Jawbone may represent earliest presence of humans in Europe

For over a century, one of the earliest human fossils ever discovered in Spain has been long considered a Neanderthal. However, new analysis from an international research team, including scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, dismantles this century-long interpretation, demonstrating that this fossil is not a Neanderthal; rather, it may actually represent the earliest presence of Homo sapiens ever documented in Europe.

In 1887, a fossil mandible was discovered during quarrying activities in the town of Banyoles, Spain, and has been studied by different researchers over the past century. The Banyoles fossil likely dates to between approximately 45,000-65,000 years ago, at a time when Europe was occupied by Neanderthals, and most researchers have generally linked it to this species.

"The mandible has been studied throughout the past century and was long considered to be a Neanderthal based on its age and location, and the fact that it lacks one of the diagnostic features of Homo sapiens: a chin," said Binghamton University graduate student Brian Keeling.

The new study relied on virtual techniques, including CT scanning of the original fossil. This was used to virtually reconstruct missing parts of the fossil, and then to generate a 3D model to be analyzed on the computer.

The authors studied the expressions of distinct features on the mandible from Banyoles that are different between our own species, Homo sapiens, and the Neanderthals, our closest evolutionary cousins.

The authors applied a methodology known as "three-dimensional geometric morphometrics" that analyzes the geometric properties of the bone's shape. This makes it possible to directly compare the overall shape of Banyoles to Neanderthals and H. sapiens.

"Our results found something quite surprising -- Banyoles shared no distinct Neanderthal traits and did not overlap with Neanderthals in its overall shape," said Keeling.

While Banyoles seemed to fit better with Homo sapiens in both the expression of its individual features and its overall shape, many of these features are also shared with earlier human species, complicating an immediate assignment to Homo sapiens. In addition, Banyoles lacks a chin, one of the most characteristic features of Homo sapiens mandibles.

"We were confronted with results that were telling us Banyoles is not a Neanderthal, but the fact that it does not have a chin made us think twice about assigning it to Homo sapiens," said Rolf Quam, professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York. "The presence of a chin has long been considered a hallmark of our own species."

Given this, reaching a scientific consensus on what species Banyoles represents is a challenge. The authors also compared Banyoles with an early Homo sapiens mandible from a site called Peştera cu Oase in Romania. Unlike Banyoles, this mandible shows a full chin along with some Neanderthal features, and an ancient DNA analysis has revealed this individual had a Neanderthal ancestor four to six generations ago. Since the Banyoles mandible shared no distinct features with Neanderthals, the researchers ruled out the possibility of mixture between Neanderthals and H. sapiens to explain its anatomy.

The authors point out that some of the earliest Homo sapiens fossils from Africa, predating Banyoles by more than 100,000 years, do show less pronounced chins than in living populations.

Thus, these scientists developed two possibilities for what the Banyoles mandible may represent: a member of a previously unknown population of Homo sapiens that coexisted with the Neanderthals; or a hybrid between a member of this Homo sapiens group and a non-Neanderthal unidentified human species. However, at the time of Banyoles, the only fossils recovered from Europe are Neanderthals, making this latter hypothesis less likely.

"If Banyoles is really a member of our species, this prehistoric human would represent the earliest H. sapiens ever documented in Europe," said Keeling.

Whichever species this mandible belongs to, Banyoles is clearly not a Neanderthal at a time when Neanderthals were believed to be the sole occupants of Europe.

The authors conclude that "the present situation makes Banyoles a prime candidate for ancient DNA or proteomic analyses, which may shed additional light on its taxonomic affinities."

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Europeans in the Americas 1000 years ago

Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. The Vikings got there centuries beforehand, although exactly when has remained unclear. Here, an international team of scientists show that Europeans were already active in the Americas in 1021 AD.

The Vikings sailed great distances in their iconic longships. To the west, they established settlements in Iceland, Greenland and eventually a base at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada. However, it has remained unclear when this first transatlantic activity took place. Here, scientists show that Europeans were present in the Americas in 1021 AD -- precisely 1000 years ago this year. This date also marks the earliest known point by which the Atlantic had been crossed, and migration by humankind had finally encircled the entire planet.

A Solar Storm Solution

In this study, the chopping of wood by Vikings at L'Anse aux Meadows was dated to exactly the year 1021 AD. The three pieces of wood studied, from three different trees, all came from contexts archaeologically attributable to the Vikings. Each one also displayed clear evidence of cutting and slicing by blades made of metal -- a material not produced by the indigenous population. The exact year was determinable because a massive solar storm occurred in 992 AD that produced a distinct radiocarbon signal in tree rings from the following year.

"The distinct uplift in radiocarbon production that occurred between 992 and 993 AD has been detected in tree-ring archives from all over the world" says Associate Professor Michael Dee (University of Groningen), director of the research. Each of the three wooden objects exhibited this signal 29 growth rings (years) before the bark edge. "Finding the signal from the solar storm 29 growth rings in from the bark allowed us to conclude that the cutting activity took place in the year 1021 AD" says Dr Margot Kuitems (University of Groningen), first author of the paper.

How Far, How Often?

The number of Viking expeditions to the Americas, and the duration of their stay over the Atlantic, remain unknown. All current data suggest that the whole endeavour was somewhat short lived, and the cultural and ecological legacy of this first European activity in the Americas is likely to have been small. Nonetheless, botanical evidence from L'Anse aux Meadows has confirmed that the Vikings did explore lands further south than Newfoundland.

The Sagas

1021 AD is the earliest year in which European presence in the Americas can be scientifically proven. Previous dates for the Viking presence in the Americas have relied heavily on the Icelandic Sagas. However, these began as oral histories and were only written down centuries after the events they describe. Whilst contradictory and at times fantastical, the Sagas also suggest encounters occurred, both violent and amiable, between the Europeans and the indigenous people of the region. However, little archaeological evidence has been uncovered to support such exchanges. Other medieval accounts also exist, which imply prominent figures on the European mainland were made aware the Vikings had made landfall across the Atlantic.

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Ancient DNA analysis sheds light on dark event in medieval Spain

An international research team led by the University of Huddersfield's Archaeogenetics Research Group, including geneticists, archaeological scientists, and archaeologists, has published the genome sequence of a unique individual from Islamic medieval Spain -- al-Andalus -- the results of which have shed light on a brutal event that took place in medieval Spain.

The individual, who was discovered in an eleventh century Islamic necropolis from the city of Segorbe, near Valencia in Spain, is known to local archaeologists as the 'Segorbe Giant' because of his unusual height.

His skeleton had suggested that he might have some African ancestry. Most of Spain had been progressively conquered by Arabs and Berbers from Northwest Africa from the eighth century onwards, creating one of the major centres of medieval European civilisation.

