Archaeology 20140708

July/August 2009www.archaeology.org A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America July/August 2014

Scotland: Hard Times in the Highlands

World of the

AztecsSites Under Mexico City5

PLUS:Video Game Graveyard,Neolithic Magic Wand, Genghis Khan’s WeatherReport, The Lizard Diet

Egypt’sLost Dynasty

Tomb of the Silver Hands

A Viking Chief’sFinal Voyage

Andante Travels has been a leading provider of cultural travel for 30

years. Our tours are planned and led by archaeologists and historians.

They include expert scholar, special access, hand-picked hotels, tour

manager & fi eld notes: truly civilized journeys into the ancient world.

The Wonder of Classical Sicily

Discover the melting-pot of the ancient Mediterranean

From Greek temples to fabulous Roman mosaics (such as

the tiger pictured above) and glittering Medieval churches.

Spectacular archaeology from every era of human history.

7, 8 & 11 Days | Departures throughout 2014 and 2015

Price from $2230

- full 2014 and 2015 brochures out now -

from sicily to the parthenon - the heart of ancient civilization

andante travels: run by archaeologists

The Ancient Argolid - The Birth of Greek Civilisation

Gods, myths and heroes in the beautiful Grecian Hills

Explore the great sites of Ancient Greece: Athens, Delphi,

Mycenae, Epidaurus. Feats of art, architecture and

engineering which awed the ancient world.

7 & 12 Days | Departures throughout 2014 and 2015

Prices from $2795

Tunisia - Carthage and Beyond

Spectacular Roman sites and intricate mosaics

9 & 14 Days | 2014 & 2015 | From $2460

Rome - with private access to the Sistine Chapel

Insiders’ guide to the glories of the Eternal City

6 Days | 2014 & 2015 | From $3400

Mexico - The Early Maya with David Drew

Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza & Maya secrets

16 Days | Nov 2014 & 2015 | $4950

Pompeii & Herculaneum

Haunting portrait of life in the Roman Empire

5, 7 & 8 Days | 2014 & 2015 | From $1895

Chile & Easter Island with Dr Paul Bahn

Spectacular rock art with a leading expert

18 Days | Nov 2014 & 2015 | $8330

Relaxed Provence - Gauls and Romans

Arches, aqueducts & amphitheaters in France

7 Days | May & Oct 2014 & 2015 | From $3020

leading scholars | privileged access | small groups | fully inclusive

there’s no time like the pastover 140 expert-led archaeological journeys

call toll-free 1-888-331-3476 | [email protected] | www.andantetravels.com

we are happy to arrange your flights contact us for details

26 Under Mexico CityBeneath the capital’s busy streets,

archaeologists are discovering the

buried world of the Aztecs

BY ROGER ATWOOD

34 Revisiting the Gokstad

More than a century after Norway’s

Gokstad ship burial was first

excavated, scientists are examining

the remains of the Viking chieftain

buried inside and learning the truth

about how he lived and died

BY JASON URBANUS

39 T e Tomb of the Silver HandsLong-buried evidence of an Etruscan

noble family

BY MARCO MEROLA

44 Telling a Diff erent StoryArchaeologists are revealing the dark

past of one of the Cold War’s most

celebrated sites

BY ANDREW CURRY

49 Egypt’s Forgotten DynastyExcavations at the ancient city of

Abydos have revealed the tomb of a

previously unknown pharaoh and

evidence of a long-lost royal lineage

BY MARY BETH GRIGGS

CONTENTS

JULY/AUGUST 2014VOLUME 67, NUMBER 4

features

50 At Abydos, a team led by Penn

Museum Egyptologist Josef Wenger

excavates the tomb of the previously

unknown pharaoh Woseribre Senebkay.

1

Cover: Head made of stone, shell, and

obsidian found in the excavations of the

Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital of

Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City

AZA/ARCHIVE ZABÉ/ART RESOURCE, NY

For 24 years, The Great Courses has brought the world’s foremost educators to millions who want to go deeper into the subjects that matter most. No exams. No homework. Just a world of knowledge available anytime, anywhere. Download or stream to your laptop or PC, or use our free mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, or Android. Nearly 500 courses available at www.thegreatcourses.com.

The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the ReformationTaught by Professor Luke Timothy JohnsonEMORY UNIVERSITY

LECTURE TITLES

1. The Historical Study of Christianity2. The First Cultural Context—Greece and Rome3. The First Cultural Context—Judaism4. The Jesus Movement and the Birth of Christianity5. Paul and Christianity’s First Expansion6. The Diversity of Early Christianity7. The Unpopular Cult—Persecution8. Forms of Witness—Martyrdom and Apologetic9. Extreme Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries10. The Shaping of Orthodoxy11. Institutional Development before Constantine12. The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy13. Imperial Politics and Religion14. Constantine and the Established Church15. The Extension of Christian Culture16. Monasticism as Radical Christianity17. The Emergence of Patriarchal Centers18. Theological Crisis and Council—The Trinity19. Theological Crisis and Council—Christology20. The Distinctive Issues of the Latin West21. Expansion beyond the Boundaries of Empire22. The Court of Justinian and Byzantine Christianity23. The Rise of Islam and the Threat of Iconoclasm24. Eastern Orthodoxy—Holy Tradition25. From Roman Empire to Holy Roman Empire26. Benedictine Monasticism and Its Infl uence27. Evangelization of Western Europe28. The Great Divorce between East and West29. Monastic Reform30. Cathedrals and Chapters31. The Crusades32. Papal Revolution33. Universities and Theology34. The Great Plague35. Corruption and the Beginnings of Reform36. The Ever-Adapting Religion

SAVE UP TO $275

The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the ReformationCourse no. 6610 | 36 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)

LIM

ITED TIME OFFER

70%off

OR

D

ERBY SEPTEM

BE

R10

Discover the Amazing Story of Christianity Christianity is the largest and most global religious tradition in history. Christian practice and influence appears in every land and every language, and one-third of humanity now affiliates in some way with the faith. But did you ever stop to wonder how this happened?

Find out in The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation. Taught by award-winning Emory University professor and former Benedictine monk Luke Timothy Johnson, this comprehensive and enthralling 36-lecture course presents the phenomenally epic story of Christianity’s first 1,500 years. By course end, you’ll possess a new, multilayered understanding of Christianity’s origins, rise, and civilization-shaping presence in our world.

Of er expires 09/10/14

1-800-832-2412WWW.THEGREATCOURSES.COM/7AR

DVD $374.95 NOW $99.95+$15 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee

CD $269.95 NOW $69.95+$10 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee

Priority Code: 95971

departments

■ More from this Issue To see more images of

the tombs at the Etruscan necropolis of Vulci, go to

www.archaeology.org/silverhands

■ Interactive Digs Read about the latest discoveries

at the Minoan site of Zominthos in central Crete and at

Johnson’s Island, a Civil War site in Ohio.

on the web www.archaeology.org

■ Archaeological News Each day, we bring

you headlines from around the world. And sign up

for our e-Update so you don’t miss a thing.

■ Stay in Touch Visit Facebook and like

Archaeology or follow us on Twitter at

@archaeologymag.

16

4 Editor’s Letter

6 Letters Chinese gambling in the Old West, don’t take a

musket to a rifl e fi ght, and ancient Egyptian tax havens

8 From the President

11 From the Trenches Unearthing E.T.’s lost legacy, a daring Civil War

steamship, how Neanderthals really differed from

modern humans, and the skinny on an ancient

wrestling match

24 World Roundup

Scurvy in Columbus’ fi rst colony, the Near Eastern

lizard diet, a medieval Christian tattoo in Sudan, and

how nice weather helped Genghis Khan

55 Letter from Scotland Were the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral

squatters or hard-working farmers?

68 Artifact A 10,000-year-old wand offers a new look at the

faces of the Neolithic

18

20

3

The streets, businesses, and residences of teeming Mexico City, one of the most densely populated urban centers on the planet, barely conceal evidence of the city’s complex past. In “Under Mexico City” (page 26), contributing editor Roger

Atwood shares how archaeologists are uncovering evidence of the precolonial period when the Aztecs ruled ancient Mexico. Here, he writes of fve of the city’s most signifcant Aztec

sites and ofers important insights into their stunningly violent culture.

We think of Egypt as having been dominated by enormous pharaonic realms. But in 1997, scholar Kim Ryholt proposed that there might have been a smaller

Egyptian kingdom that lasted for a short period between 1650 and 1600 b.c. In “Egypt’s Forgotten Dynasty” (page

49), journalist Mary Beth Griggs shows that by tracing

evidence from papyrus fragments and tying it to recent excavations, researchers have indeed found evidence of a long-lost royal lineage whose role, in its day, was anything

but insignifcant.

The ancient tombs of Vulci, some 75 miles to the north of Rome, were once considered a must-see for nineteenth-

century travelers on a Grand Tour of Europe. At a certain

point, the travelers stopped coming, and the tombs were lost as vegetation took over. In “The Tomb of the Silver Hands” (page 39), journalist Marco Merola covers archae-

ologist Carlo Casi’s search for the lost tombs of Vulci and his surprising fnds.

Contributing editor Andrew Curry writes of new evidence that is being discovered in Berlin at the former Tempelhof Airport. In “Telling a Diferent Story” (page 44), we learn

that this airfeld, long associated with the Berlin Airlift—when the Allies few in supplies

in defance of a Soviet blockade—had a darker past. Archaeologists are now uncovering

evidence that, during World War II, people were transported there from all over Europe and forcibly set to work for Nazi Germany’s war machine.

Upon excavation in 1880, a large earthen mound on the western shores of Norway’s Oslofjord, long referred to locally as the “King’s Hill,” became one of the most important

Viking discoveries ever made. Named for the farm on which it was found, the Gokstad ship

burial contained not only artifacts, but also the remains of a Viking chieftain. Archaeologist Jason Urbanus brings us “Revisiting the Gokstad” (page 34), the story of the reexamination

of the boat and its occupant, using twenty-frst-century scientifc methodologies. Much

more is now being learned about the Viking warrior’s life and, possibly, his last battle.And don’t miss this month’s lead story in “From the Trenches” (page 11), which shows

just how quickly our present becomes the past!

ArchAeology • July/August 20144

editor’s letter

editor in chief

Claudia Valentino

executive editor Deputy editor

Jarrett A. Lobell Samir S. Patel

online editor

Eric A. Powell

editorial Assistant

Malin Grunberg Banyasz

creative Director

Richard Bleiweiss

contributing editors

Roger Atwood, Paul Bahn, Bob Brier, Andrew Curry, Blake Edgar, Brian Fagan,

David Freidel, Tom Gidwitz, Andrew Lawler, Stephen H. Lekson, Jerald T. Milanich,

Jennifer Pinkowski, Heather Pringle, Angela M. H. Schuster, Neil Asher Silberman,

Julian Smith, Zach Zorich

correspondents

Athens: Yannis N. Stavrakakis Bangkok: Karen Coates

Islamabad: Massoud Ansari Israel: Mati Milstein

Naples: Marco Merola Paris: Bernadette Arnaud Rome: Roberto Bartoloni,

Giovanni Lattanzi Washington, D.C.: Sandra Scham

Publisher

Kevin Quinlan

Director of circulation and Fulfllment Kevin Mullen

Director of Integrated Sales

Gerry Moss

Account Manager

Karina Casines

West coast Account Manager

Cynthia Lapporte Oak Media Group

[email protected] 323-493-2754

Account Manager

Jef PosnerPRI Communications Inc.

[email protected] x11

circulation consultant

Greg Wolfe, Circulation Specialists, Inc.

Newsstand consultant

T.J. Montilli, Publishers Newstand Outsource, LLC

offce Manager

Malin Grunberg Banyasz

For production questions, contact [email protected]

editorial Advisory Board

James P. Delgado, Ellen Herscher, Ronald Hicks, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Mark Lehner, Roderick J. McIntosh,

Susan Pollock, Jeremy A. Sablof, Kenneth B. Tankersley

Subscription questions and address changes should be sent to Archaeology,

Subscription Services, P.O. Box 433091 Palm Coast, FL 32164 toll free (877) ARKY-SUB (275-9782)

or [email protected]

Archaeology Magazine

36-36 33rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11106tel 718-472-3050 • fax 718-472-3051

Claudia Valentino

Editor in Chief

Summer Reading

The United States Gold & Silver Reserve Vault Facility today announces what could be the fi nal

release of U.S. government-issued gold coins previously held in The West Point Depository/U.S. Mint. For a limited time, U.S. citizens will have the opportunity to purchase these $5 government-issued gold coins for the incredible at-cost price of only $140.00 per coin. An amazing price because these U.S. government-issued gold coins are completely free of dealer markup. That’s correct—our cost. This may be your fi nal opportunity to buy U.S.

government-issued gold coins at this price. Gold, which is currently around $1,300 per ounce, is predicted by experts to have the explosive upside potential of reaching up to $5,000 per ounce in the future. Please be advised: Our U.S. government gold inventory will be priced at $140.00 coin while supplies last or for up to 30 days. These coins may sell out. Call today! United States Gold & Silver Reserve will release these U.S. government-issued gold coins at cost on a fi rst-come, fi rst-served

basis. Orders that are not immediately received or reserved with the order center could be subject to cancellation and your checks returned uncashed. Good luck. We hope that everyone will have a chance to purchase this special U.S. government-issued gold at this price because it could be going to $5,000 per ounce. Order immediately before our vault sells out completely! Special arrangements can be made for gold purchases over $50,000.

U.S. Gold Coins Authorized for Immediate Release

Authorized by Congress: Public Law 99-185

By Executive Order of Congress Public Law 99-185, Americans can now buy new government-issued gold. Congressionally authorized United States gold coins provide American citizens with a way to add physical gold to their portfolios. Gold American Eagles are made from solid gold mined here in America, struck at the U.S. Mint at West Point, and produced with a U.S. dollar denomination, making them legal tender United States gold coins. They are highly liquid, easily transportable, and, unlike paper assets, Gold American Eagles have a tangible value you can feel each time you hold

your own gold. Though no one, including United States Gold & Silver Reserve, can guarantee a gold coin’s future value will go up or down, numerous experts are predicting gold to reach $5,000 per ounce. Now is the time to consider converting part of your paper assets into gold. United States Gold & Silver Reserve has a limited supply and urges you to make your vault reservations immediately. Call a Senior Gold Specialist at 1-888-515-6093 to start your gold portfolio and begin protecting your wealth today. If you’ve been waiting to move your money into gold, the time is now.

Do Not Delay - Limited Supplies Available!

Government-Issued Gold Coin

1-888-515-6093MASTERCARD • VISA • AMEX • DISCOVER

CHECK • BANK WIRE • ACH

Call Toll-Free 7 Days a Week:

VAULT CODE: ARC7-140

U.S. GOV’T GOLD

© 2014 United States Gold & Silver Reserve. Offer void where prohibited.

THE MARKETS FOR COINS ARE UNREGULATED. PRICES CAN RISE OR FALL AND CARRY SOME RISKS. THE COMPANY IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE U.S. GOVERN-MENT AND THE U.S. MINT. PAST PERFORMANCE OF THE COIN OR THE MARKET CANNOT PREDICT FUTURE PERFORMANCE. SPECIAL AT-COST OFFER IS STRICTLY LIMITED TO ONLY ONE LIFETIME PURCHASE OF 10 AT-COST COINS (REGARDLESS OF PRICE PAID) PER HOUSEHOLD, PLUS SHIPPING AND INSURANCE. PRICES MAY BE MORE OR LESS BASED ON CURRENT MARKET CONDITIONS. PRICE NOT VALID FOR PRECIOUS METALS DEALERS. ALL CALLS RECORDED FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE.

$14000EACH

ONLY

SHIPPING & INSURANCE $15-$35

PURE COST - NO DEALER MARKUP!

Coins enlarged to show detail.Coins enlarged to show detail.U.S. Government-Issued American Eagle Gold CoinsU.S. Government-Issued American Eagle Gold Coins

GOLD & SILVER RESERVE

ARCHAEOLOGY • July/August 20146

LETTERS

Game Night in Chinatown

I was particularly interested in Samir S. Patel’s “America’s Chinatowns” in the May/June 2014 issue, but what really struck home for me was the picture of the gambling pieces on page 41. I believe these so-called gambling

pieces are actually playing pieces from the ancient Chinese game of We-chi,

which is called “Go” in the Western world. We members of the American Go Association are always on the look-

out for the earliest evidence for Go in the United States and North America. I would be very interested in fi nding

a precise date when these pieces were used by the Chinese community in the British Columbia camp.

Samuel E. Zimmerman

American Go Association.

Lancaster, PA

Archaeologist Douglas Ross responds: Those gaming pieces were very likely used to play Go, and these objects are very com-

mon on Chinese sites overseas. This type of black and white glass gaming piece was also used in other games such as Fan Tan, or as gambling tokens, so they cannot be exclusively associated with Go alone. The name of these pieces varies with the con-

text in which they were used, so archaeolo-

gists tend to simply refer to them as glass gaming pieces. Dating is nearly impossible because they were used for such a long time and, in fact, they turn up on Chinese sites from the 1850s right through the 1930s and beyond.

Gun Fight

I believe the weapons mentioned by Eric A. Powell in “Searching for the Comanche Empire” (May/June 2014)

were muskets rather than rifl es. The

diff erence is rather more fundamental

than the diff erence between a major

league baseball and a beer league softball.

Steve List

Bristol, PA

Family Reunion

I just received my May/June issue and

was pleasantly surprised to fi nd my

sixth great-grandfather mentioned

in the article “City Garden.” Andris Souplis was born in 1634 and came to America in 1682, when the spelling was changed from Souplis to either Supple or Supplee. He is buried in Gloria Dei churchyard cemetery,

although his grave is not marked. Phyllis Supplee Jensen

Winslow, AZ

Earning Potential

In the fascinating article “Messengers to the Gods” (March/April 2014), research-

ers hypothesize that the proliferation of mummifi ed animal votive off erings

following the collapse of Egypt’s New Kingdom was due to increased income for average Egyptians. They suggest

that this was thanks to the absence of a centralized taxing authority, as well as increased personal devotions without a pharaoh to represent the people to the gods. Might it also be possible that the temples encouraged this practice to replace income after losing subsidies from a central government?

Susan Weikel Morrison

Fresno, CA

Brooklyn Museum’s Edward Bleiberg responds: Temples were mostly supported by the land that they owned, most of which was nearby, although sometimes temples also owned land in other parts of Egypt. There really was no state subsidy to temples apart from their assigned land. Rulers were, however, impor-

tant as intermediaries between the people and the gods. When this link was lost for many Egyptians in the Third Intermediate Period, votive animal mummies may have created a way for ordinary people to petition the gods more directly. Once this link was established, later rulers continued to support the practice of using votive animal mummies.

ARCHAEOLOGY welcomes mail from

readers. Please address your comments

to ARCHAEOLOGY, 36-36 33rd Street,

Long Island City, NY 11106, fax 718-472-

3051, or e-mail letters@arch a eology.org.

The editors reserve the right to edit

submitted material. Vol ume precludes

our acknowledging individual letters.

Please be aware of unauthorized magazine agencies that may attempt to solicit your new or

renewal subscription to ARCHAEOLOGY. If you received a renewal notice or invoice that you suspect is not

from ARCHAEOLOGY, you can check the status of your subscription by going to www.archaeology.org

and clicking on “Subscribe” or by calling 1-877-ARKY-SUB (1-877-275-9782). Renewals to

ARCHAEOLOGY should only be sent to Palm Coast, FL, or to Boston, MA. All renewals will bear the logo of

ARCHAEOLOGY or the Archaeological Institute of America.

READER ALERT

Discover this spectacular 6½-carat green

treasure from Mount St. Helens!

For almost a hundred years it lay dormant. Silently building strength. At

10,000 feet high, it was truly a sleeping giant. Until May 18, 1980, when

the beast awoke with violent force and revealed its greatest secret. Mount St.

Helens erupted, sending up a 80,000-foot column of ash and smoke. From

that chaos, something beautiful emerged… our spectacular Helenite Necklace.

Helenite is produced from the heated volcanic

rock of Mount St. Helens and the brilliant

green creation has captured the eye of jewelry

designers worldwide. Today you can wear this

massive 6½-carat stunner for only $149!

