通靈之地

地點(diǎn)：蒙納島，波多黎各

推薦編輯：ERICA. POWELL

 在一個波多黎各蒙納島上的洞穴里，在很接近基督教銘文(上圖)的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)了泰諾人的神像(下圖)（圖片來源：Jago Cooper）

至少從十二世紀(jì)起，泰諾人(Tainopeople)就生活在波多黎各北部的一個小島，蒙納島（Mona）上，他們冒險深入島嶼上巨大的洞穴中并在洞穴松軟的石灰?guī)r壁上留下神靈的畫像。如今，由來自萊斯特大學(xué)（Universityof Leicester）的Alice Samson和來自大英博物館的考古學(xué)家Jago Cooper帶領(lǐng)的小組發(fā)現(xiàn)其中一組洞穴的畫像是來自十六世紀(jì)的西班牙人的。Cooper說道：“這個洞穴的入口非常隱蔽，因此這些人很有可能最初是被泰諾人帶來的?！边@個小組記錄了超過30個歷史碑文，其中包括十字架以及圣經(jīng)中的拉丁短語，甚至還有諸如來自統(tǒng)治蒙納島的十六世紀(jì)的皇室官員FranciscoAlegre等個人的簽名。

Cooper說當(dāng)歐洲人的銘文被刻在靠近土著的雕刻時，也沒有重疊的現(xiàn)象出現(xiàn)，這說明西班牙人在刻字時十分仔細(xì)以防破壞了泰諾人的石刻藝術(shù)?！斑@就好像兩個傳統(tǒng)文化在對話交流,”庫珀說,他也指出有可能是一些皈依基督教的泰諾人刻下了這些十字架。“這是土著人與歐洲人在南美建立新的關(guān)系的確鑿證據(jù)。這個山洞體現(xiàn)了這兩個文化間的個體交流?！?/span>

安迪基西拉島人

地點(diǎn)：安迪基西拉島，希臘

推薦編輯：JasonUrbanus

水下考古學(xué)家在研究在近四十年里安迪基西拉島海難中發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一具人類遺骸。（圖片來源：布雷特·西摩/歐洲大學(xué)協(xié)會(EUA)/ 伍茲霍爾海洋研究所（WHOI） /阿爾戈非盈利科學(xué)教育民用公司）

    安迪基西拉島沉船（大約可追溯到公元前65年）是古代規(guī)模最大，最富有也可能是最著名的一艘沉船。在1900年發(fā)現(xiàn)于希臘的安迪基西拉島，在這艘沉船里發(fā)現(xiàn)了數(shù)以百計的珍寶，包括青銅和大理石雕像，還發(fā)現(xiàn)了據(jù)說是世界上最古老的計算機(jī)：安提基特拉機(jī)械（AntikytheraMechanism）。然而，另一個重要發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)生在2016年夏天，一組國際考古隊在那里發(fā)現(xiàn)了一具人類殘骸。這具殘骸包括了部分頭蓋骨,下巴,牙齒,肋骨和四肢的骨骼，很有可能屬于一位年輕男性。之前在此處至少發(fā)現(xiàn)了四個其他殘骸，然而這個最新的發(fā)現(xiàn)是第一個可做DNA鑒定的。 古代DNA鑒定學(xué)家HannesSchroeder表明，這個發(fā)現(xiàn)可能提供了第一個檢測古代水手的遺傳基因的機(jī)會。“古代海難遺跡中被發(fā)現(xiàn)的人類殘骸是極其稀少的，”他說，“DNA分析也許可以提供關(guān)于船員的血統(tǒng)與家鄉(xiāng)的新信息。

這個項目的聯(lián)合負(fù)責(zé)人BrendanFoley表示遺骸主人可能在船撞擊巖石沉沒的時候被困在船艙里。部分骨架在2016年被發(fā)掘，并且這個考古學(xué)家會繼續(xù)深入發(fā)掘這個遺址。 Foley相信會發(fā)現(xiàn)更多的人類殘骸與珍貴的寶藏。

塞勒姆女巫行刑地

地點(diǎn)：塞勒姆，馬薩諸塞州

推薦編輯：SAMIRS. PATEL

在馬薩諸塞州的塞勒姆，在這塊稱作督查巖（Proctor‘s Ledge）的堅硬巖石旁，曾有19個人以巫術(shù)罪之名被絞死。（圖片來源：Emerson Baker）

關(guān)于1692年和1693年的塞勒姆女巫審判案，有近1000份保留的官方文件和一些同時期的歷史記錄存在。但是直指這個臭名昭著的充滿臆測與偏執(zhí)的可怕時期的19女巫絞死案，卻鮮有資料提及，更沒有任何文檔記錄執(zhí)行絞刑的地方。

