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Neolithic Finds

Comfortably Numb said:
RARE, NEOLITHIC ‘GODDESS’ FIGURINE DISCOVERED IN TURKEY

Source: archaeology-world.com
Date: 1 February, 2020

The finding happened in the southern part of Anatolian Plateau in central Turkey, one of the main proto-city centres of the first settlers and one of the world’s most renowned archaeological sites.

For a thousand years between 7100 and 6000 BC, i.e. the Neolithic period, Çatalhöyük has been continuously inhabited.

In 2016 the figure was found. In Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, the conclusions of his expert analyses are presented.

The best-known artifacts from this location are clay female figures which, due to their giant stance and bare breasts have been regarded as mother goddesses.

Today, they are usually interpreted as depicting the elderly and objects related to ancestor worship.

Now scientists have announced the discovery of a bone figurine that is anthropomorphic, i.e. has human features.

This is undoubtedly an important find with a very simplified, but clear depiction of human features in the form of eyes.

The figurine was made of bone, the proximal finger of a donkey`, told the PAP the discoverer of the object, Professor Kamilla Pawłowska, archaeozoologist and palaeontologist from the Department of Palaeoenvironmental Research of the Institute of Geology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

The 8,000-year-old figurine is notable for its craftsmanship, with fine details likely made with thin tools, like flint or obsidian, by a practised artisan.

The figurine is about 6 cm high. It has clearly visible incisions shaped to resemble eyes. A similar way of presenting human features is known from artefacts discovered in other sites in the Middle East from the same period, says Professor Kamilla Pawłowska.

She adds that the majority of similar objects are known from a bit later period, the Chalcolithic (4300 – 3300 BC). They are also made of bones, mainly donkey and horse.
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https://www.archaeology-world.com/rare-neolithic-goddess-figurine-discovered-in-turkey/

Those eyes look more like Vulva's to me. Opinions vary, don't they.
 
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Ancient Crate-Like Object May Be World's Oldest Known Wooden Structure

Source: sciencealert.com
Date: 3 February, 2020

The old well doesn't look like much - a wooden crate-like object, dilapidated, crumbling a little. But according to new research, it's really special. A tree-ring dating technique has revealed that the oak wood used to make it was cut around 7,275 years ago.

This makes it the oldest known wooden structure in the world that's been confirmed using this method, scientists say.

"According to our findings, based particularly on dendrochronological data, we can say that the tree trunks for the wood used were felled in the years 5255 and 5256 BCE," explained archaeologist Jaroslav Peška of the Archaeological Centre Olomouc in the Czech Republic in a press statement last year.

"The rings on the trunks enable us to give a precise estimate, give [or] take one year, as to when the trees were felled."

The well was unearthed and discovered near the town of Ostrov in 2018 during construction on the D35 motorway in the Czech Republic. Ceramic fragments found inside the well dated the site to the early Neolithic, but no evidence of any settlement structures were found nearby, suggesting the well serviced several settlements at a bit of a distance away.

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-decrepit-old-well-is-the-world-s-oldest-known-wooden-structure
 
Comfortably Numb said:
Ancient Crate-Like Object May Be World's Oldest Known Wooden Structure

Source: sciencealert.com
Date: 3 February, 2020

The old well doesn't look like much - a wooden crate-like object, dilapidated, crumbling a little. But according to new research, it's really special. A tree-ring dating technique has revealed that the oak wood used to make it was cut around 7,275 years ago.

This makes it the oldest known wooden structure in the world that's been confirmed using this method, scientists say.

"According to our findings, based particularly on dendrochronological data, we can say that the tree trunks for the wood used were felled in the years 5255 and 5256 BCE," explained archaeologist Jaroslav Peška of the Archaeological Centre Olomouc in the Czech Republic in a press statement last year.

"The rings on the trunks enable us to give a precise estimate, give [or] take one year, as to when the trees were felled."

The well was unearthed and discovered near the town of Ostrov in 2018 during construction on the D35 motorway in the Czech Republic. Ceramic fragments found inside the well dated the site to the early Neolithic, but no evidence of any settlement structures were found nearby, suggesting the well serviced several settlements at a bit of a distance away.

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-decrepit-old-well-is-the-world-s-oldest-known-wooden-structure
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Very interesting. It makes me wonder other than peat preservation or a fossilization process what preservation process can preserve a wooden structure for >7K years. Even cedar and such trees don't stay unrooted that long.
 
ANTHROPOMORPHIC FIGURINE CARVED FROM DONKEY FEET DISCOVERED IN ANCIENT CITY OF ÇATALHÖYÜK

Source: newsweek.com
Date: 5 February, 2020

A small, anthropomorphic figurine carved from the bones of donkey feet has been discovered at the ancient site of Çatalhöyük, often dubbed one of the world's first cities. The figure is unique in that it is the first-ever carving made from bone with human-like features found at the site.

