Welcome back, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew, to lead off another batch of 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!

Researchers in the UK made a real breakthrough, using x-ray and AI technologies to partially decipher one of the charred scrolls recovered long ago from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum.  A trace-element study confirms that Britain was the chief source of tin used in the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age.  Excavators in France found two swastika-engraved swords among the many graves found in an ancient Celtic cemetery.  And tubes and spoons recovered from a recently opened chamber at the pre-Inca Peruvian site of Chavin de Huantar contain traces of tobacco and psycho-active drugs..

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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 May 4th through the 10th,2025.

Our first story takes us to Oxford, England where researchers have revealed the text on a charred scroll from the Villa of the Papyri containing part of a lost first century BC philosophical work.

As described by GreekReporter.com, researchers at Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries have used high-tech scans and x-rays to identify a carbonized scroll as Philodemus’ treatise, On Vices.  Philodemus was a first century BC philosopher and poet who helped introduce Epicurean philosophy to the Roman world, and lived in Herculanem, after studying under Zeno of Sidon in Athens.

Archaeologists during excavations in the 18th-century originally unearthed hundreds of carbonized scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, which was buried along with Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.  Many ancient scrolls found are now housed in the National Library of Naples.  The carbonized papyrus is so fragile and charred that it crumbles when unrolled, and the ink remains unreadable.

The latest discovery builds on advances from the Vesuvius Challenge, a global competition launched in 2023 to encourage progress in reading carbonized scrolls using 3D X-rays.  Last year, a student team developed AI software that deciphered 2,000 ancient Greek letters. 

In July, the scroll known as PHerc. 17 was scanned at Diamond, the UK’s national synchrotron facility.  Analysis by Sean Johnson, from the Vesuvius Challenge, and a team from the University of Würzburg, revealed the scroll’s title and author, earning them the challenge’s first prize.

Researchers used cutting-edge X-ray imaging and digital unwrapping techniques to examine the carbonized scroll.  Their identification of the document’s title and author marks the first time a Herculaneum scroll has yielded such detailed information through entirely non-invasive methods.

In addition to the title, On Vices, and the name Philodemus, researchers also found a possible book number, alpha, which suggests this scroll may be the first book of the multi-volume work.  The treatise has at least ten books addressing topics like arrogance, greed, flattery, and household management.

The discovery not only recovers a piece of lost Greek philosophical heritage but also expands opportunities for unveiling additional texts from the remaining ancient scrolls.

Our next story takes us to southwest Britain, where new analysis reported by Phys.org confirms the key role that Cornwall and Devon played in the tin trade over 3,300 years ago during the Bronze Age.

According to a new study published in the journal Antiquity, researchers have linked tin found in three shipwrecks near Israel from 1300 BC to geological deposits in Britain.  Project Ancient Tin used a detailed mass spectrometry analytical program to trace tin artifacts back to their ore sources, combining trace element, lead isotope and tin isotope analyses.  

The so-called “tin problem” is a key debate in Bronze Age European and Mediterranean scholarship, focusing on the scarcity of tin, a crucial element in the creation of bronze, which is primarily composed of copper alloyed with around ten percent tin. 

Tin deposits large enough to supply the second millennium BC bronze-consuming societies are found mainly in Western and Central Europe and Central Asia.  In Europe, the Cornwall and Devon tin province in southwest Britain stands out as one of the largest, far surpassing other regions. 

The team conducted extensive sampling across Cornwall, Devon and other major European tin regions.  They gathered over 200 tin artifacts—mainly ingots from land sites and shipwrecks— to form the most extensive known collection of ancient tin samples.  They then compared the samples with data from other European and eastern Mediterranean sources.

Trace element and isotope analyses reveal that tin ingots from shipwrecks off the coast of Israel, as well as those from the Uluburun shipwreck in Turkey and the one from Rochelongue in France, closely match the geochemical signatures of ores and tin artifacts from Cornwall and Devon, suggesting a shared origin. 

