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Divers off the coast of Naples, Italy have recovered a large chunk of chiseled obsidian that likely went down in a Stone Age shipwreck more than 5,000 years ago.Divers from Naples, Italy have recovered a block of obsidian from the remains of what is likely a Neolithic, or New Stone Age shipwreck near the island of Capri.The natural-glass block is about the size of a very large book and weighs almost 17.6 pounds (8 kilograms). There are visible signs of chiseling on its surface, and archaeologists think it was an obsidian "core" that would have been used to make sharp-edged...

Archaeologists conducting surveys of retreating ice patches have found perishable artefacts associated with ancient mining activities. The study, published in the Journal of Field Archaeology, reports that the researchers have found over 50 perishable artefacts near Goat Mountain and the Kitsu Plateau, located in northern British Columbia, Canada. Among the artefacts are stitched containers made from birch bark, wooden walking staffs, intricately carved and beveled sticks, an atlatl dart foreshaft, and a boot crafted from stitched hide. According to the researchers: “Most of the perishable artefacts were manufactured from wood, including birch bark containers, projectile shafts, and walking staffs. Of...

AbstractPleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot. The separation of focused activities across different localities, which indicates a degree of planning, according to this mindset characterizes later hominins since only 500,000 years ago. Simbiro III level C, in the upper Awash valley of Ethiopia, allows us to test this assumption in its assemblage of stone tools made only with obsidian, dated...

More than 500 years ago in the midwestern Guatemalan highlands, Maya people bought and sold goods with far less oversight from their rulers than many archeologists previously thought....the ruling K'iche' elite took a hands-off approach when it came to managing the procurement and trade of obsidian by people outside their region of central control.In these areas, access to nearby sources of obsidian, a glasslike rock used to make tools and weapons, was managed by local people through independent and diverse acquisition networks. Overtime, the availability of obsidian resources and the prevalence of craftsmen to shape it resulted in a system...

Archeologists in central Türkiye unearthed traces of permanent settlement dating back at least 9,300 years, the head of the dig site told Anadolu Agency on Friday."We can say that this is the oldest settlement in the borders of Nigde province," said archeologist Semra Balci, who leads the excavation team at the Sircalitepe Mound.Balci, of Istanbul University, said her team had found bone and obsidian tools used in daily settled life, along with beads and other objects thought to be for ornamental purposes.She added that two samples that they found had been radiocarbon dated, revealing that they were 9,600-9,300 years old.Initial...

3,500 years ago, the island underwent a period of significant cultural transformations, namely the adoption of a new language and economic system, and major changes in burial customs and attire.Around the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion...Rather than looking at things like burial, art, or dress, practices that tend to shift with fashion, archaeologists have begun to look more closely at more mundane, everyday practices as a better insight...

Rising as high as 20 feet, ancient stone monoliths in southern Ethiopia are 1,000 years older than scientists previously thought, according to a new study in the Journal of African Archaeology. A Washington State University research team used advanced radiocarbon dating to determine the often phallic-shaped monoliths, or stelae, at the Sakaro Sodo archeological site in Ethiopia’s Gedeo zone were likely created sometime during the first century A.D. The only other attempt to determine the age of the more than 10,000 stele monoliths located at various sites in the Gedeo zone was conducted by French scientists in the 1990s. It...

Researchers discovered four charred seeds of a wild tobacco plant within the hearth contents, along with stone tools and duck bones left over from meals. Until now, the earliest documented use of tobacco came in the form of nicotine residue found inside a smoking pipe from Alabama dating to 3,300 years ago. The researchers believe the nomadic hunter-gatherers at the Utah site may have smoked the tobacco or perhaps sucked wads of tobacco plant fiber for the stimulant qualities offered by the nicotine it contained. After tobacco use originated among the New World's native peoples, it spread worldwide following the...

An underwater archaeologist from The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a research team studying 9,000-year-old stone tool artifacts discovered in Lake Huron that originated from an obsidian quarry more than 2,000 miles away in central Oregon.The obsidian flakes from the underwater archaeological site represent the oldest and farthest east confirmed specimens of western obsidian ever found in the continental United States."In this case, these tiny obsidian artifacts reveal social connections across North America 9,000 years ago," said Ashley Lemke, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at UT Arlington. "The artifacts found below the Great Lakes come from...

The air was likely frigid as the hunter lit a small fire. The caribou would come in the morning—forced through the narrow strip of marshland where he camped. There was nowhere else to go. The land was flanked by water on both sides, and large stones had been laid out in slanting lines to funnel the animals into this bottleneck. The hunter struck his weapon to sharpen its edge in anticipation. In that moment, two glassy flakes splintered away from the point of impact and fell to his feet. They would be buried there for nearly 10,000 years.In 2013 those...

