Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew.  We have four fascinating 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!

An ancient hillside geoglyph outlined in chalk in southern England now is determined to be from the early Viking Age.  A royal palace complex just unearthed in central China apparently dates to China’s earliest royal dynasty.  An accidental discovery in Tulum in southeastern Mexico revealed a cave full of human and animal bones.  And the iconography on a bronze belt buckle in the Czech Republic now appears to represent pre-Christian mythology.

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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 December 31st, 2023, through January 6, 2024.

Our first story this week comes from England, where new research confirms that the Cerne [surn] Giant, a huge hillside chalk outline showing a naked, bald man waving a club, is probably Hercules, and originated in the early Middle Ages.

As reported by livescience.com, the 180-foot-tall giant, striding across a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas [AH–bus]] in Dorset, southwest England, has been refreshed periodically by cleaning off the white chalk so that it stood out, and even bringing in fresh white chalk from elsewhere.  

Historical debates placed the chalk carving as early as prehistoric times, or as late as early modern centuries.  The puzzle was resolved in 2021 through the use of a dating technique called optically stimulated luminescence, or OSL  OSL identifies when crystalline materials such as the chalk buried in the lowest layers of the carving were last exposed to sunlight or heat.  

Four small trenches dug through the giant’s elbows and feet showed that the first major refurbishment was between AD 700 and 1110, when chunks of chalk were carried in to refresh the white lines that had slowly been covered with dark soil washing down the hillside or thrown up by burrowing rabbits.   

This time window, confirmed by dates from two of the trenches, marks the giant as an Anglo-Saxon creation, made during the age of Viking raids on England.  The shape of the giant’s head, an upside down teardrop with a wide forehead tapering to a pointy chin, is stylistically similar to other Anglo-Saxon portraits from the time.

The Giant’s left arm, now stretched out awkwardly, probably once held his iconic cloak of lion skin, acquired  when he slew the Nemean lion as part of his 12 labors.  A single line marks his waist.   Although the three lines above it to either side have often been interpreted as ribs or muscles, researchers believe they once stretched completely across as well to depict his belt, another typical attribute of Hercules and other Roman musclemen.

The medieval artists gave him eyebrows, eyes, a mouth, nipples, and an erect phallus.  According to multiple researchers, he also originally had a dot for his navel, which in later times got joined into the top of his phallus to make it even larger.

The new confirmation of the Cerne Giant’s creation date helps explain why he was made  in the first place.  

According to the study’s co-author, Tom Morcom, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway, the carving marked the meeting point for West Saxon armies rallying to fight Viking invaders.  Hercules was a well-known Roman superhero throughout the Middle Ages and the patron deity of Roman soldiers for centuries, so his figure would have been particularly appropriate, marking the assembly spot and inspiring the fighters. 

The carving is just 16 miles from Portland, the site of the first recorded local encounter with Viking raiders sometime around AD 790.  

In the eleventh century Viking attacks waned, and the monks of the nearby monastery, Cerne Abbas, reinterpreted the huge carving as a portrayal of Saint Eadwold [ED-wahld] of Cerne.  Eadwold, a ninth-century hermit and miracle worker, was the local patron saint.

Gittos' and Morcom’s study appears in the online journal Speculum.

Next we go to central China, where a new dig has uncovered a palace complex in Henan Province dating to China’s earliest empire, the Xia [SHYAH] Dynasty, which lasted from 2070 to 1600 BC. 

The finds come from the Guchengzhai site, located on a plateau east of the Zhen River in the modern city of Xinmi [shin-MEE].  

As reported by arkeonews.net, the site covers more than 176,000 square meters and has been undergoing excavations by the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology since 2021.

The Xia Dynasty was the first of many ancient Chinese ruling houses, but many scholars think it was less an historical fact than a semi-mythical period invented by the later Zhou [ZHOH – rhymes with Joe] Dynasty to justify their overthrow of the Shang [SHAWNG] Dynasty, which was said to have overthrown the Xia Dynasty.

The first Xia king, Yu, is said to have repaired the damage from a major flood, thus securing the Mandate of Heaven, or divine right to rule.  Excavations by University of Peking archaeologists have found evidence of large-scale floods from around the Xia time period, possibly confirming that part of the Xia dynastic story.