The ancient DNA analysis was carried out by Dr Marina Silva and Dr Gonzalo Oteo-Garcia, who had been working on the University's Leverhulme Trust doctoral scholarship programme in evolutionary genomics.

They found that the "Giant" carried highly specific North African genetic lineages on both his male and female lines of descent -- the Y-chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA -- the oldest individual known to have this particular pattern of ancestry. This suggested that his recent ancestry was indeed amongst the newly Islamicised Berber populations of medieval Northwest Africa.

But a more detailed examination revealed a more complex situation. The male and female lines of descent account for only a small fraction of our overall ancestry -- that from our father's father's father and our mother's mother's mother, and so on.

His genome-wide ancestry showed that he also carried a significant amount -- likely more than half -- of local Spanish ancestry in his chromosomes. Moreover, stable isotope analyses suggested that he most likely grew up locally meaning the "Giant's" Berber ancestry was in fact due to migration from an earlier generation. He therefore belonged to a settled community that had thoroughly intermixed local Spanish and immigrant North African ancestry.

What was especially striking revealed Professor Martin Richards, Director of the University's Evolutionary Genomics Research Centre, was that he was very unlike modern people from Valencia, who carry little or none of his Berber genetic heritage.

This can be explained by the changing political situation following the Christian reconquest of Spain as Dr Oteo-Garcia, who recently commenced work at the University of Parma, explained: "The decree of expulsion of Moriscos from the Valencia region, that is, Muslims who had already been forcibly converted to Christianity, was followed by the resettlement by people from further north, who had little North African ancestry, thereby transforming the genetic variation in the region."

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Central European prehistory was highly dynamic

Centrally located along trade routes and tightly nestled around the important waterways such as the Elbe River, Bohemia attracted many different archaeological cultures, rendering it a key region in understanding the prehistory of Europe. In addition to the expansions associated with the spread of agriculture and "steppe"-related ancestry previously discovered, this new study identifies at least another three migratory events which shaped central European prehistory.

The genetic profiles of people associated with Funnelbeaker and Globular Amphora cultures show evidence of being recent migrants to the region. This finding shows that the period between arrival of agriculture and "steppe"-related ancestry, hitherto thought of as an uneventful period, was more dynamic than previously hypothesised.

Drastic changes to the genetic landscape

The large sample size of the study, particularly concentrated on the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (~6,000-3,700 years ago), also allowed novel insights into social processes to be made. Individuals associated with the Corded Ware culture expanded from Eastern Europe and then assimilated preferentially central European women into their culture, giving them the same burial ritual as members of the immigrating group. "We were finally able to fill key temporal gaps, especially in the transition period around 5,000 years ago, when we see the genetic landscape changing drastically," says Max Planck researcher Wolfgang Haak, senior author and principal investigator of the study. "Intriguingly, in this early horizon we find individuals with high amounts of 'steppe' ancestry next to others with little or none, all buried according to the same customs."

Once established, individuals of the Corded Ware culture (4,900-4,400 years ago) changed genetically through time. One important change seems to have been the sharp decline in Y-chromosome lineage diversity. Although initially carrying five different Y-lineages, later Corded Ware males carry almost exclusively only a single lineage, essentially being descended from the same man in the recent past. "This pattern may reflect the emergence of a new social structure or regulation of mating in which only a subset of men fathered the majority of offspring," says first author Luka Papac, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

This social structure seems to have been even stricter in the following Bell Beaker society (4,500-4,200 years ago) where every single male sampled belonged to a single, newly introduced Y-lineage. Remarkably, this Bell Beaker Y-lineage is never seen before in Bohemia, implying that a new clan arrived in the region and almost immediately replaced all pre-existing Y-lineages with not a single lineage from Corded Ware or previous societies found among Bell Beaker males.

Cultural, biological, and social changes

The Early Bronze Age Unetice culture has traditionally been thought of descending from Bell Beaker individuals, with perhaps limited input from the southeast (Carpathian Basin). However, the new genetic data supports yet another genetic turnover originating from regions northeast of Bohemia. Remarkably, also 80 percent of the early Unetice Y-lineages are new to Bohemia, some of which are previously found in individuals from north-eastern Europe, providing clues to where they originated from. "This finding was very surprising to us archaeologists as we did not expect to see such clear patterns, even though the region has played a critical role, e.g. in the emerging trade of amber from the Baltic and became an important trading hub during the Bronze and Iron Ages," adds co-author and co-PI Michal Ernée from the Czech Academy of Sciences.

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First evidence that medieval plague victims were buried individually with 'considerable care'

In the mid-14th century Europe was devastated by a major pandemic -- the Black Death -- which killed between 40 and 60 per cent of the population. Later waves of plague then continued to strike regularly over several centuries.

Plague kills so rapidly it leaves no visible traces on the skeleton, so archaeologists have previously been unable to identify individuals who died of plague unless they were buried in mass graves.

Whilst it has long been suspected that most plague victims received individual burial, this has been impossible to confirm until now.

By studying DNA from the teeth of individuals who died at this time, researchers from the After the Plague project, based at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, have identified the presence of Yersinia Pestis, the pathogen that causes plague.

These include people who received normal individual burials at a parish cemetery and friary in Cambridge and in the nearby village of Clopton.

Lead author Craig Cessford of the University of Cambridge said, "These individual burials show that even during plague outbreaks individual people were being buried with considerable care and attention. This is shown particularly at the friary where at least three such individuals were buried within the chapter house. Cambridge Archaeological Unit conducted excavations on this site on behalf of the University in 2017."

"The individual at the parish of All Saints by the Castle in Cambridge was also carefully buried; this contrasts with the apocalyptic language used to describe the abandonment of this church in 1365 when it was reported that the church was partly ruinous and 'the bones of dead bodies are exposed to beasts'."

The study also shows that some plague victims in Cambridge did, indeed, receive mass burials.

Yersinia Pestis was identified in several parishioners from St Bene't's, who were buried together in a large trench in the churchyard excavated by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit on behalf of Corpus Christi College.

This part of the churchyard was soon afterwards transferred to Corpus Christi College, which was founded by the St Bene't's parish guild to commemorate the dead including the victims of the Black Death. For centuries, the members of the College would walk over the mass burial every day on the way to the parish church.

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On the origins of money: Ancient European hoards full of standardized bronze objects

 In the Early Bronze Age of Europe, ancient people used bronze objects as an early form of money, even going so far as to standardize the shape and weight of their currency, according to a study published January 20, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maikel H. G. Kuijpers and Cătălin N. Popa of Leiden University, Netherlands.

