Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew, with our four 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!

Research on a Late Bronze Age city on the Syrian coast shows how and why it survived the Bronze Age collapse when others did not.  A study of glass trade beads from the Great Lakes region details how Indigenous preferences and population movements affected the beads’ manufacture and distribution.  A study featured by PBS shines a light on what happened to the survivors of the AD79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.  And a Live Science report highlights the ancient chronology of the world’s oldest known wooden sculpture.

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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 June 9th through the 15th, 2024.

Our first story this week comes from the ruins of Tel Tweini [TWAY-nee], on the coast of northern Syria, where researchers analyzed the remains of plants, animals and humans to reveal the people’s diet.  The results show how this Bronze Age city may have used irrigation technology and an early version of the Mediterranean diet to survive through centuries while other Late Bronze Age civilizations collapsed from climate change and marauders.  

As reported by Haaretz, Tel Tweini was part of the coastal kingdom of Ugarit (you-GAHR-uht).  Ugarit was a small city-state on the Mediterranean coast that thrived during the time of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Mycenae in Greece.  Like these other Bronze Age powers, however, Ugarit collapsed around 1200 BC.  Nineteenth-century scholars attributed this to mysterious raiders called the Sea Peoples, who destroyed many cities in the Levant and even battled Ramesses the Great in Egypt.  

Newer research, however, suggests the Sea Peoples might not have been the cause of the Bronze Age collapse, but rather just one more disruption during a prolonged drought that destabilized the entire region. 

The new study of dietary evidence from Tel Tweini corroborates the hypothesis that drought was at the root of the crisis.  Tel Tweini is ripe for such a study, since was one of the few survivors.

Excavations of Tel Tweini, from 1999 to 2010, revealed that the city was destroyed multiple times, but was able to rebuild each time.  Beginning with its founding around 4,500 years ago in the Early Bronze Age, it survived through the crucial Late Bronze Age, and into the classical era, with an ultimate abandonment around 500 BC.   

In this new research, an international team from universities in Belgium, Germany and British Columbia combined isotopic analysis of organic remains with broader archaeological findings to determine the diet of humans and animals at Tel Tweini.  The study focused on hundreds of bones, seeds and vegetable remains. 

The results show that the city followed an early version of the modern Mediterranean diet, eating grains such as wheat, emmer, barley, and rye; grapes from hillside vineyards, olives from their orchards, legumes like bitter vetch, and other vegetable foods.  They ate surprisingly little meat, fish, and dairy protein. 

According to the lead researcher, Dr. Benjamin Fuller, from the University of Leuven [LOO-vn] in Belgium, the isotopic evidence in the human bones and teeth, which provides a record of dietary composition and quality, showed very low levels of nitrogen.  This indicates that the people of Tel Tweini consumed very little animal protein, probably only killing their animals when they were too old for other uses. 

The carbon isotope analysis also revealed that the city did not consume much fish, despite being an important coastal city.  Some other ancient Mediterranean civilizations also did not eat seafood, and the reasons for this are unknown. 

Tel Tweini appears to have survived in part by shifting its pattern of trade toward Cyprus and away from the  regional capital, Ugarit, which declined and fell.  Even more important, though, the isotope analysis of plant remains shows that people kept their crops well-watered during the crises, especially the grapes and olives.  Tel Tweini had both the technology for this and the location, with a river on either side of the town, plus many springs and wetlands.

The study appears in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. 

Our next story comes from the Western Great Lakes region in North America, where archaeologists used chemical analysis of glass beads to show how Indigenous peoples conducted trade in the region and across transatlantic trade networks. 

As reported by Phys.org, glass beads were integral to early trade between Europeans and Indigenous Americans.  To this day, glass beads are important to many Indigenous cultures for use on clothing and other personal items. 

An important group in these early trade networks was the Wendat Confederacy, which moved from southern Ontario to the western Great Lakes region in 1650, two decades before Europeans began colonizing the region, around 1670. 

Dr. Heather Walder and Dr. Alicia L. Hawkins, from the Universities of Wisconsin, conducted the study by examining the chemical composition of over a thousand glass beads made in the seventeenth century in Europe and then traded into eastern North America. 

The study examined three colors of glass beads with different chemicals added for color: navy blue beads, colored with cobalt; turquoise from copper; and white from tin.  They analyzed beads excavated from 15 identified sites in Wendake, the original Ontario homeland of the Wendat, occupied from 1580 to 1650, as well as beads from 31 Wendat sites around the western Great Lakes, and 6 European sites from the period.  The research used minimally invasive techniques to determine the composition without destroying the beads. 

European glassmaking centers have similar recipes but different raw material sources, allowing the researchers to pinpoint bead origins.  The results show how beads from the western Great Lake region shared origins with beads from Ontarian Wendat villages before 1650.  This finding suggests that the Wendat traded with inhabitants like the Anishinaabe (ah-nish-in-NAH-beh) to their west before they themselves migrated to the area. 

