Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew to tell you about 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!

Declassified satellite imagery has revealed the location of a key battle that led to the 

Arab defeat of the Sasanian Empire and the spread of Islam.  Excavators in Belize have identified the earliest known Maya salt production site.  A study of tendon attachments shows that australopithecines had the manual dexterity to make stone tools.  And the recovery and source identification of a crushed pot appears to extend the period of the remarkable ancient Greek renaissance.

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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 10th through the 16th, 2024.

We begin this week in southwest Iraq, where archaeologists have identified the likely location of the historic Battle of al-Qadisiyya [ahl kah deh SEE yuh].  This battle was a decisive victory for the Arab Muslims over the Sasanian [suh-SAY-nee-un} Empire and marked the spread of Islam outside the Arabian Peninsula.

As reported by Arkeonews, based on a study published in Antiquity, archaeologists from Durham University in the UK and the University of Al-Qadisiyah used declassified U.S. spy satellite imagery from the 1970s to identify the site of the battle, they compared it to modern-day imagery and historical records.  This research is part of a bigger project known as the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project.  The team was mapping out the Darb Zubaydah [darb zoo-BYE-duh] pilgrimage route from Kufa in Iraq to Mecca in Saudi Arabia when they identified solid evidence of a more precise location for this battle.

The team of researchers thinks the battlefield is located in Iraq’s Najaf Governorate, about 30 kilometers south of Kufa.  According to Dr.  William Deadman, a specialist in archaeological remote sensing and lead author of the published paper, previous maps could locate the battle only within a 10-20 kilometer margin of error.  In contrast, current satellite imagery has located the battlefield to within possibly one kilometer.

While much of the remains of this battle has been eroded, stretches of it still survive.  The team was able to identify a double wall feature extending six miles parallel to the floodplain.  This is consistent with the Al-Tabari [aeh tah-BAH-ree] documents that indicate the Sasanian and Arab battle lines were drawn close to a riverbank or stream.  Researchers also noted the remains of two watchtowers along the trench.

According to Dr. Jaafar Jotheri [jah-FAHR JO-theree] and Dr.  Rajwan Almayali [RAJ-wahn ahl-MY-ahlee] from the University of Al-Qadisiyah, the Iraqi researchers during a ground survey saw pottery consistent with Sasanian or Early Islamic assemblages at the site, but the site’s exact date needs to be confirmed.  The team was also able to locate al-Qadisiyyah and al-‘Udhayb, two stopping points along the Darb Zubaydah pilgrimage route.

This Battle of Al-Qadisiyyah lasted from AD 637 to 638 and had a huge impact on world history.  Winning this conflict allowed the Arabs to conquer the Persian Empire all the way to the gates of China, forever changing the balance of power and trajectory of history.  Over time, the religion of Islam and the Arabic language dominated large areas and populations from Central Asia to Spain.  This battle was a decisive turning point in this transition.

Next, we go to southern Belize in Central America, where archaeologists have excavated the earliest known Maya salt works.  

As reported by Phys.org, based on a study published in Antiquity, a team of archaeologists from Louisiana State University and The University of Texas at Tyler excavated the facility.  In 2004, LSU alumni professor Heather McKillop, lead author for the study, uncovered wooden buildings, an ancient Maya wooden canoe paddle, and other artifacts below the sea floor in Belize.  Since then, the team has uncovered a large number of sites dedicated to the production of salt, which became a necessity with the rise of agriculture, the transition to a carbohydrate-rich diet and the growth of the Maya population.  They include salt kitchens for boiling sea water, residences for salt workers and the remains of pole and thatch buildings.

Dating to the height of the Late Classic Maya civilization, the sites were very well preserved in red mangrove peat in shallow coastal lagoons.  Before their return in 2023, the LSU research team had mapped out nearly 70 underwater sites.  They also found 4,042 wooden posts marking the outlines of ancient buildings.

In 2023, the team focused on a site called Jay-yi Nah.  McKillop and key collaborator Assistant Professor Elizabeth Sills at the University of Texas at Tyler noticed that the broken pots so common at other salt works were strangely absent here.  The site also lacked brine boiling jars and basins.  All they found were a few pottery sherds similar to those found on the nearby island site of Wild Cane Cay.

At first, they were puzzled.  The materials they uncovered at Jay-yi Nah were different from the imported pottery and obsidian and flint they found at other sites.  A radiocarbon date found on a post provided the answer.  Jay-yi-Nah was much older than the other underwater sites.  The team learned that it started as local salt works operated from AD 250 to 600 in the Early Classic period.  Outside trade didn’t begin until AD 650 to 800 in the Late Classic period, when the inland Maya populations had the highest demand for salt.