Money is an important feature of modern human society. One key feature of money is standardization, but this can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record since ancient people had inexact forms of measurement compared with today. In this study, the authors assessed possible money from the Early Bronze Age of Central Europe, comparing the objects based on their perceived -- if not precise -- similarity.

The objects studied were made of bronze in shapes described as rings, ribs, and axe blades. The authors examined more than 5,000 such objects from more than 100 ancient hoards. They statistically compared the objects' weights using a psychology principle known as the Weber fraction, which quantifies the concept that, if objects are similar enough in mass, a human being weighing them by hand can't tell the difference.

They found that even though the objects' weights varied, around 70% of the rings were similar enough to have been indistinguishable by hand (averaging about 195 grams), as were subsets of the ribs and axe blades.

The authors suggest that this consistent similarity in shape and weight, along with the fact that these objects often occurred in hoards, are signs of their use as an early form of standardized currency. Later, in the Middle Bronze Age of Europe, more precise weighing tools appear in the archaeological record along with an increase in scrap bronze, pointing to a developed system of weighing.

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Illuminating women's role in the creation of medieval manuscripts

This is dental calculus on the lower jaw a medieval woman entrapped lapis lazuli pigment.

During the European Middle Ages, literacy and written texts were largely the province of religious institutions. Richly illustrated manuscripts were created in monasteries for use by members of religious institutions and by the nobility. Some of these illuminated manuscripts were embellished with luxurious paints and pigments, including gold leaf and ultramarine, a rare and expensive blue pigment made from lapis lazuli stone.

In a study published in Science Advances, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of York shed light on the role of women in the creation of such manuscripts with a surprising discovery -- the identification of lapis lazuli pigment embedded in the calcified dental plaque of a middle-aged woman buried at a small women's monastery in Germany around 1100 AD. Their analysis suggests that the woman was likely a painter of richly illuminated religious texts.

A quiet monastery in central Germany

As part of a study analyzing dental calculus -- tooth tartar or dental plaque that fossilizes on the teeth during life -- researchers examined the remains of individuals who were buried in a medieval cemetery associated with a women's monastery at the site of Dalheim in Germany. Few records remain of the monastery and its exact founding date is not known, although a women's community may have formed there as early as the 10th century AD. The earliest known written records from the monastery date to 1244 AD. The monastery is believed to have housed approximately 14 religious women from its founding until its destruction by fire following a series of 14th century battles.

One woman in the cemetery was found to have numerous flecks of blue pigment embedded within her dental calculus. She was 45-60 years old when she died around 1000-1200 AD. She had no particular skeletal pathologies, nor evidence of trauma or infection. The only remarkable aspect to her remains was the blue particles found in her teeth. "It came as a complete surprise -- as the calculus dissolved, it released hundreds of tiny blue particles," recalls co-first author Anita Radini of the University of York. Careful analysis using a number of different spectrographic methods -- including energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) and micro-Raman spectroscopy -- revealed the blue pigment to be made from lapis lazuli.

A pigment as rare and expensive as gold

"We examined many scenarios for how this mineral could have become embedded in the calculus on this woman's teeth," explains Radini. "Based on the distribution of the pigment in her mouth, we concluded that the most likely scenario was that she was herself painting with the pigment and licking the end of the brush while painting," states co-first author Monica Tromp of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

The use of ultramarine pigment made from lapis lazuli was reserved, along with gold and silver, for the most luxurious manuscripts. "Only scribes and painters of exceptional skill would have been entrusted with its use," says Alison Beach of Ohio State University, a historian on the project.

The unexpected discovery of such a valuable pigment so early and in the mouth of an 11th century woman in rural Germany is unprecedented. While Germany is known to have been an active center of book production during this period, identifying the contributions of women has been particularly difficult. As a sign of humility, many medieval scribes and painters did not sign their work, a practice that especially applied to women. The low visibility of women's labor in manuscript production has led many modern scholars to assume that women played little part in it.

The findings of this study not only challenge long-held beliefs in the field, they also uncover an individual life history. The woman's remains were originally a relatively unremarkable find from a relatively unremarkable place, or so it seemed. But by using these techniques, the researchers were able to uncover a truly remarkable life history.

"She was plugged into a vast global commercial network stretching from the mines of Afghanistan to her community in medieval Germany through the trading metropolises of Islamic Egypt and Byzantine Constantinople. The growing economy of 11th century Europe fired demand for the precious and exquisite pigment that traveled thousands of miles via merchant caravan and ships to serve this woman artist's creative ambition," explains historian and co-author Michael McCormick of Harvard University.

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Lost Norse of Greenland fueled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests

This is an example of an elaborately-carved ecclesiastical walrus ivory plaque from the beginning of the medieval walrus ivory trade, featuring the figure of Christ, together with St Mary and St Peter, and believed to date from the 10th or 11th century. Found in North Elmham, Norfolk, UK, in the 19th century, and currently exhibited in the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The Icelandic Sagas tell of Erik the Red: exiled for murder in the late 10th century he fled to southwest Greenland, establishing its first Norse settlement.

The colony took root, and by the mid-12th century there were two major settlements with a population of thousands. Greenland even gained its own bishop.

By the end of the 15th century, however, the Norse of Greenland had vanished -- leaving only abandoned ruins and an enduring mystery.

Past theories as to why these communities collapsed include a change in climate and a hubristic adherence to failing farming techniques.

Some have suggested that trading commodities -- most notably walrus tusks -- with Europe may have been vital to sustaining the Greenlanders. Ornate items including crucifixes and chess pieces were fashioned from walrus ivory by craftsmen of the age. However, the source of this ivory has never been empirically established.

Now, researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Oslo have studied ancient DNA from offcuts of tusks and skulls, most found on the sites of former ivory workshops across Europe, in order to trace the origin of the animals used in the medieval trade.

In doing so they have discovered an evolutionary split in the walrus, and revealed that the Greenland colonies may have had a "near monopoly" on the supply of ivory to Western Europe for over two hundred years.

For the latest study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research team analysed walrus samples found in several medieval trading centres -- Trondheim, Bergen, Oslo, Dublin, London, Schleswig and Sigtuna -- mostly dating between 900 and 1400 CE.

The DNA showed that, during the last Ice Age, the Atlantic walrus divided into two ancestral lines, which researchers term "eastern" and "western." Walruses of the eastern lineage are widespread across much of the Arctic, including Scandinavia. Those of the western, however, are unique to the waters between western Greenland and Canada.

Finds from the early years of the ivory trade were mostly from the eastern lineage. Yet as demand grew from the 12th century onwards, the research team discovered that Europe's ivory supply shifted almost exclusively to tusks from the western lineage.

