Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew and here are our top news stories from this past week of Archaeologica!  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

Skull fragments from Crimea appear to show that the first modern humans in western Europe migrated westward from eastern Europe.  A mass burial of headless skeletons in a Chinese village is a prime example of head-hunting during the Neolithic.  A huge trove of Roman coins came to light on the sea floor just off the coast of Sardinia.  And Mexican archaeologists working at Edzná in Campeche state have identified a building with architectural connections to Chichen Itzá in Yucatan, far to the northeast..

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And now, here’s Laura Kennedy 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 Kennedy, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news for the week of November 5th through the 11th, 2023.

Our first story this week focuses on two skull fragments from Ukraine that may be the earliest examples of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Europe.  The fragments were found in 2009 at the Buran Kaya III [Bur hahn KAY uh Three] archaeological site in the Crimean Peninsula.  The genomes of the two people represented have now been analyzed by a French team and compared to other ancient individuals, as well as modern Europeans.  The results suggest that these two people were part of a large migration into Europe during the Upper Paleolithic that interbred with and eventually replaced the Neanderthals who lived in Europe before them.   

As reported by the science website phys.org, this analysis allowed the team to generate a broad, up-to-date model of population movements, interactions and replacements during the Upper Paleolithic, the period from around 40,000 to 12,000 years ago.  This period was characterized by the expansion of anatomically modern humans around the world.  

The two individuals were actually part of the second wave of European settlement by modern humans.  A first population was wiped out by an ice age lasting forty centuries, which followed the eruption of a supervolcano near present-day Naples, Italy.  While the genomes of that first wave are not found in present-day Europeans, traces of inbreeding with them do appear in a sample from the second wave, indicating that the first modern humans were not completely replaced, and some must have survived the ecological crisis.  

The Buran Kaya III fragments also revealed a genetic link with contemporary and later Caucasian populations, indicating the direction of early migration was from the Middle East, through the Caucasus, into present-day Ukraine.  This suggests that the ancestors of anatomically modern humans came from Eastern Europe and migrated westward.

The strongest genetic link discovered in the Crimean fragments is with samples found in southwest France and northeast Spain, followed by samples from Austria and the Czech Republic.  This connects them to the Classical Gravettian period in central and western Europe, dating from 26,000 to 34,000 years ago.  That culture is known for producing female ivory statues known as the Gravettian Venuses, found in those four areas.  This suggests the individuals from Buran Kaya III were ancestors of the Gravettian people, perhaps already practicing a culture that can be described as proto-Gravettian.

The study appears in the online journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution.

Next we go to Honghe [HONG-her] in northeastern China, where the discovery of 41 headless skeletons has shed light on the Neolithic practice of taking enemy heads as trophies.  Thirty-two of the headless victims appear to have been killed in a single event, making this the largest head-hunting event from Neolithic China on record.  

According to LiveScience.com, 68 skeletons dating from 4,100 to 4,400 years ago have been recovered from the settlement.  Artifacts including bone and stone tools and pottery appeared with the skeletons.  Most of the skeletons were in mass graves in two houses along with three tombs, and a pit outside a house.

The site, first discovered in the 1990s, has seen six previous excavations.

Surprisingly, all 41 of the headless skeletons belonged to females and juveniles.  The researchers hypothesize that rival attackers may have targeted women and children to create an interpersonal conflict with a high level of cruelty.  

According to senior author Qian Wang [kee AHN HWANG] of Texas A&M University, cut marks on the neck vertebrae suggest that the attackers wielded knives with stone blades.

The new study proposes two possible reasons behind the beheading.  One is that it was a ritual, in which taking heads allowed the conquerors to possess the souls and energy of the victims.  According to Wang, this particular ritual might have required the heads of women and children.

The other possibility is warfare between communities, which is suggested by the triple trenches around the settlement, probably built for defense.  Since most Honghe people would have been farmers, fishers and hunters, the attackers may have struck while many villagers were away working.  When they returned to the massacred bodies of their loved ones, they might have buried them in the houses and abandoned the settlement.

Our third story takes us to the Mediterranean Sea, where a diver off Arzachena, (ART-sa-KAIN-uh) on the northeastern shore of Sardinia, found thousands of bronze coins shimmering among the seagrass in shallow waters.  The coins were a late Roman type called “follis” [FOH-lis], made of bronze or copper, and used in the first half of the fourth century.

The diver notified the authorities, and the Italian Ministry of Culture dispatched an art protection dive squad, including firefighters, border police and members of the ministry’s undersea archaeology department.  

As reported by Arkeonews.net, the coins date to the early fourth century, and a weight-based estimate indicates a number between thirty and fifty thousand specimens.  If confirmed, the figure will surpass the previous record of 22,888 coins found in 2013 in Seaton, England.  All but four of the Sardinian coins are extremely well preserved, and even the four damaged pieces are still legible.  

The coins are from AD 324 to 340, as shown by the representations of Constantine the Great and other family members.  They come from almost all the mints of the empire that were active during that period.  

Also found were deposits of amphoras -- tall, narrow-necked Roman or Greek jugs with two handles.  These were from Africa and eastern provinces, and were still as close-packed as they had been when they were loaded onto a ship for transport. 

Because the majority of the coins were found in a sandy area between the underwater seagrass and the beach, archaeologists think the remains of the ship transporting them could be nearby.  But to find it, time will be of the essence.  According to Luigi La Rocca, a Sardinian archaeology department official, the area is a fragile one, constantly threatened both by natural and human activity.

Our last story takes us to Edzná [eds-NAH], a Maya city on the Yucatán peninsula in the Mexican state of Campeche [kam-PAY-chay].  Edzná is known for its sophisticated water management system and terraced farming layout, which allowed it to grow faster and larger than neighboring city-states.

Edzná translates in Maya to “House of the Itzás” [eet-SAHS], which has led some to propose that the city was the first home of the Itzá family before they moved on to found the iconic city of Chichen Itzá, one of the largest cities in the Maya world.

As reported by Heritage Daily, archaeological work by specialists from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History has revealed that one of Edzná's buildings, Structure 512, is architecturally similar to the courtyard-gallery type buildings of Chichén Itzá, located nearly 191 miles away from Edzná in the state of Yucatán.

Previous studies had noted signs of the Puuc [poo-OOK] Hills style in Edzná architecture, in keeping with Edzná’s location just southwest of the Puuc Hills.  This distinctive style is characterized by fine stonework, deeply cut façades, and decorated friezes.  The newly observed similarities in architectural layout between Edzná and Chichén Itzá suggest that its cultural links stretched even farther east than previously believed.

Structure 512 dates from the Early Postclassic period, which ran from AD 900 to 1200, but was constructed on an earlier building from the Classic period, lasting from AD 200 to 600.  The quadrangular design features a porticoed entrance with two bays, two columns that supported a roof, and a lower chamber excavated into the bedrock that likely functioned as a tomb.

The region around Edzná was already part of Maya civilization by the fifth century B.C., and became a major population center around AD 200.  Based on radiocarbon dating, Edzná is believed to have fallen in the tenth century, though archaeologists aren’t sure why.  It would continue to function as a religious pilgrimage destination for many years.

In modern times, the site remained unknown until its rediscovery by local farmers in 1906.

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 growing subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org!

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