This is not the oldest house in the world, but it is the oldest one found so far in Britain. Dated at 11,500 years old, the building was found at the Star Carr Site near Scarborough in North Yorkshire. It predates the previous "oldest house in Britain," located in Howick, Northumberland, by about 500 years. The archaeological team excavating the site also believes a nearby platform may be the oldest known example of carpentry in Europe.
The house was circular, and 3.5 meters (14.2 feet) in diameter, smaller than later iron age round houses. It was built of timber posts arranged around a sunken floor area. There is no way to tell how the walls and roof were finished, but it may have been thatched or covered by reeds, or a combination of reeds and animal hides. Sunken floors were not uncommon in ancient houses to take advantage of their ability to help regulate temperatures inside the structures.
The structure was dated by using a combination of radiocarbon tests and identification of the general types of tools found at the site. It may have been rebuilt several times, so it is possible that the original structure was somewhat older. In fact, the Star Carr site is believed to have been in use for somewhere between 200 and 500 years. There may also have been other houses at the site.
Since the original discovery of the site in the 1940s, several interesting finds have been reported. Archaeologists have reported finding arrow tips and masks made from red deer skulls. A boat paddle was retrieved, and several antler head-dresses which may have been used in rituals also turned up during the excavations conducted throughout the years. Another notable find was that of a tree, with its bark still intact, which was subsequently dated at about 11,000 years of age.
At the time the Yorkshire house was built, the planet was just recovering from the effects of the last Ice Age. Glaciers had retreated and Britain was still attached to continental Europe, so people were able to migrate back to the island. These people were still hunter-gatherers who made their living by gathering fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables and by hunting game such as deer, elk, and boar with the help of domesticated dogs.
Our picture of hunter-gatherers is that of people almost constantly on the move in search of food and materials to make tools. So it is somewhat surprising to archaeologists that it appears the people living at the Star Carr site had a more-or-less permanent settlement that was inhabited for generations. The presence of the boat oar indicates that the people here may have fished and gathered edible shellfish at the nearby lake. We have no idea at this time what type of boats they might have used
.
The Yorkshire site has changed our understanding of the lives of the so-called ‘nomadic’ hunter-gatherers. It also holds out the possibility that other sites may still exist which will help us to understand even more about the lives of our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
For more information about the Star Carr site, visit here
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
The World’s Oldest Dugout Canoe
The world’s oldest surviving dugout canoe was found in 1955 near the village of Pesse in the Netherlands. Like so many otherwise fragile artifacts, this boat was preserved in a peat bog. It was found over 6 feet (2 meters) below the surface by a crane operator working on the Dutch A28 motorway. The crane operator believed it was a tree trunk, but a local farmer noticed it and took it away for study. He gave it to the University of Groningen, where it was examined and preserved. Eventually, it found its way to the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.
Carbon dating indicates that the boat was constructed somewhere between 11,000 and 9,500 years ago. It is nearly 10 feet (3 meters) long and 17 inches (44 centimeters) wide, and was made from a single scotch pine log. Scrape marks in the interior may have been made by either flint or antler scrapers and adzes.
A replica of the canoe was constructed by Dutch archaeologist Jaap Beuker. A canoeist successfully launched and paddled the little boat. The canoe is very similar to other prehistoric boats found elsewhere.
While some have argued that the boat might in fact have been a feed trough for domestic animals, Beuker says that animals were not kept by the people of that era, so it is unlikely to have been used to feed animals. The canoe is also very similar to other prehistoric boats found elsewhere in the world, although it is much older than the others.
Carbon dating indicates that the boat was constructed somewhere between 11,000 and 9,500 years ago. It is nearly 10 feet (3 meters) long and 17 inches (44 centimeters) wide, and was made from a single scotch pine log. Scrape marks in the interior may have been made by either flint or antler scrapers and adzes.
A replica of the canoe was constructed by Dutch archaeologist Jaap Beuker. A canoeist successfully launched and paddled the little boat. The canoe is very similar to other prehistoric boats found elsewhere.
While some have argued that the boat might in fact have been a feed trough for domestic animals, Beuker says that animals were not kept by the people of that era, so it is unlikely to have been used to feed animals. The canoe is also very similar to other prehistoric boats found elsewhere in the world, although it is much older than the others.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
World’s Oldest Written Recipe (and it’s for Beer!)
This is a very special recipe on several different levels. First, at 4,000 years old, it’s the oldest known written recipe. Second, it was handed down by a god.
