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Forum: Stones Forum
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
Respond to: Artefacts and discoveries during development in Europe
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davidmorgan
Joined:
23-11-2006
Messages: 1604
from The New Forest
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|  New Message Posted!2013-02-08 20:58
How often is GPR (Ground penetrating radar) used
I guess it's used sometimes, but, as you say, it has limitations. It appears to be catered for in the Valletta Treaty:
Article 3
To preserve the archaeological heritage and guarantee the scientific significance of archaeological research work, each Party undertakes:
iii. to subject to specific prior authorisation, whenever foreseen by the domestic law of the State, the use of metal detectors and any other detection equipment or process for archaeological investigation.
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ryszard
Joined:
16-10-2003
Messages: 53
from Canada
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| New Message Posted!2013-02-08 20:22
How often is GPR (Ground penetrating radar) used in investigating incidental archeological finds during present day so-called "development" in Europe?
Its advantages and difficulties are well summarized here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar
How expensive is it?
Surely not more expensive than the halting of work for the traditional and somewhat primitive "dig"?
Is anyone aware of any rules concerning such finds and further development of a site in Britain or the rest of Europe? In Rome in years past, & I suppose now, any find of archeological significance immediately stopped further work on the site. This was given as a reason for no modern development on any great scale in the city.
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2013-02-01 18:29
Neolithic pottery at Culduthel section of Inverness flood scheme
Neolithic pottery excavated ahead of work on a £16m flood scheme has added to archaeologists' understanding of a city's past.
Pits containing fragments of ceramics were recovered from the site in the Culduthel area of Inverness.
Archaeologists were brought in ahead of construction of phase three of the city's south west flood relief channel.
Iron Age weapons and a Romano-British brooch have been found previously at other sites nearby.
Ross and Cromarty Archaeological Services carried out an assessment of the flood scheme site between December 2010 and January 2011.
The archaeologists' report on what they found has been published online.
Six Neolithic pots were identified and fragments of pottery from the early to middle Neolithic and later Neolithic grooved ware were recovered.
Other finds included a piece of polished stone axe, half of a stone ball and a possible fragment of an anvil stone.
Between 2005 and 2007, significant finds were made at Culduthel Mains Farm, which is now a housing development.
A high-status Iron Age metal-working site with well preserved roundhouses and iron-smelting furnaces was recorded there.
Glass beads, iron weapons and a Romano-British brooch were found along with evidence of an oval-shaped palisade enclosure nearby.
In its report, Ross and Cromarty Archaeological Services said the latest discoveries were "important evidence" to add to what was already known about Culduthel's past.
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news.
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2013-02-01 18:30 ]
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2013-01-31 18:08
Storms expose iron age skeleton
SHETLAND’S pre-Christmas storms have revealed remains of an iron age building and a human skeleton believed to be 2,000 years old. Archaeologists said a structure was briefly exposed at Channerwick before being buried again by a rockfall over the festive period.
Before it disappeared from view, police officers and archaeologists were able to investigate the site and take a bone sample for radiocarbon dating.
Shetland Amenity Trust assistant archaeologist Chris Dyer said: “The skeleton, initially reported by a local resident, looked as if it were contemporary with the Iron Age remains.
“The original burial now lies under several tons of fallen bank and the Iron Age structures have also disappeared from view.”
County archaeologist Val Turner added that during the investigation she and freelance colleague Samantha Dennis discovered evidence of at least one, and possibly two other burials.
In South Nesting as much as a metre has been lost of an Iron Age site at Gletness.
And a Viking site above the beach at the Easting on Unst, originally excavated and consolidated by the Unst Archaeology Group and Glasgow University, has been partially lost to the sea.
“Shetland Amenity Trust’s archaeology section would be keen to hear from anyone who knows of other sites which may have appeared or been eroded by the storms," Turner said. “We are hoping that once we have an indication of just how great a problem has been created in the last few weeks, we will be able to formulate an action plan.”
Not exactly "during development." Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, see http://www.shetnews.co.uk.
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-09-02 07:50
GRAVES from a Roman cemetery and buried prehistoric artefacts are among the discoveries identified in the latest searches by the South Yorkshire Archaeological Service
Experts from the service carry out examinations of proposed development sites around the county to ensure secrets from the past are not misses.
One of their latest discoveries involved checking aerial photographs of land earmarked for a new school and gospel hall on Todwick Road, North Anston.
In their report, archaeologists said: “A study demonstrates the application area sits within a landscape of later prehistoric and Roman features visible as crop marks.
“There is, therfore, potential for archaeological remains relating to these periods to exist on site.” The report recommends a search of the site for remains.
Meanwhile, excavations at Waterdale, Doncaster town centre, have found evidence of a Roman cemetery.
Archaeologists reported: “Between 20 and 30 individual burials were identified, along with a number of complete cremation urns, pottery, glass vessels and oil lamps. Bulk samples indicate evidence for feasting and votive offerings and some burnt material is suggested to be the site of a funeral pyre.”