Make your emeralds jealous. Our Helenite

Necklace puts the green stone center stage,

with a faceted pear-cut set in .925 sterling silver

finished in luxurious gold. The explosive

origins of the stone are echoed in the

flashes of light that radiate as the

piece swings gracefully from its

18" luxurious gold-finished

sterling silver chain. Today

the volcano sits quiet, but

this unique piece of

American natural history

continues to erupt with

gorgeous green fire.

Your satisfaction is guaranteed. Bring home

the Helenite Necklace and see for yourself. If you

are not completely blown away by the rare beauty

of this exceptional stone, simply return the necklace

within 30 days for a full refund of your purchase price.

Smar t Luxur ies—Surpr i s ing Pr ices ™

JEWELRY SPECS:

- 6 ½ ctw Helenite in gold-finished sterling silver setting

- 18" gold-finished sterling silver chain

Meet the Beautyin the Beast

14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. HEL610-04, Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 www.stauer.comStauer®

Helenite Necklace (6 ½ ctw)................Only $149 +S&P

Helenite Stud Earrings (1 ctw) ....................$129 +S&P

Helenite Set $278 ...Call-in price only $149 +S&P

(Set includes necklace and earrings)

Call now to take advantage of this extremely limited offer.

1-800-859-1979Promotional Code HEL610-04Please mention this code when you call.

Rating of A+

Limited to the first 2200 orders from this ad only

“My wife received morecompliments on this stone

on the first day she wore itthan any other piece of jewelry

I’ve ever given her.”

- J. from Orlando, FLStauer Client

Necklace

enlarged to show

luxurious color.

EXCLUSIVE

FREEHelenite Earrings

-a $129 value-with purchase of

Helenite Necklace


from the president Archaeological Institute of America

Located at Boston University

officers

President

Andrew Moore

First Vice President

Jodi Magness

Vice President for outreach and education

Pamela Russell

Vice President for research and Academic Affairs

Carla Antonaccio

Vice President for Professional responsibilities

Laetitia La Follette

Treasurer

David Ackert

Vice President for Societies

Thomas Morton

executive Director

Ann Benbow

chief operating officer

Kevin Quinlan

governing board

Susan Alcock Barbara BarlettaAndrea Berlin

David BoocheverBruce CampbellDerek Counts

Julie Herzig DesnickSheila Dillon, ex officio

Michael GalatyRonald Greenberg

Michael Hoff Jeffrey Lamia

Lynne LancasterBecky Lao

Deborah LehrRobert Littman

Elizabeth Macaulay-LewisMaria PapaioannouJ. Theodore Peña Eleanor PowersPaul Rissman

Robert RothbergDavid Seigle Chen Shen

Monica Smith Charles Steinmetz

Claudia Valentino, ex officio Michael Wiseman

Past President

Elizabeth Bartman

Trustees emeriti

Brian Heidtke Norma Kershaw

Charles S. La Follette

legal counsel

Mitchell Eitel, Esq.Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP

Archaeological Institute of America656 Beacon Street • Boston, MA 02215-2006

www.archaeological.org

Archaeology from the Sea

Andrew Moore

President, Archaeological Institute of America

Mariners in the past led a perilous existence, sailing in treacherous waters with only simple instruments to aid in navigation, with no communication possible with those left behind. All too often voyages ended in disaster as ships foundered

or went aground. Each shipwreck, though marking a tragic event, also represents a self-

contained community, and, when conditions of preservation are good, archaeologists can reconstruct past worlds, sometimes more completely than may be possible on land.

Oceangoing vessels were frequently engaged in trade, and their excavated cargoes offer unique clues as to how regions across the globe were connected. The Bronze Age shipwreck at Uluburun off the rocky south coast of Turkey, dating to about 1300 b.c., contained copper and tin ingots, timber, ivory, glass, beads, bronze tools and weapons, pottery, and many other artifacts. These raw materials and objects would have been taken aboard at ports

around the eastern Mediterranean, in the Nile delta, along the Levant coast, and at Cyprus. Archaeologists had long thought that the Bronze Age cultures in those places were distinct entities that owed little to each other, but the Uluburun wreck has effectively demonstrated that they were regularly in touch through maritime trade.

Closer to our own time, the Mary Rose, flagship of King Henry VIII of England, sank in 1545 off Portsmouth Harbor as the British fleet was about to engage an approaching French armada. This vessel and its contents are remarkably well preserved. From the wreck and from the artifacts recovered, including weapons ranging from longbows and arrows to cannons and shot, we gain a picture of maritime warfare in transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era, and of the crew members’ daily lives.

In 1686, La Belle, captained by would-be French colonist Robert de La Salle, sank in

a bay just off the Texas shore. The passengers and crew of La Belle had hoped to found a colony on the Gulf Coast, an attempt that was thwarted by this disaster. The brass cannons, and boxes of muskets, shot, and gunpowder onboard were needed for defense in hostile territory. Carpentry tools, rope, trade beads, religious paraphernalia, and food remains document many aspects of life in the planned settlement. La Belle was recovered in an exemplary excavation by the staff of the Texas Historical Commission in 1996–1997, yielding more than one million artifacts. The surviving timbers of the ship, now being conserved for display, illuminate the shipbuilding techniques of the period.

Shipwrecks illustrate how societies in the past interacted—at times successfully, and at

other times through conflict. They demonstrate how technological advancement can expand the boundaries of human possibility. And they transform our understanding of key episodes in the human past, even as they bring the lost worlds of our forebears vividly into the present.

EXPLORE &

DISCOVER... . . . how you can create your legacy with the

Archaeological Institute of America

L-R: Eric Blind with Ellen and Charles S. La Follette in the archaeology lab in San Francisco’s Presidio.

For Charles S. La Follette, creating a personal legacy through a planned gift in his will was a natural extension of his involvement with the Archaeological Institute of America and his commitment to archaeological research and education. “I joined the Norton Society to help the AIA continue its wonderful archaeological programs for generations to come,” says Charles. With his bequest, he is conf dent that AIA will continue to provide professional archaeologists with resources critical to their work and lifelong learning opportunities for everyone.

T e Charles Eliot Norton Society honors friends of archaeology who have named the

AIA as a benef ciary of their retirement plan, insurance policy, will, or other estate gift.

We would be delighted to include you in this special group of

benefactors. For more information, please complete the attached card

and return to AIA or call 617.353.8709 or visit

www.archaeological.org/giving/norton

YOU’RE NOT TOO YOUNG

TO PLAN YOUR LEGACY!

Discovery of oldest Maya murals ever found at San

Bartolo, Guatemala. Photo by Heather Hurst.

We’ve all had nights when we just can’t lie down in bed and

sleep, whether it’s from heartburn, cardiac problems, hip or

back aches – could be a variety of reasons. Those are the nights

we’d give anything for a comfortable chair to sleep in, one

that reclines to exactly the right degree, raises feet and legs to

precisely the desired level, supports the head and shoulders

properly, operates easily even in the dead of night, and sends a

hopeful sleeper right off to dreamland.

Our Perfect Sleep Chair is just the chair to do it all. It’s a

chair, true – the finest of lift chairs – but this chair is so much

more! It’s designed to provide

total comfort and relaxation

not found in other chairs. It

can’t be beat for comfortable,

long-term sitting, TV viewing,

relaxed reclining and – yes! –

peaceful sleep. Our chair’s

recline technology

allows you to pause

the chair in an

infinite number of

positions, including

the Trendelenburg

position and the zero

gravity position where

your body experiences a

minimum of internal and

external stresses. You’ll love the other

benefits, too: It helps with correct spinal

alignment, promotes back pressure relief, and encourages better

posture to prevent back and muscle pain.

And there’s more! The overstuffed, oversized biscuit style back

and unique seat design will cradle you in comfort. Generously

filled, wide armrests provide enhanced arm support when

sitting or reclining. The high and low heat settings along

with the dozens of massage settings, can provide a soothing

relaxation you might get at a spa – just imagine getting all that

in a lift chair! Weight capacity 375 lbs. Shipping charge includes

white glove delivery. Professionals will deliver the chair to the

exact spot in your home where you want it, unpack it, inspect it,

test it, position it, and even carry the packaging away! Includes

one year service warranty and your choice of fabrics and colors

– ships in approximately three business days.

“To you, it’s the perfect lif chair. To me,

it’s the best sleep chair I’ve ever had.” — J. Fitzgerald, VA

Remote Controls for Heat, Massage, Recline and Lift

SeparateHeat andMassageControls!

Sit up, lie down —

and anywhere

in between!

This lift chair puts you safely on your feet!

The Perfect Sleep Chair Call now toll free for our lowest price.

Please mention code 48062 when ordering.

1-888-648-9638 46

35

7

© 2014 by fi rst STREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.

DuraLux II

Microfi ber

Tan Brown Burgundy

Burgundy Chocolate Cashmere Fern Indigo

Long Lasting

DuraLux Leather

LATE-BREAKING NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE WORLD OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Just as ancient cultures have founding myths, so does today’s multibillion-dollar global video game industry.

The f rst titan of video games was Atari, which, in the

early 1980s, put their 2600 video game system in millions of homes—a f rst “computer” for many American households.

The industry crashed in 1983, in part because of substandard games, including a notorious fl op based on Steven Spielberg’s

blockbuster E.T., thought by many to be the worst video

game ever made. (It was bad. Very bad.) Legend has it that

Atari buried millions of unsold and returned copies of E.T., and perhaps other titles, in a New Mexico dump as the com-

pany struggled to stay afl oat. Thirty years was long enough for

the dump site—and the truth behind the story—to be lost.

In 2013, media companies Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox acquired the rights to create a documentary about

the video game crash of the early 1980s and to dig the Atari

dump site, if it could be found. As both an archaeologist (and

Director of Publications at the American School of Classi-

cal Studies at Athens) and a child of that early video game

boom, I contacted Fuel to ask about how the archaeology—

excavation, documentation, reporting—would

be handled. They invited me to take part, and I

assembled a team that included Richard Rothaus of Trefoil Cultural and Environmental and Bill

Caraher of the University of North Dakota,

veterans of excavations in the Mediterranean

and the Americas, as well as

video game historian Raiford Guins of Stony Brook Uni-

versity and historian Bret

Weber of the University of

North Dakota.

In April 2014, the archaeological team, f lmmakers, and curious

locals converged on an Alamogordo landf ll. The

legend soon burst to life.

In “Basket 5,” Rothaus

recovered a boxed copy of

E.T., complete with instruc-

tions, catalogue, and Raiders of the Lost Ark insert. Like dig-

ging in a pottery dump, coin hoard, or shell mid-

den, each turn of the shovel or bucket loader exposed more

games and hardware—thousands of

cartridges representing dozens of titles. The

year’s worst sandstorm stopped the exca-

vation, but the game-f lled trench

was photographed and thousands

of artifacts were bagged for

analysis and cataloguing.

While many may think that the recent past isn’t an appro-

priate target for serious archae-

ologists, University of Arizona

archaeologist William Rathje once said that archaeology seeks to f nd

items that have cultural value—value

that he found in the Tucson Garbage Project, a decades-long ef ort to study

trends in modern trash. The Atari

project is in that tradition, and regard-

less of the attention it received, the

T e Video Game Graveyard

www.archaeology.org 11

from the trenches


The tiny Caribbean island of Aruba is an ideal beach vacation spot, but tourists who venture away from the shore are in for a treat as well. Arikok National Park features an astonishing array of rock art made by the island’s first inhabitants, the Caquetío people, who belonged to the Arawakan language family. More than a thousand years ago, they canoed to the island from northwestern Venezuela.

Early European accounts describe Aruba as an “island of giants,” as the Caquetío were relatively tall. The Spanish were the first Europeans to colonize the island, followed by the Dutch, who, in the seventeenth century, made Aruba part of the Dutch West India Company, and have governed it ever since. While there are no longer full-blooded Caquetío, vestiges of their heritage remain.

The rock art of the Caquetío people, according to archaeologist Harold Kelly of the National Archaeological Museum Aruba, includes geometric, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic motifs in red, white, brown, and black. The art at one site, Cunucu Arikok, stands out for its complexity, variety, and quantity. “The combination of white and red colors in a single depiction is something that is not only unique

for rock art of Aruba,” says Kelly, “but also the rest of the Caribbean, as far as we know.”

The site

Cunucu Arikok is lo-

cated on a farm that

has been partially

restored to the time

when agriculture was

a large part of Aru-

ba’s economy. Beans,

corn, millet, peanuts,

and cucumbers were

once cultivated at the

site, which also has

cactus hedges and stone walls to pro-

tect those crops from livestock. Trails

lead to the Caquetío rock art, including

drawings of marine animals and birds

that are visible on overhanging rocks

just off the trail near the parking lot.

More elaborate anthropomorphic

designs can be found a short walk

away, on the Cunucu Arikok dolerite

rock formation within Arikok National

Park. There, several complex human

fgures can be found among dozens

of other works, including dynamic

depictions of shamans carrying out

rituals and, according to Kelly, going

on mystical journeys. One of these is

depicted in the unique red-and-white

palette, with a fgure intertwined with

geometric patterns. The works are

stunners both for their artistic merit

and the insight they provide about the

Caquetío belief system. Maps, guides,

and educational activities are all avail-

able at the park’s visitor center.

While you’re there

If you need a break from Aruba’s white

sand and blue sea, the park also of-

fers hiking trails, unique wildlife, and

Conchi, also known as the “Natural

Pool,” a remote tidal pool surrounded

by jagged volcanic rock. The National

Archaeological Museum Aruba, located

in a historic home in downtown Oran-

jestad, chronicles the island’s history,

from 2500 b.c. to the recent past. The

capital is also a great place to sample

Aruba’s unique cuisine, which incorpo-

rates Caribbean, Spanish, and Dutch

infuences.

—Malin GrunberG banyasz

dig established that material produced in the 1980s, and even more recently, can have archaeological value. Further

research will examine the composition

of the deposit of games and hardware in

conjunction with the surrounding levels

of garbage to understand what hap-

pened, from both business and cultural perspectives, when Atari dumped its

dead weight in the desert. Some of the

fnds have already been sent to museums

for display and conservation, and the archaeological team is now writing a

preliminary report and a peer-reviewed

journal article.

These Atari games are part of my

generation’s cultural heritage, and mark a tipping point in the history of tech-

nology. Two years after the crash, Nin-

tendo released its own American game

system, starting a second boom that continues today. It is signifcant that

the documentary, Atari: Game Over, will

debut on Microsoft’s Xbox, a direct

descendant of the “ancient” culture

that created this video game midden.

Potentially millions more cartridges, along with other artifacts such as Atari

computers, prototypes, and corporate documents, remain at the dump site.

Future archaeologists will have their

work cut out for them.

—Andrew reinhArd

14101 Southcross Drive W., Dept. ZER223-01

Burnsville, Minnesota 55337

www.stauer.com

Rating of A+

Smart Luxuries—Surprising Prices™

Rare African Emerald Find

Shocks Colombian CartelU.S. jeweler seizes more than 10,000 carats and makes history by releasing

the One-Carat Pride of Zambia Emerald Ring for UNDER $100!

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA - A recent find of high quality emeralds in this African republic hasthrown the luxury gem world into tumult. For hundreds of years, Colombians have controlled the high-end emerald market and sent prices soaring to over $15,000 per caratfor top graded stones. But the history-making discovery of Zambian emeralds has revealed a green gemstone with mesmerizing clarity that simply changes everything.

is important find led Stauer, a major gem dealer and importer, to bid on over10,000 carats. Stauer designed a classic 1-ctw ring for people who love the gem but don’t love outrageously priced luxury. Because of their timely buy,Stauer is releasing this exclusive, natural emerald ring—aka “e Pride ofZambia”—to the public for under $100!

Discover a Different Kind of Emerald

“For the price, these natural gemstones were the most magnificent emeralds that I’ve seen in 30 years,” said Michael Bisceglia at Stauer.“e value of Colombian stones can’t compare.”

Industry experts back him up. Lab tests prove that Zambian emeralds are less porous and brittle than their Colombianbrothers. And gem cutters have found Zambians so brilliantthat they lend themselves more to high-luster cuts than traditional emerald designs.

Unfortunately, the window on this exciting emerald opportunity is closing fast. Not long after Stauer acquired their cache, a recent auction saw Zambianemerald prices hit a new record high. e time to acton this great gem value is now, before it’s too late. Pleasecall our U.S.-based client service team at 1-888-277-8375or visit us online at www.stauer.com.

Emerald Is THE Gem of 2014

e rise of emeralds is more than just a passing trend. Anarticle in the Financial Times of London from June of thisyear pointed to the reason. In “Emeralds: Shades of GreenStart to Outshine Diamonds,” the newspaper reported thatemerald demand is soaring worldwide even as diamond demand softens. Rarity is key as fine emeralds are much rarerthan diamonds.

“With wealthy Russian and Chinese demand for emeraldsway up, we expect prices to continue to rise quickly,” Biscegliasaid. “at’s why we’re so happy to have found these beautifulstones at this price.”

Your Satisfaction is 100% Guaranteed

Call today and wear the Pride of Zambia RISK-FREE (less s&p)for 30 days. If you’re not dazzled by this precious gemstone, simplysend it back for a full refund of your purchase price.

Pride of Zambia Emerald Ring

(1 ctw) Only $99+ shipping & processing

Call now to take advantage of this fantastic offer.

1-888-277-8375Promotional Code ZER223-01

Please mention this code when you call.

1 ctw genuine Zambian Emerald

Luxurious gold-finish over .925sterling silver setting

Available in whole sizes 5-10

Stauer®

Independently

Appraised

at $690*

* For more information concerning the appraisal, visit http://www.stauer.com/appraisedvalues.asp.


from the trenches

A Bold Civil War Steamer

Eight hundred years ago, Byzan-

tine monks painting the walls

of a monastery in Cyprus made

the aesthetic choice to use asbes-

tos—heat-resistant mineral f bers now

known to be highly carcinogenic—

to give their work an extra sheen.

University of California, Los Ange-

les, archaeological scientist Ioanna

Kakoulli made the discovery while

analyzing the chemical makeup of a painting depicting Jesus, beneath which she found a plaster f nish con-

taining chrysotile, one of the minerals in the asbestos group. “We were not

expecting to f nd chrysotile in twelfth-

century paintings,” says Kakoulli. “It

has never been reported and we have

never found it on any other Byzantine

paintings.”

The heat-resistant properties of

asbestos were known as early as 2000

b.c., when it was used to make pottery

in Finland, and Roman artisans includ-

ed it in fabrics used in funeral pyres to keep the ashes of the dead discrete. But

scholars had believed asbestos was not used to make materi-

als such as plasters until the Industrial Revolution. Kak-

oulli thinks the monks knew

or discovered that the min-

eral made their plaster easy to smooth and able to be polished to a mirror-like surface upon

which to paint. She plans to

return to the monastery and examine other wall paintings

to determine how widespread

the innovation was.

—eric A. Powell

Of the South Carolina coast,

archaeologists believe they have identif ed the remains of

Planter, a steamer that was associated

with one of the most daring actions of

the Civil War. Chartered by the Confed-

eracy as a transport vessel soon after the war began, Planter’s second-in-command

was Robert Smalls, an enslaved black

man. On a spring night in 1862, while

the ship’s white crew attended a ball in

Charleston, Smalls and the other black

crewmen commandeered the steamer.

After taking on his family, Smalls steered

Planter past several Confederate forts

and delivered the vessel to a Union

warship. Smalls was eventually appoint-

ed Planter’s captain—the f rst African

American to serve as ship’s master in

the history of the United States military.

After the war, Planter hauled pas-

sengers and cotton along the South

Carolina coast, and was abandoned

after running aground during a severe storm in 1876. Archaeologists with the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) carried out

a remote-sensing survey where Planter

was thought to have been lost. They

detected a series of magnetic anomalies that are likely concentrations of iron from the ship’s boiler. “The site is in

10 feet of water and 15 feet of sand, so excavating will be nearly impos-

sible,” says NOAA archaeologist Bruce

Terrell. “But because of its historical

signif cance, we’ll monitor the site to

ensure it isn’t threatened.”

—eric A. Powell

Byzantine Secret Ingredient

For the Native Americans who

were relocated along the Trail of

Tears, disease, hunger, and stress were constant companions. The Indian

Removal Act resulted in the forced

march in 1838 of 17,000 Cherokee from

their homes in the Appalachian and

Great Smoky Mountains to a reservation

in Oklahoma. Along the way, whoop-

ing cough, yellow fever, diarrhea, and

exhaustion claimed many lives. Accord-

ing to a new study, those who survived,

and their descendants, also bore the marks of the trial.

