Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, here to share with you 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!

In a stunning development, the Altar Stone at Stonehenge now has its source in faraway Scotland.  Mexican excavators at the Yucatan Peninsula site of Coba report the discovery of a giant stone inscription beneath a sacred pool.  A Neanderthal cave site in northern Spain demonstrates remarkable capabilities for people once regarded as dim-witted cavemen.  And archaeologists who dug a cave site in western New Guinea report really early dates that appear to identify the pathway taken by early seafaring migrants on their way to Australia.

Thanks to everyone for supporting our subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, available at heritagetac.org.  We now have hundreds of titles you can binge upon on Roku.  Please help us spread the word!  Again, that link is heritagetac.org.

Our tour program, TAC Tours, will continue in March 2025 with our tour of southern Iran and its many spectacular sites spanning thousands of years in the cradle of civilization.  Space is still available for this rare opportunity!  The link to our tour program is at archaeologychannel.org/tours.

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 August 11th through the 17th, 2024.

We begin the week on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, where a new analysis has solved one of the biggest mysteries of Stonehenge: the origin of its colossal Altar Stone.  The findings, as reported by Reuters and published by the study authors in Nature, revealed that the stone's geothermal fingerprint is a perfect match for bedrock found in northeastern Scotland.

Researchers were stunned.  For the past century, archaeologists commonly believed that the Altar Stone originated in Wales, as did the other large pieces at Stonehenge.  This new information indicates that rather than traveling 155 miles, it journeyed from northeastern Scotland to southern England —a distance of some 435 to 465 miles. 

Employing a micro-analysis technique, researchers used a laser beam to analyze the age and chemistry of zircon, apatite and rutile grains in two Altar Stone fragments.  The zircon primarily dated to 1 to 2 billion years ago.  The apatite and rutile dated to about 450 million years ago. According to geologist and study co-author Nick Pearce of Aberystwyth [ab er RIST with] University in Wales, the resulting "age fingerprint" is an exact match to that of minerals found in the Orcadian Basin in Scotland.

According to study co-author Chris Kirkland, isotope geology professor at Curtin University in Australia, the findings completely change the understanding of prehistoric technology in Neolithic Britain, indicating that its communities were much more organized and sophisticated than previously thought. 

Roughly at the same time Egypt was building the Great Pyramid, some 4,600 years ago, or shortly thereafter, these people very likely used land and sea to transport the massive stone from Scotland to Wiltshire.  According to the researchers, the simple boats of the time could have served to transport it down the coastline.

The planning and effort involved in this undertaking indicates how important it was to the Stonehenge builders.  

The Altar Stone is different from the other large stones that make up the monument in several other ways.  It’s not part of the circular design, and sits flat, like a table, instead of upright.    Researchers aren’t sure if it was always oriented this way or exactly how it was used.  They do know that during the solstice, the setting sun lights it up. 

Erection of large stones at Stonehenge started in approximately 3000 BC and continued in stages over an estimated 800 years.  Today, it's a powerful source of fascination, drawing tourists from all over the world in search of a moving connection to our past. 

Our next story takes us to the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo [keen TA nuh ROO], where archaeologists from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History have unearthed a massive stone panel with a hundred and twenty-three Maya glyphs painstakingly carved into its surface. 

As reported by Heritage Daily, the team located the panel near the ancient ruins of Coba [coh-BAH] at the bottom of a sacred pool near the Nohoch Mul [NOH-hohch-mool], the tallest Maya pyramid in the Peninsula and second tallest in the world.  Coba was continuously inhabited for over 1,500 years and served as a Maya seat of government.  At its peak between AD 500 and 900, the city housed an estimated 50,000 residents.  

Archaeologists have uncovered other engraved and sculpted monuments in Coba, but this panel answers some questions about the dynastic sequence of the city.  An epigraphic study of its glyphs revealed the name of a previously unknown Maya ruler of Cobá: K’awiil Ch’ak Chée [KAH will chahk chee].  He took on the name of K’awil [KAH will], the Maya lightning god.  

The glyphs also refer to the founding of a town named Keh Witz Nal, or Deer Mountain, in AD 569.  Others mention the gods thought to have founded Coba, including Bolón Tz'akab Ajaw [boh-LOHN-TZAH-kahb-AH-jaw], also referred to as the Lord of Countless Generations.  

The combined glyphs form an L shape and cover over eleven square meters or 118 square feet.  Because erosion caused by rain, stagnating water and the ravages of time have damaged the stone glyph, archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History are working to preserve it.   

With the help of high-resolution 3D construction, a permanent record for more in-depth future epigraphic study is now available.  For now, the team is concentrating on restoring and preserving the giant panel against further damage.  

