Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica! I'm Laura Kennedy. Rick Pettigrew is away, so I’ll be telling you about four of the best stories posted online this past week on our archaeology news website, Archaeologica.org! Here are the headlines in archaeological and historical news from June 1st through the 7th, 2025.

Our first story this week comes from Qumrān [koom-RAAN], near the Dead Sea, where archaeologists utilized an artificial neural network to analyze the handwriting from the famed Dead Sea Scrolls.  This method offers a new way to date fragile, irreplaceable artifacts.

As reported by The Smithsonian, the discovery of the nearly 1,000 biblical era scrolls was set in motion in 1947 when a shepherd came across an ancient jar containing three pieces of parchment.  At around 2,000 years old, scholars consider these Dead Sea Scrolls to constitute some of the oldest versions of Old Testament material. 

Previously, archaeologists dated the scrolls using the radiocarbon method and palaeography, the study of ancient handwriting.  As described in their findings, published in the journal PLOS One, a research team conducted palaeography in partnership with Enoch [EE-naak], an artificial intelligence model named after a Hebrew prophet.  

An international team of researchers trained Enoch via samples of ancient handwriting paired with their known carbon-14 dates.  While traditional palaeographic techniques utilize subtle differences assumed to show the development of style, Enoch focused on similarities between training samples and test manuscripts. 

Enoch produced estimates for 135 Dead Sea Scrolls that had not otherwise been dated.  Human researchers confirmed that about 79 percent of the dates were plausible. 

Working from these datings, researchers discovered that the two writing styles in the scrolls — the older Hasmonaean script and the younger Herodian — coexisted for longer than previously thought.  Enoch also indicated that scroll 4Q114, which belongs to the Book of Daniel, is older than was previously believed.  Previous studies dated the scroll to circa 165 BC, but the model estimated a composition date between 230 and 160 BC. 

Finally, the new datings provide exciting clues about the origin of the scrolls.  Scholars have long assumed that the scrolls were created in Qumrān, near the caves where they were discovered.  However, the estimated dates precede the occupation of Qumrān, indicating that they were likely written elsewhere. 

According to lead author and archaeologist Mladen Popovic, of the University of Groningen [GROW-nuhng-uhn], carbon dating one thousand biblical-era scrolls would not only be time consuming, but require destroying a portion of each artifact.  Models like Enoch provide a more efficient and non-destructive option for analyzing these items. 

Next we turn to northern Michigan, where a new survey of the Sixty Islands archaeological site is illuminating high-level social organization and advanced agricultural techniques practiced by the ancient Indigenous peoples of the region.

As reported by Cosmos Magazine, Sixty Islands, located, alongside the Menominee [muh-NAA-muh-nee] River, is the most complete ancient agricultural site in the eastern US, and is situated within a cluster of important Menominee archaeological sites.  Indigenous people cultivated Sixty Islands between AD 1000 and 1600, and remains of  their crop beds persist to this day.  Sixty Islands is now home to the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, whose leaders enlisted archaeologists to study and document the area’s deep past using new techniques. 

Madeleine McLeester, assistant professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College, led the study.  Per the journal Science, her team used drone-based lidar, employing laser pulses to build environmental maps, uncovering crop fields spanning 330 acres. 

While many archaeological studies use plane-based lidar data, resolution for that data is typically low.  Drone lidar allows researchers to obtain higher resolution for archaeological features in heavily vegetated or forested regions.

The team documented raised fields of ridged garden beds between 10 and 30 centimeters high.  The Menominee used these to grow corn, beans, squash and other crops. Radiocarbon dating indicates the beds were established in AD 1000 and used for 600 years.  The ridges are built in different directions, suggesting their establishment by different farmers.  Lidar also revealed a round dance ring, as well as two nineteenth-century trading camps and burial mounds. 

Only 200 kilometers from the Canadian border, Sixty Islands is known as a difficult place to farm, given its cold climate, dense forests and short growing season.

According to McLeester, ancestral Menominee communities worked to modify the soil, enabling corn harvesting at the furthest northern point where possible.  Household waste, wetland muds, and remains from fires were used to nutrify the soil. 