Although the recipe was said to have been given to men by the Sumerian god Enki, the written version was found contained in a hymn dedicated to the beer goddess Ninkasi. Beer was the national fermented drink of ancient Babylonia.
In the beginning, beer was probably an accidental by-product of the bread making process. Ancient Sumerians preserved grain by baking it, usually in the form of bread. When this bread got wet, it fermented into a kind of liquid beer. Over time, honey and other spices were used to flavor the brew. The resulting beer was strong. It was also full of pieces of bread and other more or less solid materials, making it a hard to drink. The Sumerians’ solution was to drink their beer through a straw.
Beer was so important in the ancient world that laws were passed governing it. Beer was even part of the pay of workers in Mesopotamia, Egypt and other ancient civilizations. The Babylonians are known to have made at least sixteen different kinds of beer and used a variety of grains, including barley and wheat, along with honey. Beer was also mentioned in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
If you’d like the recipe, you can find it here
Although the recipe was said to have been given to men by the Sumerian god Enki, the written version was found contained in a hymn dedicated to the beer goddess Ninkasi. Beer was the national fermented drink of ancient Babylonia.
In the beginning, beer was probably an accidental by-product of the bread making process. Ancient Sumerians preserved grain by baking it, usually in the form of bread. When this bread got wet, it fermented into a kind of liquid beer. Over time, honey and other spices were used to flavor the brew. The resulting beer was strong. It was also full of pieces of bread and other more or less solid materials, making it a hard to drink. The Sumerians’ solution was to drink their beer through a straw.
Beer was so important in the ancient world that laws were passed governing it. Beer was even part of the pay of workers in Mesopotamia, Egypt and other ancient civilizations. The Babylonians are known to have made at least sixteen different kinds of beer and used a variety of grains, including barley and wheat, along with honey. Beer was also mentioned in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
If you’d like the recipe, you can find it here
Thursday, September 13, 2012
The World's Oldest Brassieres
There’s a phrase in the Bible that says, "There is no new thing under the sun." It seems that this saying applies to women’s undergarments.
The first modern bra was patented in the early 1800s as a replacement for the stiff corsets that were fashionable at the time. Mary Phelps Jacob, a New York socialite, is generally credited as the inventor of the modern bra. As it turns out, women were wearing bras way back in the Middle Ages, at least 600 years ago.
Archaeologists working in 2008 in an ancient castle in Austria discovered four linen bras, including one with a surprisingly modern look. Researchers did not report their finds until they had been able to verify the age of the garments through radiocarbon dating and historical research.
The bras were only a part of a veritable treasure trove consisting of over 2,700 textile fragments that were found mixed with dirt, wood and strong. Some of the textiles were made of a linen-cotton combination, reminiscent of modern blended textiles. The bras were decorated with lace and other ornamentation, and featured wide shoulder straps, with indications that they were held in place with back straps.
One puzzle that remains is the question of why bras were replaced by the more cumbersome, uncomfortable corsets that remained a mainstay of women’s undergarments until the bra was reinvented. One theory is that a desire for a "tiny" waist forced women to adopt the corset, which often had stays made of whalebone or other heavy, stiff materials. These were sometimes laced so tightly that they literally displaced the internal organs of their wearers.
These ancient bras may not prove that there is no new thing under the sun, but they do show that good ideas have a way of coming back more than once.
If you’d like to see a picture of one of the Austrian bras, visit here
The first modern bra was patented in the early 1800s as a replacement for the stiff corsets that were fashionable at the time. Mary Phelps Jacob, a New York socialite, is generally credited as the inventor of the modern bra. As it turns out, women were wearing bras way back in the Middle Ages, at least 600 years ago.
Archaeologists working in 2008 in an ancient castle in Austria discovered four linen bras, including one with a surprisingly modern look. Researchers did not report their finds until they had been able to verify the age of the garments through radiocarbon dating and historical research.
The bras were only a part of a veritable treasure trove consisting of over 2,700 textile fragments that were found mixed with dirt, wood and strong. Some of the textiles were made of a linen-cotton combination, reminiscent of modern blended textiles. The bras were decorated with lace and other ornamentation, and featured wide shoulder straps, with indications that they were held in place with back straps.