Our third story takes us to the Abric Pizarro [AB-rick pee ZAH-roe], a site in an uncharted area in the southern Pyrenees foothills of Spain and one of only a few sites worldwide dating back 65,000 to 100,000 years.  Here, researchers are finding clues about Neanderthal culture that may help them unravel the mystery of these archaic humans' downfall.

As reported by Phys.org, and in the paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, researchers have gathered hundreds of thousands of artifacts including stone tools and animal bones.  They show that Neanderthals were very good at adapting to their environment, challenging the long-held view that they were dim-witted cavemen.  

According to Australian National University archaeologist Dr. Sofia Samper Carro, the study's lead author, evidence shows Neanderthals studied and mastered the best ways to benefit from their surroundings.  The animal bones the team uncovered indicate that these people were successfully hunting all kinds of animals— not only red deer, horses, and bison, but also freshwater turtles and rabbits.  They even found ways of adapting and even thriving in harsh climatic conditions, thus suggesting a degree of planning rarely associated with Neanderthals.  

The bones at this site are well preserved, with cut marks providing direct proof that Neanderthals were capable of hunting small animals.  The analysis of the stone artifacts shows variety in the types of tools they made—another indication that Neanderthals knew how to take advantage of their surroundings.

About 40,000 years ago, after living in Europe for nearly 300,000 years, Neanderthals disappeared from the archaeological record.  It’s still not clear what caused their extinction.  Since modern humans hadn’t yet arrived in the area at the time of Abric Pizarro and other nearby Neanderthal sites, the site offers valuable information about how these early people lived prior to that contact.

The team is 3D-plotting every item larger than one to two centimeters—a task that requires extreme patience.  Archaeologists have been excavating some of these sites for over 20 years, but the results they've obtained provide a uniquely precise record.  

While the individual materials of the stone tools, bones and hearths are important, Dr. Carro notes that knowing how the findings relate to one another is just as critical.  Maybe the Neanderthals settled here.  Maybe they merely passed through from time to time. Only time and research will tell.

We end our week on Waigeo [WAY jee oh] Island in the Raja Ampat [RAZH-a AM-paht] archipelago of West Papua, New Guinea, where researchers are studying the migration patterns of seafarers who crossed and settled in the Ice Age continent of Sahul, the biggest part of which today are New Guinea and Australia.  These patterns are highly significant because they shaped the dispersal of our species across the planet.  

As reported by Phys.org, the people who made this journey became the ancestors of the people who live in the region of New Guinea and Australia today.  Archaeologists are still trying to pinpoint the exact timing, location and nature of these early dispersals.  

This new research, published in the journal Antiquity, has provided direct evidence that seafarers traveled along the equator to reach islands off the coast of West Papua over 50 millennia ago.  The fieldwork is the first of its kind and includes an academic collaboration from New Zealand, West Papua, Indonesia, and more.  

An excavation at Mololo Cave on Waigeo Island uncovered several layers of human occupation that included stone artifacts, animal bones, shells, and charcoal.  Radiocarbon dating of this material at the University of Oxford and the University of Waikato indicates that humans were living at Mololo at least 55,000 years ago.  This early date supports the interpretation that modern humans arrived in Australia via a northern route into West Papua, rather than by a southern route more directly from Indonesia and Timor Island.  The earliest dates from Timor, around 44 thousand years ago, are too late to account for the earliest dates in Australia, which are between 60 and 65 thousand years ago.  This discrepancy had archaeologists scratching their heads until the early Mololo Cave dates came in and pointed to the northern pathway.

The study of animal bones from Mololo indicates that people hunted ground-dwelling birds, marsupials and possibly megabats.  The hunting of small, difficult-to-capture animals shows that  people were adapting to rainforest resources in addition to more easily gathered coastal foods.  This is an important example of adaptation and flexibility in challenging conditions.

Another key object found was a tree-resin artifact, the earliest example of human use of resin outside Africa.  Scanning-electron microscope analysis indicates that the piece was made in stages: cutting a tree, allowing its resin to drip down and harden, then snapping the hardened resin into shape.  While the use of this artifact is unknown, it may have served as a fuel source for starting a fire inside the cave.  

The Mololo excavation is helping archaeologists clarify the precise time humans moved Sahul and the routes they used.  This knowledge has major implications for how rapidly our species dispersed out of Africa to Asia and Oceania.  It may also shed light on whether people drove Oceanic megafauna like giant kangaroos and giant wombats to extinction, and how humans interacted with other hominins, such as the Flores Island inhabitants known as Hobbits, that lived on the Indonesian islands until about 50,000 years ago.

While political and social unrest in the region has limited the amount of research being done, results so far have shown that early West Papuans were sophisticated, highly mobile, and able to devise creative solutions to living on small tropical islands.  Ongoing excavations aim to learn more about how people adapted to climatic and environmental changes in the region.

That wraps up the news for this week!