It was discovered in an area that was used to store food and was made at a point when few donkeys would have been present, around 8,500 years ago.

Çatalhöyük, Turkey, was a large settlement that was continuously occupied for over 1,000 years, between 7100 and 5900 B.C. At its peak, it is estimated to have been home to up to 8,000 people, according to UNESCO.

Studying the site has allowed archaeologists to understand many aspects of daily life during the Neolithic period. "At Çatalhöyük, animal domestication, daily subsistence strategies, the use of animal and plant products, burial practice, the construction of houses, and other issues have been studied for years," Kamilla Pawłowska, from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, told Newsweek.

Çatalhöyük is made up of two main mounds, known as the West Mound and the East Mound. Pawłowska and colleagues first discovered the figurine in 2016 in the East Mound in an area that represents the later phase of occupation, from around 8,500 B.C. Pawlowska's work has focused on the relationship between humans and animals. She previously found that the later inhabitants of Çatalhöyük started to process food more intensely, possibly as a result of environmental stress.

https://www-newsweek-com.cdn.amppro...3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s
 
Archaeology shock: ‘Extraordinary’ passage below Scottish Stone Age monument revealed

Source: Daily Express
Date: 6 February, 2020

ARCHAEOLOGISTS were stunned by an "absolutely extraordinary" passageway discovered below a Scottish monument dating back as far as 12,000 years.

The discovery was made on Mainland Orkney, in a site known as the “Heart of Neolithic Orkney”. The group of monuments, which were proclaimed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites in 1999, include Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. But, to the east lies a fourth spot, known as Maeshowe, a Stone Ages burial monument built around 2,800BC which holds significant importance to understanding the role the afterlife played for ancient Britons.

https://www-express-co-uk.cdn.amppr...3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s
 
This newly published research indicates the Neolithic transition to settled agrarian life and accompanying sociocultural innovations in New Guinea was a localized process independent of similar transitions occurring elsewhere in Asia.

Prehistoric artifacts suggest a neolithic era independently developed in New Guinea
Emergence of a Neolithic in highland New Guinea by 5,000 to 4,000 years ago

New artifacts uncovered at the Waim archaeological site in the highlands of New Guinea - including a fragment of the earliest symbolic stone carving in Oceania - illustrate a shift in human behavior between 5050 and 4200 years ago in response to the widespread emergence of agriculture, ushering in a regional Neolithic Era similar to the Neolithic in Eurasia. The location and pattern of the artifacts at the site suggest a fixed domestic space and symbolic cultural practices, hinting that the region began to independently develop hallmarks of the Neolithic about 1000 years before Lapita farmers from Southeast Asia arrived in New Guinea. While scientists have known that wetland agriculture originated in the New Guinea highlands between 8000 and 4000 years ago, there has been little evidence for corresponding social changes like those that occurred in other parts of the world. To better understand what life was like in this region as agriculture spread, Ben Shaw et al. excavated and examined a trove of artifacts from the recently identified Waim archaeological site. "What is truly exciting is that this was the first time these artifacts have been found in the ground, which has now allowed us to determine their age with radiocarbon dating," Shaw said. The researchers analyzed a stone carving fragment depicting the brow ridge of a human or animal face, a complete stone carving of a human head with a bird perched on top (recovered by Waim residents), and two ground stone pestle fragments with traces of yam, fruit and nut starches on their surfaces. They also identified an obsidian core that provides the first evidence for long-distance, off-shore obsidian trade, as well as postholes where house posts may have once stood.
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SOURCE: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/aaft-pas032420.php

FULL RESEARCH ARTICLE:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/13/eaay4573
 
Excavations at a Neolithic site in Israel have uncovered the oldest evidence to date of funerary cremation. Additional comments about the implications of this find can be found in the full story (link below).
Humans have been cremating the dead since at least 7,000 B.C.

Cremation is a truly ancient practice, with a study published this week in the journal PLOS One showing that humans have been turning the dead to ashes for at least 9,000 years.

An international team of researchers led by Fanny Bocquentin, an archaeologist and anthropologist with the French National Center for Scientific Research, uncovered evidence of direct cremation at a Neolithic dig site in Beisamoun, Israel. ...

"We realized during the excavation that this was indeed a cremation pyre pit," she said.

The team of scientists used an advanced imaging technique, infrared spectrometry, to determine the composition of the pit and identify the combustion temperature.

The excavation revealed 355 bone fragments. According to the spectral analysis, temperatures in the pyre pit reached 700 degrees Celsius. The size and condition of the bone fragments suggest the remains belonged a young adult who was injured by a flint projectile several months before their death. ...

The positioning of the bones suggest the body was positioned in a sitting position and remained so throughout the cremation process. ...