One puzzle that remains is the question of why bras were replaced by the more cumbersome, uncomfortable corsets that remained a mainstay of women’s undergarments until the bra was reinvented. One theory is that a desire for a "tiny" waist forced women to adopt the corset, which often had stays made of whalebone or other heavy, stiff materials. These were sometimes laced so tightly that they literally displaced the internal organs of their wearers.
These ancient bras may not prove that there is no new thing under the sun, but they do show that good ideas have a way of coming back more than once.
If you’d like to see a picture of one of the Austrian bras, visit here
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The World’s Oldest Shark Nursery
Sharks have long been known as an ancient form of marine life. But it is difficult to find much information about the oldest sharks since they have few bones. Ordinarily, the only evidence they usually leave behind are a few teeth. Then researchers working at a site in southwestern Kyrgyzstan discovered evidence of what is currently the world’s oldest shark nursery. One of the surprises is that these sharks were born in a shallow freshwater lake around 230 million years ago.
Researchers recovered about 60 tiny teeth belonging to baby sharks called hybodontids, along with fossilized egg capsules. Some experts believe that the sharks spawned in fresh water after traveling upriver from the ocean in the same way that modern salmon return to freshwater rivers after spending most of their lives at sea.
Study leader Jan Fischer of the Geologisches Institute at TU Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany, has suggested the possibility that these sharks spent their entire lives in lakes and rivers. He believes that the distance ocean-dwelling sharks would have had to travel upriver makes the idea of spawning migrations from the ocean improbable.
There are more than 400 species of sharks in the world today. Nearly all of them live in oceans. But there are five species of freshwater sharks living in rivers and lakes in Australia, New Guinea, various locations in Southeast Asia, and India. They are rare and not much is known about them. Some can grow to around 9 feet (3 meters) in length, although very few large sharks have been found. Unfortunately, all five species are currently endangered due to pollution, fishing, and other human-caused circumstances.
For more information on the Triassic-era shark fossils, visit here
For more information about modern freshwater sharks, go here
Researchers recovered about 60 tiny teeth belonging to baby sharks called hybodontids, along with fossilized egg capsules. Some experts believe that the sharks spawned in fresh water after traveling upriver from the ocean in the same way that modern salmon return to freshwater rivers after spending most of their lives at sea.
Study leader Jan Fischer of the Geologisches Institute at TU Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany, has suggested the possibility that these sharks spent their entire lives in lakes and rivers. He believes that the distance ocean-dwelling sharks would have had to travel upriver makes the idea of spawning migrations from the ocean improbable.
There are more than 400 species of sharks in the world today. Nearly all of them live in oceans. But there are five species of freshwater sharks living in rivers and lakes in Australia, New Guinea, various locations in Southeast Asia, and India. They are rare and not much is known about them. Some can grow to around 9 feet (3 meters) in length, although very few large sharks have been found. Unfortunately, all five species are currently endangered due to pollution, fishing, and other human-caused circumstances.
For more information on the Triassic-era shark fossils, visit here
For more information about modern freshwater sharks, go here
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The World’s Oldest Sandals
The world’s oldest sandals are also the world’s oldest surviving shoes of any type. And unlike most of the "world’s oldest stuff," which are mostly found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, these sandals were found in Oregon in the United States.
They were actually found in 1930 in a cave in Oregon’s arid Great Basin. About 70 pair were found in an exceptional state of preservation. They were woven from sagebrush bark and other fibers. Remarkably, the oldest sandals were found below a volcanic ash deposit created by the explosion of Mt. Mazama about 7600 years ago. Early radiocarbon dating tests placed the age of some of the sandals at more than 10,000 years old.
Then, in November 1999, international expert Petr Hlavacek of the Technical University in the Czech Republic visited the collection, housed in the Museum of Natural History in Eugene, Oregon. After studying the shoes, Hlavacek announced that the sandals were the oldest known shoes in the world.
Most of the sandals were heavily caked with mud. Researchers believe that this represents evidence that the now dry desert in the Great Basin was once home to a gigantic lake with associated marsh. They have also changed some thoughts about life in the ancient New World. For example, estimates of how long ago the first humans made their homes in the Northwestern part of the United States have now been doubled.
The shoes had all been worn, and came in a wide variety of sizes ranging from those made for young children to much larger types which would have been worn by men. Known as the Fort Rock sandals, it appears that this style of sandal was made from about 10,200 to 9,300 years ago.
A few pairs of these ancient sandals are on display at Oregon’s Museum of Natural History. The rest are stored in a climate-controlled repository where they can be preserved and made available for research.
