Skulls Found In Mexico May Have Belonged To Human Sacrifice Victims, Archaeologists Say

From HuffPost:  Skulls Found In Mexico May Have Belonged To Human Sacrifice Victims, Archaeologists Say 


An artifact depicting Tlaloc, a Pre-Columbian water god, was found at the human sacrifice site at Lake Xaltocan, Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.

The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.
"It's absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America," Morehart said.
Middle of nowhere
Morehart and his colleagues were using satellite imagery to map ancient canals, irrigation channels and lakes that used to surround the kingdom of Teotihuacan (home to the Pyramid of the Sun), about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Mexico City. The vast ancient kingdom flourished from around A.D 200 to 650, though who built it remains a mystery. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]
In a now drained lake called Lake Xaltocan, around which was essentially rural farmland at the time, Morehart stumbled upon a site with evidence of looting.
When the team investigated, they discovered lines of human skulls with just one or two vertebra attached. To date, more than 150 skulls have been discovered there. The site also contained a shrine with incense burners, water-deity figurines and agricultural pottery, such as corncob depictions, suggesting a ritual purpose tied to local farming. [See images from the grisly excavation]
Carbon dating suggested that the skulls were at least 1,100 years old, and the few dozen analyzed so far are mostly from men, Morehart told LiveScience. The researchers did not release photos of the skulls because the sacrifice victims may have historic ties to modern-day indigenous cultures.
The findings shake up existing notions of the culture of the day, because the site is not associated with Teotihuacan or other regional powers, said Destiny Crider, an archaeologist at Luther College in Iowa, who was not involved in the study.
Human sacrifice was practiced throughout the region, both at Teotihuacan and in the later Aztec Empire, but most of those rituals happened at great pyramids within cities and were tied to state powers.
By contrast, "this one is a big event in a little place," Crider said.
The shrines and the fact that sacrifice victims were mostly male suggest they were carefully chosen, not simply the result of indiscriminate slaughter of a whole village, Crider told LiveScience.
Many researchers believe that massive drought caused the fall of Teotihuacan and ushered in a period of warfare and political infighting as smaller regional powers sprang up, Morehart said.
Those tumultuous times could have spurred innovative — and bloody — practices, Crider said.
"Maybe they needed to intensify their activities because everything was changing," she said. "When things are uncertain you try new strategies."

 

Wilton resident Joseph W. Zarzynski co-authors book "Documentary Filmmaking for Archaeologists"

The Saratogan:  Wilton resident Joseph W. Zarzynski co-authors book "Documentary Filmmaking for Archaeologists"

WILTON — Joseph W. Zarzynski of Wilton has co-authored a new book, “Documentary Filmmaking for Archaeologists,” published by Left Coast Press of California.

Zarzynski, an underwater archaeologist and founder of the group Bateaux Below, wrote the book with Peter Pepe, president of Pepe Productions, a Glens Falls video production company.

Previously, they collaborated on producing three feature-length, award-winning documentaries about historic shipwrecks as well as creating several “mini-docs” for screening in museums, art galleries and visitors centers.

Two of their documentaries were about French and Indian War (1755-1763) shipwrecks in Lake George, and the third video production was about a Confederate privateer shipwreck lost off St. Augustine, Fla., in 1861.

Pepe and Zarzynski have also taught several documentary film-making workshops at archaeology conferences around the country.

Their new book is a guide for archaeologists and other social scientists on the step-by-step process of making a documentary so that these scientists are better prepared to work with professional documentary film-makers.

Many accounts told by Pepe and Zarzynski cite interesting anecdotes from the production of their documentaries, “The Lost Radeau: North America’s Oldest Intact Warship” (2005), “Wooden Bones: The Sunken Fleet of 1758” (2010) and “Search for the Jefferson Davis: Trader, Slaver, Raider” (2011).

“Peter Pepe and Joseph W. Zarzynski have done a tremendous service in writing this first-ever guide to archaeological film-making,” said James P. Delgado, host of National Geographic’s “The Sea Hunters” series (2001-2006). “This is a must-have book for every archaeologist who wants to reach a wide audience through the power of film.”

The 230-page book is available in paperback ($32.95), hardcover ($89) and eBook ($32.95) from Left Coast Press.

OMG!

Never realized I hadn't posted in over 2 weeks!

Sorry, folks

Things have just gotten away from me the last week and a half...posting should be back on schedule starting this weekend.