They say that ivory from western linage walruses must have been supplied by the Norse Greenlanders -- by hunting and perhaps also by trade with the indigenous peoples of Arctic North America.

"The results suggest that by the 1100s Greenland had become the main supplier of walrus ivory to Western Europe -- a near monopoly even," said Dr James H. Barrett, study co-author from the University of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology.

"The change in the ivory trade coincides with the flourishing of the Norse settlements on Greenland. The populations grew and elaborate churches were constructed.

"Later Icelandic accounts suggest that in the 1120s, Greenlanders used walrus ivory to secure the right to their own bishopric from the king of Norway. Tusks were also used to pay tithes to the church," said Barrett.

He points out that the 11th to 13th centuries were a time of demographic and economic boom in Europe, with growing demand from urban centres and the elite served by transporting commodities from increasingly distant sources.

"The demands for luxury goods produced from ivory may have helped the far-flung Norse communities in Greenland survive for centuries," said Barrett.

Co-author Dr Sanne Boessenkool of the University of Oslo said: "We knew from the start that analysing ancient DNA would have the potential for new historical insights, but the findings proved to be particularly spectacular."

The new study tells us less about the end of the Greenland colonies, say Barrett and colleagues. However, they note that it is hard to find evidence of walrus ivory imports to Europe that date after 1400.

Elephant ivory eventually became the material of choice for Europe's artisans. "Changing tastes could have led to a decline in the walrus ivory market of the Middle Ages," said Barrett.

Ivory exports from Greenland could have stalled for other reasons: over-hunting can cause walrus populations to abandon their coastal "haulouts"; the "Little Ice Age" -- a sustained period of lower temperatures -- began in the 14th century; the Black Death ravaged Europe.

Whatever caused the cessation of Europe's trade in walrus ivory, it must have been significant for the end of the Norse Greenlanders," said Barrett. "An overreliance on a single commodity, the very thing which gave the society its initial resilience, may have also contained the seeds of its vulnerability."

The heyday of the walrus ivory trade saw the material used for exquisitely carved items during Europe's Romanesque art period. The church produced much of this, with major ivory workshops in ecclesiastical centres such as Canterbury, UK.

Ivory games were also popular. The Viking board game hnefatafl was often played with walrus ivory pieces, as was chess, with the famous Lewis chessmen among the most stunning examples of Norse carved ivory.

Tusks were exported still attached to the walrus skull and snout, which formed a neat protective package that was broken up at workshops for ivory removal. These remains allowed the study to take place, as DNA extraction from carved artefacts would be far too damaging.

Co-author Dr Bastiaan Star of the University of Oslo said: "Until now, there was no quantitative data to support the story about walrus ivory from Greenland. Walruses could have been hunted in the north of Russia, and perhaps even in Arctic Norway at that time. Our research now proves beyond doubt that much of the ivory traded to Europe during the Middle Ages really did come from Greenland."

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Evidence of Salmonella Paratyphi C found for the first time in medieval northern Europe

This is the face reconstruction of the young woman.

Genome research conducted by the University of Warwick suggests that enteric fever, a potentially lethal disease more commonly found in hot countries, was present in medieval Europe.

Salmonella Paratyphi C causes enteric fever, a life-threatening infection, and has been detected in a 800 year old human skeleton discovered in Trondheim, Norway.

Now scientists are speculating that the evolution of enteric fever could be linked to the domestication of pigs across northern Europe.

The research was conducted by a team of international collaborators led by Professor Mark Achtman of the University's Warwick Medical School and their paper Pan-genome Analysis of Ancient and Modern Salmonella enterica Demonstrates Genomic Stability of the Invasive Para C Lineage for Millennia has been published in the journal Current Biology.

He and his team analysed bacterial DNA found in the teeth and bones of the skeleton of a young woman who is believed to have migrated to Trondheim from the northernmost areas of Scandinavia or Northwest Russia by her early teens only to die there around the age of 19-24 years.

They reconstructed a genome of Salmonella Paratyphi C which causes enteric fever in areas of poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water. Their discovery indicates that the young Norwegian died of this disease and suggests that these bacteria have long caused enteric fever across northern Europe,

Prof Achtman said: "Paratyphi C is very rare today in Europe and North America except for occasional travellers from South and East Asia or Africa, where the disease is more common. This is the first time that any Salmonella have been found in old human remains in Europe, which is surprising because other Salmonella are more common today, including Salmonella causing typhoid fever, called Typhi, and Salmonella causing food poisoning. Earlier this year, Vågene and co-authors described related Paratyphi C from skeletons in Mexico, who died in 1545 CE, and speculated the Paratyphi C entered the Americas together with Europeans."

The new results included comparative analyses of the Paratyphi C genome found in the skeleton against modern Salmonella genome sequences from EnteroBase, an online database developed at the University of Warwick and used internationally. This revealed that Paratyphi C represents the evolutionary descendants of a common ancestor, or clade, within the Para C lineage. The Para C Lineage includes Choleraesuis, which causes septicaemia in pigs and boar and Typhisuis which causes epidemic swine salmonellosis (chronic paratyphoid) in domestic pigs. These different host specificities likely evolved in Europe over the last 4,000 years and coincide with the timing of pig domestication in Europe.

According to historical records, humans have long been afflicted by bacterial infections, yet genomic analyses of living bacterial pathogens routinely estimate a date for the most recent common ancestor of no more than a few centuries. In general, evolutionary trees contain a stem group, which may include lineages that are now rare or extinct, as well as the crown group of living organisms. Historical reconstructions based only on the crown group ignore the older sub-lineages in the stem group and thereby provide an incomplete picture of the older evolutionary history of the pathogen. In contrast, analyses of ancient DNA such as the Paratyphi C genome can shed light on additional millennia of bacterial pathogen evolution that occurred prior to the origin of the crown group.

Professor Achtman added: "Using EnteroBase we were able to define the Para C lineage from 50,000 modern Salmonella enterica genomes and find that over its 3,000 year history only a few genomic changes occurred within the Para C lineage.

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Earliest European evidence of lead pollution uncovered in the Balkans

Blacksmith fire with resilient carbons, grill.

New research from Northumbria University has revealed that metal-related pollution began in the Balkans more than 500 years before it appeared in western Europe, and persisted throughout the Dark Ages and Medieval Period, meaning the region played a far bigger role in mineral exploitation than previously believed.

The study provides a new perspective on both the timing and extent of metallurgy -- the technique of extracting metal from ores prior to heating or working with metals to give them a desired shape -- in the Balkans, and the associated economic change this brought to the region, such as the inception of the Metal Ages.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today (Monday 28 May 2018).

