Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, and here are 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!

Underwater archaeologists in Egypt have documented ancient inscriptions beneath the waters of Lake Nasser.  Excavators in Argentina report the discovery of a very early site with evidence that humans hunted a now-extinct species of armadillo.  Researchers in northwestern Saudi Arabia describe a Neolithic site with eight round structures that were probably houses.  And paleomagnetic dating of a site in southern Spain suggests that the earliest human ancestors in Europe came by way of Gibraltar.

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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 July 14th through the 20th, 2024.

We begin this week in the Nile River south of Aswan, Egypt, where, according to LiveScience, archaeologists have uncovered rock carvings that have been underwater since the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s.  

Prior to the flooding of the dam, UNESCO tried to record and protect as many of the antiquities as they could, but many artifacts couldn’t be relocated in time, and their loss was inevitable.  

According to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, a team of French and Egyptian archaeologists were recently tasked with locating and making a record of the inscriptions they found.  The team used video, photography and photogrammetry to record these inscriptions and carvings. 

Photogrammetry combines digital photographs to create a map or 3D model of the original, a very useful technique for digitally preserving these historic works.  The drawings depicted several ancient Egyptian pharaohs with hieroglyphics carved in rocks.  They included Amenhotep <Amen HO tep> the Third, Thutmose <THUHT-mohz> the Fourth, Psamtik <SAHM tick> the Second, and Apries <APE reese>.  The team has not yet released information on the specifics of the various hieroglyphics. 

According to William Caruthers, a lecturer in the School of Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Essex in the UK, more carvings survived the flooding than archaeologists might have expected.  

Aswan was important to the ancient Egyptians.  At times, it lay close to the country’s southern border and near a number of important temples.  They include Abu Sembel, home to four colossal statues of Ramses the Second, each some 69 feet tall.  The Philae <FILE ee> temple complex, where the last Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription was written in AD 394, is also located in Aswan. 

According to Alejandro Jiminez-Serrano, a professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Jaen [ha-AYN] in Spain and an archaeologist who leads excavations at a necropolis near Aswan, the site was also an important quarry for granite used in different parts of Egypt.  Carvings found there may have been intended for use in either Aswan temples or elsewhere in the country. 

Our second story takes us to Argentina, where archaeologists have uncovered the butchered bones of a glyptodont – a giant, extinct relative of the armadillo.  

The discovery of the bones, reported by LiveScience, provides even more evidence that people had spread throughout the Americas much earlier than previously thought.  Archaeologists once theorized that the first people in the Americas arrived by traveling over a land bridge approximately 13,000 years ago, but the butchering techniques used on the ancient armadillos now indicate that humans arrived some 21,000 years ago or more.  

The technical report of this discovery appeared in the online journal, Plos One.  According to study co-author Miguel Delgado, a paleoanthropologist at Argentina's National University of La Plata, early humans possibly targeted these animals because of their large size and muscle packs.  

Researchers found the animal skeleton along the banks of the Reconquista <ray con KEES ta> River on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.  The remains included parts of the pelvis and tail and portions of the carapace.  

They photographed and created 3D scans of the animal bones to find out if the marks were man-made.  The V-shaped pattern of the cut suggests that humans used a stone tool to butcher the creature.  Researchers counted 32 cut marks, made in a pattern they concluded was not random. 

They also ruled out carnivores as the cause of the cuts.  The teeth marks of carnivores leave a U-shaped cross-section, not a V-shaped one.  Natural weathering was also eliminated as a cause of the marks.  Evidence showed that the animal’s body was quickly buried after death, preventing any weathering or disturbance by scavengers.  The patterns of the marks on certain parts of the body reveal a butchering sequence suggesting that ancient humans ate a large amount of meat from the muscles of the pelvis and tail. 

This study not only revealed more about the interaction of humans and animals, but that this interaction—and the very presence of humans—happened earlier than previously thought in the southern region of South America.  

Loren Davis, an archaeologist at Oregon State University who was not involved in the study, observes that while the initial research and advanced approach are commendable, more study is required to fully confirm the differences between human action and natural processes on bones in this context.

The researchers also noted the importance of establishing a stronger connection between fossil bones with cut marks and artifacts in the same deposits.  Delgado concluded by saying that only a small portion of the site has been excavated and the team might find yet more evidence.