Digging for dinosaurs

From NewsLeader.com:  Digging for dinosaurs

STUARTS DRAFT — A group of intrepid young archaeologists and paleontologists uncovered a new species of dinosaur at a dig on an Augusta County farm.
Not really. But it was a bit of fun that the Webelos 1 den of Cub Scout Pack 349 indulged in Saturday during a mock archaeological dig organized for the boys to earn their geology badges.
Under a white tent, children and adults were abuzz. The kids, including some younger siblings of troop members, were on their knees and crouched around a 12-foot-by 5-foot perimeter of loosened earth. They scooped, sifted and brushed away dirt.
Andrew Howell, 10, could hardly contain his excitement as he brushed away dirt from a large, spiky fossil.
“It looks like the back of something,” he said. “Maybe a spine with spikes.”
“Wow, yours is big,” said Darrion Johnson, 9, from a few feet away.
“Yeah, it’s huge!” Andrew responded.
Webelos den mother Jaclyn Nahay tried to think of every possible detail to make the educational event as real and fun as possible.
Nahay held up an impressive looking, 2-foot-long model of a fossil that she made out of salt dough, paint and stain. She molded it to like the lower jaw bone of a dinosaur.
She got the idea for how to make the fossils when she came across a website that listed a recipe for making fake human bones.
Nahay adapted it to make the dinosaur fossils for the mock dig. She also made the boys fake passports that listed their scientific credentials, and the countries they have visited for past digs.
The kids made a rope grid to keep track of what they found in each section of the site. They measured, took pictures and recorded their findings in a journal.
“I’m positive these are dinosaur eggs,” said Zachary Furr, 9, as he brushed dirt away from a group of six oval fossils. “(The dinosaur) is like a million years old and had no babies. They didn’t hatch!”
Once uncovered and laid out, the bones will resemble a 10-foot, 7-inch long prehistoric animal, Nahay said.
“I thought it would be fun to make bones that were from different dinosaurs,” she said. “Then it could be a new species that they discovered and then they can name it.”

2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

From Yahoo News:  2,000-Year-Old Treasure Discovered In Black Sea Fortress

Residents of a town under siege by the Roman army about 2,000 years ago buried two hoards of treasure in the town's citadel — treasure recently excavated by archaeologists.

More than 200 coins, mainly bronze, were found along with "various items of gold, silver and bronze jewelry and glass vessels" inside an ancient fortress within the Artezian settlement in the Crimea (in Ukraine), the researchers wrote in the most recent edition of the journal Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia.

"The fortress had been besieged. Wealthy people from the settlement and the neighborhood had tried to hide there from the Romans.  They had buried their hoards inside the citadel," Nikolaï Vinokurov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, explained. [See Photos of the Buried Treasure]

Artezian, which covered an area of at least 3.2 acres (1.3 hectares) and also had a  necropolis (a cemetery), was part of the Bosporus Kingdom. At the time, the kingdom's fate was torn between two brothers —Mithridates VIII, who sought independence from Rome, and his younger brother, Cotys I, who was in favor of keeping the kingdom a client state of the growing empire. Rome sent an army to support Cotys, establishing him in the Bosporan capital and torching settlements controlled by Mithridates, including Artezian.

People huddled in the fortress for protection as the Romans attacked, but Vinokurov said they knew they were doomed. "We can say that these hoards were funeral sacrifices.  It was obvious for the people that they were going to die shortly," he wrote in an email to LiveScience. The siege and fall of the fortress occurred in AD 45.
Curiously, each hoard included exactly 55 coins minted by Mithridates VIII. "This is possibly just a simple coincidence, or perhaps these were equal sums received by the owners of these caskets from the supporters of Mithridates," the team wrote in its paper.
A Greek lifestyle
Vinokurov's team, including a number of volunteers, has been exploring Artezian since 1989 and has found that the people of the settlement followed a culture that was distinctly Greek. The population's ethnicity was mixed, Vinokurov wrote, "but their culture was pure Greek. They spoke Greek language, had Greek school; the architecture and fortification were Greek as well. They were Hellenes by culture but not that pure by blood."
Greeks are known to have created colonies on the Black Sea centuries earlier, intermarrying with the Crimeans. The customs and art forms they introduced appear to have persisted through the ages despite being practiced nearly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from Greece itself.
This Greek influence can be seen in the treasures the people of Artezian buried. Among them is a silver brooch engraved with an image of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and gold rings with gems engraved with images of Nemesis and Tyche, both Greek deities.

When archaeologists excavated other portions of the torched site they found more evidence of a Greek lifestyle.

"In the burnt level of the early citadel, many fragmentary small terra cotta figures were found depicting Demeter, Cora, Cybele, Aphrodite with a dolphin, Psyche and Eros, a maiden with gifts, Hermes, Attis, foot soldiers and warriors on horseback, semi-naked youths," the researchers wrote in their paper, adding fragments of a miniature oinochoai (a form of Greek pottery) and small jugs for libations also were found.

All this was torched by the Romans and later rebuilt by Cotys I, who had been successfully enthroned by Rome. However the treasures of the earlier inhabitants remained undiscovered beneath the surface, a testament to a desperate stand against the growing power of Rome.

 

Posting resumes Thursday

I know I've been saying this periodically but this will be the last time I say it...I'm visiting relatives and although they have Wi fi I don't have a private room to work.

I'll be home Thursaday and will get back into the swing of things then.

Failaka place eyed on ‘World Heritage List’

From Arab Times: Failaka place eyed on ‘World Heritage List’ 

MANAMA, Dec 3, (KUNA): Kuwait seeks to add five archaeological sites on Failaka Island to the UNESCO World Heritage List, said Director of the Department of Archeology and Museums in the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) Shehab Abdulhamid on Monday.

Speaking to KUNA, Abdulhamid said the NCCAL will raise the issue during its attendence of the meeting of the Bahrain-based Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH).

Registering the sites on the list is vital towards their preservation and will help the training of NCCAL employees on how to best handle these relics, he added.

The three-day regional (ARC-WH) meeting, which is held on an annual basis, aims to enhance Arab efforts in supporting archeological sites in the region.

It will discuss the nominees for the World Heritage List, and a number of internal issues, such as the organization of the World Heritage Convention on the national level and other management-related matters.