Ann H. Ross, an anthropologist

at North Carolina State University,

examined data on the skull size of

Cherokee from the period following

their removal—both among those who

were relocated and some who had

remained hidden in the Eastern moun-

tains. Using records of Cherokee adult

head size made in the early 1900s, she found that both the relocated Western Band and the hidden Eastern Band

displayed reduced cranial length and

breadth. Cranial size is determined in

infancy and childhood, and smaller size is associated with poor nutrition and

environmental conditions during this key developmental period. “We were

surprised that there were changes in

both bands,” Ross says. “The Eastern

Band, hiding in the Smoky Mountains,

also sufered environmental stress.”

The study has implications for understanding the efects of humanitar-

ian crises, large population movements, industrial development, and contact with outsiders, Ross says. She is also

using this type of research to examine

the impact of European arrival on Native American populations.

—MArion P. BlAckBurn

Inheritance of

Tears


1-800-552-4575 • www.farhorizons.com1-800-552-4575 • www.farhorizons.com

JOURney into the heart of History

SOUTH INDIAWith Professor Daud Ali

January 1 - 18, 2015

Cambodia & LaosWith Dr. Damian Evans

January 4 - 20, 2015

F E A T U R E D J O U R N E Y S

Since 1983, Far Horizons has been designing unique itineraries led byrenowned scholars for small groups of sophisticated travelers who desire a deeper knowledge of both past and living cultures.

CRUISE BY

PRIVATE YACHTTurkey - Kos - Symi - RhodesWith Professor Garrett Fagan

September 28 - October 11, 2014

CHINA’S SILK ROADWith Dr. Jennifer RoseOctober 9 - 26, 2014

MYANMAR (Burma)With Dr. Charlotte Galloway

December 1 - 18, 2014

NUBIAN SUDANWith Professor Bob Brier

January 4 - 17, 2015

EASTER ISLANDWith Dr. Sidsel Millerström

January 29 - February 9, 2015

UNDISCOVERED EGYPTWith 3-nights Onboard a Yacht

With Professor Bob BrierFebruary 14 - 27, 2015

Archaeology

of the YucatanWith Dr. Stanley Guenter

February 14 - 25, 2015

Crusader KnightsCyprus - Rhodes - Malta

With Professor John FranceMarch 15 - 29, 2015

…and much more!Greece ¥ Sicily ¥ Scotland ¥ Sri Lanka

Central Asia ¥ Peru ¥ India ¥ IranFrance ¥ Maya World ¥ Spain & Morocco

England ¥ Mongolia & China ¥ JordanIreland ¥ Ethiopia ¥ Indonesia

Path of the Trail of Tears, eastern

Tennessee

from the trenches

Diminutive Gatekeeper

Inside a 1,500-year-old shaft tomb, archaeologists from

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History

discovered a ceramic f gurine of a shaman holding what

may have been a weapon, according to archaeologist Marcos

Zavaleta. The shaman was placed at the opening of the tomb as

if he were guarding the undisturbed burial, which contained the

body of one or possibly two high-status people and six pots that

might have held food for the afterlife. The burial complex is

located in the state of Colima on Mexico’s west coast. Accord-

ing to Zavaleta, this rare intact burial could reveal much about religion and funeral practices in ancient Colima.

—ZAch Zorich

18 ArchAeology • July/August 2014

Bannockburn Booty

As the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Ban-

nockburn approaches, an archaeological campaign is providing new details about

the famous clash, considered one of the most important events in Scotland’s history. In 1314, Robert the Bruce defeated the forces of the

English monarch Edward II, leading to Scot-

tish independence. Over the past three years,

researchers have reconnoitered the battlef eld

using geophysical survey, metal detectors, and

archaeological excavation. Among the thousands of

artifacts retrieved in the area is a silver coin dis-

covered at nearby Cambuskenneth Abbey. It is

known that Bruce used the abbey as a storage

depot and returned there with his spoils imme-

diately after victory. Archaeologists believe the

valuable coin, minted in London in the late thir-

teenth or early fourteenth century, may be part of the war booty captured by the Scottish hero.

—JAson urBAnus

Ancient Oncology

In a tomb in northern Sudan, archae-

ologists have discovered the earliest complete skeleton of a human who

sufered from metastatic cancer—cancer

that has spread throughout the body.

The skeleton, which belonged to a young

man who died around 1200 b.c., was

riddled with lesions caused by cancer

of an unknown organ. A team led by

Michaela Binder of Durham University

analyzed the lesions using X-rays and

digital and scanning electron microscopy, and ruled out alternative causes, such as fungal infection or postmortem changes.

Cancer has been thought to be a

largely modern disease that results in part from longer life spans, exposure to

pollutants and unhealthy food, and lack of physical activity. Also, few ancient

skeletons bear evidence of cancer, but this may be because the victims died rapidly, before the disease could leave a mark on their bones. The new fnd adds

to evidence that the disease existed,

and may even have been common, in antiquity. The site, called Amara

West, has been studied since 2008, with excavations in the ancient town

and cemeteries. Researchers hope that

an understanding of the surrounding community will ofer a window into the

causes of cancer in ancient populations.

—dAniel weiss


© 2014 Of ce of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism.

TravelTex.com

It’s like a

w h o l e o t h e r c o u n t r y

S T a T e T r a v e l G u i d e

∑ Dynamic cities. Breathtaking scenery.

You can round up whatever kind of fun

you want in Texas. Visit TravelTex.com

for a FREE Texas State Travel Guide

and start planning your trip today.

CROW CANYONARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER

CS

T 2

05

93

47

-50

In Belize and Guatemala, ancient cities and sacred geometry

800.422.8975, ext. 141 www.crowcanyon.org/travel

2014 TRAVEL ADVENTURES

The Ancient Maya

Discover the Past, Share the Adventure

Scholar: Dr. Christopher Powell

December 7–16

An adventure of historic proportion is waiting for you—at two living-history museums that explore America’s beginnings. Board replicas of colonial ships. Grind corn in a Powhatan Indian village. Try on English armor

inside a palisaded fort. Then, join Continental Army soldiers at

their encampment for a firsthand

look at the Revolution’s end. Don’t forget your camera. Because the history here is life size. And your memories

will be even bigger!

Make Room for the

Memories.

Save 20% with a combination ticket to both museums.


from the trenches

Egyptian Style in Ancient Canaan

Construction of a natural gas pipeline near Tel Shadud,

Israel, led to the discovery of a rare 3,300-year-old clay

coffi n surrounded by pots, bronze artifacts, and animal

bones. The f nds suggest Egyptian burial rites: The coffi n’s

sculpted lid is Egyptian in style, the vessels would have held

of erings for the gods, and a gold scarab ring in the coffi n bears

the name of the pharaoh Seti I, who conquered the region in

the thirteenth century B.c. Perhaps the remains belonged to an Egyptian living in Canaan, but the pottery was

locally produced. This raises the possibility that the interred was a Canaanite

either employed by the Egyptian government or wealthy enough

to want to emu-

late one of their burials. The ruling

Egyptians exerted a

strong infl uence over the

Canaanite upper class at

the time.

—sAMir s. PATel

www.archaeology.org21

Modern humans share some 99.7 percent of our DNA

with Neanderthals. They

are our closest evolutionary cousins, but the dif erences between us run

deeper than that 0.3 percent. Much

of what distinguishes the two groups

is actually the result of how and when

genes are expressed and regulated—

essentially, turned on and of . Similar,

or even identical, stretches of DNA

can produce vastly dif erent traits,

such as longer limbs or smaller brains, depending on how and when certain

genes are actively producing protein.

The study of these processes is known

as epigenetics.

Scientists at the Max Planck Insti-

tute for Evolutionary Anthropology

sequenced Neanderthal DNA in 2010, and now researchers there and at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem are

beginning to understand some of the epigenetic dif erences between humans

and Neanderthals. “Studying this is

of equal importance to studying the

genetic dif erences,” says Liran Carmel

of the Hebrew University.

By looking at the way that Neander-

thal DNA chemically degraded over

millennia in the ground, the researchers were able to reconstruct how certain

molecules, called methyl groups, were

attached to the DNA. Methyl groups

can help determine how much of a

particular protein a gene creates. The

research showed that certain Nean-

derthal genes had dif erent patterns of

attached methyl groups, compared with

corresponding portions of the modern human genome. As a result, strikingly

similar stretches of DNA could pro-

duce two very dif erent hominins.

For example, two genes involved

in limb development have dif erent

patterns of methyl groups, which may

be why we have longer arms and

legs than Neanderthals did. Similar

dif erences were observed

in genes associated with

brain development and susceptibility to certain diseases. Carmel believes

that as more Neanderthal DNA is analyzed, we will

begin to understand the evolutionary changes that

created the modern human.

“There is a huge poten-

tial,” he says. “Studying

epigenetic characteristics could be of great impor-

tance for zooming in on the properties that have shaped what we

are today.”

—ZAch Zorich

Neanderthal Epigenome


vvfrom the trenches

Thousands of artifacts lie bur-

ied just out of students’ sight at Rhode Island College

(RIC) in Providence. Researchers

from the Rhode Island State Home

and School Project have been piecing

together the story of the previous, and less fortunate, young people who

inhabited the grounds on which the

campus stands. Between 1885 and 1979, more than 10,000 dependent and neglected children left their lasting imprint on the landscape as residents of the state’s f rst public orphanage,

still partially visible on the campus’ eastern end. According

to RIC anthropologist E. Pierre Morenon, “The Progres-

sive Era women who lobbied for

the creation of this place viewed it

as a temporary home, or an alterna-

tive to the almshouses, poor farms, and asylums of the late 1800s.” The

project has spent much of the past decade documenting, preserving, and honoring the childrens’ experi-

ences. Toys were the most common

artifacts uncovered, among them marbles, jacks, toy trucks, soldiers,

and roller skates. The objects are a sign that, despite their

unfortunate circumstances, this young population might still have been able to experience childhood.

—JAson urBAnus

Childhood Rediscovered

Taking a Dive

Proof that ancient wrestling wasn’t

always on the level has been

found among 500,000 frag-

ments of papyri discovered in Oxyrhyn-

chus, Egypt, more than a century ago.

One fragment, recently scrutinized by

historian Dominic Rathbone of King’s College London, concerns a wrestling

match between two teenagers, Nican-

tinous and Demetrius, in A.d. 267.

The contract, agreed upon by Nican-

tinous’ father and Demetrius’ trainers, stipulates that Demetrius must “fall

three times and yield.” For his inten-

tional submission, the loser would

be paid 3,800 drachmas. Although

match f xing is alluded to by some

ancient Greek writers, according to

Rathbone, “This is the f rst known

papyrological evidence for bribery in an athletic competition.” The agree-

ment also specif es that should the

boy renege on the deal, Demetrius’ party would owe a penalty equal to

18,000 drachmas.

—JAson urBAnus

WORLD’S FIRST The 2014 $100 SILVER PROOF

Limited Mintage Striking...

This extraordinary piece of pure silverbullion has a surface area that exceeds15 square inches...and it contains oneTroy ounce of pure silver bullion!

And now, during a limited strike period, the very first Year 2014 $100 Silver Proof is available at a specialdiscount price—only $99!

EXQUISITE DETAILThe historic 2014 $100 Silver Proof is

an exquisite adaptation of the United States Trea-sury’s newly-designed $100 Federal Reserve Note. BenjaminFranklin has only appeared on four $100 bill designs over thelast 100 years. This dramatic artistic masterpiece will alwaysbe treasured.

.999 SILVER Best of all, this stunning Silver Proof is even more beautiful

than the original, because it’s struck in precious silver bullion!

It is a landmark in proof minting, combining unprecedentedweight with extraordinary dimension. The specifications forthis colossal medallic proof are unparalleled.

Each one:

• Is Individually Struck from Pure .999 Silver.

• Weighs one Troy ounce.

• Has a Surface Area That Exceeds 15 Square Inches.

• Contains 31.10 Grams (480 Grains) of Pure Silver.

• Is Individually Registered and Comes With a Numbered Certificate of Authenticity.

• Is Fully Encapsulated to Protect Its Mirror-Finish.

• Includes a Deluxe Presentation Case.

ADVANCE STRIKE DISCOUNTThe price for the 2014 $100 Silver Proof will be set at $129

per proof.

However, if you place your order now, you can acquirethis giant silver proof at the special advance strike discountprice—only $99.

NOTE TO COLLECTORS: When you place your order for the $100 silver proof, it will be processed immediately, and theearliest orders will receive the coveted lowest registration numbers.

ADDITIONAL DISCOUNTSSubstantial additional discounts are available for serious

collectors who wish to acquire more than one of these exquisite silver proofs.

You can order:ONE Year 2014 $100 Silver Proofs for just $99 each + s/h FIVE Year 2014 $100 Silver Proofs for just $95 each + s/hTEN Year 2014 $100 Silver Proofs for just $89 each + s/h

There is a limit of twenty $100 Silver Proofs per order, andall orders are subject to acceptance by GovMint.com.

ONLY 9999 AVAILABLEGovMint.com will limit striking to only 9999 One Troy Ounce

Silver Proofs for the year 2014. Once the edition is sold out,no more 2014 silver proofs can ever be struck.

Orders only will be accepted on a strict first-come, first-served basis according to the time and date of the order. Calltoday for fastest order processing.

Call Today to Order Your $100 Silver Proof!

1-888-835-8806Offer Code: SFP191-02

Please mention this code when you call.

A major credit card is necessary to secure your reservation, andGovMint.com guarantees satisfaction with a money-back policyfor a full 30 days.

Collectible2014 date

Larger Franklinportrait

Minted in one Troy ounceof .999% fine silver

Mirrored proofbackground

Actual size is 6” x 2 ½”Liberty Bell, quill pen & July 4th date

Prices and availability subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a predictor of future performance. NOTE: GovMint.com® is a private distributor of worldwidegovernment coin and currency issues and privately issued licensed collectibles and is not affiliated with the United States government. Facts and figures deemed accurateas of November 2013. ©2014 GovMint.com.

Visit our web site at www.GovMint.com

GovMint.com Announces the Limited MintageStriking of an Extraordinary Silver Proof

—the Newest United States $100 Bill Struck in Pure Silver Bullion. Discount Price $99

WORLD ROUNDUP


IRELAND: Steps and niches for candles or lanterns

cut into the rocky coast near Baltimore, County Cork,

may point to a hive of pirates and smugglers. The area

was host to a pirate alliance that was defeated by a

Dutch fleet in 1614. Underwater archaeologists hope

that the rocky steps, one set of which leads to a cavern

accessible by water (perfect for illicit activity), indicate

that pirate ships, and perhaps the entire alliance fleet,

might be in nearby waters.

CHILE: Inca and Chinchorro mummies have long shown

evidence of exposure to naturally occurring arsenic.

Scientists applied sophisticated optical tests to hair

from a 1,000- to 1,500-year-old mummy to determine

how she had been exposed to the toxic element.

Arsenic suffused the hair all the way through, indicating

it had been ingested in contaminated groundwater,

rather than deposited from surrounding soil after burial. Groundwater

in some parts of the Atacama Desert is still tainted with arsenic today.

SAUDI ARABIA:

According to historical

sources, people have

long eaten Arabian

spiny-tailed lizards.

According to tradition,

Muhammad did not eat them himself, but

did not condemn the practice. At the site

of al-Yamâma, archaeologists uncovered

remains of lizards among those of other

food animals, and at least one bone has a cut

mark. The lizard bones appear in early layers

(4th to 7th century, before and just after the

establishment of Islam) and continue to the

18th century. The reptiles remain a source

of protein and fat in some parts of the harsh

desert today.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

La Isabela was the first

permanent, non-Viking

European colony in the

New World. Founded

in 1494 by Christopher

Columbus and more than

1,000 settlers, the town

was haunted by sickness

and death. Twenty-seven skeletons excavated

from the site in the 1980s and 1990s were

recently reexamined and showed that most

were afflicted with severe scurvy, caused by

vitamin C deficiency. The resulting fatigue

and pain likely contributed to the colony’s

dismal prospects—it lasted just four years.

MEXICO: Plant scientists

have used four approaches—

ecological, linguistic, genetic,

and archaeological—to zero in

on the home region of the first

domesticated chili peppers. All

lines of evidence, including the

range of Proto-Otomanguean,

the oldest language thought

to have a word for chili

peppers, and the oldest known

archaeological pepper remains,

converge on north- and central-

eastern Mexico. No wonder the

mole sauce in Puebla is so good.

25

By Samir S. Patel

www.archaeology.org

VANUATU: Most of what is known

about the Lapita, the culture that

colonized the remote South Pacific

3,000 years ago, comes from pots.

Human remains are rare. Researchers

have conducted isotopic studies on

remains from the largest known Lapita cemetery—68 burials—for

insight into their diet. They found that it was some time before

crops were established as a significant part of the menu. The

earliest colonists relied instead on a forager’s diet of fish, turtles,

fruit bats, and free-range but domesticated pigs and chickens.

DENMARK: Digs

in Odense have

exposed the

town’s medieval

history—and

bouquet. Among

the finds are

a barrel-lined well connected to a building

thought to have been a brewery. Wood at

the site, including two more barrels that had

been used as latrines, is well preserved. The

privies are going to be troves of information on

medieval diet, hygiene, and health. According to

archaeologists, they also preserve the smell of

the Middle Ages.

SUDAN: A

female mummy

discovered

in 2005 and

recently studied

in detail has

a tattoo—

exceedingly

rare for the

period (A.D.

700), for its

subject matter, and for its placement.

The mark is a monogram that spells

out the name “Michael” in ancient

Greek, a reference to the Biblical

archangel. Also, the tattoo is high on

the woman’s inner thigh, suggesting

that it was not readily visible. Curators

suspect it may have been considered

somehow protective.

MONGOLIA:

Adverse climate

changes are

often cited in

the declines of

civilizations—

see the Indus,

Ancestral Pueblo, Bronze Age

Mesopotamia, Classic Maya, Tang

Dynasty, and more. Surely good

weather also made a mark on

history. According to a study of tree

rings in gnarled, ancient Siberian

pines, Mongolia was pleasant—

warm and wet—from 1211 to 1230,

coinciding with the rise of Genghis

Khan. More rain would have meant

more grass, which meant more

livestock, wealth, and warhorses—

the engines of the Mongol army.

KAZAKHSTAN: Bands of nomadic herders were

stepping stones for the spread of crops between

opposite ends of Asia 5,000 years ago—the seeds of

what would become the Silk Road. Archaeobotanical

analysis at their seasonal camps shows that the

pastoralists had access to both wheat from Central

and Southwest Asia and millet from East Asia. The

seeds were found only among cremation burials, so

they might have served some ritual purpose. The

nomads’ own agricultural tradition appears to have

started 1,500 years later.


1524 map of Mexico City


IN 1519, THE SPANISH conquistador Hernán Cortés and 400 of his men marched into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and knew at once they were in a strange and wondrous place. Even before their arrival, the emperor Moctezuma II had sent the Spaniards lav-

ish jewels and fi ne clothes. He may have believed the

Spaniards to be the deity Quetzalcoatl, the “plumed serpent,” returning to Tenochtitlan from the east, or he may have thought he was receiving emissaries from a friendly state. According to their own accounts, as the Spaniards began to explore the city, they found temples soaked with blood and human hearts being burned in ceramic braziers. So thick was the stench of human fl esh,

wrote chronicler Bernal Díaz del Cas-

tillo, that the scene brought to mind a Castilian slaughterhouse.

Yet what made an even greater impression was Tenochtitlanís bustle and press. Streets were so crowded that the Spaniards could barely fi t through

them. And the hubbub of the main plaza, full of shouting salesman off er-

ing everything from beans to furniture to live deer, could be heard miles away. “Among us there were soldiers who had been in many parts of the world, in Constantinople and all of Italy and Rome,” wrote Díaz. “Never had they seen a square that compared so well, so orderly and wide, and so full of people, as that one.”