The study discovered a cultivated area ten times larger than expected.  While archaeologists had previously held that small, egalitarian societies lived in the region, this finding indicates a larger, more hierarchical society, challenging preconceived notions of agriculture in this region, and worldwide. 

Our third story takes us to central Turkey, home to the former kingdom of Phrygia [FRI-jee-uh], where archaeologists have uncovered a nearly 3,000 year old royal tomb that might have belonged to a family member of the legendary King Midas.

As reported by Heritage Daily, Midas was king during the Middle Phrygian period in the eighth century BC.  Excavators located the tomb in the town of Yassihuyuk [YAH-see-hoo-YOO-k], where Phrygia’s capital, Gordion, once stood. 

King Midas’s name is associated with many legends, the most famous being that of the notorious “Midas Touch”.  According to this tale, Midas was granted a wish by the god Dionysus: everything he touched would turn to gold.  This fulfilled wish quickly became a nightmare as he realized that his touch would not spare his food, drink, or family. 

A team of archaeologists from the Gordion Project excavated Tumulus 47, a mid-sized burial mound.  After four months on site, they unearthed a wooden burial chamber measuring 3.1 by 2.8 meters. 

The chamber held over 100 funerary artifacts, including incense burners, cauldrons and a well-preserved ceremonial vessel made of iron and bronze.

One of the most remarkable artifacts is a bronze jug covered in linen.  It’s extremely rare for fabrics to preserve for over 2,000 years.  The linen was kept intact by the protective effect of bronze corrosion. 

Scholars believe that the tomb held a high-status member of the ruling class, possibly a king, or a Midas family member. 

According to archaeologist Charles Brian Rose, head of the Gordion Excavation Project, the bronze vessels that surround remains in the tomb are quite similar to those from the tumulus Midas built for his father. 

The tomb also provides insights into Phrygian political history and funerary customs.  

According to Gordion Excavation Coordinator, and professor at Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University, Yücel Senyurt [yew-JEHL SHEN-yoot], this site holds the earliest known instance of Phrygian cremation burial.  Inhabitants of ancient Anatolia used diverse burial practices, including cremations and inhumations; the cremated remains at this site were wrapped in fabric.                           

Archaeologists have restored 47 artifacts for the Gordion Museum so far.  They plan to display the tomb in situ. 

We end our week in the Philippines, where a study of Stone Age artifacts from the province of Occidental Mindoro has illuminated evidence of widespread and advanced social practices and maritime technologies.

As reported by Phys.org, the Mindoro Archaeology Project has clocked a 15 year collaboration between Ateneo de Manila University and international scholars.  Their most recent findings appeared in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia. 

Since 2010, their researchers have explored and mapped more than 40 caves and rockshelters in the southern area of Occidental Mindoro.  They uncovered many artifacts from the ancient arrival of and colonization by Homo sapiens.  These include items on Ilin Island, San Jose, and Santa Teresa, marking some of the earliest evidence of these populations in the Philippine archipelago. 

To adapt to their new environment, these populations fashioned tools out of stone, bones and shells — a practice that would continue for thousands of years.  Fashioned around 7 to 9 thousand years ago, adzes made from giant clam shells remind of similar tools found on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, more than 3,000 kilometers away. 

Mindoro has never been connected to mainland Southeast Asia by land or ice.  Thus, early migrants likely developed new seafaring technologies to reach the islands.  Their sailing and fishing skills enabled them to engage in open-ocean fish hunting of bonito and sharks.  They were also able to reach distant populations throughout the large expanse of islands known as Wallacea.

The team also found a grave around 5,000 years old on Ilin Island. Human remains found there resting in fetal position, were covered with limestone slabs,  resembling burials found all around Southeast Asia — yet another indication of shared practices and cultural heritage. 

The discoveries at Mindoro closed critical gaps in the prehistoric record of the Philippines, adding to the region’s stories of adaptation and migration.  Mindoro and other nearby islands belonged to a maritime network that saw a millennia of cultural and technological transmission throughout the Stone Age.   

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!