Other findings include evidence of a possible iron age settlement and fields on a site at Goldthorpe Industrial Estate.
A trackway and Romano-British field boundaries, dating back about 2,000 years, were found buried beneath land at Outwood Academy, Doncaster.
Thanks to coldrum for the link: http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/prehistoric-and-roman-remains-are-discovered-1-4339119" TARGET="_blank"> http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/prehistoric-and-roman-remains-are-discovered-1-4339119>
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-09-02 07:45
A leading archaeologist has described the discovery of what is a likely “prehistoric” antler hammerhead at a Burren cave as hugely exciting.
Dr Marion Dowd of IT Sligo said a 10-day excavation at a small cave on Moneen Mountain outside Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, also produced the “poignant” discovery of a skeleton of a teenager thought to have sought shelter in the cave.
Carbon dating found the skeletal bones date from the 16th or 17th century.
The skull of the skeleton and the antler hammerhead were discovered by cavers last June, prompting the National Museum Service to fund the excavation led by Dr Dowd last August.
She presented the results last night in the Burren village of Tubber at a Burrenbeo talk and said the cave was used in the Bronze Age or 3,000 years ago and again at the end of the medieval period.
Dr Dowd said “the discovery of the fabulous antler hammerhead is hugely exciting. I can’t find any other parallels in Irish archaeology.”
The antler came from a red deer stag aged over 6½ years old. She said the hammerhead “is likely to be prehistoric” but tests have yet to be completed to confirm the date.
Thanks to coldrum for the link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0322/1224313701886.html
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-07-10 18:31
'Inhabitants of Madrid' ate elephants’ meat and bone marrow 80,000 years ago
Humans that populated the banks of the river Manzanares (Madrid, Spain) during the Middle Palaeolithic (between 127,000 and 40,000 years ago) fed themselves on pachyderm meat and bone marrow. This is what a Spanish study shows and has found percussion and cut marks on elephant remains in the site of Preresa (Madrid).
In prehistoric times, hunting animals implied a risk and required a considerable amount of energy. Therefore, when the people of the Middle Palaeolithic (between 127,000 and 40,000 years ago) had an elephant in the larder, they did not leave a scrap.
Humans that populated the Madrid region 84,000 years ago fed themselves on these prosbocideans' meat and they consumed their bone marrow, according to this new study. Until now, the scientific community doubted that consuming elephant meat was a common practice in that era due to the lack of direct evidence on the bones. It is still to be determined whether they are from the Mammuthus species of the Palaleoloxodon subspecies.
The researchers found bones with cut marks, made for consuming the meat, and percussion for obtaining the bone marrow. "There are many sites, but few with fossil remains with marks that demonstrate humans' purpose" Jose Yravedra, researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and lead author of the study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science points out to SINC.
This is the first time that percussion marks that showed an intentional bone fracture to get to the edible part inside have been documented. These had always been associated with tool manufacturing but in the remains found, this hypothesis was discarded. The tools found in the same area were made of flint and quartzite.
The team, made up of archaeologists, zooarchaeologists and geologists from UCM, the Institute of Human Evolution in Africa (IDEA) in Madrid and the Spanish National Research Centre for Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Burgos, collected 82 bones from one elephant, linked to 754 stone tools, in an area of 255 metres squared, in the site of Preresa, on the banks of the river Manzanares.
In the case of the cut marks on the fossil remains, these add to the "oldest evidence of exploiting elephants" in the site of Áridos, close to the river Jarama, according to another study published by Yravedra in the same journal. "There are few records about the exploitation of elephants in Siberia, North America and central Europe", the zooarchaeologist explains.
The internal organs were what the predator ate first, be they human or any kind of carnivore. The prehistoric signs of the banquet help researchers to find out who was the first to sit down at the table, as the risk of hunting an elephant posed the question as to whether humans hunted it or were scavengers.
"This is the next mystery to be solved" Yravedra replies, who reminds us that there is evidence of hunting in other smaller animals in the same site. However, due to the thickness of fibrous membranes and other elephant meat tissues, humans did not always leave marks on the bones. "And for this reason, sometimes it is difficult to determine if humans used their meat".
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, including the 'Holy Grail' of Palaeolithic diet, see http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/f-sf-om042412.php.
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-07-10 18:16
Excavation of a Solutrean campsite in Brantome (Dordogne), southwest France
Since November 2011, a team of archaeologists from L’Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap), have been excavating the site of a Solutrean hunters camp in Brantome (Dordogne), southwest France, prior to the construction of a waste management plant.
Archaeological evaluation, conducted in October 2010, revealed the presence of Palaeolithic activity buried more than two metres deep. Full excavation revealed a prehistoric hunters camp dated to the Solutrean period, during the last glacial maximum making it over 20,000 years old.