The exploitation of mineral resources has a broad range of environmental impacts, including metal-contaminated wastewater and the release of microscopic chemical particles into the atmosphere from mining and smelting. As these particles settle on to the surface of a peat bog, an environment in which the sediment develops year on year, a clear history of the bog's development may be established.

Samples recovered from the Crveni Potok peat bog, located on the Serbia/Montenegro border, were geochemically examined by researchers from Northumbria's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences alongside colleagues from the University of Montpellier and the Romanian Academy. They found the first clear evidence of metal pollution originating from lead in the region dating back to approximately 3600 BC.

The evidence is supported by a concurrent rise in charcoal concentration, which suggests an increase in biomass burning which is potentially related to a broad range of economic activities, including fuel production for metal smelting.

Previously, the oldest European environmental pollution dating to circa 3000 BC had been found in southern Spain, but the new data from Crveni Potok show that metal pollution was evident in this region of eastern Europe more than 500 years earlier. This evidence is the earliest documented in European environmental records and indicates environmental pollution from metallurgy at a time when Britons were still in the Stone Age. This confirms that the Balkans were not only the birthplace of metallurgy in Europe, but also of metallic pollution.

Furthermore, levels of lead pollution decreased dramatically in western Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, a feature not observed in this Balkan record. This suggests that the region -- which is metal rich -- should be considered more of a major player in environmental metal pollution through Dark and Middle Ages than previously thought.

This contrast between eastern and western Europe indicates that while western Europe was in the 'Dark Ages' there was significant economic development in the Balkan area with high levels of metal environmental pollution throughout the Medieval period. This confirms the large extent and size of the metalworking industry in the Balkans during this era.

As part of his PhD research Jack Longman uncovered these findings supervised by Dr Vasile Ersek, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography in the University's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences.

Dr Ersek explained: "Much of the focus in determining sources of ancient pollution has been on established sources such as the Romans or ancient Greeks, but these findings highlight the crucial role that the Balkan metallurgy has played in the economic development of the area.

"Metallurgy and mining is intimately linked to socioeconomic development, therefore improving our knowledge of how these resources were exploited in the past can help us understand better how societies developed over time. In this respect, the peat bog record from Crveni Potok provides a fascinating history of pollution from the early Bronze Age through to the Industrial Revolution."

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Stone Age hepatitis B virus decoded

Skeletal remains of HBV positive individual from the Stone Age site of Karsdorf, Germany. The individual was a male with an age at death of around 25-30 years.

An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Kiel has successfully reconstructed genomes from Stone Age and Medieval European strains of the hepatitis B virus. This unprecedented recovery of ancient virus DNA indicates that hepatitis B was circulating in Europe at least 7000 years ago. While the ancient virus is similar to its modern counterparts, the strains represent a distinct lineage that has likely gone extinct and is most closely related to chimpanzee and gorilla viruses.

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the most widespread human pathogens known today, affecting over 250 million people worldwide. However, its origin and evolutionary history remain unclear. Studying the evolution and history of the virus has to date been especially difficult, because until now viral DNA had not been successfully recovered from prehistoric samples. In the present study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal eLife and is due to be published on May 10, 2018, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology at Kiel University, not only recovered ancient viral DNA from skeletons but also reconstructed the genomes of three strains of HBV.

The ancient history of hepatitis B

For this study, the researchers analyzed samples from the teeth of 53 skeletons excavated from Neolithic and medieval sites in Germany. The remains dated from around 5000 BC to 1200 AD. The researchers screened all samples for viral pathogens and detected ancient HBV in three of the individuals. Full HBV genomes were recovered from these samples, two of which were from the Neolithic period, dating to about 7000 and 5000 years ago, and one from the medieval period. The Neolithic genomes represent the by far oldest virus genomes reconstructed to date.

Interestingly, the ancient virus genomes appear to represent distinct lineages that have no close relatives today and possibly went extinct. The two Neolithic genomes, although recovered from individuals that lived 2000 years apart, were relatively similar to each other in comparison with modern strains, and were in fact more closely related to modern strains of HBV found in Chimpanzees and Gorillas. In contrast, the medieval HBV genome is more similar to modern strains, but still represents a separate lineage. This is the case even when it is compared to two previously published HBV genomes recovered from mummies dating to the 16th century. The HBV strains found in these mummies are closely related to modern strains, suggesting a surprising lack of change in the virus over the last 500 years. These findings point to a complicated history for the virus, which may have involved multiple cross-species transmission events.

Long and complicated evolution of one of today's most common viruses

"Taken together, our results demonstrate that HBV already existed in Europeans 7000 years ago and that its genomic structure closely resembled that of modern hepatitis B viruses, despite the differences observed," explains first author Ben Krause-Kyora, of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Kiel University. "More ancient precursors, intermediates and modern strains of both human and non-human primate HBV strains need to be sequenced to disentangle the complex evolution of this virus," he adds.

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Northern European population history revealed by ancient human genomes

Skull included in this study from Ölsund, Hälsingland, Sweden, dating to around 2,300 BCE, in the ancient DNA laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed ancient human genomes from 38 northern Europeans dating from approximately 7,500 to 500 BCE. The study, published today in Nature Communications, found that Scandinavia was initially settled via a southern and a northern route and that the arrival of agriculture in northern Europe was facilitated by movements of farmers and pastoralists into the region.

Northern Europe could be considered a late bloomer in some aspects of human history: initial settlement by hunter-gatherers occurred only about 11,000 years ago, after the retreat of the lingering ice sheets from the Pleistocene, and while agriculture was already widespread in Central Europe 7,000 years ago, this development reached Southern Scandinavia and the Eastern Baltic only millennia later.

Several recent studies of ancient human genomes have dealt with the prehistoric population movements that brought new technology and subsistence strategies into Europe, but how they impacted the very north of the continent has still been poorly understood.

For this study, the research team, which included scientists from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Sweden, assembled genomic data from 38 ancient northern Europeans, from mobile hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic (approximately 12,000 to 7,000 years ago) and the first Neolithic farmers in southern Sweden (approximately 6,000 to 5,300 years ago) to the metallurgists of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Baltic (approximately 1300 to 500 BCE). This allowed the researchers to uncover surprising aspects of the population dynamics of prehistoric northern Europe.

Two routes of settlement for Scandinavia

Previous analysis of ancient human genomes has revealed that two genetically differentiated groups of hunter-gatherers lived in Europe during the Mesolithic: the so-called Western Hunter-Gatherers excavated in locations from Iberia to Hungary, and the so-called Eastern Hunter-Gatherers excavated in Karelia in north-western Russia. Surprisingly, the results of the current study show that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Lithuania appear very similar to their Western neighbors, despite their geographic proximity to Russia. The ancestry of contemporary Scandinavian hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, was comprised from both Western and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.