很長一段時間，大家都認(rèn)為絞刑地位于絞刑架山（GallowsHill）或其附近某處，但似乎這個地點(diǎn)在十九世紀(jì)早期已被遺忘了。1921年，歷史學(xué)家SidneyPerley認(rèn)為絞刑發(fā)生在督查巖，絞刑架山底部的一塊堅硬的巖石上。

在過去的五年中，一個研究小組一直在重新研究Perley的發(fā)現(xiàn)。他們也使用新技術(shù)來精確絞刑發(fā)生的地點(diǎn)。

老照片中的督查巖。（圖片來源：Emerson Baker）

在一個不起眼的證據(jù)和一個可以判斷視野的地理信息系統(tǒng)（可視域分析）的幫助下，研究人員在2016年得出結(jié)論,認(rèn)為Perley是正確的。督查巖的確是行刑地。塞勒姆州立大學(xué)歷史考古學(xué)家EmersonBaker領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的考古隊還進(jìn)行了土壤探查,但并沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)人體殘骸或絞刑架的證據(jù)。“這一發(fā)現(xiàn)與口述歷史是一致的,”貝克說,“遇難者家屬在夜色的掩護(hù)下重新找回了親人并且將其埋葬在家族墓地?！?/span>

原文

Top10 Discoveries of 2016

London’s EarliestWriting

London,England

ByJASON URBANUS

A 1st-century A.D.wooden tablet found at an excavation in London bears the earliest knownreference to Londinium. (Courtesy ? MOLA)

Thelargest and most significant collection of Roman waxed writing tablets isproviding an intriguing glimpse into life in early Roman London. More than 400wooden tablets were unearthed by archaeologists from Museum of LondonArchaeology (MOLA) during excavations at the site of the Bloomberg company’snew European headquarters. Roman London (called Londinium) was founded aroundA.D. 50, and the recovered texts, written by ordinary residents, record variousnames, as well as events and transactions that took place during thesettlement’s first few decades.

Molten wax wasapplied to tablets using a spatula (right), and a decorated stylus (left) wasused to inscribe text in it. (Courtesy ? MOLA)

Thetablets, which began to be published in 2016, feature a once-popular method ofRoman writing that involved using a pointed stylus to etch letters into a thinlayer of wax that had been spread onto a small plank. Since tablets such asthese were typically made of wood, they rarely survive. However, the Bloombergexcavation site is located along what used to be the Walbrook River. Most ofthe tablets discovered there were part of an ancient garbage dump that was usedto fill in the wetlands to create buildable land during the Roman era. Themuddy, oxygen-free conditions were instrumental in the preservation of thenearly 2,000-year-old tablets. Although the actual inscriptions in wax have longsince disappeared, sometimes an overly aggressive scribe applied too muchpressure and accidentally etched their writing into the wood beneath the wax.

“Thecollection is hugely significant,” says MOLA archaeologist Sophie Jackson,“because the tablets date to the first few years of London. They provide newinsights into the people who lived, worked, and traded there and administeredthe new city, and what social, economic, and legal structures were in place.”

Thusfar, 19 of the 405 tablets have been decoded through an exacting process thatuses multidirectional photography and microscopic analysis. Among these areBritain’s oldest handwritten document and the earliest known reference toLondinium. Some texts appear to be legal records and contracts, while othersare correspondence. And one tablet, which simply contains the alphabet, mayhave been part of a school lesson.

Angkor UrbanSprawl

SiemReap Province, Cambodia

ByNIKHIL SWAMINATHAN

Lidar scans haverevealed the outline of an urban grid in the Angkor region of Cambodia.

Researchersin northwestern Cambodia have carried out the largest airbornelaser-scanning archaeological project to date. They used lidar to survey 900square miles of the densely forested Angkor region, revealing centuries-old citiesthat once belonged to the vast Khmer Empire.

Thekingdom’s provincial centers turn out to have many characteristics in commonwith Angkor, the metropolis surrounding the iconic Angkor Wat temple. All sharea checkerboard of city blocks within a central moat, enormous reservoirs andcanals used for water management, and mysterious mounds and “coiled”embankments built into the earth and seen at every eleventh- andtwelfth-century temple site.

ArchaeologistDamian Evans had spent a decade searching for evidence of an industrial city ata site east of Angkor called Preah Khan of Kompong Svay. When he looked at thenew survey unobscured by vegetation, the three-mile-by-three-mile enclosedurban grid—the largest in Southeast Asia—appeared in plain sight. “It revealsthis degree of complexity—the scope and scale at which human beings adapted theenvironment,” he says. “That’s what lidar illuminated so beautifully inCambodia.”

