Ancient Origins Unleashed Debrief: Cyber-attack on Ancient Origins Won't Stop the News
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Here are the top breaking archaeology news stories from the last couple of weeks…
Co-existence…
Two Sets of Hominins Co-existed 1.5mn Years Ago in Kenya, Distinct Footprints Reveal
A scintillating find emerges from Kenya, suggesting that 1.5 million years ago, the homo erectus crossed paths with a big-toothed hominid cousin, in Turkana Basin – an ancient lake shore. Perhaps they were scavenging for food, or engaged in another function; the biggest takeaway remains that this is the first ever example of two sets of hominin species, perhaps living side by side. These set of footprints were first located in 2021, preserved in a dried-out layer of sand and silt, and are now known as the Koobi Fora trackway.
The Koobi Fora Trackway: Mutual Co-Existence
One of them belonged to a single individual walking in a straight line (likely a Paranthropus boisei), while there were 3 isolated prints near the main group, seemingly those of 3 different individuals! The isolated prints are undoubtedly those of bipedal humans, or modern humans, with the heel striking the ground first, followed by the front of the foot pushing the sole off – likely those of the H. erectus. All in all, the fossils have revealed the height of their foot arches, the shape of their toes and their walking patterns. The total length of the footprint trail is about 26 feet (8 meters) long.
While the H. erectus was one of the first members of the genus, Homo, they had larger brains than earlier hominins, and were the first of the clade to travel outside Africa. P. boisei, on the other hand, had small brains and large teeth and jaws, having adapted to eating chewier foods like grass and sedges. The P. boisei ancestor would have worn a U.S. men's size 8.5 or women's size 10 shoe, while the H. erectus footprints were smaller, roughly a women's size 4 to a men's size 6.
The study has been published in the latest edition of the journal Science. “This is the first snapshot we have of those two species living on the same immediate landscape, potentially interacting with one another,” says study co-author Kevin Hatala, a palaeoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a press statement.
Resistance…
5,000-Year-Old Settlement in Iraq Said ‘No’ to Being a Mesopotamian City
Evidence found during archaeological explorations at the site of an ancient Mesopotamian settlement known as Shakhi Kora, located near the city of Kalar in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, points to an early experimentation with urbanization in the mid-fourth millennium BC, one that had not been suspected before.
This discovery is not altogether surprising, as the development of the world’s first city-oriented civilization in Sumer took place just to the south around the same time period. But the recently discovered site is most remarkable, because the city that was constructed there only lasted for a few centuries before its residents left it behind, presumably to return to their roots as farmers in the countryside. This shows that attempts at urbanization in this part of the world were not universally successful, running counter to the historical narrative that has portrayed the march of urban civilization and centralized government in Mesopotamia as an unstoppable force.
“Both the stratified record at Shakhi Kora and regional survey results show that this first experiment with urbanism and public institutions in the Sirwan region was abandoned in the later fourth millennium BC, and seemingly not revisited as a model for local social organization for at least 1,500 years,” the international team of archaeologists responsible for this discovery wrote in an article about their research published by Antiquity. “Frequent site abandonment and small settlement sizes remained a long-term local mechanism to counteract centralization.”
During their latest excavations at Shakhi Kora, these archaeologists, who are affiliated with the Sirwan Regional Project, unearthed a significant number of clay bowls with bevelled rims, which were clearly designed to serve food. Animal bones excavated nearby showed the bowls had likely been used to hold meat stew, as might have been suspected given their shape.
Curiously stylistic…
Ancient Stone Tablet Engraved with Unknown Language Found in Georgia
Archaeologists from several universities in the Republic of Georgia unearthed an ancient stone slab tablet that featured carved symbols covering its face. This unusual artifact, which is believed to be thousands of years old, was found along the shoreline of Bashplemi Lake in the southern part of the country, near a location where the skull of a 1.8-million-year-old hominin was discovered in the past.
While these symbols are recognizable as letters and/or numbers, the actual language they come from has been lost, and as of now its discoverers have no idea what the tablet says.
The tablet, which is made from basalt, includes a total of 60 characters, 39 of which are unique. They are arranged in seven rows, and all of the figures are well-preserved despite what has undoubtedly been a significant passage of time since the tablet was made.
The Georgian archaeologists write in a report about their discovery published in the Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology:
“Generally, the Bashplemi inscription does not repeat any script known to us; however, most of the symbols used therein resemble ones found in the scripts of the Middle East, as well as those of geographically remote countries such as India, Egypt and West Iberia…”
The researchers say the symbols that come closest to matching the carvings on the tablet are from a language known as Proto-Kartvelian, an ancestor of the modern Georgian language that was used around five or six thousand years ago. But the newly discovered written language has clearly never been seen before, and therefore its message cannot be interpreted at the moment.
Ritualistic…
Earliest Evidence of Paleolithic Religious Practices Found in Galilee Cave
Researchers have uncovered a 35,000-year-old ritual complex deep within Manot Cave, located in the Western Galilee, Israel. This finding represents one of the earliest known examples of communal ritual behavior in the Levant — and possibly the world.
The discovery, detailed in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), challenges long-held notions about the development of organized worship and suggests that ritual practices were a significant part of human social evolution during this era. Manot Cave, already known for its archaeological significance, has now provided rare insight into the early stages of collective ritualism.