Five hundred years later, Mexico

Beneath the capital’s busy streets, archaeologists are

discovering the buried world of the Aztecs

by R A

Cityís main plaza still teems with shoppers and street hawkers, while, only a block away, archaeologists are carefully digging up the remains of the city Cortés and his men wondered at. Today archaeology is happening everywhere in Mexico City—just

off the main square, in alleys, patios, and back lots. One dig

is being conducted in the basement of a tattoo parlor. Others

are going on beneath the rubble of buildings destroyed in the cityís 1985 earthquake. There’s a site located in a subway sta-

tion, and two others are under the fl oor of the Metropolitan

Cathedral. When city workers repave a street, archaeologists stand by to retrieve ceramic sherds, bones, and other artifacts that appear from under the asphalt. Excavation sites are often so close to modern infrastructure that archaeologists have to take care not to undermine modern building founda-

tions. Researchers regularly contend with a bewildering network of sewers, pipes, and subway lines. And because the Aztec capital was built on a fi lled-

in lake bed, they often have to pump water out when these areas fl ood.

In 1978, workers laying electrical cables accidentally discovered the Aztecs’ Templo Mayor, or High Tem-

ple, two blocks from the cityís central square, Zócalo. In 2011, a major cer-

emonial cache was discovered under the Plaza Manuel Gamio. Since these serendipitous fi nds, ongoing excavation

and research by the National Institute of Anthropology and Historyís Urban

Under Mexico City

Templo Mayor, 1978


Archaeology Program (PAU) have changed our understand-

ing of Aztec society. Excavations at fi ve sites in particular, all

within short a short walk of each other, have begun to crystal-

lize our understanding of daily life, worship, and governance during the height of Aztec rule.

Scholars now understand that the human sacrifi ces that once

shocked the Spaniards were not conceived as public horror or punishment, but rather as reenactments of Aztec societyís own creation. Archaeologists have excavated stone carvings with depictions of violent myths, some featuring people being dis-

membered or thrown from great heights. And human remains subsequently uncovered show similar wounds, suggesting that the myths were played out atop the temples with actual people. According to Raúl Barrera, PAU director, “The Aztecs materialized their beliefs about creation, per-

forming them at the Templo Mayor.” In ways barely intuited by the Spaniards or even by modern historians until recently, the Aztecs, also known as the Mexica, believed that the fate of the world rested on what happened on the towering heights of their temples. “The Templo Mayor was their holiest place, but, more than that, it was the center of the Mexica universe. It was from there that they made contact with the divine world and with the underworld,” says Eduardo Matos Moc-

tezuma, archaeologist and professor emeritus at the Templo Mayor Museum.

Throughout downtown Mexico City, archaeologists have found some 40,000artifacts, including mirrors made of shiny obsidian, Pacifi c turtle shells that were much-

prized by the Aztecs, and precious jade-and-

turquoise masks, all of which attest to the empire’s wealth. Other objects—mollusk

shells from the Pacifi c, Caribbean shark teeth,

jade from southern Mexico—have given

researchers a richer understanding of the prosperity of trade ties forged by the Aztecs under the emperor Moctezuma’s fi erce pre-

decessor, Ahuítzotl, who ruled from 1486 to 1502. He added lands as far away as Chiapas to the city’s sphere of infl uence, conquered

rich cacao-producing areas, and opened up

trade ties with both coasts. Tribute poured in from vassal states.

Although much has been learned about the Aztecs, the question of how this formidable empire fell to the Spaniards in only a few weeks of fi ghting continues to vex historians,

and excavations in their capital have added little information to the debate. Despite new research highlighting the possible role of disease brought by Europeans, Mexican

archaeologists believe the key factor was the resentment the Aztecsí neighbors felt toward them. “The Spaniards were joined by thousands of indigenous people who were enemies of the Aztecs. Why? Because they were sick of paying tribute. They saw Cortés as their salvation,” says Matos Moctezuma. But before the Aztecsí collapse, Moctezuma and Cortés shared a brief moment of friendship. Díaz wrote: “Moctezuma took [Cortés] by the hand and told him to gaze over his great city

and the many others all around the lake.” He then invited Cortés to climb the Templo Mayor to get a better view. Within two years of that moment, Moctezumaís great city was gone . Only now are archaeologists learning how much of it actually

survived and is sitting beneath the paving stones and buildings that make up Mexico City today.

Aztec Codex, 1519

Skull Wall, Templo Mayor


When the Spaniards arrived

in Tenochtitlan in 1519, the

Aztec capital’s main shrine stood

150 feet high. Little still stands of

that building today because the

Spaniards demolished it and used

its blocks to build their own cathedral,

known as the Metropolitan Cathedral

of the Assumption of Mary, within sight

of the remains of the once soaring temple.

Possibly unknown to the Spaniards, however,

at least six earlier versions of the Templo Mayor still

lay underneath the structure they destroyed, the result

of each successive ruler building his own temple on top of the

previous one.

Since the early 1980s, archaeologists have been delving into

those earlier layers, gaining a look at how the Aztecs worshipped

decades before the conquest. Because these remains had

been buried since the 1400s, they are giving researchers an

unprecedented look at classical Aztec society. One of the

f rst artifacts they excavated was a monumental stone disk

dating from an early phase of the temple’s construction,

around 1400, depicting the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui,

a f gure from the Aztec creation myth. In the legend, the

goddess was decapitated and dismembered at the hands

of her brother Huitzilopochtli as punishment for disrespect-

ing their pregnant mother. Archaeologists have concluded

from the chopped-off human limbs and heads excavated

near the temple’s base that the grisly scene was reenacted

regularly at Huitzilopochtli’s altar on the summit. Rows of

skulls made of stone and stucco, still visible today, had their

counterparts in actual skulls excavated nearby.

The carnal nature of Aztec worship has long intrigued

researchers, in part because its focus on blood-drenched

sacrif ce in the public square had few parallels in other

Mesoamerican societies. Scholars suggest that the elites

may have felt insecure in their power, and responded with

these grandiose, intimidating rituals. “You get a sense of

who ran society and how they made themselves loom

large over it, monumentalizing themselves, and how they

expressed power with these acts,” says Harvard University

historian David Carrasco. Sacrif ce was also closely linked

to warfare—the victims were mostly battlef eld captives—

and thus to economic domination over neighboring

states, explains archaeologist Eduardo Matos

Moctezuma.

The greatest Aztec conqueror of

them all, Ahuítzotl, was cremated

upon his death in 1502 and his ashes

placed in an urn at the base of the

temple, according to sixteenth-

century accounts. Archaeologists

thought they might be close

to f nding his remains in 2006

when they excavated a stone

inscribed with the year 10 Rab-

bit in the Aztec system (which

corresponds to A.D. 1502) along

with artifacts suggesting an elite

burial. They now think that the urn with

Ahuítzotl’s ashes had actually been dug up

in 1900 by Mexican archaeologist Leopoldo

Batres, who did not know he’d struck the Templo

Mayor. At that time, the neighborhood around the buried ruins

had few houses and a reputation for bad omens and ill spirits,

likely a remnant of the site’s bloody history, says archaeologist

Raúl Barrera.

Templo Mayor, center of Aztec life and religion

Templo Mayor and (right) disk

depicting moon goddess


Plaza Manuel gamio, A ritual center in the Shadow of the high Temple

Despite their reputation for violence,

the Aztecs had a finely honed

taste for the delicate, the exquisite,

and the fragrant. They adored flowers,

perfumes, brightly painted walls, and

epic poetry. In 2009, archaeologists

began uncovering artifacts and

human remains beneath a quiet

square adjoining the Templo

Mayor site, known as Plaza Manuel

Gamio. These excavations have

already yielded a great deal of

information about Aztec life,

death, and worship. Included

within the burials, beneath

a volcanic stone used for

human sacrifices similar

to those described by the

Spaniards, were five human

skulls with holes bored into

their temples. In the time of

the emperor Moctezuma I, who

reigned from 1440 to 1469, the skulls had been placed side by

side on a stake and displayed publicly in a structure known as a

tzompantli, or “skull banner.” Botanical remains demonstrated

that the skulls had once been adorned with delicate cornflowers,

cotton blossoms, and cactus thorns. Laboratory tests concluded

that the five skulls belonged to three women and two men,

all young adults whose skulls were perforated postmortem.

Analysis of the isotopic content of their teeth indicates that three

of them had spent their childhoods far from the Aztec capital,

probably in southern Mexico, suggesting they were migrants to

the city or prisoners of war.

Nearby, researchers found a statuette of a seated woman

made entirely of copal, an intensely aromatic tree resin that,

more than 500 years later in the PAU laboratory, still emits the

sweet, eucalyptus-like aroma that perfumed the dead. And a few

feet away, in a contemporaneous deposit, archaeologists found

47 sahumadores, or clay incense pots, all meticulously arranged

in rows and showing signs of intensive use. The long, protruding

handles of some pots contained tiny pellets that, when the pots

were moved, made a sound like a rattlesnake. Aztec priests are

believed to have packed these incense pots with coal, copal,

and other aromatic substances for use in ceremonies that filled

the senses and masked the odor of death. “They used incense

to sweeten the air, but also to purify the space and please the

gods,” says Lorena Vázquez, a PAU archaeologist. According

to Vázquez, the pots also held some kind of protein, possibly

human blood.

A more grisly find awaited archaeologists a few feet away—

the skulls, jawbones, and vertebrae of about 500 people,

including at least 10 children, in two tightly packed deposits.

Before they were buried under an altar, the bones had been

painstakingly prepared. They were stripped of their flesh and,

judging from weathering stains, dried outdoors before burial,

says María garcía Velasco, a PAU conservator. “These people

weren’t thrown there like garbage,” she explains. “They were

treated carefully, as befitting a ceremonial burial.” Surprisingly,

Velasco adds, none of the skeletons analyzed thus far shows

any sign of major trauma. PAU director Raúl Barrera believes

that all the remains were buried at roughly the same time, and

that they were all related to a single ceremonial

event. Since both the human remains and the

sahumadores were found under a stone-and-

stucco floor, the event may have been a “closure”

ceremony in which a part of the temple was built

over and buried.

Looming over the deposit was a 40-foot-wide

circular platform carved with stone serpent heads,

their mouths agape. Historical sources speak of

the platform, or cuauhxicalco, as the place where

the remains of the Aztec rulers were publicly

cremated. Their ashes were then placed in

ceramic urns and buried. A few feet away from the cuauhxicalco,

Barrera found the withered trunk of an oak tree that grew in

a kind of large flowerpot.

Spanish accounts mention

ceremonial trees planted

near the Templo Mayor

festooned with strips

of colorful paper, and,

according to Barrera, this

was surely an example.

Taken together, the bones,

the tree trunk, the serpents’

heads, and the thousands of

smaller artifacts that have

been found are creating a

rich picture of ceremonial

life in the Aztec heyday.

Incense pot

Perforated skull

Cremation platform

Copal

figurine


In 1985, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale killed

some 10,000 people and destroyed or compromised thousands

of buildings in Mexico City. Some of those buildings happened

to have been standing over Aztec civic and holy sites. More than

two decades later, after workers demolished a building rendered

structurally unsound by the quake, archaeologists dug down and

found the ruins of an elite school near the Templo Mayor. Known

as the Calmécac, which in the Nahuatl language spoken by the

Aztecs means “school,” the complex was where Aztec nobility

sent their children to be trained in war and worship. “The school’s

proximity to the Templo Mayor shows the elite’s concern for

educating young men for power,” says Harvard historian David

Carrasco. The emperor Moctezuma II himself was a graduate.

An enormous structure in antiquity, even larger than the

Templo Mayor, the school had a courtyard whose roof was

adorned with a row of spiral ornaments representing snails,

which were associated with the rain god Tlaloc. Spanish

colonial-era drawings had suggested these adornments were

small, even dainty, decorative touches. But when archaeologists

discovered them, the ornaments actually stood a monumental

eight feet tall and must have been visible from all over Tenoch-

titlan. Of the seven found by archaeologist Raúl Barrera, all

had been removed in antiquity from their rooftop perches and

laid below a fl oor. By the time the Spaniards arrived, they had

been replaced with similar ornaments that the Spaniards later

destroyed, of which no traces have been found. Since their

rediscovery, the Calmécac roof ornaments have become one

of the most distinctive motifs of ancient Mexico.

Excavation at the Calmécac proved diff cult. Eigh-

teen feet beneath the city, the site continually fl ooded

and had to have water pumped out, a problem that

speaks to the city’s unusual geography. Tenochtitlan

was built on a group of marshy islands in the center

of Lake Tezcoco. These were gradually f lled in with

lines of tree trunks and soil using an ancient land-

reclamation technique similar to that employed in

Tenochtitlan’s contemporary city, Venice. As in Ven-

ice, canals crisscrossed the city. Archaeologists have

found traces of some of them, as well as a pier that

jutted into the lake in antiquity. Lake Tezcoco has been

almost completely f lled in over the centuries, but the

soil underneath the city remains porous and damp,

“like gelatin,” says archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moct-

ezuma. Although the city has been gradually settling

at a rate of up to 20 feet per century into the lake bed,

not so the Templo Mayor, which was built on sturdy

landf ll. It is therefore sinking at a much slower pace,

causing it to gradually “rise” relative to its surround-

ings such that it will, eventually, regain the 150-foot

height it had in antiquity.

Once the remains of the Calmécac were stabilized,

archaeologists discovered walls and wide staircases,

some with ancient footprints still in their stucco sur-

faces. They also uncovered dozens of artifacts that

hint at student life in A.D. 1500, including well-worn

ceramic plates, a clay spoon, and fl int and obsidian

knives that probably had both practical and ceremo-

nial uses. PAU director Raúl Barrera has excavated only

a small corner of the ancient school because most

of it remains beneath busy Donceles Street and its

taco stands and cantinas. Digging any further would

endanger those buildings’ foundations, he explains,

“and then, instead of us excavating, someone would

have to come excavate us.”

calmécac, School of the Ancient elite

Spiral roof decoration


Archaeological sites in Mexico City have street addresses,

not GPS coordinates, as sites tend to elsewhere. At this

particular address, behind the green door, next to the Calmécac,

archaeologists uncovered the Temple of Ehécatl-Quetzalcoatl, a

structure dating from about 1450. The temple, whose distinctive,

round shape was described by Spanish priest Bernardino de

Sahagún, was located about 80 feet north of where Spanish

colonial maps had originally shown it to be. Ehécatl was a

wind god sometimes depicted as a version of Quetzalcoatl, the

feathered serpent who had already been worshipped in central

Mexico for more than 1,000 years by the time Tenochtitlan was

founded in 1325. In fact, snake imagery abounded at the temple

in antiquity. Spanish chroniclers described the building as having

a conical roof made of straw, resembling a coiled snake. To enter,

worshippers passed through a stone arch carved to resemble a

snake’s mouth, complete with fangs. The Spaniards associated

serpents with the Garden of Eden story, regarding the reptiles

as evil, and usually destroyed snake images wherever they saw

them. But, if the temple’s snake arch wasn’t destroyed by the

Spaniards, it may still lie buried beneath a row of buildings

behind the Metropolitan Cathedral, awaiting discovery.

Excavation has shown that the Guatemala Street temple

was bordered by a long outer wall, which the modern street

directly above it follows exactly. This is no coincidence, but

rather evidence that the Spaniards stuck closely to the original

Aztec urban grid when they built their own city on the ruins

of Tenochtitlan. Modern avenues also run along the same lines

as causeways that once connected the ancient island city to

the mainland.

16 guatemala Street, Temple of ehécatl-Quetzalcoatl

Guatemala Street

Temple of Ehécatl-Quetzalcoatl


A half-hour walk

north of the Tem-

plo Mayor, Tlatelolco

was a rival Aztec city

until it was absorbed

into Tenochtitlan in

1473. Recent excava-

tions have shown that

Tlatelolco’s ceremo-

nial complex was once

almost as large and

impressive as that of

the main Aztec capital,

although at the time of

the Spanish conquest,

the city was known

mostly for its thriving

market. Tlatelolco was

the fnal redoubt of the

Aztec emperor Cuauh-

témoc before he was

captured by Cortés in

August 1521. Cortés later released Cuauhtémoc and allowed him

to continue to rule but, fearing a conspiracy, had him executed

in 1525. He was the last Aztec ruler.

Just over a decade ago, archaeologists made an intriguing

discovery at Tlatelolco. Beneath a colonial church erected over

Aztec foundations, they found a seven-foot-deep, 26-foot-

wide basin that had been built on Cuauhtémoc’s orders.

Known as a caja de agua, or “water box,” the basin was fed

with water from Chapultepec Hill, some four miles away. A

system of aqueducts ensured the city’s supply of potable

water, as lake water was not suitable for drinking. This cistern

was, perhaps, the last example of Aztec civic construction.

On the basin’s walls, archaeologists discovered murals, once

brightly colored but now faded with age. Painted just as the

Spaniards were consolidating their power, the frescoes are a

unique hybrid of Aztec and Spanish themes. They show scenes

of canoes on a lake, people fshing, ducks, reeds, water lilies,

frogs, herons, and jaguars. In one scene, a fsherman casts a net

while, at his feet, a coiled snake tries to eat a frog. Snakes and

frogs had deep symbolic associations for the Aztecs, and were

depicted in the basin in a naturalistic, European manner. “These

murals were painted at the moment of the conquest. In a way,

they show the encounter of the European and Mexican cul-

tures,” says archaeologist Salvador Guilliem. Tlatelolco, where

the Aztec world made its last stand, was thus also the scene

of one of the initial artistic expressions of modern Mexico. n

Roger Atwood is a contributing editor at Archaeology.

Tlatelolco, last city of the Aztecs

Jaguar fresco

Aztec foundations and colonial church

Now located in the Viking Ship Museum

in Oslo, the Gokstad ship once sheltered

the remains of a late-ninth-century local

chieftain. The vessel is part of one of the

largest and best-preserved Viking ship

burials ever uncovered.

Revisiting the Gok

More than a century after Norway’s Gokstad ship burial

was frst excavated, scientists are examining the remains

of the Viking chieftain buried inside and learning the truth

about how he lived and died

by Jason Urbanus

visiting the Gokstad

Within norway’s Vestfold, along the western shores of the Oslofjord, a team of excavators burrows into the side of a large earthen mound. The barrow lies approximately 1,700 feet from the shore, protruding from a woodless plain. Armed with shovels, the diggers tunnel away with a determined resolve to reach the center. But these are not archaeologists—they are Viking raiders of the

mid-tenth century. And they are seeking the stern of a subterranean ship,

the fnal resting place of a bygone Viking ruler, known today as the Gokstad chieftain. As they

vandalize the grave, they leave behind clues that, centuries later, will make their intentions

clear and perhaps help identify the warrior whose tomb they have ransacked.


In JanUary of 1880, word reached the Antiquarian Society in Oslo about an amateur archaeological dig occurring 75

miles to the south, outside the town of Sandefjord. Two brothers, sons of the owner of the large Gokstad farm, had

begun treasure hunting on their father’s property. Their target was a 165-by-140-foot mound known locally as the Kongshau-gen, meaning “King’s Hill,” as legend told of a famous king and

his treasure buried there. Although damaged and reduced in size by centuries of plowing, the hill still stood a formidable 15 feet high. The following month, an emissary from the Antiquarian Society arrived. Archaeologist Nicolay Nicolaysen immediately suspended the unsanctioned digging as he assessed the situation. He soon determined that the site had great archaeological potential, and began a state-sponsored excavation later

that spring. It took Nicolaysen’s team only

two days to prove his suspicions correct when a boat’s wooden stempost emerged from the ground.

Despite the plundering more than a millenium before, the collection of artifacts buried within the Gokstad mound came

to be one of the most extraordinary Viking

archaeological discoveries ever made. In addition to the enormous wooden ship, which measures 76 by 17.5 feet and was adorned with 32 alternating black and yel-

low shields, three smaller vessels had been buried nearby. Inside a burial chamber behind the ship’s mast, a chieftain had been interred surrounded by an impressive assemblage of objects, including wooden furniture, riding, f shing, sailing, and cooking

equipment, and a gaming board and horn gaming pieces, all intended to provide comfort and entertainment as he made the voyage into the afterlife.

The archaeologists also discovered the remains of 12 horses, eight dogs, two goshawks, and two peacocks in the mound.

However, the lack of any personal jewelry or weaponry was

initially puzzling, as was the condition of the body itself. Only a handful of bones remained, and it eventually became clear that the skeleton had been purposely damaged.

Recent dendrochronological analysis has dated the Gok-

stad burial to between a.d. 895 and 905. The same analysis shows that the vessel itself predates the burial by as much as half a century, having certainly been used for trade, raiding, or exploration before it became the chieftain’s f nal resting place.

