. 

Our last story this week takes us to northern Haiti, where DNA analysis of a horse tooth has shed light on the genetics of horses in the Spanish colonies of the Americas, including a tantalizing hint about the origin of the present-day wild ponies of Chincoteague, off the coast of Virginia.  This story is reported by both sci-news.com and nationalgeographic.com..

The horse DNA comes from the town of Puerto Real, one of Spain’s first colonial settlements.  Puerto Real was established in 1507 and for over 60 years was the last port of call for ships sailing from the Caribbean back to Spain.  However, rampant piracy and the rise of illegal trade prompted the Spanish to move operations to a different port on the island, and by 1578, residents were ordered to evacuate Puerto Real.

The abandoned town was destroyed the following year by Spanish officials. Its remnants were rediscovered in 1975, and the Florida Museum of Natural History carried out archaeological excavations between 1979 and 1990. 

The new research results from work on the collection by Dr. Nicolas Delsol, a researcher from the Florida Museum of Natural History.  According to Delsol, horse fossils and associated artifacts were very rare at Puerto Real, because horses were a scarce, prestige possession, reserved for individuals of high status. 

In the new study, Dr. Delsol and his colleagues examined a tooth fragment, originally misidentified as cow, found at Puerto Real. They sequenced the mitochondrial genome and were able to confirm a correct species identification. The genetic sequencing also made this the earliest known complete mitogenome of a post-Columbian domestic horse in the Americas.

According to the results, this horse belongs to a genetic lineage called equine haplogroup A, whose members are from southern Europe, supporting the hypothesis that they originated on the Iberian Peninsula. 

The surprise was that the genotyping showed that this specific horse’s closest living relatives are the wild horses on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.  

The origins of the Chincoteague ponies are mysterious, with multiple theories for how they arrived.  The most famous lore, captured in a famous series of children’s books, starting with “Misty of Chincoteague,” tells of the ponies descending from horses that swam ashore following the sinking of a Spanish ship off the Virginia coast, sometime around 1750.  However, with no historical records for such a ship, many historians believed instead that the ponies came from more recent runaway livestock.  

The surprising link from the sixteenth-century Haitian horse DNA to a purported eighteenth-century Virginia shipwreck highlights how DNA can illuminate not just known historical events, but also less clearly understood episodes, much more distant in space and time.  If the DNA evidence is correct, it establishes Chincoteague Island’s feral horses as living proof that Spanish activity along North America’s Atlantic coastline continued for three centuries.  Alternatively, the Chincoteague wreck may have occurred earlier than the legend states.

Even though the study presents only a single mitochondrial genome, the authors point to the significance of the results in multiple respects.  First, the horse tooth belongs to a common Iberian lineage and points to the Iberian Peninsula as the source of many early American domestic horses.  Secondly, the relationships between this horse and others in the Americas will help clarify our understanding of the path horses took as they also colonized the Americas. 

The study was first published in the journal PLoS ONE.

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 Kennedy and I’ll see you next week!