"Eastern Hunter-Gatherers were not present on the eastern Baltic coast, but a genetic component from them is present in Scandinavia. This suggests that the people carrying this genetic component took a northern route through Fennoscandia into the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula. There they genetically mixed with Western Hunter-Gatherers who came from the South, and together they formed the Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers," explains Johannes Krause, Director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and senior author of the study.

Agriculture and animal herding -- cultural imports by incoming people

Large-scale farming first started in southern Scandinavia around 6,000 years ago, about one millennium after it was already common in Central Europe. In the Eastern Baltic, the inhabitants relied solely on hunting, gathering and fishing for another 1000 years. Although some have argued that the use of the new subsistence strategy was a local development by foragers, possibly adopting the practices of their farming neighbors, the genetic evidence uncovered in the present study tells a different story.

The earliest farmers in Sweden are not descended from Mesolithic Scandinavians, but show a genetic profile similar to that of Central European agriculturalists. Thus it appears that Central Europeans migrated to Scandinavia and brought farming technology with them. These early Scandinavian farmers, like the Central European agriculturalists, inherited a substantial portion of their genes from Anatolian farmers, who first spread into Europe around 8,200 years ago and set in motion the cultural transition to agriculture known as the Neolithic Revolution.

Similarly, a near-total genetic turnover is seen in the Eastern Baltic with the advent of large-scale agro-pastoralism. While they did not mix genetically with Central European or Scandinavian farmers, beginning around 2,900 BCE the individuals in the Eastern Baltic derive large parts of their ancestry from nomadic pastoralists of the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

"Interestingly, we find an increase of local Eastern Baltic hunter-gatherer ancestry in this population at the onset of the Bronze Age," states Alissa Mittnik of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, lead author of the study. "The local population was not completely replaced but coexisted and eventually mixed with the newcomers."

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Ice cave in Transylvania yields window into region's past

Panoramic view of an ice cliff inside the Sc?ri?oara Ice Cave, where the research was done.

Ice cores drilled from a glacier in a cave in Transylvania offer new evidence of how Europe's winter weather and climate patterns fluctuated during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene period.

The cores provide insights into how the region's climate has changed over time. The researchers' results, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, could help reveal how the climate of the North Atlantic region, which includes the U.S., varies on long time scales.

The project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Romanian Ministry of Education, involved scientists from the University of South Florida (USF), University of Belfast, University of Bremen and Stockholm University, among other institutions.

Researchers from the Emil Racoviță Institute of Speleology in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and USF's School of Geosciences gathered their evidence in the world's most-explored ice cave and oldest cave glacier, hidden deep in the heart of Transylvania in central Romania.

With its towering ice formations and large underground ice deposit, Scărișoara Ice Cave is among the most important scientific sites in Europe.

Scientist Bogdan Onac of USF and his colleague Aurel Perșoiu, working with a team of researchers in Scărișoara Ice Cave, sampled the ancient ice there to reconstruct winter climate conditions during the Holocene period.

Over the last 10,000 years, snow and rain dripped into the depths of Scărișoara, where they froze into thin layers of ice containing chemical evidence of past winter temperature changes.

Until now, scientists lacked long-term reconstructions of winter climate conditions. That knowledge gap hampered a full understanding of past climate dynamics, Onac said.

"Most of the paleoclimate records from this region are plant-based, and track only the warm part of the year -- the growing season," says Candace Major, program director in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences, which funded the research. "That misses half the story. The spectacular ice cave at Scărișoara fills a crucial piece of the puzzle of past climate change in recording what happens during winter."

Reconstructions of Earth's climate record have relied largely on summer conditions, charting fluctuations through vegetation-based samples, such as tree ring width, pollen and organisms that thrive in the warmer growing season.

Absent, however, were important data from winters, Onac said.

Located in the Apuseni Mountains, the region surrounding the Scărișoara Ice Cave receives precipitation from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and is an ideal location to study shifts in the courses storms follow across East and Central Europe, the scientists say.

Radiocarbon dating of minute leaf and wood fragments preserved in the cave's ice indicates that its glacier is at least 10,500 years old, making it the oldest cave glacier in the world and one of the oldest glaciers on Earth outside the polar regions.

From samples of the ice, the researchers were able to chart the details of winter conditions growing warmer and wetter over time in Eastern and Central Europe. Temperatures reached a maximum during the mid-Holocene some 7,000 to 5,000 years ago and decreased afterward toward the Little Ice Age, 150 years ago.

A major shift in atmospheric dynamics occurred during the mid-Holocene, when winter storm tracks switched and produced wetter and colder conditions in northwestern Europe, and the expansion of a Mediterranean-type climate toward southeastern Europe.

"Our reconstruction provides one of the very few winter climate reconstructions, filling in numerous gaps in our knowledge of past climate variability," Onac said.

Warming winter temperatures led to rapid environmental changes that allowed the northward expansion of Neolithic farmers toward mainland Europe, and the rapid population of the continent.

"Our data allow us to reconstruct the interplay between Atlantic and Mediterranean sources of moisture," Onac said. "We can also draw conclusions about past atmospheric circulation patterns, with implications for future climate changes. Our research offers a long-term context to better understand these changes."

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World's Oldest Snowshoe Found in Alps

The world's oldest snowshoe was found in the Italian Alps, near the border of Austria.

The 5,800-year old artifact was described on Monday at a press conference in Bolzano, Italy, as belonging to the ancestors of Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old ice mummy found 25 years ago near a melting glacier in the Ötztal Alps in South Tyrol.

Simone Bartolini, a cartographer from the Military Geographical Institute in Florence, found the perfectly preserved snowshoe in the summer 2003, while doing a survey on the Gurgler Eisjoch glacier at 10,282 feet above sea level in the val Senales.

"I thought it was a 100-year-old snowshoe that was lost by a farmer. I kept it in my office for years," Bartolini said.

Only last year, after talking to Angelika Fleckinger, director of the South Tyrolean Museum of Archaeology, Bartolini realized the artifact could have been much older.

Indeed, carbon dating from two labs determined the snowshoe was created in the late Neolithic age, between 3,800 and 3,700 BC.

The artifact was made entirely from birch wood, bending a 5-foot-long branch to an oval frame measuring 13 inches in diameter. Several strands were stretched inside the frame.

Until a few decades ago, people in the region wore snowshoes almost identical in style and shape.