Although not plentiful, evidence for the burial of large Viking

ships has been found throughout northern Europe. Over the last 150 years, notable examples have been uncovered in Swe-

den, Denmark, and the British Isles, but the most remarkable

and best preserved of these ships, including the Gokstad, have

been discovered in southeastern Norway. Given the extensive labor and resources required for the

construction of such a ship, intentionally burying it would have been a tremendous testimonial to the deceased’s wealth and social position. The interment of Viking warriors within

ships was partly a symbolic gesture, representing the soul’s journey into the afterlife. In addition, these burials were cre-

ated by the dead chieftain’s descendants as physical reminders of the power and prestige of the recently departed. The Viking

Age often saw contentious power struggles. Highly visible, extravagant burial mounds such as the Gokstad aimed

to prolong the memory of a powerful chieftain, and to help ensure the transition of power to his

heirs. Less than a century after its construction, though, the Gokstad mound was deliberately

vandalized, possibly an attempt at desecrating this very memory.

During Nicolaysen’s excavation of the ship in the nineteenth century, the poor condi-

tion of the skeleton and the lack of valuable

metal objects led archaeologists to conclude that the grave had been previously disturbed. In and of itself, this is not an unusual phe-

nomenon in archaeology. Tombs are often discovered partially burglarized as a result of

The Gokstad ship burial was first discovered by amateurs

in 1880 and then excavated by Norwegian archaeologist

Nicolay Nicolaysen.

Several wooden beds were discovered in the

burial mound, one of which bore elaborately

carved animal-head bedposts.


shoulder blade, a fragment of an upper arm bone, and two skull fragments. As early as 1882, anatomist Jacob Heiberg concluded that the individual was between 50 and 70 years old, sufered from muscular rheumatism, and had difculty

walking. This led to the general consensus at the time that the

bones belonged to a local Viking king, Olav Geirstadalv, who

historical sources record as dying around a.d. 840 from a foot infection. In 1928, the skeleton was sealed inside a lead cofn

and reburied in the Gokstad mound. The stone sarcophagus

containing the casket bore the inscription, “In this cofn Olav

Geirstadalv’s bones were placed anew.”

The skeleton remained interred in the reconstructed

mound on the original site until 2007, when Per Holck,

professor emeritus from the Department of Anatomy at the University of Oslo, led a team of scientists urging that the remains be exhumed. Holck was particularly worried that

the lead cofn in which the bones had been sealed may have

trapped damaging moisture. “I expressed my concern about the skeleton, as the moist conditions could have destroyed it

completely. I also pointed out that the former examinations had not mentioned several sorts of pathology at all, and no X-rays had been taken,” says Holck.

The exhumation allowed for a modern forensic inves-

tigation of the Gokstad remains and provided results that

either ancient or modern treasure seekers. However, in the case

of the Gokstad, researchers have recently confrmed that the

reason for the break-in was more sinister than a simple desire

for riches—it was personal.

To access the burial chamber, the ancient raiders dug exten-

sive trenches measuring about 60 feet long, 15 feet deep, and several feet wide. This undertaking was too large to be a secre-

tive mission obscured by the cover of darkness, but rather was

a deliberate and highly visible act. Fortunately, the intruders left behind evidence of their conduct, in the form of a dozen wooden spades. Using new, nondestructive techniques of den-

drochronological analysis, researchers from the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo dated these artifacts, potentially identifying the culprit(s). The evidence shows that

the break-in of the Gokstad mound occurred between a.d.

950 and 1000. In conjunction with other dendrochronological data from sites including the Oseberg ship burial, which had been discovered in the early twentieth century some 15 miles away, archaeologists concluded that during the tenth century, a systematic campaign of “mound-breaking” was directed toward

the monumental burials of eastern Norway. And that the man likely responsible was the Danish king Harald Bluetooth.

As the Dane sought to extend his power over the region in the second half of the tenth century, he aimed to under-mine the authority of the local ruling dynasties. Because burial mounds such as the Gokstad represented the legacy and

authority of these dynasties, both symbolically and physically, they were purposely and systematically wrecked. By destroy-

ing the previous ruler’s remains, memory of him could be destroyed. The Gokstad chieftain’s skeleton was intentionally

dismembered, his valuables plundered, and the symbolic transi-tion of power was complete.

Early examinations of the Gokstad chieftain never

arrived at defnitive proof of who he was, what he looked

like, or how he died. When Nicolaysen discovered the

body in 1880, he found only a handful of broken bones from

the original skeleton, including pieces of four leg bones, a

Although most of the Gokstad chieftain’s skeleton was

destroyed in antiquity, scholars have studied the remaining leg

bones and skull fragments to learn what he may have looked

like and how he died.

In 2007, researchers exhumed the Gokstad chieftain’s skeleton

and removed it from the potentially damaging lead coffin in

which it had been reburied in 1928, providing the opportunity

to use modern forensic techniques to examine his remains.


although the injury had occurred several years before his death and was partially healed when he died.

Somehow the chieftain’s true cause of death had been missed. Says Holck, “The former examination of the skeleton did not

comment on the chieftain’s [fatal] injuries.” In his recent study,

Holck was able to better detail extensive wounds that were

almost certainly received in battle, and to identify the injuries that the Gokstad chieftain could not have survived. The results

tell a more vicious story than had been previously written. “He certainly did suf er a violent death,” Holck says. The man had

been severely slashed in both legs, likely by two individuals using

dif erent types of weapons. A distinct cut from a thin-bladed

weapon, such as a sword, was evident along his left shinbone. This would have sliced through the patellar tendon, ren-

dering his left leg useless. The direction of the mark

indicated that the chieftain was likely already lying

on his back when this occurred, perhaps with his legs

in the air. Although severe, this probably was not the fatal blow. “A second kind of weapon, probably

a knife, gave him a deep cut mark on the inside of

his right thigh bone. This may have penetrated the femoral artery and perhaps caused his death,” explains

Holck. “These blow marks on his lower limbs did not show

any new formation of bone, and thus indicated that he was killed in battle.”

Although scholars cannot yet connect the burial with any particular historical f gure, and attempts

to retrieve DNA have been unsuccessful thus far, they now know that it is certainly not Olav

Geirstadalv. Nonetheless, the Gokstad chieftain

and the circumstances of his burial are representa-

tive of a singular moment in Viking history—one

def ned by power, exploration, and wealth, thanks in large

part to advances in shipbuilding technology. Extraor-

dinary ship burials like the Gokstad were important

symbolic landscape markers, but even they were

unable to avoid the repercussions of local power struggles and territorial disputes. ■

Jason Urbanus has a Ph.D. in archaeology from

Brown University.

contrasted with the earlier conclusions. Most importantly, the new examination of ered clues as to what the Gokstad

chieftain may have looked like and how he died. One of the

f rst things that Holck noticed was the man’s abnormally large

stature. Using the surviving long bones as a guide, he estimated that the Gokstad chieftain was nearly six feet tall, almost half

a foot taller than the average ninth-century Viking. The lack

of wear on his joints indicated that he was probably in his 40s when he died, younger than previously thought. Although most of the chieftain’s skull was missing, making it impossible

to reconstruct his facial features, Holck’s close examination

of an X-ray of one of the skull fragments has provided some

details of the man’s physical characteristics. For example, the base of his skull, where the pituitary gland is located,

showed damage, likely resulting from a tumor. “The

abnormal massiveness of his skeleton was in accor-

dance with acromegaly, a syndrome which appears due to a hypophyseal [pituitary gland] tumor in

adult age,” says Holck. “He would have had a big

and coarse-limbed body, enlarged nose, ears, and

lips, big and sweaty hands and feet, and a deep and toneless voice.”

The Gokstad chieftain likely suf ered other painful

side ef ects of this disease, including dif culty mov-

ing the vertebral column, relatively weak muscular

strength, limited motor skills, and frequent

migraines. “These symptoms, especially the constant headaches, may have made him ill-

tempered,” says Holck, “which certainly was a

bad situation at that time!” Holck also noted that

the chieftain must have had dif culty walking, a

circumstance that had led earlier investigators to associate the Gokstad skeleton with Olav Geirstadalv.

Examination of his knee joint indicated that, at one

point, the chieftain had suf ered severe ligament

damage and fractures of the left leg, likely from

a bad fall. This may have caused him to limp,

New investigations identified serious injuries the Viking suffered in the battle that killed him. (Left to right) A knife cut to the

inside of the right femur, a deep gash to the left tibia, and an ax cut to the right fibula.

Ornate gilt bronze and lead medallions, once

attached to leather straps, were found among the

chieftain’s personal grave goods.

Long-buried evidence of an Etruscan noble family

by Marco Merola

The Tomb of The Silver handS

In the nineteenth century, the ancient tombs of Vulci, some 75 miles northwest of Rome and 25 miles west of Viterbo, were a stop on travelers’ Grand Tour of Europe. Since the late eighteenth cen-

tury, when the frst ofcial excavations

were undertaken on the orders of Cardinal Gug-

lielmo Pallotta, numerous burials, ranging from the simple to the spectacular, had been found in the area. In the Necropoli dell’Osteria, roughly translated as the “Necropolis of the Pub,” travel-ers encountered impressively built and richly decorated burials dating from the seventh to fourth centuries b.c. belonging to the Etruscan culture that had once inhabited the region. Some of the tombs had evocative names given to them in contemporary times in order to attract more visitors. There was the Tomb of the Sun and the Moon, the Tomb of the Inlaid Ceiling, and the Tomb of the Panathenaica, named after the sacred

athletic and literary games held every four years in Athens to celebrate the goddess Athena.

Despite their popularity 150 years ago, how-

ever, the tombs were abandoned as a tourist destination and, ultimately, lost. “The Tomb of the Sun and the Moon was the most important funerary complex in the area, and we know the

area was open for visitors until the middle of the nineteenth century,” says archaeologist Carlo Casi, who manages the Vulci archaeological park on behalf of the local archaeological superinten-

dency of Etruria Meridionale. “But since then it has literally been swallowed up by nature.”

Three years ago, Casi and his team set out to rediscover the Tomb of the Sun and the Moon using topographic maps of the area, some of which were drawn in the nineteenth century. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fnd the tomb again, probably

because the people who drew the maps of the area made some errors in locating it,” says Casi. But


ArchAEoLogy • July/August 201440

as is often the case in archaeology, although they began looking for one thing, Casi and his team found something else entirely: more than twenty small graves and tombs and two larger funerary complexes, the

most spectacular of which, both in contents and in name—the Tomb

of the Silver Hands—rivals anything

found previously at the site.

On A Wintry DAy in 2012,

Casi and his team were digging a 30-foot-long cor-

ridor. Eventually their excavations led them straight

into a large tomb with three separate chambers. Based on

its size and its location within the necropolis, which is known to con-

tain other rich Etruscan burials, they believed the tomb must have belonged to a noble Etruscan fam-

ily. One room on the right side of the corridor, which they called Chamber C, was completely empty, having been, like so many Etruscan tombs, ransacked by looters either in antiquity or more recently. But the other

In one of the tomb’s chambers,

archaeologists uncovered several

small cups, as well as large storage

jars called pithoi.

Archaeologists working in a

large necropolis 75 miles from

Rome recently discovered the

impressive tomb of an Etruscan

noble family dating to the 7th

century B.C.


two rooms, Chamber A in the center and Chamber B on the left, were full of artifacts: large storage jars called pithoi, cups, and examples of bucchero, a distinctive, shiny black type of pot-tery made by the Etruscans beginning in the seventh century b.c. In Chamber B, Casi’s team also uncovered the remains of a chariot wheel and bronze horse harnesses.

While excavating Chamber A, Casi noticed something

unusual lying on the ground among a variety of artifacts—two

well-preserved silver hands with traces of gold on the fngers

and gold-plated fngernails. “I knew immediately that these

In Chamber A, excavators discovered a pair of finely made

silver hands (above, right) that once belonged to a type of

wooden funerary dummy and, in Chamber B, examples of a

distinctively Etruscan fine pottery called bucchero (right).

ArchAEoLogy • July/August 201442

also found iron and bronze fbulae, little gold balls, pieces of

faience, and amber and bone beads that likely were once part of several very fancy necklaces.

When Casi and his team completed last season’s excavation,

they took the artifacts from the tomb to a restoration and con-

servation laboratory in Montalto di Castro, near Vulci. There conservators cleaned and restored the iron, bronze, and gold jewelry, horse trappings, pieces of the chariot, and, of course, the silver hands. According to Teresa Carta, who is in charge of the lab, the silver hands are a “unique fnd.” Although other

hands had once been part of a sphyrelaton, a kind of wooden funerary dummy that represented the dead and guarded his or her soul after the body had been cremated,” says Casi. Most often the dummy represented a warrior or a nobleman, but in this case the fgure was probably a woman. Casi thinks this

may demonstrate that the Etruscans granted equal status to high-ranking members of society regardless of gender. Near the

hands on the ground, the archaeologists also recovered some purple threads that they believe were used to tie gold studs to a brightly colored garment that once clothed the dummy. They

The silver hands were taken to a nearby laboratory. There (top row, left to right) researchers X-rayed them, fit the pieces of the

right hand back together, and (bottom row, left to right) carefully cleaned the more intact left hand. The result: two completely

restored and conserved hands.


examples of funerary dummies’ hands have

been discovered in Vulci, and in the town of Pescia Romana near Viterbo, “these were rough and made of bronze, never anything as refned as these,” Carta says.

Casi hopes to resume excavations in

the necropolis in the near future and uncover more of its long-hidden secrets.

“My dream would be to fnd the tombs

of people who had business relationships with this noble family,” says Casi. “That might be the only chance we have to know more about this powerful woman and her relatives.” n

Marco Merola is a freelance journalist

living in Rome. For more images, go to

www.archaeology.org/silverhands

Chamber B also contained the remains of a

chariot, including at least one wheel (left),

and hundreds of small pieces of bronze

(below) that once were part of the vehicle

and its trappings. These are now being

painstakingly pieced together.

Today, most Berliners remember the city’s Tempelhof Airport for its role in the post–

World War II Berlin Airlift, when tons of vital supplies were fown into the city in defance

of the Soviet blockade. But until a recent archaeological excavation, a darker side of

Tempelhof’s history had been almost forgotten: In the early days of the Nazi regime, a corner of the airport served as one of Germany’s frst concentration camps. And between 1941 and 1945, thousands of men and women—part of a vast system of


slave labor that kept the German war machine running—worked

and lived in the shadow of its now-iconic runway canopies.

Since Tempelhof closed in 2008, it has been turned into a massive park, its empty runways and wide felds playing a

part in revitalizing the city’s center. On a sweltering Friday in August 2013, Reinhard Bernbeck, head of the Institute for Near Eastern Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin, stood on the grass between a pair of baseball diamonds built by American GIs after World War II. Not far away, trafc

rushed along the Columbiadamm, the street that runs past

Telling a DifferenT STory


the inner-city airport’s northern periphery. A few hundred

yards to the west, the airport’s taxiway and terminal building shimmered in the sun. Directly in front of Bernbeck was a trench, 200 feet long and about 10 feet wide, revealing a very diferent aspect of the airport’s past. Just a few feet down,

Archaeologists are revealing

the dark past of one of the cold

War’s most celebrated sites

by Andrew Curry

the outlines of concrete foundations and a single strand of taut barbed wire, its ends disappearing into the soil on either side of the trench, were all that remained of a double row of more than a dozen wooden barracks. Since 2011, Bernbeck and archaeologist Susan Pollock of the Free University of Berlin and Binghamton University have been using histori-cal documents, blueprints, and wartime aerial photography to locate and excavate what’s left of this barracks complex. It is believed to have housed the workers who were forced to build some of Nazi Germany’s most fearsome weapons.

Three years after World War II ended, residents of Berlin anxiously

watch the arrival of a plane (left) carrying much-needed supplies

to Tempelhof Airport. Archaeologists have excavated a part of the

now-closed airport (right), uncovering evidence of a forced-labor

camp that existed there throughout the course of the war.


about concentrating too many foreigners in cities, or assigning them to the German armaments industry, for fear of sabotage. But need soon outstripped these concerns, and forced labor-

ers were to be found everywhere: tidying up of ces, working

for the post of ce and the subway system, in stores and on

assembly lines, and even in German churches as gravediggers. Says Bremberger, “Who else would clean the streets or take away corpses after bombings?”

While forced laborers weren’t technically prisoners, as concentration camp inmates were, elements of the system

amounted to a form of slavery, according to Bremberger. In the countries Germany conquered or occupied,

workers were sometimes recruited with promises of good jobs in the Fatherland, only to be kept

in prisonlike conditions once they arrived. In some cases, local of cials would be

instructed to f nd “volunteers” for relo-

cation to Germany on short notice or face repercussions. In other instances, men and women were simply rounded up in raids at their

Very soon after the war began, the departure of millions of German men for the front created a labor shortage, sending German employers scrambling for

workers. “When all the men went to the front, the Germans needed a labor force and had a choice between women and foreigners,” Bernbeck says. “Ideologically, [German] women

were out of the question.” Instead, Germany turned to recently conquered territories and immediately put in place a system to import laborers. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, on Sunday, Sep-

tember 3, the f rst of ces opened to register

Poles with the intention of bringing them to Germany as forced labor, according to historian Bernhard Bremberger, who has spent years researching the history of forced laborers in Berlin as part of a recent ef ort

to compensate aging survivors.As the Wehrmacht pushed

east and west across Europe, the system continued to grow. Ini-

tially, most forced laborers were put to work on Germany’s farms. At the time, authorities were concerned

During the war, forced laborers built and repaired the German aircraft manufacturer Weserflug’s war planes, including the infamous

Stuka dive-bombers, in Tempelhof’s hangars.

Among the recently excavated artifacts at the

Tempelhof site is a plate bearing a Nazi swastika.


show the presence of larger numbers of personal objects in the barracks where French workers lived. One area had a high concentration of locks and keys, leading Pollock to believe that its French inhabitants might have had footlockers or cupboards in which to keep their belongings. “French forced laborers were much better treated than Eastern Europeans and were permitted to keep things under lock and key,” she says.“Depending on where people fell on the ladder of racial superiority, their treatment could be very diferent.” Several

barracks in the center of the camp housed Soviet men. These were surrounded by an extra ring of barbed wire, bearing out the Nazi’s loathing for Soviets and other Eastern Europeans, whom they considered racially inferior.

Bernbeck and Pollock’s work is also illuminating how some of the forced laborers may have died. As the war turned against Germany, and Allied bombers ranged deeper and deeper into German airspace, workers at Tempelhof were at particular risk. “Living at Tempelhof, you would be

in constant danger from bombing raids, tortured by a fear you wouldn’t make it,” says Pollock. While most of Berlin’s population was protected by underground bomb shelters and aboveground concrete bunkers, often built by forced laborers, those living at Tempelhof had to take shelter in Split-terschutzgraben. These “shrapnel trenches” were essentially concrete-reinforced ditches that might protect people lying

inside from fying metal, but not from direct hits.

The Tempelhof Splitterschutzgraben were narrow, just six feet deep, and not nearly large enough to ft all the labor camp’s

inhabitants easily. Yet despite the trenches’ small size, they have yielded a surprising number of artifacts, most of which were found jammed in the cracks between the concrete slabs that lined the bottom of the air-raid trenches, or buried underneath

the slabs’ edges. Unlike the utilitarian objects uncovered in and around the barracks, those from the trenches are largely of a personal nature—a brooch and other jewelry, along with ID

local movie theaters or bus stations and taken to Germany.Over the course of the war in Europe, a span of nearly six

years, Germany imported between eight and 10 million forced laborers. By 1944, an eighth of Berlin’s population of four mil-lion was comprised of forced laborers. Late in the war, trains that sent Jews and other “undesirables” to concentration and exter-

mination camps in the east were loaded with men and women from Poland and the Soviet Union on the return journey.

Not long after the war began in 1939, and for nearly four years, Tempelhof served as a factory site for Weserfug, a now-defunct company that was once

Germany’s fourth-largest aircraft manufacturer, and Deutsche

Lufthansa. Weserfug produced the Luftwafe’s signature Stuka

dive-bomber at the Berlin airfeld, while Lufthansa used forced

laborers to install radar and repair planes. The Tempelhof barracks being excavated were home to

nearly 2,000 forced laborers, mostly from Poland, France, and the Soviet Union. Early analysis of the fnds is showing

how these airport workers may have been part of the life of the city, and is contradicting the claim, common in the decades after the war, that the average German wasn’t aware of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime. For example, the team has uncovered precision tools from local Berlin manufacturers and broken bottle tops from milk and beer bottles, which may help trace the relationship between the camp and its surroundings. “Bottle tops and such show you how connected the camp was to the local community—where

else were they getting supplies and food?” Bernbeck asks. “There was a whole network of camps woven throughout Berlin, thousands of them. That means there’s no way Berlin-

ers didn’t know what was going on.”The Tempelhof excavations are also demonstrating that

diferent nationalities were not treated equally—some were

accorded more privileges than others. Early analysis seems to

Locks, keys, bottle tops, and cutlery are beginning to tell the story

of how Tempelhof’s laborers experienced their day-to-day life.