Now archaeologists excavating at Xinmi have found a possible palace foundation of rammed earth that adds to the story.  The huge foundation is 60 meters long by 30 meters wide, with even rows of holes that would have held roof columns.

According to Li Bo, the excavation director, the distribution pattern of the column holes shows that the overall structure was oriented north-south, with rows of rooms, a central courtyard, and corridors on the east and west sides.  

Another partly excavated rammed earth foundation nearby, about half as large, is believed to be part of the same architectural complex.

According to Li, this area of the Guchengzhai site is likely the core palace zone, and shows a planned large-scale layout using what is known as the four-courtyard palace style.

The new finds will improve understanding about the layout of ancient cities, and provide important evidence for studies of the origin and development of Xia palace buildings.

Our third story takes us to Tulum [too-LOOM], on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, where archaeologists from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History have found a hidden Maya burial chamber concealed in a cave.

As reported by arkeonews.net, the tomb was sealed off by a massive rock deep inside the walled city and held several skeletons.

The discovery came during routine clearing work for a new visitor path in the temple complex.  

A rock had sealed the entrance to the cavity and actually split the skeletal remains of an individual, leaving the lower part of their body outside and the upper part inside.  

According to José Antonio Reyes Solís, the project director, it’s not clear whether this person was a would-be thief or an accidental tragedy. 

Inside the cramped cave, barely taller than half a meter, were eight adult burials, well preserved in the cool, dry environment.  Many skeletal remains of animals accompanied the burials, including mammals such as domestic dogs, mice, opossum, blood-sucking bats, white-tailed deer, armadillo, tapir, and peccary.  Other bones represented varied bird species, reptiles, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and amphibians.  Some animal bones have cut marks; others have been crafted into artifacts such as punches, needles, or fan handles characteristic of the area.

A single ceramic molcajete [mohl-ca-HAY-tay], or grinding bowl, confirmed the burial date as sometime during the late Postclassic period, from AD 1200 to 1550.

Archaeologists described the working conditions in the cave as particularly difficult, owing to the small entryways, low ceilings, lack of natural light, and general heat and humidity.  In addition to photos, a three-dimensional scan of the area will be taken so that researchers and the general public can see the materials and remains in their original context.

We end this week in the Czech Republic, where archaeologists have puzzled out the meaning of a medieval belt buckle showing one animal eating another.  

As reported by livescience.com, the bronze buckle, dating from early medieval times,  depicts a dragon or snake devouring a frog.  A metal detectorist found it near the village of Lány, about 20 miles west of Prague. 

Archaeologists thought the central design was unique until they learned that almost identical artifacts had been unearthed in Germany, Hungary and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, in the past dozen years,

According to Jiří Macháček, an archaeologist at Masaryk University in Brno, they realized it was a symbol from some previously unknown pre-Christian mythology active in multiple regions of central Europe in the early Middle Ages, before the arrival of Christianity.

The motif of a serpent or snake devouring its victim appears in Germanic, Avar [A-var, as in “at”] and Slavic mythology, although its exact meaning is unknown.  Why the motif appears on belt buckles but not other artifacts is also not yet clear.”

Fights with a snake or dragon are common in pagan creation myths, depicting two opposing forces representing the central act of cosmogony, or origin of the world.  The frog is sometimes linked to fertility cult practices.

Macháček and colleagues have now analyzed four of these buckles or belt fittings, from Lány and three others like it.

Previous research suggests the belt fittings were produced in the seventh and eighth centuries and associated with the Avars, a nomadic people thought to be from the Eurasian steppe, who settled in the Carpathian Basin of what is now Hungary beginning in the sixth century.

According to the researchers, the Avars established a "khaganate," or nomadic state, over much of Central Europe.  Other peoples of the region, many of them Slavs, adopted some of the Avar fashions.

Analysis with X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy and other techniques showed that the objects were originally heavily gilded and that all four were made from copper mined in the Slovak Ore Mountains in present-day Slovakia.  An analysis of their shapes based on virtual 3D models suggested that some of the buckles or fittings came from the same workshop or were made from a common model, using the "lost wax" method of casting bronze.

The study appears in the January issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. 

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!