Despite challenges with lead isotope contamination, particularly in the Uluburun ingots, tin isotope ratios remain consistent across these sites.  These discoveries support hypotheses about  long-distance tin trade between southwest Britain and the eastern Mediterranean.  This evidence points to a highly connected Bronze Age trade network in which tin from small farming communities in Britain made its way across Europe and the Mediterranean to fuel the development of powerful Bronze Age civilizations.

We now turn to Creuzier-le-Neuf, France, where archaeologists uncovered a vast Celtic necropolis with numerous metal artifacts.

As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, archaeologists with the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, or INRAP, unearthed a necropolis spanning 7,000 square feet and containing over 100 graves, including one cremation burial.  Although no remains survived due to the region’s acidic soil, researchers uncovered metal grave goods in approximately half the graves.

Notable discoveries include copper-alloy bracelets with clasps and 18 brooches [BRO-chez]  made of copper alloy and iron.  Some of the artifacts are engraved with circular motifs and others include a gemstone-set piece with a silver leaf.  Archaeologists dated one of the brooches to the late fourth or early third-century BC.

The most significant finds were two swords, each encased in copper-alloy sheaths.  One sword, likely from the fourth century BC, had rings for wearing ot at the waist and retained fragments of burial clothing clinging to its back.  The second, a shorter sword with a pointed blade, also dates to the fourth century BC.  X-rays revealed a carved circle and crescent moon on the blade, as well as a sheath decorated with gems, including at least two engraved with swastikas.

In the ancient Mediterranean, swastikas commonly served as decorative symbols of good luck.  By the late fifth century BC, the Celts in mainland Europe had adopted the design, though its exact meaning to them remains unknown.

According to Vincent Georges, an archaeologist at INRAP, the longer sword displays all the traits of a functional weapon.  Its sheath may have been worn by a horseman, while the shorter, decorated sword was likely symbolic, worn by a commanding warrior as a display of power rather than for practical use.

The region where the necropolis lies was an active Second Iron Age crossroads between territories occupied by the Celtic Arverni [ahr -VEHR -nee], Aedui [ADE-wee] and Bituriges [bit-OOR-ah-geez] tribes.  The artifacts possibly inspire key insights about Celtic craftsmanship and may even help draw connections to the 387 BC sacking of Rome by the Celts. 

We end our week in Peru, where archaeologists uncovered a 2,500-year-old ritual room containing hollow bird bones with traces of tobacco and psychedelic snuff. 

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on May 5th, Daniel Contreras, an archaeologist at the University of Florida, and his team analyzed chemical residues on bone and shell artifacts from Chavín de Huántar [shah-VEEN DAY wahn-TAHR], an ancient ceremonial center in Peru’s north-central highlands that is on a tour we are planning for October.  The research team tested a long-standing hypothesis that ritual practices at the site involved psychoactive substances.  

Chavín, a major ritual center between 1200 and 400 BC, before the rise of the Inca Empire, featured stone structures and open plazas that evolved into enclosed galleries over centuries of construction.  One gallery, sealed around 500 BC and undisturbed until its excavation in 2017, contained 23 carved bone and shell artifacts shaped into tubes and spoons.

According to the research team, the chemical residue analysis of these artifacts revealed that six of them contained nicotine, most likely from tobacco, and dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen found in the local vilca tree and commonly associated with the South American psychoactive beverage, ayahuasca.  Microbotanical evidence confirmed that the artifacts once held wild Nicotiana roots and vilca seeds and leaves, which were dried, toasted and ground into a potent snuff.  Some snuff tubes, possibly made from peregrine falcon leg bones, appeared in restricted-access areas of the site.

The placement of these artifacts suggests that psychoactive substances were reserved for select participants, possibly religious, social or political elites.  Since the galleries could hold only a few individuals at a time, researchers believe drug use was a tool for reinforcing social hierarchies and distinguishing leaders from the workers who constructed Chavín’s monumental architecture.  Controlled access to ritual drug use may ultimately have contributed to the shift from egalitarian societies to the more hierarchical structures of the Tiwanaku, Wari and Inca empires.  

The discoveries mark the first direct evidence confirming possible ceremonial drug use as well as the specific drugs inhaled during Chavín ceremonies.  Archaeologists stress the need for further research into the role of psychoactive substances in shaping ancient Andean civilizations.

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!