Concrete-reinforced ditches were the only protection the laborers

had from the Allied bombs that rained down on Berlin.


had supported some of the barracks, they found that they were mostly made of wood, rather than sturdier concrete, that had been charred in a f re, likely from the bombing. (The

bathrooms were the only areas with concrete foundations.)

By the spring of 1945, the barracks were no longer standing, although work for Weserf ug went on among half-assembled

bombers in the airport’s high-ceilinged hangars. “We know

there was an attempt to keep building these Stukas until literally the last days,” says Pollock, “and in the last gasps of the war there were still forced laborers living in the airport.”

In May 1945, Berlin surrendered, and after a few months of Soviet occupation, control of Tempelhof Airport was trans-

ferred to the U.S. Army. Whatever remained of the barracks was quickly cleared as the Americans raced to get the facility back up and running. Rubble and airplane parts were bulldozed to the north edge of the airport, covering the camp’s founda-

tions, then slowly cleared away.Today, even as developers rush to build around the former

airport, Bernbeck and Pollock hope to continue their work. They want to add more to the history of Tempelhof so that its full complexity can be understood. And they hope that the site will no longer be known only as a Cold War symbol of freedom and resistance, but also as a place of coercion and suf ering. Working at Tempelhof is a departure for the

researchers, who live in Berlin but have spent most of their careers excavating Stone and Bronze Age sites in Turkey,

Iran, and Turkmenistan. In today’s Germany, the impact of WWII-era excavations has political,

social, and personal implications beyond what most archaeological digs promise. “What you

interpret and what you say have a distinct possibil-

ity of touching people who are still alive,” says Pol-

lock. “That’s completely dif erent from something

from the f fth millennium B.C.” ■

Andrew Curry is a contributing editor at Archaeology.

tags issued by Weserf ug and Lufthansa—or

painstakingly handmade. “When they took shelter, people brought things that were most valuable and then either lost them or didn’t survive,” Pollock says.

In fact, the barracks complex was hit by a bomb and burned, an event shown in aerial photo-

graphs taken at the time, which has now been conf rmed by the

archaeological evidence. Personal ef ects, including a pocketknife and

metal ID tags, were found scattered. When the team uncovered the posts that

Tempelhof ’s dark history actually began more than a decade before the start of World War II. A military prison on the site was shuttered in 1928 when the

area was turned into an airport. When the Nazis took power f ve years later, one of the prison buildings was reopened

as Konzentrationlager Columbia, “Concentration Camp Columbia,” a shadowy, semiof cial site where political oppo-

nents, Jews, and homosexuals could be detained. “People

were kept here for one to three weeks and tortured,” says local historian Bernhard Bremberger. “It was a way to terror-

ize the opposition in Berlin.” For more of cial interrogations,

prisoners might be bused to the Gestapo headquarters, then brought back at night.

In 1936, Concentration Camp Columbia, which was close

to central Berlin, and thus to public scrutiny, was shut once again and its remaining prisoners moved to a new camp on the edge of the city called Sachsenhausen. Two years later, Columbia was razed. With this rare opportunity to work on a known concentration camp site, archaeologists Susan Pol-

lock and Reinhard Bernbeck had hoped to uncover evidence of the camp facility in a narrow trench they opened near the modern-day street. However, they were able to f nd only the

faintest traces of the prison’s foundations. Disturbed soil and bits of rubble, including a three-by-four- foot piece of founda-

tion, were all that was left. “[The Nazis] removed the building

down to the foundations, and beyond. Everything was dug out of the ground,” Bernbeck says. “We think there was a reason for this—to remove the traces of its existence.”

Secret History

Archaeologists have found a few personal items, including

handmade ID tags and rosary beads (above), in and around

the ditches in which the laborers sheltered during bombing

raids. They’ve also uncovered items, such as dog tags (below),

left behind by U.S. GIs working to get Tempelhof functioning

again after the war.


excavations at the ancient city of Abydos have revealed the tomb of a

previously unknown pharaoh and evidence of a long-lost royal lineage

by M B G

The sun-disc and goose in this hieroglyphic

inscription found in a recently discovered tomb in

Abydos, Egypt, together mean “Son of Ra.” The

hieroglyphs in the oval frame spell the name of a

newly identified pharaoh, Woseribre Senebkay.

Egypt’s Forgotten Dynasty


Egyptologists have long believed that around 3,600 years ago, power in Egypt was divided between two rival dynasties. To the north, ruling the Nile delta from approximately 1650 to 1550 b.c., were the Hyksos, Semitic-speaking war-

riors who invaded Egypt from Lebanon. To the south, a royal Egyptian line based in Thebes and known as the 16th Dynasty came to the fore to counter the foreigners. But this understanding was challenged in 1997, when University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Kim Ryholt proposed that the two

A team led by Penn Museum archaeologist Josef

Wenger excavates the burial chamber of the

pharaoh Senebkay, thought to be one of the first

kings of the Abydos Dynasty.

The Turin King List, a fragmentary 13th-century b.c. papyrus

listing pharaohs chronologically, has several entries that

Egyptologist Kim Ryholt has identified as belonging to the

long-forgotten Abydos Dynasty.

51

dynasties shared the stage with a third, which rose to power temporarily in Abydos.

One of the largest cities in ancient Egypt and home of the Osiris cult, Abydos is situated between the Nile delta and Thebes. After the Hyksos invasion, it would have been left in a power vacuum. Ryholt proposed that the local nobility, uneasy that no divine king ruled the country’s most important religious center and unwilling to submit to a foreign power, took matters into their own hands and established an independent, local dynasty.

Ryholt developed his theory after seeing frag-

ments of a stela at Abydos that referenced three pharaohs who weren’t recorded anywhere else in Egypt. At the same time, he was studying the Turin King List, a fragmentary thirteenth-century b.c.

papyrus that contains a chronological list of Egyp-

tian rulers. On the papyrus, he identifed entries

for 15 kings who followed the 16th Dynasty, but whose names vanished from later royal lists. Ryholt thought the names on the Turin List and the stela could be the only traces left of a short-lived dynasty

that ruled Abydos from about 1650 to 1600 b.c.

A painted scene in the newly discovered tomb of the pharaoh Senebkay depicts the goddesses Neith

and Nut. Faded blue hieroglyphs are visible throughout the panel.


such as cedar that were necessary to outft their

tombs in the proper style. Both, in fact, were forced to steal from the neighboring necropolis to furnish their burials. Inside the unnamed pharaoh’s tomb, Wegner discovered a 60-ton

red quartzite sarcophagus chamber that had originally belonged to a pharaoh named Sobek-

hotep, possibly Sobekhotep I, who ruled Egypt around 1780 b.c. In Senebkay’s tomb, Wegner found a gilded cedar chest from Sobekhotep’s burial that still had his name inscribed on the side. Other signs, such as the humble mud brick and paint that were used to decorate Senebkay’s tomb, point to the limited resources of the Abydos kings. “[The discovery] confrms that

the dynasty was relatively poor if not impoverished,” Ryholt says. Still, in a troubled time, these pharaohs managed to keep the ofce of divine kingship alive at Egypt’s most important

ritual center, no small achievement. Having unearthed the frst physical evidence for the striv-

ing pharaohs of Abydos, Wegner and his team plan to return to the site this summer and continue excavating the royal necropolis, where more evidence of the mysterious dynasty may still be waiting to be discovered. n

Mary Beth Griggs is a freelance science journalist based in New York.

His theory helped explain why, after the Hyk-

sos conquered the north, they had no known con-

frontations with the Theban kings for at least two decades. If the two rival powers were physically separated by a third, reasoned Ryholt, no imme-

diate clash would be possible until the power of the Abydos Dynasty waned. Still, some experts had their doubts and argued that the names he identifed could have belonged to Theban kings.

Ryholt himself remained cautious. “It was all very tentative, and it certainly wasn’t a given,” he says of his theory. But this winter, archaeologists led by Penn Museum Egyptologist Josef Wenger made an unexpected discovery at Abydos that proves Ryholt is correct.

Digging near a royal necropolis known to hold the remains of 12th and 13th Dynasty kings, who ruled from ca. 1900 to 1650 b.c., the team unearthed a limestone tomb containing the skel-etal remains of a previously unknown pharaoh. Texts in the burial chamber identifed him as

Woseribre Senebkay. Two of the fragmentary names at the head of the group on the Turin List begin with “Woser,” leading Wegner to the conclusion that his team had found one of the earliest kings of the Abydos Dynasty. Near Senebkay’s tomb they unearthed another royal burial of a still-unknown pharaoh who

Wegner suspects also belonged to the dynasty. The state of Senebkay’s tomb, and that of the unnamed

pharaoh, speaks volumes about the Abydos Dynasty’s urge to prove itself in the shadow of two more powerful dynasties. Both kings were buried near the tombs of earlier pharaohs who ruled all of Egypt. “They appended their royal necropolis to these earlier, symbolically important kings.” Wegner says. The Abydos pharaohs likely aspired to the luxurious afterlife of their predecessors, but they couldn’t aford imported goods

The imposing sarcophagus chamber of Sobekhotep, perhaps Sobekhotep I,

who ruled ca. 1780 b.c., was found near Senebkay’s tomb, and was probably

reused by a later pharaoh of the Abydos Dynasty.

The tomb of Senebkay was constructed of

locally available mudbrick, in stark contrast to

the lavish tombs of pharaohs who preceded

the relatively poor Abydos Dynasty.

Tourist Boards

1. Innovation Norway Visit Norway

and experience seven UNESCO World

Heritage sites, from Stave churches

to magnificent fjords. The experience

will be powered by nature.

www.visitnorway.com.

2. The Great State of Texas Texas

vacations are filled with possibilities.

Explore them all with your FREE

Texas State Travel Guide.

www.TravelTex.com, p.19

Travel and Tours

3. AIA Tours Join distinguished

lecturers at the greatest archaeological

sites with the Archaeological Institute

of America’s Tour Program.

www.archaeological.org, p.67

4 Andante Travels are leading British

specialists in archaeological and

ancient world travel. Owned and run

by archaeologists for 22 years. Inside

Front Cover, Brochures, Free

5. Archaeological Paths Join us on one

of our upcoming tours in November

2014, February 2015, or March 2015.

Take this chance for the greatest

adventure of your life. Call 917-719-1974

or email contact@archaeologicalpaths.

com for more information. www.

archaeologicalpaths.com, p.14 & 15

6. Asia Adventures and Study Tours

Our one-of-a-kind driving adventure

“Drive the Silk Road” runs annually

from Western Europe to China. In

2014 the overland journey will operate

from August 30 through November

29, starting from Zurich and ending

in Hong Kong, taking 92 days in

total. Travelers will drive through 16

countries covering 20,000 kilometers.

Call 866-564-1226 or email

[email protected] for more

information. www.drivethesilkroad.com,

64-Page color brochure, Free

7. Caravan Tours Fully Escorted Tours

$1095, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala,

USA, and Canada. 62 years, since

1952. 800-Caravan

www.CaravanTours.com, p.62,

28-Page color brochure, Free

8. Jamestown Yorktown Foundation

Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown

Victory Center. Explore America’s

colonial beginnings through museum

gallery exhibits and living history

depicting 17th- and 18th-century

Virginia. p.19, Brochures, Free

9. Maya Exploration Center Tour the

ruins of Central and South America

with renowned scholars from the field.

Our website also hosts a wealth of

information on the Maya calendar, site

maps, and membership opportunities.

Online tour itineraries, study abroad

programs, research info, Free

10. Tara Tours Inc. Since 1980, selling

quality tour programs to Central and

South America. p.62, Brochures, Free

11. Voyages to Antiquity Voyages

to Antiquity cruises to classical

civilizations INCLUDES shore

excursions, gratuities, pre- and/

or post-cruise hotel stays. For

information and reservations,

call 877-398-1460.

www.voyagestoantiquity.com, p.21,

Brochures, Free

Publishing

12. Morris Publishing Publish

your book! Our free guide to self-

publishing gives you all the features

and prices up-front. p.62, Guide to

self-publishing, Free

Field School

13. Crow Canyon Archaeological

Center Looking for a learning vacation?

Crow Canyon offers archaeology,

cultural, and adventure travel programs

in the Southwest and beyond for adults,

teens, and families. p.19, Brochures,

catalogs, prospectuses, Free

14. University of Leicester A

leading university in the U.K. that

provides distance-learning courses

in archaeology at the post-graduate

level. www.le.ac.uk/archaeology,

Brochure, Free

AIA

15. Archaeological Institute of

America Join the oldest and largest

society devoted to the study and

preservation of the record of the

human past. www.archaeological.org

Visit www.archaeology.org/products and click on “Free Info” for products and services

featured by our advertisers. You can also get this information by filling out and mailing the attached

card, or by faxing the card to the number provided.

Free Information Service

ArchAeology (ISSN 0003-8113) is published bimonthly for $23.95 by the Archaeological Institute of America, 36-36 33rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11106. Periodicals postage paid at Long Island City, NY, and additional mailing ofces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Archaeology, P.O. 433091, Palm Coast, FL 32164.

Subscriptions should be addressed to Archaeology, Subscription Services, P.O. 433091, Palm Coast, FL 32164, toll-free (877) ARKY-SUB (275-9782), [email protected]. $23.95 per volume. Single numbers, $4.99. Foreign

and Canadian subscriptions, $38.95; includes all government taxes (130277692-RT). Canadian Publication Agreement #1373161. Allow six weeks for processing new subscriptions. Send manuscripts and books for review to 36-36 33rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11106 or [email protected]. All manuscripts are reviewed by experts. Advertisements should be sent to the Advertising Director, 36-36 33rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11106, (718) 472-3050, [email protected]. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts and photo-graphs. For subscription problems please call (877) 275-9782; AIA members with subscription problems should call the membership ofce at (617) 353-9361. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Te views and opinions expressed do not necessarily refect the policy of the AIA or Archaeology.

©2014 Te Archaeological Institute of America


IMPORTANT CONSUMER INFORMATION: Jitterbug is owned by GreatCall, Inc. Your invoices will come from GreatCall. All rate plans and services require the purchase of a Jitterbug phone and a one-time set up fee of $35. Coverage and service is not available everywhere. Other charges and restrictions may apply. Screen images simulated. There are no additional fees to call Jitterbug’s 24-hour U.S. Based Customer Service. However, for calls to an Operator in which a service is completed, minutes will be deducted from your monthly balance equal to the length of the call and any call connected by the Operator, plus an additional 5 minutes. Monthly minutes carry over and are available for 60 days. If you exceed the minute balance on your account, you will be billed at 35¢ for each minute used over the balance. Monthly rate plans do not include government taxes or assessment surcharges. Prices and fees subject to change. 1We will refund the full price of the GreatCall phone and the activation fee (or set-up fee) if it is returned within 30 days of purchase in like-new condition. We will also refund your first monthly service charge if you have less than 30 minutes of usage. If you have more than 30 minutes of usage, a per minute charge of 35 cents will be deducted from your refund for each minute over 30 minutes. You will be charged a $10 restocking fee. The shipping charges are not refundable. Jitterbug and GreatCall are registered trademarks of GreatCall, Inc. Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. ©2014 Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC. ©2014 GreatCall, Inc. ©2014 by firstSTREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.

®

We proudly accept the following credit cards.

Jitterbug5 Cell PhoneCall toll free today to get your own Jitterbug5.

Please mention promotional code 48060.

1-877-545-6340 www.jitterbug direct.com

Order now and receive a

FREE Car Charger for your Jitterbug –

a $24.99 value. Call now!

47615

“Cell phones have gotten so small, I can barely dial mine” Not Jitterbug®, it features a larger keypad for easier dialing. It even has an oversized display so you can actually see it.

“I had to get my son to program it”Your Jitterbug set-up process is simple. We’ll even pre-program it with your favorite numbers.

“I tried my sister’s cell phone… I couldn’t hear it”Jitterbug is designed with an improved speaker. There’s an adjustable volume control, and Jitterbug is hearing-aid compatible.

“I don’t need stock quotes, Internet sites or games on my phone, I just want to talk with my family and friends”Life is complicated enough… Jitterbug is simple.

“What if I don’t remember a number?”Friendly, helpful Jitterbug operators are available 24 hours a day and will even greet you by name when you call.

“I’d like a cell phone to use in an emergency, but I don’t want a high monthly bill”Jitterbug has a plan to fit your needs… and your budget.

“My cell phone company wants to lock me in on a two-year contract!”Not Jitterbug, there’s no contract to sign and no penalty if you discontinue your service.

“I’ll be paying for minutes I’ll never use!”Not with Jitterbug, unused minutes carry over to the next month, there’s no roaming fee and no additional charge for long distance.

“My phone’s battery only lasts a couple of days”The Jitterbug’s battery lasts for up to 25 days on standby.

Enough talk. Isn’t it time you found out more about the cell phone that’s changing all

the rules? Call now, Jitterbug product experts are standing by.

Available in Blue, Red (shown)

and White.

Monthly Minutes

Monthly Rate

Operator Assistance

911 Access

Long Distance Calls

Voice Dial

Nationwide Coverage

Friendly Return Policy1

Basic 14

50

$14.99

24/7

FREE

No add’l charge

FREE

YES

30 days

Basic 19

was 100 NOW 200

$19.99

24/7

FREE

No add’l charge

FREE

YES

30 days

More minute plans available. Ask your Jitterbug expert for details.

“My friends all hate their cell phones…

I love mine!” Here’s why.Say good-bye to everything you hate about cell phones. Say hello to Jitterbug.

No

Contract

Better

Sound and

Longer Battery Life

NEWFREE Car Charger

It had to have been one of the most defeating days of Alexander Littlejohn’s life. After 40 years of

living in a home he’d built by hand, the 85-year-old was unceremoniously

carried out, still lying on his bed, as his

family looked on. Local folklore tells

of how he was made to watch as bai-

lifs removed all his furniture, smashed

his walls, and burned his roof.

It was Scotland, 1878. There was

little compassion for landless peas-

ants. The Littlejohns lived on the slopes of Bennachie, a prominent

rounded hill in northeastern Scotland.

Years before, Littlejohn had been lured to the hill—a patch of common

land, where local people had tradition-

al rights to use its resources to sup-

port themselves—because it ofered a

small opportunity to build a life of his

own. But eventually local landowners

decided to revoke the land’s common

status and claim ownership. When the

elderly Littlejohn became unable to

pay the rent, he was evicted in front

of his wailing grandchildren.

Standing on the slopes of Ben-

nachie today, next to the knee-high

ruins of Littlejohn’s croft, it appears

idyllic. Sunshine bathes the south-

facing slopes, which ofer splendid

views of rolling hills and open skies. A

freshwater spring gurgles behind the

remains of the house, and a hillfort, built in the late Iron Age by the Celtic

people known as the Picts, stands

sentinel above. But it is a misleading

picture. “Living up here would have

been really harsh, particularly dur-

ing the cold, snowy winters,” says Jef

Oliver, archaeologist at the University

Living on the EdgeWere the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral squatters

or hard-working farmers?

by Kate Ravilious

Letter From SCotLAND


University of Aberdeen excavations

in the hills of Bennachie are revealing

the daily struggles of an unusual

19th-century peasant community.


of Aberdeen. “The land is marginal

and windswept and would have been

covered in scrub and small trees at

that time. Water runof down the hill-

side was a huge issue. It was hardly an

ideal place to set up a smallholding.”

Despite these challenges, at its peak

in the 1850s, the hillside supported a

colony of some 70 settlers—10 fami-

lies—who came from all over Scotland

to try to make an independent living.

Since the early eighteenth century

Scotland had been undergoing what

was known as “improvement.” Before

then, landless peasants were able to

support themselves by farming small

plots of land as tenants of wealthy

landowners. But those landowners

were determined to bring Scotland

into the modern age by transition-

ing from arable and mixed farm-

ing, which supported a large tenant

population, to sheep farming, which

was proving more prof table. History

records brutal evictions and forced

emigration of the surplus farmers as

aristocratic landowners instituted an

agricultural and social revolution.