Our third story takes us to the vast Uwayrid lava field in northwestern Saudi Arabia, near the ancient oasis city of Al Ula, where, according to ArkeoNews, archaeologists have excavated eight circular structures that they suggest were used as dwellings.

Aerial surveys have identified 345 of these dwellings, and researchers from the University of Western Australia and the University of Sydney say that each of the eight structures they've analyzed had roofs and at least one doorway. 

The study, led by Jane McMahon from the University of Sydney and supervised by the Saudi Royal Commission of AI UIa, indicates that the people of the area were more advanced and sophisticated than previously thought.

Dating back around 7,000 years, in the Neolithic Period, the structures are made of vertically erected stone slabs 4 to 8 meters in diameter.  The outer circle comprised two rows of stone slabs,  likely used as a foundation for roof support columns of acacia wood.  A central slab within the stone circles acted as a support for the main wooden column, suggesting that these ancient people understood the principles of weight distribution and structural support.  

Animal remains uncovered at the sites suggest that the roofs were made from animal skins.  Archaeologists also uncovered many basalt stone tools.  Other tools unearthed indicate that these ancient people were involved in sheep shearing and slaughter.  

These dwellings had many other uses.  McMahon and her team found evidence of stone toolmaking, cooking and eating utensils, and lost and broken tools used for tanning animal hides.   

The team, which included researchers from King Saud University; local residents like Youssef Al-Balawi, who offered ethnographic and cultural insights; and students from the University of Hail, also found a variety of seashells, all from the Red Sea about 75 miles to the west.  Other artifacts included sandstone and limestone ornaments and a piece of red sandstone chalk, possibly used for drawing. Arrowheads matching those used in southern and eastern Jordan are a clear indication that the two regions interacted.  

Clearly, these early inhabitants were more diversely skilled than previously thought. They used sophisticated architecture; domesticated animals; constructed ornaments, decorations, and a variety of tools; adapted to their environment; and interacted with neighboring communities.

The technical report for this research appeared in the journal Levant.

Our final story this week takes us to the Iberian Peninsula, where evidence suggests that early hominins expanded into Europe out of Africa, not Asia.  Hominins include modern humans as well as their immediate and distant ancestors.

As reported by Cosmos Magazine, and in a technical report published in ScienceDirect, a new dating technique has helped researchers understand this early migration pattern.  Called paleomagnetism, it is a record in rocks that shows the direction of Earth’s magnetic field and how it has flipped.  The flips don’t occur at regular intervals, but the record of the swapping of the poles can be used to establish dates from different magnetic events.

Based on the findings at the Orce [ORTH] sites in the Baza basin of Grenada, Spain, the first European hominins migrated into the south of the Iberian Peninsula 1.3 million years ago.  Lluis Gilbert, lead researcher and lecturer at the University of Barcelona in Spain, defends the hypothesis that hominins arrived via Gibraltar, because no older evidence has been found at any other site on the alternative route.  The results reinforce the hypothesis that humans arrived in Europe through the Strait of Gibraltar instead of returning to the Mediterranean through Asia.  

One unique feature of the Orce sites is that they are layered and feature a sedimentary sequence over 80 meters long.  Usually, such sites are found in caves with short stratigraphic sequences that don’t allow researchers to find different magnetic reversals.  

Additional evidence indicates that hominins migrated northward into Spain from Africa.  The animal life in this area, like hippopotami and primates, are related to animals found only in Africa.  Another indicator is the absence of pigs during this time period.  

The five hominin remains found in the Orce site are also compelling evidence.  In excavations begun in 1982 by late palaeoanthropologist Josep Gibert, researchers at Venta Micena found two fragments of upper arm bones bitten by hyenas, along with cranial fragments associated with an abundance of Early Pleistocene animals.  Later studies at the universities of Granada and San Francisco identified human proteins in the remains.

The differing migration patterns are the result of the natural barriers that separate Europe from Africa and Asia.  To the east are the Bosporus Strait, the Dardanelles, and the Sea of Marmara; to the west, the Strait of Gibraltar.  

When humans acquired the resources and technology, they crossed ocean barriers as they did a million years ago on the island of Flores [FLOHR-ess] in Indonesia.

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!