The extent of the site and it’s preservation – including a rich assemblage of lithic objects – is remarkable. Within the camp, on the south shore of Brantome Island archaeologists have excavated the remains of structures that were previously undisturbed and were able to identify areas of specialized activities in both the production and use of various tools.
Although any bone fragments have been lost due to soil acidity, it seems that this camp was the location for butchering, cutting and processing the carcasses of large herbivores, including deer and horses, hunted nearby.
Several thousand flints were unearthed by archaeologists, who have identified areas of production for sophisticated stone tools, such as the typical laurel leaf projectile points, notched blades and flat-faced points that are characteristic of the Solutrean culture.
As in other sites of the late Solutrean, the quality of some bifacial pieces, including the “laurel leave” type, show that the flint-knappers of this culture from the Upper Palaeolithic had acquired an expertise unrivalled during Prehistory; these pieces are thin and slender and have been crafted with extreme care – remarkable for both their symmetrical beauty and their cutting performance. The site has provided a large number of blanks and fragments, showing a large scale production of tools was taking place here.
Solutrean flint knappers had access to many quality materials on the alluvial terraces of the Island, including; flint nodules; pebbles of quartzite; dolerite and shale which was not only used for producing tools but also for construction of dwellings. The study of the lithic industry material from the camp at Boulazac highlights the origin of several non-local materials. Many tools come from Bergerac, about 50 km away, or Fumélois, on the right bank of the Lot more than 70 km away.
The site will become part of an interdisciplinary study by French and foreign specialists including geomorphology and stratigraphy and technological analysis of stone tools and materials, micro-morphological examination, along with thermoluminescence and carbon 14 dating.
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more in including photographs, see http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/06/2012/excavation-of-a-solutrean-campsite.
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1333
from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-07-01 05:42
Ancient Graves Reveal When Elderly Gained Power
It's not easy to study the elderly in a society where life was all too often cut short by disease, childbirth and injuries. But new research on people living in the Bronze Age suggests the elderly began to gain power over a 600-year period in Austria.
The findings rely on skeletal aging and a comparison of objects placed in graves of individuals of different ages. As time passed in the small farming hamlets of lower Austria, researchers reported online July 15 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, older men began to be buried with copper axes, a privilege not granted to younger men. That might indicate that in some ancient societies, the elders were in charge, said study researcher Jo Appleby, a research fellow in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
"It also shows that within the past there was change in one small area in quite a limited time period," Appleby told LiveScience. "We can't assume that the elderly will have good status or bad status in any given context."
Researchers often assume that in ancient societies, the elderly had power. But Appleby noted that in modern life, older people are often shunted aside. We assume they're forgetful or degenerating, she said. The question was whether our ancestors would have thought the same, or whether they really did respect their elders.
Appleby used data from two cemeteries in the Traisen valley of Austria. These cemeteries were the final resting places for Bronze Age farmers that populated the region about 4,000 years ago. The older cemetery was used between 2200 and 1800 B.C., while burials at the more recent cemetery took place between 1900 and 1600 B.C.
Appleby turned up some intriguing patterns. In the earlier period, older women tended not to be buried with certain objects that appeared more frequently in younger people's graves. But the elderly "[had] some of the richer objects, it was just that particular things weren't found with them," she said. For example, unlike their younger counterparts, older women didn't get buried wearing necklaces made of dog teeth.
Later, in the newer cemetery, this age differentiation vanished. Women wore different items than female children, but the age at which a woman died made no difference in her grave goods.
For men, age was at first irrelevant to jewelry and burial objects at both cemeteries. But over time, men who outlived their contemporaries seemed to gain a certain status. Unlike younger men, these older men were buried with bronze axes instead of stone ones. Metals would have still been rare and valuable at the time, Appleby said.
"There was this physical association where men who looked old and had certain types of injuries had access to these axes," she said. "We might see that as indicating that these people actually were the leaders."
Thanks to coldrum for the link. For more, See http://www.livescience.com/15400-ancient-graves-reveal-elderly-gained-power.html.
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bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
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from South Central Indiana, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-06-21 17:55
World's 'oldest fish trap' found off coast of Sweden
Wooden fish traps said to be some 9,000 years old have been found in the Baltic Sea off Sweden, possibly the oldest such traps in existence. Marine archaeologists from Stockholm's Sodertorn University found finger-thick hazel rods grouped on the sea bed. They are thought to be the remains of stationary basket traps.
"This is the world's oldest find when it comes to fishing," said Johan Ronnby, a professor in marine archaeology.
The remains of seven basket traps were found in a submerged ancient river valley off Sweden's southern coast at a depth of 5-12m (16.5-40ft), Mr Sjostrom said. Many examples of similar traps had been found in other parts of the world, he added.
Only one of the baskets has been carbon-dated and is estimated to be around 9,000 years old, the Associated Press news agency reports.
Thanks to coldrum for the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18331340
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2012-06-21 17:58 ]
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