Many people who were cleared

of their land emigrated to North

America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Among those who could not emigrate

or chose to stay, some toiled on the

new sheep farms. Others were tasked

with farming marginal land in new

“crofting townships.” And a large

proportion became migrants, per-

petually traveling around the country

in search of work. They constructed

temporary dwellings from turf

and heather thatch and moved on

when work dried up. Some of these

migrants ended up at Ben-

nachie, where they found

a stability few others did.

“It is one of the few sites

that we are aware of

where this pool of

landless people

could form a set-

tled community.

People arrived

here from all over the north and east of Scotland,” explains

Oliver. Unlike other

landless folk, the Bennachie

people settled down long enough

to have left a mark. And a rare mark it is. Histori-

cally, there are no other

colonies known in Scot-

land quite like this one. Seldom do such marginal-

ized people leave much in

the archaeological record.

To some extent, the story of Bennachie is the story of marginal-

ized people everywhere—an impor-

tant story rarely preserved or told.

The daily struggles of the Ben-

nachie community were recorded

in census records, diaries, and farm

accounts, but these sources came

from outside the community. “For the

most part, the people who lived here

provided very little in the way of writ-

ten evidence about their own lives.

By digging their homesteads we are

beginning to give these people a voice

and paint a more nuanced picture of

rural life in Scotland at this time,”

says Oliver, who is leading the Ben-

nachie excavations.

Beginning in 2011, Oliver and his team, which includes a local conser-

vation society called the Bailies of

Bennachie, carried out systematic

test pitting across the site. During

summer 2013 they carried out their

f rst full-scale dig, opening trenches

at two of the homes. One of these

was “Shepherd’s Lodge”—the former

residence of Alexander Littlejohn and

his wife, Elisabeth. Littlejohn, a local,

was one of the founders of the colony,

but this did not protect him

from the preju-

dices of nearby

villagers, who

viewed the entire

colony with suspi-

cion, as backward

and uncivilized.

A diary of a local

man known only

as “Johnny” describes

a visit he made in 1841 to the house of one of the

colonists, Willie Jamieson:

“The interior of this humble

and solitary habitation had a very gloomy appearance. Its furniture

One of the peaks of the Bennachie range is Mither Tap, which has the remains of an

Iron Age fort on its peak.

Pottery fragments foun d in shovel

tests at Bennachie reveal that, though

neighbors thought them backward,

the settlers appreciated craftsmanship

and utility.

Have you ever said to yourself “I’d love to get a computer, if only I could figure out how to use it.” Well, you’re not alone. Computers were supposed to make our lives simpler, but they’ve gotten so complicated that they are not worth the trouble. With all of the “pointing and clicking” and “dragging and dropping” you’re lucky if you can figure out where you are. Plus, you are constantly worrying about viruses and freeze-ups. If this sounds familiar, we have great news for you. There is finally a computer that’s designed for simplicity and ease of use. It’s the WOW Computer, and it was designed with you in mind. This computer is easy-to-use, worry-free and literally puts the world at your

fingertips. From the moment you open the box, you’ll realize how different the WOW Computer is. The components are all connected; all you do is plug it into an outlet and your high-speed Internet connection. Then you’ll see the screen – it’s now 22 inches. This is a completely new touch screen system, without the cluttered look of the normal computer screen. The “buttons” on the screen are easy to see and easy to understand. All you do is touch one of them, from the Web, Email, Calendar to Games– you name it… and a new screen opens up. It’s so easy to use you won’t have to ask your children or grandchildren for help. Until now the very people who could benefit most from E-mail and the Internet are the ones that have had the hardest time accessing it. Now, thanks to the WOW Computer, countless older Americans are discovering the wonderful world of the Internet every day. Isn’t it time

you took part? Call now, and a patient, knowledgeable product expert will tell you how you can try it in your home for 30 days. If you are not totally satisfied, simply return it within 30 days for a refund of the product purchase price. Call today.

Call now toll free and find out

how you can get the new

WOW! Computer.

Mention promotional code 48061

for special introductory pricing.

1-877-760-8933

80

99

2

© 2014 by first STREET for Boomers and Beyond, Inc.

Technology Simplified – Bigger and BeTTer

Wow! A Simple to Use Computer

Designed Especially for Seniors!Easy to read. Easy to see. Easy to use. Just plug it in!

• Send & Receive Emails

• Have video chats with family and friends

• Surf the Internet:

Get current weather and news

• Play games on line:

Hundreds to choose from!

“I love this computer! It is easy to

read and to use! I get photo updates

from my children and grandchildren

all the time.”

– Janet F.

FREEAutomatic

Software Updates

NEWNow comes with...

Larger 22-inch hi-resolution screen – easier to see

16% more viewing area

Simple navigation – so you never get lost

Intel® processor – lightning fast

Computer is in the monitor – No bulky tower

Advanced audio, Better speaker configuration – easier to hear

Text to Speech translation – it can even read your

emails to you!

U.S. Based Customer Service


were remarkably scant and of the

meanest description. The only window

it had was on the skylight principle, a

hole through the apex of the roof serv-

ing the combined purpose of window

and lum [chimney]. Meeting with

rather indif erent reception from these

mountaineers we understood we were

no altogether welcome guest.”

Historian James Allan wrote an

essay in 1927 that describes life on

Bennachie as technologically behind

the times. In the “Deeside Field,” he

writes that their houses were simi-

lar to his father’s, stone clay with a

thatched roof of broom and heather.

He continues to say that the land was

not drained with tiles, a more con-

temporary practice, but that this was

done with ridges and furrows, which

decreased the land’s productivity. Fur-

thermore, he concludes that modern

reaping machines were impossible to

use on such an uneven surface.

“Historical sources about the

colony paint a picture of a society liv-

ing on the edge: at best as ‘squatters’

of ‘limited intelligence’ scratching

an existence from poor-quality agri-

cultural soils. At worst, as licentious

and morally reprehensible,” says Oli-

ver. Indeed, Littlejohn’s third child,

Elisabeth Littlejohn, is mentioned

scornfully in the parish records on

numerous occasions for her extra-

marital relationships and illegitimate

children. A typical record from the

Chapel of Garioch Kirk-Session

Records from September 25, 1846, reads, “compeared Robert Minty,

from Daviot and Elisabeth Littlejohn

from Benochie...by which it appeared

they were guilty of the sin of fornica-

tion and their decisions of absolution.

The Session after deliberation on this

case resolved to rebuke them and

dismiss them from censure which

was accordingly done.” Such behavior

probably wasn’t unusual, but it might

have been more remarked upon in

parish records because of prejudices

about the colony people. The mortal

sins of the colonists have long since

been washed from the soil, but a

little digging has provided a wealth of

information on other aspects of their

lives, including the quality of their

homes and farmsteads.

Today all that remains of Shep-

herd’s Lodge are tumbledown

stone walls. It appears to have

been a long, thin building, consisting

of a single-room dwelling (approxi-

mately 30 by 15 feet, possibly parti-

tioned by curtains) and three adjoin-

ing enclosures (roughly 15 by 15 feet each), most likely animal sheds and

a cart house. The fallen stone sug-

gests that the house had gable ends and half-height stone walls, probably

topped with turf and roofed with

thatch. “The house, barns, and wall

systems are well built and must have

taken a huge number of person hours

to construct,” says Aoilf e Gould, Uni-

versity of Aberdeen archaeologist and

site director at Shepherd’s Lodge. A

cart track runs in front of the house

and a patchwork of small f elds cov-

ers the slope below. A kitchen garden,

known locally as a “kaleyard,” wraps

around the back, resplendent today

with wild-cherry trees, most likely

descendants of ones planted by the

Littlejohns.To the side of the house lies one

of the best preserved, and most

important, elements of Shepherd’s

Lodge—the well. A carefully con-

structed stone alcove, three feet high

and two feet across, is set into the

hillside, with an arched roof to pro-

tect the well’s water from debris, as

well as f agstones in front to prevent

the ground from becoming a muddy

mess. “It is much more than just a

hole in the ground, and demonstrates good knowledge of hygiene and

The sturdy, protected well of Shepherd’s

Lodge reflects then-modern ideas of

hygiene and construction, ideas that

were not attributed to the Bennachie

settlers in their time.

This photomosaic depicts the layout of Shepherd’s

Lodge, the home from which Alexander Littlejohn

and his family were evicted in 1878.

YES. Please reserve the Flying Scotsman “Memories of Steam” Clock for me as described in this announcement. Limit: one per order. Please Respond Promptly

*Plus $21.99 shipping and service. Limited-edition presentation restricted to 295 crafting days. Please allow 4-8 weeks after initial payment for shipment. Sales subject to product availability and order acceptance.

Signature

Mrs. Mr. Ms. Name (Please Print Clearly)

Address

City

State Zip

01-12992-001-E98091©2013 BGE 01-12992-001-BISR

9345 Mi lwaukee Avenue · Ni les, IL 60714-1393

RESERVATION APPLICATION SEND NO MONEY NOW

www.bradfordexchange.com/scotsman

Relive the romance and allure of a bygone age of steam, with the brand-new Flying Scotsman “Memories of Steam” Clock, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Flying Scotsman’s run between London and Edinburgh.

originally designed

by artisans in

England in the

tradition of the

fi nest cuckoo

clocks

Intricately

sculpted

and painted by

hand, in authentic

detail

Flying Scotsman

runs around the

base every hour

on the hour

HEAR the

genuine

sound of the

original

locomotive as

the train moves

Stationmaster

emerges at the

train’s arrival

Precision

Quartz Movement

The exclusive Flying Scotsman “Memories of Steam” Clock is a unique collector’s piece that will also offer hours of entertainment for the whole family! Strong demand is expected, so act now to acquire yours in fi ve monthly installments of only $35.99, for a total issue price of just $179.95*, backed by our 365-day money-back guarantee. Reply today, but send no money now. Simply complete and return your Reservation Application. But don’t wait. Worldwide demand has been strong and is expected to continue!

T is product is produced under licence from NMSI Trading Ltd (the wholly subsidiary of the National Museums of Science and Industry). All Flying Scotsman marks are owned

and registered by NMSI. © NMSI 2013. Images used © SSPL. All rights reserved.


improvement-era ideas—something

that these so called ‘mountain people’

were not supposed to know about,”

says Gould.

Artifacts have been thin on the

ground, but the few that have been

found speak of a family that appreci-

ated craftsmanship, despite economic

hardship. “We might expect them to

have the ‘cheapest’ of everything, but

that isn’t the case,” says Gould. The

archaeologists found fragments of

willow-pattern pottery, transfer-printed

ware, and, perhaps most surprising of

all, gilt-edged china. “Although they

may not have been able to aford full

sets, they still had one or two pieces of

fancy tableware,” says Gould. Personal

fnds include a glazed clay marble,

which was probably a toy of one of the

Littlejohn children, and a broken clay

pipestem with tooth marks in the end.

“We can probably narrow it down to

just one or two Littlejohns who might

have smoked that pipe,” says Gould.

Downhill from the house, a network of

sturdy dry stone walls and deep ditches

demarcate the felds and signify com-

munal work. “The sheer level of work

involved in making these agricultural

improvements couldn’t have been

carried out by the Shepherd’s Lodge

residents alone—it must have been a

community efort,” explains Gould.

And details of the walls, such as but-

tress structures, carefully positioned so

that hurdles could be attached to create

sheep pens, reveal that the colonists

were able farmers.

Soil samples gathered from a

nearby farmstead in 2012 confrm that

they embraced then-modern ideas

to maximize the productivity of the

land. In an untended state, the slopes

of Bennachie are not well suited for

farming: A thin layer of topsoil above

compact glacial till prevents good

drainage. But on tended parts of the

slope, the soil reveals the measures

the colonists took to improve their

felds. “We can see that they removed

stones, constructed drainage ditches

and subterranean feld drains, plowed

in glacial till to improve soil depth

and drainage, and fertilized by adding

domestic waste,” says Karen Milek,

geoarchaeologist at the University of

Aberdeen. “They must have invested a

great deal of time and labor to build up

their kaleyards and felds in this way.”

Despite the fundamental poverty

of the land, the Bennachie colonists

appear to have, for a time, maintained

a reasonable living. However, things

went dramatically downhill during the

latter half of the nineteenth century.

One of the triggers for the downturn

was a controversial appropriation of

the common land by wealthy local

landowners in 1859, who wanted to

rid themselves of the troublesome settlers, ensure their own claims to

the land, and start making money by planting trees for lumber. “Suddenly

all the colonists became tenants and

either had to pay rent or be forced

of,” explains Oliver. Often landlords

wasted no time making the land

proftable. “As soon as people were

evicted, [the landowners] started to

plant trees.” But occasionally a newly

empty croft was rented again, as in

the case of Hillside, home of either

the Christies or Coopers, and one of

the best plots on the hill.

In 1860, new paying tenants moved

into Hillside—John McDon-

ald and his daughter Margaret, originally from Sutherland in the far

north. “They were some of the last

settlers to arrive at the colony, and

most likely they would have heard

about the colony by word of mouth,”

says Oliver. Excavations at Hillside in

2013 revealed that the McDonalds

may have been a cut above the other

colonists. Inside the house, which

measures 35 by 15 feet, Oliver and his colleagues uncovered a cobbled

foor and a well-preserved hearth sur-

rounded by fagstones. By contrast,

Shepherd’s Lodge had a beaten-earth

foor and only a small freplace in a

niche in the wall. Meanwhile, shards of

thin Victorian glass were found in two

places at Hillside, suggesting the croft

had multiple windows—a luxury. And

at the back of the croft it seems that

the McDonalds constructed a rather

sophisticated dump.

A shallow dish-shaped area, 20 feet in diameter, is covered in tightly

packed cobbles. Stones run around

the outside and at one side there is a little ramp. “A lot of efort must have

gone into making this beautiful mid-

den, and someone was very proud

of their handiwork,” says Oliver.

Analysis of the midden is ongoing, but the assumption is that it was used

as a place to heap animal manure

and household waste to create fertil-

izer. “The fact that the midden is at

the back of the house is very much

(continued on page 64)

The ruins of Hillside, another Bennachie dwelling, reveal a home that was among

the most sophisticated in the township.

8

Come and relax

on the quiet side

of Florida.www.visitlagler.org

school

American Foreign

Academic Research

CLASSIFIEDS

BOOKS

FORGOTTEN TALES OF CHINA, by Lisa

April Smith, is an epic saga of survival,

sacrifice, lust and love, perseverance and

betrayal set in prehistoric China. “Smith

has seamlessly blended a scientist’s

dedication to accuracy with her unique

talent for creating unforgettable

characters and stories.” David Lee,

Author www.LisaAprilSmith.com

Available in E-books and print at

Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

RAVEN’S BLOOD. A supernatural,

archaeological thriller by Deborah

Cannon. He dreamed the dreams of his

ancestors. Now his next foray into the

realm of Raven may be his last. Read also:

THE RAVEN’S POOL, WHITE RAVEN,

RAVENSTONE. Available at www.

amazon.com. Also on Kindle

THE STONEHENGE SCROLLS, an

archaeological novel, now in paperback

for $7.99. E-book for $5.50. Rated four

stars by Amazon readers.

TRAVEL & TOURS

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOURS: Mississippi

Valley: Visit Watson Brake Mounds,

Parkin and more. French and Indian War:

Visit Ganondagan, Fort Ticonderoga

and more. Best of the Southwest:

Explore Acoma, Canyon de Chelly,

Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and more.

www.archaeologicalconservancy.

org Archaeological Conservancy,

Albuquerque, NM, (505) 266-1540

MACHU PICCHU & CUZCO:

Explorations since 1992! Inca

archaeology, Spanish colonial history,

Quechua culture, Andean ecology.

Amazon, Nazca, Titikaka extensions.

(800)446-9660.

www.GoExploring.com

MISTURA 2014: Experience South

America’s largest food festival with

local chef! Explore the cultures of Peru,

small group, anthropologist escorted.

EXPLORATIONS - since 1992. (800)446-

9660 www.AdventuresOfDiscovery.com


Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter

for daily updates on the latest discoveries

facebook.com/archaeologymagtwitter.com/archaeologymag

For a FREE Guide, call 800-650-7888, ext.ARC5

www.morrispublishing.com

We offer:

• low prices and many options

• production time of 20 days

• low minimum of 100 books

• assistance from start to finish

We print all kinds of books!

caravan®

California Coast

$1295With Caravan, you enjoy 2 relaxing nights

in San Francisco, wine tasting in Sonoma,

overnight stay in Yosemite National Park,

a spectacular coastal drive on the Big Sur

and experience L.A., Hollywood and more.

Affordable Guided Vacations (+tax,fees)

Guatemala, Tikal 10 days $1195 Costa Rica 9 days $1095 Panama, Canal Cruise 8 days $1195Canadian Rockies 9 days $1595Grand Canyon 8 days $1395 Mt. Rushmore 8 days $1295 California Coast 8 days $1295 New England, Foliage 8 days $1295

1-800-Caravan • Caravan.com

carava

n

8 DAYS, Yosemite

and Wine Country

San Francisco Trolley; Yosemite Valley

Call Now for Choice Dates!

FREE Info Guide

Easter IslandKuelap

Machu PicchuDiscover the most amazing sites of

Latin America. Including airfare

Call: 1-800-327-0080 www.taratours.com

Visit archaeology.orgtoday

The editors of ARCHAEOLOGY invite you to visit our vibrant website featuring daily news stories from around the globe and articles from each issue of ARCHAEOLOGY magazine. The site also has web-exclusive content, videos, and slideshows that expand on the magazine’s coveragein the way that only a website can.

Classified Ad Rates

$5.75 per word. $115, 20-word minimum.

Non-commissionable.

Copy/payment must be received by

space closing date. Artwork not accepted.

Display Classified Rates

1/24 Page: 2 1/4”w x 1-1/8”l

1X 3X 6X

B&W $515 $460 $420

2-Color $580 $515 $480

4-Color $625 $560 $525

1/12 page: 2 1/4”w x 2 1/4”l

1X 3X 6X

B&W $845 $755 $700

2-Color $955 $855 $795

4-Color $1030 $925 $870

1/6 PAGE: 2-1/4”w x 4 -5/8”l

1X 3X 6X

B&W $1,595 $1,470 $1,360

2-Color $1,790 $1,755 $1,545

4-Color $1,925 $1,750 $1,685

See mechanical requirements below.

No coupons, non-commissionable, non-

cancelable. Supplied advertising that

requires production or design work of

any kind may incur a non-commissionable

production charge starting at $50.

Mechanical Requirements:

Materials: Press ready PDF/X1a files

preferred. Must include all fonts and

art. Provide files in either CMYK or

Grayscale color space. RGB colors are not

acceptable for print ads. Images should be

at least 300 dpi. Files must be supplied via

email ([email protected]) or cd.

Archaeology Magazine cannot be held

responsible for the quality of reproduction

if these specifications are not adhered to.