Led by Dr. Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Haifa, alongside Prof. Ofer Marder of Ben-Gurion University and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University, the research sheds new light on the spiritual lives of early Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
Astronomical…
Legendary Nebra Sky Disc Creation Method Has Been Discovered
A circle of corroded bronze, measuring 12 inches (30cm) across, adorned with golden shapes, was unwittingly discovered in 1999 in Nebra, Germany, now famously coined the Nebra Sky Disc. More than 3,600-years-old, it is widely considered to be the oldest known depiction of the cosmos. It is currently the subject of a new study, where metallurgical analysis has indicated that it was manufactured using a complex, hot-forging process, with ten cycles of heating up to 700°C!
An Elusive Manufacturing Process
Part of the UNESCO "Memory of the World" register since 2013, the Disc is considered one of the best-researched archaeological objects. The new study, published in the latest edition of the journal Scientific Reports, finally points us in the direction of the elusive manufacturing process.
Based on its material composition and previous research, it seems that the process would be to heat to 700°C over 10 cycles, then forging, and then annealing to relax the metal structure again.
This affirms what was earlier believed based on the material composition, which indicated that the disk couldn’t have been simply cast in its final size. Consider this: a bronze disk with a diameter of around 31 centimeters, a few millimeters thick – forging this during the Bronze Age without any of the modern tools and technologies available to us today was quite an achievement.
"That the investigations continue to produce such fundamental new findings more than 20 years after the Sky Disc was found not only once again demonstrates the extraordinary character of this find of the century, but also how highly developed the art of metal processing was already in the Early Bronze Age," says State archaeologist Prof. Dr. Harald Meller in a press release.
Exceptional Neolithic Archery Finds Reveal Sophistication of Early Iberian Societies
A groundbreaking study of 7,000-year-old remains from the Neolithic period has revealed the surprisingly early technical mastery of early Iberian societies in archery. Archaeologists, led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), examined artifacts preserved in the Cave of Los Murciélagos near Albuñol, Granada. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, showcase the earliest bowstrings ever found in Europe, alongside arrows crafted with extraordinary precision.
The preservation of organic materials in the cave—due to its dry conditions—allowed researchers to uncover artifacts such as bowstrings made from animal tendons, arrows featuring original feathers, and shafts coated with birch bark pitch. These discoveries shed light on the advanced techniques and resourcefulness of early agricultural communities in southwestern Europe.
A Closer Look at Neolithic Bowstrings and Arrows
The discovery of intact bowstrings represents a pivotal moment in the study of prehistoric weaponry. Made from the sinews of three animal species—goats or ibex (Capra sp.), wild boars (Sus sp.), and roe deer—these twisted tendons formed robust and flexible ropes. The study confirms that Neolithic artisans possessed deep knowledge of local fauna and employed sophisticated methods to craft functional and durable archery equipment.
The arrow shafts further highlight the innovation of these societies. For the first time, archaeologists confirmed the use of olive wood (Olea europaea), reed wood (Phragmites sp.), and willow in arrow construction. This strategic combination created arrows with a dense, durable front section and a lightweight rear, enhancing their ballistic properties. Notably, the arrows lacked stone or bone tips, raising questions about their specific use—whether for hunting, close-range combat, or as non-lethal projectiles.
Birch bark pitch coated the arrow shafts, providing protection while possibly serving a decorative purpose. This combination of functionality and aesthetics underscores the artisans’ technical and symbolic mastery.
Big brothers…
Fossils Found in China Come from a Huge Human Ancestor, Scientists Say
A pair of scientists who study hominin fossils and human evolution in China and East Asia claim to have discovered a new human ancestor that appeared during the Late Quaternary or Middle Pleistocene era, about 300,000 years ago. They have named this species Homo juluensis, which is in reference to the unusually large size of this theoretical addition to the official hominin roster (ju lu means “huge head” in Chinese).
This discovery did not emerge as a result of any amazing new fossil finds. In fact, the fossils that the scientists say prove the existence of the new species were recovered in the 1970s at the Xujiayao archaeological site in China, which sits on the border between the provinces of Hebei and Shanxi in the northern part of the country. It was a fresh re-examination of these fossils that led to the discovery of the new species, although more research will be needed to prove to everyone’s satisfaction that Homo juluensis really did exist.
Some Really Big Human Cousins
The fossilized remains of 16 individuals recovered from the site at Xujiayao, along with a large collection of stone tools and animal bones. These remains have been dated to between 200,000 and 160,000 years ago, during a glacial period when global temperatures were significantly colder on average than they are now.
In an article published in the journal Nature Communications, Christopher Bae, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Xiujie Wu, a paleoanthropologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, present what they consider conclusive evidence that this 50-year-old fossil collection comes from a species of archaic human that they were the first to recognize.
During the Middle and Late Pleistocene eras, from about 300,000 to 50,000 years ago, there were a number of archaic human species living in Eurasia and in the lands of eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and the southeast Asian countries) in particular. This intermingling has created some confusion for those attempting to interpret the fossil record correctly, Bae and Wu claim, but the two scientists say they created a new way to organize and analyze the fossil record that allowed them to make their shocking discovery.
“This study clarifies a hominin fossil record that has tended to exclude anything that cannot easily be assigned to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, or Homo sapiens,” Bae said in a University of Hawaii press release.
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Gary Manners - Senior Editor, Ancient Origins
that was extremely interesting!