Regime Change inAthens

Athens,Greece

ByJARRETT A. LOBELL

The remains of 80men were discovered shackled together at the wrists in a mass grave at anecropolis near Athens. (Courtesy Ephorate of West Attica, Piraeus and Islands, Yiannis Asvestas, @All rightsreserved)

Theend of the seventh century B.C. was a tumultuous period in Athenianhistory. Though once ruled by a king, the increasingly powerful region ofAttica, home to Athens, had come to be presided over by aristocrats whomaintained their hold on power through landownership and lifetime appointments.But as the century drew to a close, the political climate was primed for a newtype of government—that of a single ruler, or tyrant. An evocative gravesite onthe outskirts of Athens is a testament to this contentious moment in history.

Excavatorsat the Phaleron Delta necropolis have uncovered the remains of 80 men, shackledtogether at their wrists, lying in a mass grave. The most recent osteologicalstudies have determined that the majority of the men were between 20 and 30years old, although four were much younger, and that all 80 had been killed inthe same manner—with a fatal blow to the head. The discovery of two small vasesburied with them has allowed archaeologists to date the grave to themid-to-late seventh century B.C., suggesting to project director Stella Chrysoulakithat the men were executed in the course of one of these attempts to gainpolitical primacy. “For the first time,” Chrysoulaki says, “we can illustratehistorical events that took place during the struggle between aristocrats inthe seventh century and led, through a long process, to the establishment of ademocratic regime in the city of Athens.”

World’s OldestDress

Tarkhan,Egypt

ByJARRETT A. LOBELL

New radiocarbondating finds that a dress discovered in Egypt is at least 5,100 years old.(Courtesy Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology)

It’salmost impossible to imagine that an item of clothing worn thousands ofyears ago has survived to the present day. But the “Tarkhan Dress,” named forthe town in Egypt where it was found in 1913, has endured—and has now beenprecisely dated using the latest radiocarbon dating technology. Researchershave determined that the very finely made linen apparel dates to between 3482and 3103 B.C., making it the world’s oldest woven garment. Alice Stevenson,curator at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, says, “The dress hasprovided people with a real sense of the antiquity and longevity of the ancientEgyptian state and society.” To read more about research on the dress, go to “Dressing for the Ages,” fromthe May/June 2016 issue.

Early Man Cave

Neanderthals arethought to have made ring-shaped structures out of whole and broken stalagmitesdeep in a French cave. 

Afifth of a mile inside Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France, a chamberholds several enigmatic ring-shaped structures made from whole and brokenstalagmites. Radiocarbon dating of a burned bear bone found among theminitially suggested they date to around 47,000 years ago. But this year,uranium-thorium dating that focused on the stalagmite tips and deposits thataccumulated on them after they were broken found the structures were actuallybuilt around 176,000 years ago.

Researchersconcluded that since Neanderthals were the only humans living in the area atthe time, they must have assembled them. “When we first got this date, Ithought it was unbelievable,” says Jacques Jaubert, an archaeologist at theUniversity of Bordeaux. “We had no idea that Neanderthals were operating sodeep inside caves at this time.” While the structures also provide evidence ofgroup collaboration, the reason they were built remains a mystery.

Peruvian Woman ofMeans

A prominent womanwas buried (top) 4,600 years ago in Peru along with accessories such as a bonebrooch (above) carved to resemble an Amazonian monkey.

Therole of women in ancient cultures has received increased attention inrecent years, from that of female pharaohs in Egypt to Viking wives in northernEurope. And now, archaeologists in Peru have found signs that women there heldpositions of prestige at the earliest stages of civilization. At the site ofáspero, a female skeleton was found decorated with shells of thegenusSpondylus, which come from hundreds of miles away in far northern Peru andwere a sign of authority for centuries in Andean cultures. About 45 years oldwhen she died, the woman had clothing accessories made of bone carved in theform of seabirds and Amazonian monkeys, also status symbols, says archaeologistRuth Shady Solís of San Marcos University. Most striking is the burial’s age—some4,600 years ago, near the dawn of the fishing and farming civilization thatthrived on Peru’s coast. Shady Solís found sculpted female figurines datingfrom the same period—more proof, she believes, that women occupied prominentsocial positions.

10,000-Year-OldTurf War

The skull of oneof a group of hunter-gatherers bears evidence of a brutal attack that tookplace on the shores of Lake Turkana.

Organizedaggression is typically associated with disputes over ownership of land orpossessions. But the 10,000-year-old remains of 27 individuals discovered atwhat was once the southwestern edge of Kenya’s Lake Turkana suggest that thismay not always have been the case. The unburied bodies, found at a site calledNataruk, were of hunter-gatherers and were unaccompanied by evidence ofsettlements or valuables. Instead, they paint a picture of pure carnage: Thebones of 21 adults and six children show lesions most likely resulting fromarrows and clubs. Weapons found at the site were made from obsidian sourcedfrom afar, indicating the attackers were not local.