The University of Oregon has set up an extensive website dedicated to these sandals, along with several photographs of these well-preserved artifacts. You can visit the website here
They were actually found in 1930 in a cave in Oregon’s arid Great Basin. About 70 pair were found in an exceptional state of preservation. They were woven from sagebrush bark and other fibers. Remarkably, the oldest sandals were found below a volcanic ash deposit created by the explosion of Mt. Mazama about 7600 years ago. Early radiocarbon dating tests placed the age of some of the sandals at more than 10,000 years old.
Then, in November 1999, international expert Petr Hlavacek of the Technical University in the Czech Republic visited the collection, housed in the Museum of Natural History in Eugene, Oregon. After studying the shoes, Hlavacek announced that the sandals were the oldest known shoes in the world.
Most of the sandals were heavily caked with mud. Researchers believe that this represents evidence that the now dry desert in the Great Basin was once home to a gigantic lake with associated marsh. They have also changed some thoughts about life in the ancient New World. For example, estimates of how long ago the first humans made their homes in the Northwestern part of the United States have now been doubled.
The shoes had all been worn, and came in a wide variety of sizes ranging from those made for young children to much larger types which would have been worn by men. Known as the Fort Rock sandals, it appears that this style of sandal was made from about 10,200 to 9,300 years ago.
A few pairs of these ancient sandals are on display at Oregon’s Museum of Natural History. The rest are stored in a climate-controlled repository where they can be preserved and made available for research.
The University of Oregon has set up an extensive website dedicated to these sandals, along with several photographs of these well-preserved artifacts. You can visit the website here
Thursday, August 16, 2012
The World’s Oldest Pottery
Up to now, pottery was believed to be a product of that "magical" period around 10,000 years ago when modern civilization began to spring up seemingly out of nowhere. But 20,000-year-old pottery fragments found in China have now upset that theory. (The findings are also causing me to rewrite a portion of my book.)
The pottery fragments were found in a cave called Xianrendong in the Jiangxi province located in south China. The cave was first excavated in the 1960s and further investigated in the 1990s. The fragments were actually dated by 2009, but researchers waited to announce their findings until they determined that the sediments in the cave had not been disturbed in a way that might have skewed the results. They also dated bone and charcoal samples from above and below the pottery fragments to further ensure that their findings were accurate.
Before this discovery and a few others, including simple clay pots found in the Middle East and dated to about 14,500 years ago, experts believed that pottery-making was part of the so-called Neolithic Revolution. Farming is thought to have begun around 11,000 to 13,000 years ago, but before then, people lived as hunter-gatherers. Pottery would have been cumbersome to nomadic peoples, partly because it is heavier than baskets, and partly because it is fragile and easily broken. Today’s surviving nomads, for example, rarely make use of clay pots.
Baked clay products actually date back to at least 30,000 years ago, however. People made small plaques and figurines out of clay which were baked in campfires. These could be easily transported as the people moved from place to place. Many of these little figurines were found in caves along with the famous cave paintings in France. There is no evidence yet, however, that anyone was making pots or other clay utensils that long ago.
For more information about the possible implications of this find and a few pictures of pottery fragments, visit here
The pottery fragments were found in a cave called Xianrendong in the Jiangxi province located in south China. The cave was first excavated in the 1960s and further investigated in the 1990s. The fragments were actually dated by 2009, but researchers waited to announce their findings until they determined that the sediments in the cave had not been disturbed in a way that might have skewed the results. They also dated bone and charcoal samples from above and below the pottery fragments to further ensure that their findings were accurate.
Before this discovery and a few others, including simple clay pots found in the Middle East and dated to about 14,500 years ago, experts believed that pottery-making was part of the so-called Neolithic Revolution. Farming is thought to have begun around 11,000 to 13,000 years ago, but before then, people lived as hunter-gatherers. Pottery would have been cumbersome to nomadic peoples, partly because it is heavier than baskets, and partly because it is fragile and easily broken. Today’s surviving nomads, for example, rarely make use of clay pots.
Baked clay products actually date back to at least 30,000 years ago, however. People made small plaques and figurines out of clay which were baked in campfires. These could be easily transported as the people moved from place to place. Many of these little figurines were found in caves along with the famous cave paintings in France. There is no evidence yet, however, that anyone was making pots or other clay utensils that long ago.
For more information about the possible implications of this find and a few pictures of pottery fragments, visit here
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