For now, Beisamoun is unique, but researchers have previously found evidence of bone-drying, the step taken prior to cremation, at another site in Jordan. Researchers have also unearthed similar pyre pits dated to 6,500 B.C. at a Syrian dig site. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/20...he-dead-since-at-least-7000-BC/4681597257648/
 
Here are the bibliographic details and link to the full research report about the Neolithic cremation discovery.

Emergence of corpse cremation during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: A multidisciplinary study of a pyre-pit burial
Fanny Bocquentin , Marie Anton, Francesco Berna, Arlene Rosen, Hamoudi Khalaily, Harris Greenberg, Thomas C. Hart, Omri Lernau, Liora Kolska Horwitz

Published: August 12, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235386

FULL REPORT: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235386
 
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EnolaGaia said:
Excavations at a Neolithic site in Israel have uncovered the oldest evidence to date of funerary cremation. Additional comments about the implications of this find can be found in the full story (link below).


FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/20...he-dead-since-at-least-7000-BC/4681597257648/
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There has been found in Australia, ritually burnt, crushed, ochred and buried bones from about 42,000 years ago.

Here's a bit from our National Museum about the finds...


https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/mungo-lady
 
I was wondering how they knew it was remains of a woman as it says that she was cremated, the bones crushed and burned?
When my husband was cremated the remains were like grit that we took turns to tip out.
 
Iris said:
I was wondering how they knew it was remains of a woman as it says that she was cremated, the bones crushed and burned?
When my husband was cremated the remains were like grit that we took turns to tip out.
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ln modern cremation, the bone fragments remaining after the fire are ground in a large “blender” known as a cremulator. Obviously these weren’t available thousands of years ago, nor were our ancestors capable of producing the sustained high temperatures found in crematoria.

All an archaeologist would have to find would be enough of the pelvis, for example, to enable a determination of the sex of the remains.

maximus otter
 
New findings at the Dehesilla Cave in Spain are suggestive of funerary ritual and / or possible human sacrifice. A skull among these discoveries shows signs of incomplete trepanation that was not a cause of death.
Failed brain surgery and possible human sacrifice revealed in Stone Age burial

A Stone Age skull found in a Spanish cave bears the marks of a failed brain surgery and postmortem decapitation.

The skull, which may have belonged to an adult woman, dates back to approximately 4800 B.C. to 4550 B.C. Archaeologists found the skull deep inside Dehesilla Cave on the Iberian peninsula, alongside a second adult skull — perhaps from a man — and the remains of a young goat, they reported Aug. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE.

The morbid and unusual discovery raises the possibility that the bones were brought to the cave for some sort of religious ritual, study author Daniel García-Rivero, an archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain, wrote in the paper. One or both of the individuals may have even been victims of human sacrifice. ...

... a 2017 excavation revealed two jawless skulls, buried alongside stone tools, bits of pottery and most of the skeleton of a sheep or goat that was likely less than 10 days old at death. The cave also contained a stone altar and an ash-rich circle, apparently the remains of a 7,000-year-old fire. ...

On the upper left side of the possibly-female skull, archaeologists found something strange: a depression or divot, about 0.7 inches (19 millimeters) wide showing signs of later bone growth and healing. There were no cracks radiating from this divot, leading the researchers to conclude that the woman had been the subject of a Stone Age brain surgery called trepanation. ...

The scene in the cave suggests some sort of ritual, perhaps even a sacrificial ritual, the researchers wrote. The ancient people likely killed the goat for the ritual, but it's not clear whether they also sacrificed the two humans. They may have died naturally, or one may have died naturally and the other may have been a human sacrifice laid to rest with them. Or both may have been deliberately killed. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/stone-age-skull-trepanation-brain-surgery.html

The full published research report is accessible at:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236961
 
A lone skull discovered in an Italian cave provides evidence for ritual dismemberment as a Neolithic interment practice.
Decapitated Stone Age woman's head rolled into a cave in Italy
By Laura Geggel

How did a lone skull end up in a steep cave?

Following her death about 5,600 years ago, a Stone Age woman's skull took an unexpected journey when mud and water washed it away from her burial site and into the craggy rocks of a steep cave in what is now Italy, a new study finds.

When archaeologists found the skull, its resting spot in the cave shaft was so hard to reach that only one archaeologist, using rock climbing equipment, could squeeze into the space to recover it. During a later analysis, the researchers found that the skull was very scratched up ...

But, after determining which of the skull's lesions were likely caused by humans and which were likely incurred as the skull tumbled against various rocks, the researchers came up with a possible scenario. Once this woman died, people in her community likely dismembered her corpse — a funeral practice performed at other burials from this time period and region. After people separated the woman's skull from the rest of her body, environmental forces swept it away into the cave, the researchers suggested. ...