Five years ago an archaeological team broke news of a major find that forever changed our views about the history of the Middle East. Researchers from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, and the Department of Antiquities in Syria, announced in a press release that they had found the “earliest evidence for large scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world.” They had discovered that a city in Syria, named Hamoukar, had been destroyed in a battle that took place ca. 3500 BC by a hostile force. Using slings and clay bullets these troops took over the city, burning...

Archaeologists tend to uncover puzzling questions along with ancient artifacts, and so it was when a team from the University of Chicago discovered a long-vanished city, virtually 6,000 years old, in eastern Syria. The problem was the city wasn't where it should have been. "A hundred years of scholarship taught that urban life began further south, in Mesopotamia," said Clemens Reichel of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, referring to the name for ancient Iraq. And unlike the cities in that area, Hamoukar isn't on a waterway. Now Reichel thinks he's found a critical piece of the puzzle: obsidian. Though...

New details in the tragic end of one of the world's earliest cities as well as clues about how urban life may have begun there were revealed in a recent excavation in northeastern Syria that was conducted by the University of Chicago and the Syrian Department of Antiquities. "The attack must have been swift and intense. Buildings collapsed, burning out of control, burying everything in them under vast pile of rubble," said Clemens Reichel, the American co-director of the Syrian-American Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar. Reichel, a Research Associate at the University's Oriental Institute, added that the assault probably left the...

Ancient weapons found in ruins in Syria By TARA BURGHART, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 16, 12:29 PM ET CHICAGO - It was the ancient version of a last stand: Twelve clay bullets lined up and ready to be shot from slings in a desperate attempt to stop fierce invaders who soon would reduce much of the city to rubble. The discovery was made in the ruins of Hamoukar, an ancient settlement in northeastern Syria located just miles from the border with Iraq. Thought to be one of the world's earliest cities and located in northern Mesopotamia between the Tigris...

Archaeologists digging in Syria, in the upper reaches of what was ancient Mesopotamia, have found new evidence of how one of the world’s earliest cities met a violent end by fire, collapsing walls and roofs, and a fierce rain of clay bullets. The battle left some of the oldest known ruins of organized warfare. The excavations at the city, Tell Hamoukar, which was destroyed in about 3500 B.C., have also exposed remains suggesting its origins as a manufacturing center for obsidian tools and blades, perhaps as early as 4500 B.C... Expanded excavations at Tell Brak, Habuba Kabira, Hamoukar and elsewhere...

CHICAGO, IL, USA -- US and Syrian researchers say that a battle destroyed one of the world's earliest cities in Mesopotamia, at around 3500 BC but artifacts are left behind. The University of Chicago and Syria's Department of Antiquities say that the discovery provides the earliest evidence for large-scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world. "The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," said Clemens Reichel, of the University of Chicago. Reichel was the co-director of the Syrian-American Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar, an ancient site in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, in October and November....

Ancient citadel shows scars of mass warfare 11:42 16 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Will Knight The shattered remains of a 5500-year-old citadel that stood on the modern-day border between Syria and Iraq provide some of the oldest evidence for organised and bloody warfare. The Mesopotamian settlement lies in Hamoukar, on the northernmost tip of Syria, 8 kilometres from the Iraqi border. In 3500 BC the 13-hectare development was subjected to a devastating attack, its edifices crumbling beneath a crushing hail of bullet-shaped projectiles. The evidence of the destruction was uncovered in October and November 2005 by an expedition coordinated...

University of Chicago Architectural remains in Syria from the fourth millennium B.C. Those at lower left were excavated in 2001, and those at top center this year. The location is said to be the oldest known excavated site of a large battle. In the ruins of an ancient city in northeastern Syria, archaeologists have uncovered what they say is substantial evidence of a fierce battle fought there in about 3500 B.C. The archaeologists, who announced the find yesterday, described it as the oldest known excavated site of large-scale organized warfare. It was a clash of northern and southern cultures...

Contact: Carrie Golus (773) 702-8359 cgolus@uchicago.edu New discoveries in Syria confirm theory on spread of early civilization Unique artifacts unearthed this season in Syria will force historians and archaeologists to rewrite the history books, because the traditional view of how civilization developed is looking increasingly wrong. A cooperative expedition between the University of Chicago and the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities has uncovered the hallmarks of urban life in Syria a little after 4,000 B.C., a time when civilization was thought to be restricted to Mesopotamia. Already during initial excavations in 1999, discoveries at Hamoukar in northeastern Syria began to suggest...

Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery. 'Baltic' amber from Scandinavia is often cited as a key material circulating in prehistoric Europe, but in a new study published today in PLOS ONE researchers have found that amber from Sicily was travelling around the Western Mediterranean as early as the 4th Millennium BC - at least 2,000 years before the arrival of any Baltic amber in Iberia... "Interestingly, the first amber...