Universityof Cambridge archaeologist Marta Mirazon Lahr believes that people have alwaysbeen prepared to fight for what they want, and that the formation of groupsresults in cultural divisions, thereby justifying warfare. These preconditionsfor battle “have existed for a very long time,” she says, “independent of thedevelopment of farming, material wealth, civilizations, and socialhierarchies.” Within this context, the simple choice to hunt or feast on thebeach at Nataruk, a plum spot on a lake almost fully encircled by mountains,where animals came for food and water, could have sealed the deceased’s fate.

Spiritual MeetingGround

Images of nativeTaino deities (top) have been found close to Christian inscriptions (above) ina cave on Puerto Rico’s Mona Island. (Courtesy Jago Cooper)

Sinceat least the twelfth century, indigenous Taino people living on Mona, a smallisland west of Puerto Rico, ventured deep into its vast network of caves andleft images of cemies, or deities, on the chambers’ soft limestone walls. Now ateam led by Alice Samson of the University of Leicester and BritishMuseum archaeologist Jago Cooper has found that one of the caves also containsmarkings left by sixteenth-century Spaniards. “The entrance to this cave isquite difficult to find,” says Cooper. “So the Europeans were probably, atleast initially, led there by Taino.” The team has recorded more than 30historic inscriptions, including crosses, Latin phrases from the Bible, andeven the signatures of individuals, such as a sixteenth-century royal officialnamed Francisco Alegre, who had jurisdiction over Mona at one time.

Coopersays that while the European inscriptions were placed close to the indigenousmarkings, they don’t overlap, leaving the impression that the Spaniards werecareful not to deface the Taino rock art. “It’s as if the two traditions werein dialogue with one another,” says Cooper, noting that it is also possiblethat Taino who had converted to Christianity made some of the crosses. “This istangible evidence of how people, both European and indigenous, were forging newidentities in the Americas. The cave embodies the personal experience ofcontact between these two cultures.” 

Antikythera Man

Underwaterarchaeologists investigate the first human remains to be found at theAntikythera shipwreck in almost 40 years.

TheAntikythera shipwreck (circa 65 B.C.) is the ancient world’s largest, richest,and perhaps most famous wreck. Discovered in 1900 off the Greek island ofAntikythera, the site has yielded hundreds of treasures, including bronze andmarble statues, as well as the Antikythera Mechanism, often referred to as theworld’s oldest computer. However, an important new discovery was made in summer2016 when an international team recovered a human skeleton there. The remains,which include parts of the cranium, jaw, teeth, ribs, and long bones of thearms and legs, most likely belonged to a young male. Evidence of at least fourother individuals had previously been found at the site, but the newlydiscovered remains are the first to be uncovered in almost 40 years—and duringthe age of DNA analysis. According to ancient DNA expert Hannes Schroeder, thediscovery might provide the first opportunity to examine the genetics of anancient mariner. “Human remains from ancient shipwrecks are extremelyuncommon,” he says. “DNA analyses can potentially provide fascinating newinformation on the crew’s genetic ancestry and geographic origins.”

Projectcodirector Brendan Foley suggests that the individual may have been trappedbelowdecks when the ship smashed into the rocks and sank. Parts of the skeletondiscovered in 2016 remain in situ and will be further excavated this summer.Foley believes that even more human remains may survive at the site along withother precious cargo.

Salem’s LostGallows

A rocky outcropcalled Proctor’s Ledge has been confirmed as the site where 19 people accusedof witchcraft were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts.

Thereare almost 1,000 surviving official documents and several contemporaryhistories from the Salem witch trials of 1692 and 1693. But little of thisrelates directly to the 19 hangings that punctuated the notorious period ofhysteria and paranoia, and none of the documents record where the executionstook place.

 Thesite—long believed to have been somewhere on or near Gallows Hill—appears tohave been forgotten by the early nineteenth century. In 1921, historian SidneyPerley theorized that the hangings took place at Proctor’s Ledge, a rockyoutcrop at the base of Gallows Hill.

Proctor's Ledge ina vintage photograph. (Courtesy Emerson Baker)

Overthe last five years, a research team has reviewed Perley’s findings. They havealso applied new technology to pinpoint the site.

Withthe help of both a piece of overlooked testimony and a geographic informationsystem that determined what could be seen from where (known as a viewshedanalysis), researchers concluded in 2016 that Perley had been right. Proctor’sLedge is indeed the spot where the accused met their ends. The team, led bySalem State University historical archaeologist Emerson Baker, also conductedgeophysical testing and found no human remains or evidence of a gallows at thesite. “This finding is in keeping with oral traditions,” Baker says, “that thefamilies of the victims came under cover of darkness to recover loved ones andrebury them in family cemeteries.”