Archaeologists discovered the lone skull in 2015 in northern Italy's Marcel Loubens cave. Caves are common sites for ancient burials, but archaeologists couldn't find any other human remains there ...

A CT (computed tomography) scan and analysis of the skull itself revealed that the woman was between the ages of 24 and 35 when she died, while radiocarbon dating indicated that she lived between 3630 and 3380 B.C., during the New Stone Age, or Neolithic period. To put that into perspective, this woman lived just before Ötzi the Iceman, whose mummified remains date to 3300 B.C. and were also found in northern Italy. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/rollaway-neolithic-skull.html
 
Prehistoric human bones in Guernsey discovered by coastal walker

An archaeologist estimated the remains were between 4,000 and 5,000 years old from the pottery and flint found alongside them near L'Ancresse.

Phil de Jersey said they were waiting for results from radiocarbon dating analysis to get a precise age.

Dr de Jersey said the bones were likely to be from a Neolithic burial site and were in an "odd arrangement".

Dr de Jersey added it was "hard to say" why the specific location was chosen but he expects a prehistoric tomb, known as a dolmen, was associated with the area.

"The question is whether it is out to sea, totally washed away, or whether it might actually be back further back in land under the sand covering the headland."
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EnolaGaia said:
News update on the 'knobbly orbs' ... Here's another overview article about the orbs / balls. The news is that 3D renderings of the objects are now available online.



FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/62843-enigmatic-stone-balls-scotland.html

3D MODELS: https://sketchfab.com/hugoandersonwhymark/collections/carved-stone-balls-and-sculpted-stones
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Just an Idea about these carved stone balls...
Suggestions: They might possibly be used for a stone age game of skill!
Imagine a clay wall, or a flat clay circle on the ground at a distance. Each contestant takes a shot at the target and the imprint of his/her particular stone ball marks the nearest one on the target?
Either that, or each one could be a calling card mark to let others know where they are?
In short, some kind of personal ID maybe dropped into a cup mark hole to say "I'm here!"
 
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Now they'll match it to some neolithic crime scene.

A fingerprint left on a clay vessel made by a potter 5,000 years ago has been found in Orkney.

The print was discovered on a surviving fragment of the object at the Ness of Brodgar archaeological site. Archaeologists have been excavating at the complex of ancient buildings in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site since 2006. Imaging technology was used to reveal the fingerprint left after the potter pressed a finger into wet clay.
Ness of Brodgar is the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Archaeology Institute's flagship excavation site. The potter's fingerprint was noted by ceramics specialist Roy Towers, who was examining a sherd - a fragment - of pottery from a huge assemblage of clay pieces recovered from the site - the largest collection of late Neolithic Grooved Ware pottery in the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-56858268
 
ramonmercado said:
Now they'll match it to some neolithic crime scene.

A fingerprint left on a clay vessel made by a potter 5,000 years ago has been found in Orkney.
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ln my old force, CID would already have written off a couple of hundred outstanding burglaries as having been “Taken Into Consideration”.

:rofl:

maximus otter
 
Iris said:
Thank you for clearing that up maximus.
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Screenshot 2021-06-14 095408.jpg
I also would imagine that even with tiny fragments of bone they would contain enough information as to the difference in bone structure to work out if it's either the remains of a male, or a female?
 
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Sid said:
View attachment 40787
I also would imagine that even with tiny fragments of bone they would contain enough information as to the difference in bone structure to work out if it's either the remains of a male, or a female?
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According to paleoanthropolagists it is very difficult to tell the difference between male and female partial skeletal remains, unless you have the larger bones such as the pelvis, tibia femur or skull, although some work has been carried out which archeologists say can determine the sex of cremated remains.

https://www.inverse.com/article/52871-how-can-you-tell-if-a-skeleton-is-a-male-or-a-female
 
Souleater said:
According to paleoanthropolagists it is very difficult to tell the difference between male and female partial skeletal remains, unless you have the larger bones such as the pelvis, tibia femur or skull, although some work has been carried out which archeologists say can determine the sex of cremated remains.

https://www.inverse.com/article/52871-how-can-you-tell-if-a-skeleton-is-a-male-or-a-female
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I was thinking more along the lines of putting the tiny fragments under an electron microscope?
I would imagine it would show up some evidence?
 
Sid said:
I was thinking more along the lines of putting the tiny fragments under an electron microscope?
I would imagine it would show up some evidence?
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Male and female bones are intrinsically the same except for size and robustness, so its very difficult to sex an individual piece of bone other than determining the species.
 
Souleater said:
Male and female bones are intrinsically the same except for size and robustness, so its very difficult to sex an individual piece of bone other than determining the species.
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Ah, I imagined that there was a noticeable difference in the actual bone structures between men and women... seems not to be the case. Cheers.
 
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