Previous research has shown that navy and white beads were easily accepted by Native communities because of their resemblance to Native shell beads.  However, the most popular bead color later was red, a particularly significant color in Wendat culture.  The change in frequency suggests that European bead manufacture changed in direct response to Indigenous preferences. 

According to Dr. Walder, glass beads are not simply an accurate way to date a site.  More than that, they are evidence of economic and social relationships.  This study also documents how Indigenous peoples used strategies of resistance such as migration, rather than simply being passive victims of European colonial activities.

The full study is available in the journal Antiquity.

Our third story takes us to the Italian coast, where new research indicates that the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum (hur-kyuh-LAY-nee-uhm) had survivors that moved to nearby towns. 

As reported by The Conversation, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24th in AD 79 buried the cities.  The Conversation article, by researcher Steven L. Tuck from Miami University in Ohio, shows how the survivors of the eruption rebuilt their lives.  The research is featured in a new PBS documentary series, Pompeii: The New Dig.

Pompeii and Herculaneum were both wealthy cities that supported nearby countryside villas.  Pompeii had a population of around 30,000 people, with bustling political and financial activity.  Herculaneum had around 5,000 people, and was known for its fishing fleet and marble workshops. 

Diverse evidence shows that at least part of each city’s population was able to flee.  Despite the shocking evidence of human remains in each city’s ruins, the total number of directly observable victims is small compared to the overall population.  Researchers have also not found many important objects like carts, horses, ships, and contents of cash boxes in the ash, suggesting many people grabbed their goods and fled in advance of the toxic fumes, ash and lava. 

Tuck developed a new methodology to search for survivors, tracing the Roman names that were unique to families and people of these cities.  Picking out these distinctive names, like Numerius Popidius (new-MERR-ee-uhs  POP-id-ee-us), he searched for them in surrounding communities, sifting through tens of thousands of inscriptions. 

He found evidence of over 200 survivors living in 12 towns near Pompeii.  It appears that survivors generally lived near other survivors, as they relied on social and economic networks from their original cities. 

Some survivors appear to have thrived in the new communities.  Others seem to have suffered, either due to preexisting poverty or new poverty caused by the eruption.  However, historical records indicate the survivors were generous to each other and their new cities. 

This is evidenced by improved infrastructure in nearby communities in the years after the eruption.  Roman emperors helped the region by rebuilding damaged properties and funding new infrastructure such as roads, water sources and temples. 

This study not only provides new insights into the after-effects of the Vesuvian eruption, but it also demonstrates a possible model for post-disaster recovery with governmental aid. 

Our final story turns to the Ural Mountains in Russia, the find location for the famous Shigir [shih-GEAR] Idol, the world’s oldest known wooden sculpture.  The latest analysis, published in 2018 and 2021, suggests it’s even older than was thought, around 9600 BC.  This puts the sculpture on the boundary between the Pleistocene and the Holocene, making it the oldest wooden sculpture in the world.

As reported this week by Live Science, the fragmented statue was found in the Shigir Peat Bog in 1894.  It was initially reconstructed to stand 5.3 meters high.  Some of the fragments have since been lost, so the current figure on display is 3.4 meters tall. 

Made from the trunk of a single larch tree, the Shigir Idol depicts a human figure with a plank-like body and a round head.  The body is covered in engraved ornamental patterns largely consisting of zig-zag lines.  Different researchers have identified up to seven carved faces on the front and back of the body.  These faces may reflect early Eurasian mythologies and their placement may reflect an internal hierarchy. 

Traces of tool use on the surface of the idol suggest the use of a polished stone adze and stone chisels.  These types of tools have been found in the Ural region in sites dated to a similar point in time.

Researchers for a long time found it difficult to date the idol.  Conventional radiocarbon dating assigned it to the Boreal Mesolithic period, from 7900 to 7600 BC.  More recently, researchers used AMS, or accelerated mass spectrometer, dating, for a more precise result using smaller particles of material. 

Researchers were able to measure 137 out of 159 tree rings on the sculpture, and took seven samples of four tree rings each for AMS analysis.  They had to work hard to avoid areas affected by a century of conservation and restoration processes that put deposits of resins, glues and other stabilizers into the fragile wood. 

The samples produced a considerable difference in dates, with the most recent being the early Atlantic period, around 9000 years ago, and the oldest coming from the Late Paleolithic, around 12000 years ago. 

This is likely due to the contamination by restorations.  The samples providing the latest date originate from closer to the surface, the area most affected by consolidants. 

The most reliable samples are thus the ones taken near the idol’s center.  Based on these, researchers proposed a date of around 9600 BC, in the early Pre-Boreal era, making the statue around 12,000 years old. 

The markings on the statue are similar to those found in stone ruins at the Neolithic Göbekli Tepe (goh-BEK-lee  TEH-peh) site in Turkey.  Anatolia is the only region other than the Urals where evidence is found for early Holocene monumental anthropomorphic sculptures.

The intended purpose of the Shigir Idol remains unknown.  Some scholars speculate it was used in rituals.  In any case, the sculpture allows for a better understanding of the spiritual and symbolic world of early Eurasian hunter-gatherers. 

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!