Contact Info:

Karina Casines, Account Manager

[email protected]

(718) 472-3050 ext. 4905

Email materials to:

[email protected]

Materials for the Sept/Oct 2014 issue

are due July 10, 2014

Photo Credits

COVER—AZA/Archive Zabé/Art Resource, NY; 1—Courtesy Josef Wegner, Penn Museum; 3— Courtesy INAH, Photo: de Malíton Tapia, Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo: Clara Amit, Courtesy New York Public Library TOC; 4—Courtesy Salvador Guilliem Arroyo, Director Proyecto Tlatelolco; 6—Courtesy Doug Ross, Simon Fraser University; 8—Courtesy Robert Clark; 11—Photo: Taylor Hatmaker, Courtesy Andrew Reinhard, Photo: Bill Caraher; 12—Courtesy Andrew Reinhard, Photo: Raiford Giuns, Wikimedia Commons, $Mathe94$, Photo: Peter Banyasz; 16—Courtesy Ioanna Kakoulli, UCLA (2), Courtesy New York Public Library; 17—Wikimedia Commons, Brian Stansberry; 18—Courtesy INAH, Photo: de Malíton Tapia, Courtesy Guard Archaeology Ltd.; 19—PLoS One; 20—Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo: Clara Amit, Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo: Dan Kirzner, Courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo: Clara Amit; 21—Wikimedia Commons, hairymuseummatt, Dr. MikeBaxter; 22—Courtesy Gene St. Pierre, Rhode Island College, Courtesy Rhode Island State Home and School Project ; 24— (clockwise from top left) Wikimedia Commons, Courtesy Connie Kelleher, Wikimedia Commons, Eitan f, Courtesy Ioanna Kakoulli, UCLA, Wikimedia Commons, Fae; 25—Courtesy Odense City Museums, Courtesy Michael Frachetti, Washington University in St. Louis, Courtesy Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Wikimedia Commons, PhilipC, Copyright Trustees of the British Museum; 26—HIP / Art Resource, NY; 27—Getty Images; 28—Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence/The Bridgeman Art Library, Roger Atwood; 29—Roger Atwood, Getty Images; 30—Courtesy Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Programa de Arqueología Urbana (3), Roger Atwood; 31—Courtesy Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Programa de Arqueología Urbana.; 32—Roger Atwood (2); 33—Roger Atwood, Courtesy Salvador Guilliem Arroyo, Director Proyecto Tlatelolco; 34-35—Courtesy Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway; 36—Copyright Costa Leemage/The Bridgeman Art Library, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway. Photographer: Eirik Irgens Johnsen; 37—Courtesy Per Holck (2); 38—Courtesy Per Holck (3), Courtesy Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway (3); 40—Marco Merola (2); 41—Courtesy Soprintendenza Etruria Meridionale (2); 42—Marco Merola (all); 43—Marco Merola (all); 44-45—Copyright Bettman/Corbis, Courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Photographer: Jan Trenner; 46— Courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Photographer: Jessica Meyer; 47—Courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Photographer: Jan Trenner, Courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Photographer: Jessica Meyer; 48—Courtesy Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Photographer: Jessica Meyer (3); 49—Courtesy Jennifer Wegner, Penn Museum; 50—Josef Wegner, Penn Museum, Jennifer Wegner, Penn Museum, De Agostini Picture Library/The Bridgeman Art Library; 52—Josef Wegner, Penn Museum (2); 55—Photo: Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen; 56—Photo: Leaf Gould, University of Aberdeen, Photo: Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen (3); 58—Courtesy Oskar Sveinbjarnarson, Photo: Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen; 60—Photo: Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen; 64—Photo: Jeff Oliver, University of Aberdeen; 68—Courtesy L.C. Tiera


The latest in the series of

ARCHAEOLOGY’SSpecial

Collector’s Editions

Order your copy now for just

$6.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling.

Visit www.archaeology.org/sacredplaces

Or call 1-800-345-2785**This Collector’s Edition is not included as part of your regular subscription to ARCHAEOLOGY magazine.

Some of the most moving and impressive places ever created by humans were built because people sought a connection with something larger than themselves. This Special Collector’s Edition of ARCHAEOLOGY, takes readers on an image-fi lled journey to the globe’s most storied ancient ritual sites.

From Peru’s Machu Picchu, which celebrated water as a sacred force, to the Roman Forum, which blended ceremony and government, readers get an intimate look at the spiri-tual practices of the world’s great cultures. From the Giant Buddha of Leshan in China, to Turkey’s stunning Byzantine cathedral, Hagia Sophia, we learn that people located ritual centers in places in the landscape they clearly deemed sacred.

Spanning nearly 5,000 years of human worship and devotion, SACRED PLACES is a special issue you simply mustn’t miss!

Get it NOW

14%OFF

the $6.99 cover price!


in keeping with the improvement

regime of the time, and shows that

these guys had good knowledge about

hygiene,” says Oliver.

The McDonalds moved in and

appear to have thrived just after the

1859 landgrab, the full economic and

social impacts of which were not felt

immediately because of events occur-

ring on the other side of the Atlantic.

“During the 1860s the American Civil

War was raging and the United King-

dom was exporting large amounts of

food to support the Confederacy in

North America. As a result the U.K.

economy was buoyant and laboring

work on local estates would have

been in plentiful supply,” says Oliver.

For the Littlejohns, however, the

1860s saw the start of their run of

bad luck. A harsh winter in 1860 meant that employment was hard,

if not impossible, to come by. Then

in 1862, Littlejohn’s daughter Sarah

died of cervical cancer and her hus-

band James fell into poor health and

was unable to work. In 1863 Elisa-

beth (Littlejohn’s wife) died, and later

that year James died too, leaving fve

orphans. Three of the children were

admitted to industrial school and

two were placed with the recently

widowed Littlejohn. The pressure

to pay rent to the new landlords and

provide for his new dependents took

its toll. Parish records show that

Alexander frequently had to request “poor relief.”

Despite all these setbacks, the

Littlejohns continued to live on the

hill until 1878. The McDonalds,

though they were among the most

prosperous families in the colony, also

struggled. Parish records record that

McDonald died of “exhaustion” and

“gastric derangement” in 1870. “There

were some very bad winters during

the latter half of the nineteenth cen-

tury, and once the American Civil War

was over these people felt the impact

of the massive economic downturn,”

says Oliver. By the 1880s most of the crofts had been abandoned.

The 1871 census shows McDonald’s

daughter Margaret and her son John

residing at Hillside, but after that the

paper trail dries up. Excavations hint at

their fate. Under the fallen gable ends

of Hillside, Oliver and his colleagues

found large quantities of crushed

household items (many in fragments,

but complete), including two large

dairy bowls, a Rockingham teapot, and

numerous pieces of decorated white-

ware. In one corner they recovered

iron pins, metal fttings, and pieces of

textile—possibly the remnants of a

storage trunk. “The impression is that

the occupants left their possessions

behind in a hurry, perhaps during a

forced eviction, one that culminated in

the rapid razing of the building, remov-

ing the possibility for the subsequent

looting of the structure’s contents, or

the reuse of the structure for any pur-

pose,” says Oliver.

On the other hand, Littlejohn’s dramatic eviction story, passed faith-

fully down the generations, has so far

failed to be supported by the archae-

ology. Compared to Hillside, Shep-

herd’s Lodge has ofered up a paucity

of fnds. A few ceramic sherds were

recovered from a midden, but no

complete pieces were found. “If there

had been a sudden forced eviction,

we might have expected a few more

things to have been left behind,” says

Gould. If the Littlejohns’ roof had

been set ablaze, as the accounts state,

there should be a continuous burn

layer across the original foor of the

building. Instead Gould and her team

found a burn layer atop a later occu-

pation of the croft, perhaps when it

was used as shelter for domestic ani-

mals. “The evidence from Shepherd’s

Lodge indicates that the burning of

the structure likely occurred some-

time after the celebrated eviction,

possibly many years afterward, sug-

gesting the way the story has been

remembered has itself undergone change,” says Oliver. “And quite possi-

bly the story was exaggerated and per-

petuated by the landlords, as a scare

tactic to discourage new residents.”

Certainly the landlords contrib-

uted to the demise of the colony,

but there were other factors, includ-

ing harsh winters, poor health, and

the lure of employment elsewhere

for the children. By the 1880s, the colony had faded away. The landlords

turned the hillside into a coniferous

plantation, though one determined

resident—George Esson, born and

bred on Bennachie—clung to his

tenancy until his death in 1939. By

all accounts he seems to have been a

character, a keen recorder of local his-

tory and folklore, who wanted to see

Bennachie become a granite quarry.

Esson’s wish never came to pass,

and today the forested slopes (owned

by the Forestry Commission) are

silent, barring the odd bird call. But

the stones hidden beneath the under-growth have retained snippets of the

lives of their original occupants. Con-

trary to their reputation as backward

and immoral “mountain people,” the

people of Bennachie comprised a

hardworking, skilled, close-knit com-

munity. “These guys were singled out

because they were diferent. Perhaps

the closest analogy we have today is

the common prejudice against the

traveling Romany community,” says

Oliver. It has taken 150 years, but fnally there is a feeling of respect and

sympathy for the original Bennachie

settlers—people who had the courage

and resourcefulness to make the best

of a difcult lot in life. n

Kate Ravilious is a science journalist based

in York, United Kingdom.

(continued from page 60)

Textile and metal fragments at Hillside

may be the remains of a trunk left

behind during one of the settlement’s

forced evictions.

ExcavatE, EducatE, advocatE www.archaeological.org

aIa announces Winners of 2014 cotsen Excavation Grants

65

William Parkinson, Associate Curator of Eurasian Anthro-pology at the Field Museum

of Natural History in Chicago, and Darian Marie Totten, Assistant Profes-sor in the Department of Classics at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, are the winners of the 2014 Cotsen Excavation Grants. Each will receive an award of $25,000 to support their excavations and research.

Parkinson was awarded the Cotsen Grant for mid-career project direc-tors to support the fnal season of a multiyear project in Diros Bay on the Mani Peninsula of the southern Greek mainland. Te 2014 feld season will focus on the Neolithic settlement of Ksagounaki Promontory, located just outside the entrance to Alepotrypa Cave. Together, Ksagounaki and Ale-potrypa formed the largest agricultural settlement in the region at the end of the Neolithic Period. Parkinson and his colleagues Anastasia Papathana-siou (Ephoreia of Paleoanthropology and Speleology for Southern Greece), Michael Galaty (Mississippi State Uni-versity), and Giorgos Papathanasso-

poulos (Greek Ministry of Culture, retired) are exploring how early agri-cultural villages such as Ksagounaki grew and expanded in the Neolithic. Understanding the dynamics of village organization in southern Greece will enable them to better understand the cultural background of the important political and economic transformations that occurred during the subsequent Bronze Age, which eventually paved the way for the emergence of the Myce-naean states.

Te grant for frst-time project direc-tors was awarded to Darian Marie Tot-ten for the Salapia Exploration Project. Totten and her colleagues Roberto Gofredo and Giovanni de Venuto of the University of Foggia will examine the complex environmental and human history of the coastal lagoon of Lago di Salpi, on the Adriatic coast of Italy. While the precarious and changeable coastal landscape posed challenges to habitation during the Roman, Late Antique, and Medieval periods, it also ofered benefts, such as a natural har-bor and productive salt pans. Totten’s research program includes two excava-

tions, one at Salapia and the other at San Vito, and a rigorous geomorphological study of the lagoon environment. Te excavation at Salapia, an ancient urban center and port, will ofer insights into the inner workings of a Mediterranean trading center, while work at San Vito, a coastal villa on the southeastern side of the lagoon, will ofer a rural counter-point to Salapia.

Cotsen Grants are made possible through the generous support of Lloyd E. Cotsen, former AIA Board Member and chairman of the Cotsen Foundation for the ART of TEACH-ING and the Cotsen Foundation for Academic Research. Two grants of $25,000 each are available annually, with one providing seed money to an archaeologist organizing his or her frst excavation, and the other assisting a mid-career archaeologist moving for-ward with an excavation in progress. Te next deadline to apply for the Cot-sen Excavation Grants is November 1, 2014. To read more about the Cotsen Excavation Grant and other AIA grants and fellowships, please visit www.archaeological.org/grants.

(Left to right) Parkinson and Galaty, codirectors of the

project in Diros Bay, Greece; a view of the promontory that

will be the focus of the 2014 season in Diros Bay; Totten,

codirector of the Salapia Exploration Project

66

dis

patc

hes

from

the

aIa

■

E

xcav

ate,

Edu

cate

, adv

ocat

e

AIA’s Local Societies, spread across the United States, Can-ada, and Europe, ofer inter-

esting, informative, and innovative archaeological programming to their communities. Each year, through the Societies’ eforts, thousands of people have opportunities to experience archaeology frsthand right in their own backyards. Since 1997, the AIA has supported the programs ofered by Local Societies through the Soci-ety Outreach Grant Program. To date the AIA has awarded almost $120,000 to more than 80 programs. Winners in the last round of grants (fall 2013) were:

AIA Akron-Kent Local Society for A Taste of Ancient Greece and Rome: A symposium in the classi-cal sense, the program included a banquet, entertainment, and short lectures. By hosting and publiciz-ing events like these, the Society maximizes its exposure to the wider community in Akron, Kent, and neighboring areas and promotes membership in the AIA while pro-viding participants with an enjoy-able and entertaining educational experience.

AIA Central Arizona Local Soci-ety for Apples + Archaeology: Tis innovative and dynamic public out-reach program, now in its ffth year, was created to connect faculty mem-bers from local colleges and uni-versities with K–12 educators and students in the metropolitan Phoenix area. Faculty members present lec-tures and creative projects to diverse groups of students across the Valley of the Sun.

AIA Houston Local Society for an Educational Residency on Texas Archaeology: Te Local Society part-nered with educators and archaeolo-gists from the Shumla Archeological Research & Education Center to pres-ent a week of events focused on the history of Paleolithic Texas at several local elementary and middle schools.

AIA Milwaukee Local Society for

its Fifth Annual Milwaukee Archaeol-ogy Fair: Te two-day fair included two dozen presentations and displays featuring archaeology and culture from Wisconsin and around the world.

Programs included ancient games, a “name that myth” challenge, and opportunities to learn about fota-tion, Inca mummies, and writing systems. Also on hand in full regalia were reenactors representing Roman legionaries, Celtic warriors, Greek hoplites, and Renaissance knights.

AIA Rochester Local Society for Classroom Visit with “Alex the Archae-ologist”: As a pre-visit supplement to “Passport to the Past,” the most popular school tour ofered at the Memorial Art Gallery, area teachers could invite “Alex the Archaeologist” to visit their classroom. Alex present-ed an interactive, illustrated talk on the basics of archaeology, conducted a sample excavation, and provided an object-based hands-on activity for the students.

AIA Stanford Local Society for Archaeology Memory—Heritage Pres-ervation: In an efort to preserve the history of archaeology, the program invited archaeologists to answer a set of questions and relate personal experiences, anecdotes from the feld, recollections of mentors and archae-ologists from previous generations, and advice for future generations.

AIA Staten Island Local Society for Staten Island Archaeology Fair: A joint efort between the Society and Wagner College, the fair featured informative, fun, and interactive pro-grams presented by archaeologists, historians, museum educators, and interpreters from organizations in the greater New York City area.

AIA Toronto Local Society for Archaeology Student Publication Work-shop: Students presenting papers at the workshop had the opportunity to practice their presentation skills, see their work in a professional context, and receive valuable critiques and advice in a supportive setting that

promoted dialogue and interaction.To learn more about these and other

Local Society programs and the grant program, please visit archaeological.org/societies.

Society outreach Grant Winners

Each year AIA Local Societies offer a variety of pro-

grams including (top to bottom) an Archaeology Fair

in Houston, Ancient Toolmaking in Western Illinois,

A Day in the Field in Western Massachusetts, and

Classics Day in Lubbock.

call: 800�748�6262 • web site: www.aiatours.org • email: [email protected]

Ir an • Egypt • Tunisia • Jordan • Scotl and • Irel a n d

I taly • France • Spa in • Croatia • C yprus • Greece

T ur k e y • Me xico • Guatem al a • Cub a • Peru & More

Journey Down the Ganges:India’s Holiest River

February 10 - 23, 2015

aboard an elegant riverboatwith 28 staterooms

ARTIFACT

68 ARCHAEOLOGY • July/August 2014

There are moments in history when major cultural shifts occur, and these

are often accompanied by dramatic changes in the way artists choose to

depict humans. One such moment occurred in the early Neolithic period. At

the site of Tell Qarassa, in what is now Syria, archaeologists have found an

extraordinary example of artistic expression created at the time when the region’s inhabitants

were making the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

The carved bone artifact was found in a grave and has been interpreted as a kind of

wand used in funerary rituals. Although there are

other examples of carved bone wands, none display

human faces. Only two faces remain on this example,

but it is clear that the wand was deliberately broken

or cut, and that, at one time, there were probably

more faces on the bottom.

It is the quality of the faces on the wand, not just

their existence, that is revolutionary. According to Tell

Qarassa project archaeologists, the artifact is of great

signifi cance for the study of the origins and meanings

of human representation. Previously, humans were

portrayed in a stylized way, but on the wand and other

contemporaneous artifacts from the Neolithic Near

East, faces start to be portrayed more naturalistically.

The artist clearly wanted to focus attention on the

closed eyes and mouth, as these are the most deeply

engraved features. While no individual person is

represented, there is a deliberate attempt to stress facial

traits and, according to the archaeologists, concepts

of personhood. This represents “a major innovation in

the way the fi rst farming communities conceived of

the human image and a new way of perceiving human

identity,” says archaeologist Juan José Ibañez Estevez.

WHAT IS IT

Wand

CULTURE

Pre-pottery Neolithic

DATE

Late 9th millennium B.C.

MATERIALS

Rib bone, probably from

an aurochs

FOUND

Tell Qarassa, Syria

DIMENSIONS

About 2 inches long,

two-thirds of an inch

wide, and a quarter of an

inch thick

Archaeological Toursled by noted scholars

Invites You to Journey Back in Time

Journey back in time with us. We’ve been taking curious travelers on fascinating historical study tours for the past 39 years. Each tour is led by a noted scholar whose knowledge and enthusiasm brings history to life and adds

a memorable perspective to your journey. Every one of our 37 tours features superb itineraries, unsurpassed service andour time-tested commitment to excellence. No wonder so many of our clients choose to travel with us again and again.

For more information, please visit www.archaeologicaltrs.com, e-mail [email protected], call 212-986-3054, toll-free 866-740-5130. Or write to Archaeological Tours, 271 Madison Avenue, Suite 904, New York, NY 10016.

And see history our way.

2014-2015 tours: Gujarat India • Ireland • Northern Chile & Easter Island • Israel • Turkey • Peru • Sicily & Southern Italy

Central Asia • Ghana, Togo & Benin • North India • Korea • Maya Mexico • Japan • Great Museums: Paris ...and more

Caves and Castles (14 days)

Explore the Paleolithic cave art of northern

Spain and southwestern France with Prof.

Roy Larick, Cleveland State U. Highlights

include Atapuerca, the caves of Tito Bustillo,

El Castillo, Gargas, Altamira II, Le Mas

d’Azil, Lascaux II, Pech Merle and Bilbao’s

Guggenheim Museum. During our five-day

stay in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac we will visit the

Dordogne Valley’s castles and medieval

villages. By good fortune, these sites are

found in an area of fabulous food and wine.

Southern India (23 Days)

Visit eight UNESCO World

Heritage Sites including the

rock-cut cave temples at Ellora

and Ajanta, the shore temples at

Mahabalipuram and the extraordinary

Vijayanagara ruins at Hampi with Prof.

Kathleen Cummings, U. of Alabama. We

also see the temples and palaces of Trichy,

Madurai and Mysore. After viewing the

wildlife at Periyar Lake, we will cruise

the backwaters of Kerala to Cochin. We

will attend classical dance performances,

explore bazaars and sample exotic foods.

Sri Lanka (17 days)

Travel this mystical Buddhist kingdom

with Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne, U. of

Peradeniya. We will have a glimpse

of life under kings who created

sophisticated irrigation systems,

built magnificent temples with huge

dagobas and carved 40-foot-tall

Buddhas. Our journey will take us

to six World Heritage Sites, as

well as wildlife sanctuaries,

tea plantations, hill stations

and monasteries. Colorful

rituals and festivals occurring

during our visit will add to

our understanding of

Sri Lankan culture

and history.

Khmer Kingdoms (23 days)Myanmar, Thailand, Laos &Cambodia

Study the history and beauty of these four

countries with Prof. Richard Cooler,

Northern Illinois U. Beginning in Myanmar,

visits include the ancient royal cities,

pagodas and golden temples in Yangon,

Mandalay and Pagan. We continue to

remote northeastern Thailand and Laos’s

magnificent 7th-century Khmer temples

at Wat Phou. The tour ends in Cambodia,

where we will visit its capital and spend

five days at Angkor Wat. Our tour will be

enhanced by traditional music and dance

performances.

Northern Chile & Easter Island(15 days)plus an Optional 5-day PatagoniaExtension

Discover the enigmatic giant statues on

Easter Island and the mysterious geoglyphs

of northern Chile with Dr. Jo Anne Van

Tilburg, U. of California and Prof. Calogero

Santoro, U. of Trapacá. This unusual tour

will take us to pre-Inca fortresses, fine

museums and the lovely colonial city of

Santiago. Lastly, we study the fascinating

prehistoric Rapa Nui culture during our

seven-day stay on remote Easter Island.

SM

More than 60 destinations in Latin America.

© 2

014 U

nite

d A

irlin

es, I

nc. A

ll righ

ts r

eser

ved.

In

clu

des

dest

ina

tion

s se

rved

by

Un

ited

Exp

ress

®.

Latin

America

Documents

Archaeology 20140708