"The snowshoe shows that already in the late Neolithic, well-equipped people were staying in the Alps at high altitudes," Catrin Marzoli, director of the Office for Archaeological Heritage, said.

She noted various reasons could explain the prehistoric presence. These include hunting, herding, visiting places of worship or just fleeing from enemies.

Read more at Discovery News

Roman Sling Bullet Cache Found in Scotland

Archaeologists have unearthed the biggest cache of Roman sling bullets in Britain, possibly finding the site of the first battle in the Roman invasion of Scotland around 140 A.D.

Consisting of more than 180 lead bullets, the stash was found at Burnswark Hill near Lockerbie, in southwestern Scotland.

The site, rising to nearly 1,000 feet from the surrounding countryside, features on its flat-topped hill the remains of a 17-acre fort which experts believe originated in the Early Iron Age. Two Roman camps lie on the opposite sides of the fort.

For decades archaeologists have debated whether the Roman remains represent a siege or a training post. The 1,800-year-old sling bullets may help provide an answer.

"We have lemon-shaped sling bullets in the cache that are found in both Roman camps and on the hillfort," Andrew Nicholson, excavation director for the Burnswark Project, told Discovery News.

"However the large cache includes bullets of a globular shape, a type not thought to be in use until over a century later," he added.

Burnswark Hill in Britain has yielded a wide variety of Roman projectiles. Last year's dig revealed unusual lead bullets with circular holes drilled into them. It turned out they were meant to produce terrifying whistling noise in flight.

Although the large cache from the North Camp do not include any of such bullets, some more of those "terror weapons" were unearthed at the South Camp this year.

"We can now definitely link the sling bullets from both Roman camps with those found on the native hillfort," Nicholson said.

A lead or stone bullet could reach speeds of up to 100 mph when shot by expert slingers. The largest stones were the size of lemons, while the smallest were acorn-shaped and were slung in small groups of three or four as form of grapeshot.

Read more at Discovery News

People Tracked Celestial Events 5,000 Years Ago

Standing Stones of Stenness, a neolithic stone circle on Orkney Mainland.

Ancient "stone circles" in Scotland were constructed in line with the sun's and moon's movements some 5,000 years ago, new research reveals.

Researchers used 2D and 3D technology to test the alignment patterns in the circles of Callanish (on the Isle of Lewis) and Stenness (in Orkney). These stones date back to about 3000 B.C., about 500 years before Stonehenge's famous stone monument was constructed in England. The team also looked at much simpler monuments in Scotland dating to about 1000 B.C.

"Nobody before this has ever statistically determined that a single stone circle was constructed with astronomical phenomena in mind; it was all supposition," Gail Higginbottom, project leader and a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide and Australian National University, said in a statement.

"This research is finally proof that the ancient Britons connected the Earth to the sky with their earliest standing stones, and that this practice continued in the same way for 2,000 years," she added.

Researchers found that, for about half the sites, the northern horizon was higher and closer than the southern horizon. This would have made the summer solstice sun, marking the longest day of the year, appear to rise out of the highest peak in the North.

The other half of the sites had a southern horizon that was higher and closer than the northern horizon. In this case, the winter solstice sun (marking the year's shortest day) would have appeared at the highest point to the south, the researchers explained.

"These chosen surroundings would have influenced the way the sun and moon were seen, particularly in the timing of their rising and setting at special times, like when the moon appears at its most northerly position on the horizon, which only happens every 18.6 years," Higginbottom said.

The research was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

From Discovery News

First Bell Beaker earthwork enclosure found in Spain

The newly discovered circular earthwork enclosure La Loma del Real Tesoro II (near Carmona).

Archaeologists from the Tübingen collaborative research center ResourceCultures have discovered an earthwork enclosure in southern Spain dating from the Bell Beaker period of 2,600 to 2,200 BCE. The complex of concentric rings may have been used for holding rituals; such earthwork enclosures have previously only been found in the northern half of Europe.

In a ResourceCultures field study, researchers sought information on how the inhabitants of southern Spain dealt with their region's resources during the Copper Age and what effects that had on society, trade relations and migration in the area. Archaeologists have known since the middle of the nineteenth century that today's Valencina de la Concepción outside Seville was at the heart of an important Copper Age settlement. In 1860, the Dolmen de la Pastora -- a long megalith tomb -- was first identified; it was described by archaeologists in 1868. It was the region's first big find from the Copper Age or Chalcolithic, which preceded the Bronze Age.

The nearby settlement of Valencina was supported by farming and stockraising on the fertile coastal plain. It is Spain's largest known Copper Age settlement -- of over 400 hectares. Grave goods found at the site show that the people of Valencina traded with Copper Age cultures far away: items include exotic luxury wares such as elephant tusks from Africa and the Middle East, and amber beads from northern Europe.

In return, it is likely they traded copper ore from the mountains behind Valencina. It is uncertain to what extent the city traded with areas further inland and exactly where trade routes and migrations ran. Tübingen archaeologists headed by Professor Martin Bartelheim plan to carry out fieldwork which will shed light on these little-researched issues.

The archaeologists discovered the earthwork enclosure some 50 kilometers east of Valencina. Sur-veying the land in August 2015, they found circular earthworks enclosing about six hectares. Exca-vations at the site yielded bones, sherds and jewelry; radiocarbon dating and comparative analysis confirmed the site was used during the Bell Beaker Culture (2,600 to 2,200 BCE). The Bell Beaker Culture is named after the characteristic shape of the vessels it produced.

Just what the site was used for is still a mystery. It consists of several circular trenches with entrance-like openings at regular intervals. In the center was a deep, circular hole some 19 meters wide. In it, the archaeologists found large clay bricks with burn marks on it which may have served a ritual purpose. But they did not find human remains or indications of continuous settlement after the Copper Age -- suggesting the site was used intensively for a relatively short period.

The researchers believe this circular earthwork enclosure, so unusual for the region, could have been used for religious purposes. Doctoral candidate in the CultureResources group, Javier Escudero Carrillo, says "the structure is very unusual for Spain, other circular earthworks like this are only found north of the Alps; but most are more than a thousand years older than this site. The stony ground here is not good for farming, but the site is strategically located near an ancient fort on the Guadalquivir River near the ore-rich Sierra Morena mountains, where copper and other valuable minerals were mined. Trails link the site with the fertile plain of Carmona, so that we may assume it was used by many passing through. That fits well with the interpretation of a site used for religious purposes."

Read more at Science Daily

Trove of Bronze Age Textiles Found at Britain's Pompeii

A treasure trove of finely woven textiles has been unearthed during the final part of a 10-month excavation at a site in the UK county of Cambridgeshire which has been described as Britain's Pompeii.