Jay-yi Nah provides the earliest evidence of ancient Maya salt production in southern Belize.  The containers and trade goods common to later salt work sites were missing, supplanted by distinctive large bowls with incurved walls and necked jars with grooved lips.  They give us context and insight into ancient practices of commodity production.

Our third story takes us to The University of Tübingen in Germany, where research reveals that Lucy and her fellow australopithecines may have formed and used tools much earlier than expected.

As reported by LiveScience, researchers concentrated on hand entheses, the places where tendons attach muscles to bones.  Muscles and joints that are often used adapt to the demand, creating a pattern of bony changes that suggests continual use.  In studying these muscle attachment sites, the researchers can reconstruct how muscles and ligaments were used throughout the subject's lifespan, gaining clearer insight into hominin behavior.  This research appeared in the journal, Antiquity.

According to Fotios Alexandros Karakostis, study co-author and paleoanthropologist at the University of Tübingen, researchers can’t absolutely say that these early hominins made stone tools, but the hand use reveals that they frequently used their hands in ways that align with the actions needed to do so.  A study of the muscle attachment sites on the hands of three australopithecine species showed that all were likely to manipulate objects.  The more recent Australopithecus sediba had a more humanlike hand than the earlier Australopithecus africanus or Australopithecus afarensis, which showed a mixture of humanlike and apelike traits.

Apes can grasp and manipulate objects, but not in the way Homo sapiens can.  Modern humans have two key features which enable them to grasp, grip and pinch with precision.  The first dorsal interosseus muscle between the palm and index finger allows us to grasp with precision.

The pinky finger is also essential for human-style grasping.  The pinky muscles allow humans to perform essential tasks like handling tools or using a spoon to prepare food.  These two anatomical features paved the way for technological and cultural progress.

Australopithecus afarensis, the species to which Lucy belonged, frequently used humanlike grasping patterns.  This suggests that they used their hands in ways that required regular and skilled manipulation of objects.

This muscle attachment research offers possible insight into how each species interacted with its environment.  It’s entirely possible that Lucy and other australopiths were making and using tools in much the same way as we do now.

Our last story takes us to ancient Greece, where new evidence suggests that the remarkable renaissance that established classical Greek culture started a century earlier than originally thought.

As reported by Phys.org, again based on a study published in Antiquity, despite all that we know about ancient Greece, no records exist that cover events there between 1200 and 760 BC.  Due to this lack of a written record, this time in Greek history is referred to as the Dark Ages.  Within it, the Greek Iron Age occurred.

The traditional belief is that the Greek renaissance occurred during the last period of the Iron Age, from 760 to 700 BC.  Spanning just 60 years by that interpretation, this time of economic and demographic growth included the adoption of alphabetic writing and establishment of Greek colonies abroad.  

The lead researchers on this study are Trevor Van Damme, Assistant Professor in the Archaeology and History of the Ancient Mediterranean at the University of Warwick, and Bartlommiej Lis [BART-lio-may LIS] of the Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology.  According to them, new pottery samples challenge the dates that Nicholas Coldstream and Vincent Desborough proposed as Greece’s historical timeline during the late '50s and '60s.

In 2013, a team of archaeologists from Ephorate of Antiquities of Boeotia [bee-OH-shee-ah] and the Canadian Institute of Greece uncovered a crushed vessel from a shrine in the ancient town of Eleon, north of Athens, dating to the twelfth century BC.  The design on the vessel shows sets of concentric circles pivoting around a central axis.  According to Coldstream and Desborough, the concentric circles are characteristic of the Protogeometric style, originating in last half of the 11th century BC in Athens.  The new research suggests an earlier origin of the Protogeometric style, in the 12th century BC in northern Greece, not in Athens.

The researchers support their argument with petrographic and chemical analyses conducted on the vase showing it was imported from the lower Axios Valley in northern Greece.  In this same region, two other studies challenge the timeline Coldsteam and Desborough established.  The research at Eleon suggests that the Protogeometric and Mycenaean styles co-existed for a hundred years rather than one after the other.  This means Greece’s dark ages could have been much shorter than previously thought.

If the new start and end dates are 870 to 700 BC, then the Greek renaissance lasted almost 200 years.  This would mean that Greece’s renaissance lasted twice as long as originally thought, allowing more time for the remarkable developments and making it less extraordinary than previously considered.

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!