Image Credit : idw
Posted on 09/20/2023 8:47:31 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
An Excavation Project, in Collaboration With Archaeologists From Södertörn University, Uppsala University's Campus Gotland, Gotland Museum, and the Swedish National Heritage Board, Has Led to the Discovery of an Iron Age Port on Gotska Sandön.
Gotska Sandön is an island and national park in Sweden's Gotland County, situated 24 miles north of Faro in the Baltic Sea.
Earlier in 2023, archaeologists found two 2,000-year-old Roman coins on one of the island's beaches. Both coins are made of silver, with one coin dating from AD 98-117 during the reign of Emperor Trajan, and the other coin dating from AD 138-161 during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius.
In the latest excavations, archaeologists have now discovered evidence of twenty hearths on the same beach as the Roman coins discovery.
According to Johan Rönnby, a professor of marine archaeology at Södertörn University, the site is an Iron Age port, not in the sense of quays we imply in the modern era, but instead a place where Iron Age people regularly landed their boats and formed an encampment.
Although the purpose of the encampment is speculated, the researchers suggest that it may have been linked to an emerging seal hunting industry.
"Seal hunters may have come from the island of Gotland and landed on Sandön to boil seal blubber. This could have been what the hearths were used for, but we don't yet know – there may be other reasons why the site looks like it does, such as it being a trading post," said Rönnby.
Excavations and carbon-14 dating of one of the hearths has indicated that they also date from 2,000-years-ago, suggesting a possible link between the encampment and the Roman coins.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
Pretty cool but 2,000 years old Roman era encampment is not iron age.
No, Iron age is somewhat fluid concept.
In Americas, e.g., it never happed. The Natives lived in stone age until Europeans arrived.
Stone age persisted in Australia, Africa and e.g. Hawaii until Europeans arrived there too.
While Iron age officially ended in Mediterranean well before Trajan emperor, the Germanic Iron Age in Scandinavia actually lasted until AD 800.
Iron is extremally useful thing, strong, plentiful and easily workable.
But the technology of turning Iron ore (basically mixture of Iron oxides with lots of impurities) into workable iron is Very tricky. The, now forgotten, person who first discovered it, was an genius who advanced humanity thousands of years ahead.
Medieval Whaling May Have Sent Two Species To Extinction
Bone records indicate that medieval whalers may have wiped out two species from European waters.
Holly Large - Editorial Assistant
Editorial Assistant
https://www.iflscience.com/medieval-whaling-may-have-sent-two-species-to-extinction-70717
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