Known as Must Farm, the settlement was home to several families who lived in a number of circular wooden houses built on stilts above a river. It was abandoned in haste 3,000 years ago as a giant fire destroyed the houses. The dwelings fell into the river, where thick silt and clay preserved the contents.

Charred in the fire that destroyed the houses and buried in the anaerobic waterlogged environment, the black, fragile textile fragments are some of the most finely-made Bronze Age fabrics ever discovered in Europe.

The fragments were all found inside the round houses along with plant fibers, balls of thread, and tools for spinning and weaving.

"This illustrates different stages of textile production," Susanna Harris, an expert in fabrics and a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Glasgow, said.

Some woven textiles are of superfine quality, even by modern standards, with threads around the diameter of coarse human hair (100 microns).

Fired clay weights found in the houses suggest the textile was produced using two clay weights so that the warp threads were held under tension on a loom.

"We found different types of fabric at Must Farm: woven textiles, a basketry technique called twining (weft twining) and knotted net," Harris told Discovery News.

"The textiles could have been used for clothing, although now they are just fragments. Nets could have been used for fishing, trapping or to carry things. The twining is a coarser material and could have been used for matting or for a range of other things such as containers or household item," Harris added.

Most of the superfine fabrics were made of linen. People used flax, a domesticated crop known to have been farmed in Britain from the Neolithic period onwards.

But fabrics were also made using wild species available in the local environment, such as the non-stinging fen nettle and lime bast, processed from the inner bark of lime trees.

"The textiles would have been soft and supple," Harris said.

Carried out by the University of Cambridge, the excavation has now come to a close. In the past months, archaeologists found an extraordinary time capsule buried just over six feet below the ground surface, where the river bed actually was in 1000-800 BC.

Such was the level of preservation that the footprints of those living there are still visible in the waterlogged sediments.

The way the objects were found indicate people were forced to leave everything behind when the houses caught on fire.

They left their clothing, jewelry, tools, furniture, and abandoned the meals in the cooking pots.

It is not known whether it was an accident or fire was set deliberately by hostile forces.

However, tree-ring analysis of the oak structures has suggested that at the time of the fire, the houses were still new and had only been lived in for a few months.

Read more at Discovery News

Is This the Legendary Throne of Agamemnon?

A stone fragment that might belong to the lost throne of the kingdom of Mycenae has been found by a Greek archaeologist, if his claims are right.

Made of a type of stone that has not been found anywhere else in Mycenae, the 110-pound slab is dubbed the throne of Agamemnon after the legendary king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.

One of the central figures in the "Iliad," Homer's epic poem about the war, Agamemnon is also known for his bloody end in a bathtub, hacked to death by his wife and her lover as he returned from his victorious expedition against Troy.

A team led by Greek archaeologist Christofilis Maggidis found the fragment two years ago in the now-dry riverbed of the Chavos River, within the city's Lower Town.

Maggidis, associate professor at Dickinson College and president of the Mycenaean Foundation, said the polished stone block was found directly below Mycenae's royal palace. The hilltop building had partially fell down during a catastrophic earthquake in about 1200 BC.

"The throne fragment had fallen, rolled and was subsequently buried by the river fill when the southeastern part of palace collapsed in the ravine," Maggidis said.

Shortly after the stone fragment was brought to light in 2014, the finding was questioned.

Vassilios Petrakos, the Secretary General of Archaeological Society at Athens, appointed a committee to examine the piece. At the end, the stone fragment was dismissed as a basin. The committee's conclusion was accepted by the Ministry of Culture and the case appeared settled.

But Maggidis, who has been leading excavations at the site of ancient Mycenae in southern Greece since 2007, announced recently that further studies indicate conclusively that the find is "a fragment of the stone seat of the monumental royal throne of the palace at Mycenae."

"The assessment of the Petrakos committee about a 'basin' is unreliable and fallacious, as it was based on unfounded assumptions and erroneous observations," Maggidis told Discovery News.

He noted that the fragment is made of porous stone and would have been useless to hold liquids had it been a basin.

"The importance of an archaeological find is assessed by the international academic community on the basis of its scientific publication and in due time, not by committees or organizations," he added.

Maggidis, who will detail his findings in a scientific publication in 2017, said the block shows a stunning resemblance to another, older and smaller throne found in the Minoan palace of Knossos.

"It is similar in terms of shape, size and proportions," Maggidis said.

He noted that all the other alternative interpretations of a basin, altar, offering table or mortar are eliminated when considering the high quality of fine carving and polishing and the morphology of the block, which is carved in such a way as to support being sat upon.

"For example, the shallow central depression, which is only 3cm (1.18 inch) deep, and the way in which it slightly deepens towards the rear side, identical to the Knossos throne, are indisputable traits of a seat," Maggidis said.

"This is one of the most important and emblematic finds of the Mycenaean age," he added.

Read more at Discovery News

Underwater Remains of Ancient Naval Base Found

Danish and Greek archaeologists have discovered the remains of one of the largest building complexes of the ancient world -- a naval base that 2,500 years ago housed Athens's enormous fleet.

Featuring massive harbor fortifications and sheds designed to hold hundreds of war ships called triremes, the base played a key role in the most decisive naval battle of antiquity.

The remains lay hidden under the water of the Mounichia fishing and yachting harbor in the Piraeus.

University of Copenhagen archaeologist Bjørn Lovén, who led the expedition as part of the Zea Harbor Project, identified and excavated six ship-sheds that were used to protect the Greek ships from shipworm and from drying when they were not needed on the sea.

"The sheds were monumental," Lovén said.

He noted the foundations under the columns were 4 foot by 6 inches and the sheds themselves were just over 19 feet wide, up to 26 feet tall and 164 feet long.

Based on pottery and carbon-14 dating from a worked piece of wood found inside the foundations of a colonnade dividing two ship-sheds, Lovén and colleagues dated the structure to around 520-480 B.C. or shortly thereafter.

Such evidence means the ship-sheds in all probability housed the warships that were deployed in 480 B.C. in the famous naval battle of Salamis between the Greeks and Persians.

Fought in the narrow straits that separate the Greek mainland from the island of Salamis, the battle is regarded as one of the greatest and most important naval engagements of antiquity. The Greeks's three-tiered warships, led by the Athenian politician and general Themistocles, defeated the much larger invading Persian fleet led by King Xerxes, who intended to add Greece to the greatest empire on Earth.

"All social classes rowed and fought aboard the triremes. I strongly believe this pivotal battle created an immensely strong bond among most of the citizens, and in this way the Athenian navy was to develop into the backbone of the world's first democracy," Lovén told Discovery News.

Read more at Discovery News