Archaeology Update

ARCHAEOLOGY – RESEARCH UPDATE

(last updated September 2006)
by Bob Muckle
Capilano College, North Vancouver, BC

NEW DATES FOR OLD THINGS AND EVENTS

Writing in the New World. An article in the September 15, 2006 edition of Science (vol. 313, no. 5793, pp. 1610-1614) describes what may prove to be the oldest evidence of writing in the New World. The evidence comes from a stone block inscribed with symbolic shapes, is associated with the Olmec, and dates to about 900 BCE.

Use of Ochre. According to an article in the Sept 09, 2006 issue of The Independent (reporting on a presentation at the British Association’s annual meeting), archaeologists excavating at a site in Zambia have discovered pigments of red, yellow, brown, black, and ‘sparkling purple’ ochre, all dating to about 300,000 years ago. The archaeologists speculate that they may have been part of symbolic rituals or body art, and might be associated with Homo heidelbergensis. For comparison, the earliest unambiguous use of color in art is associated with cave art dating to no more than 40,000 years ago, and some ochre-stained shell beads have been found with engraved blocks of ochre dating to about 75,000 years in South Africa.

Human Adornment. The Sept/October 2006 issue of Archaeology reports that shell beads from Algeria and Israel have been dated to about 100,000 years ago. This pushes back the date of human adornment by about 25,000 years.

BOSNIAN PYRAMIDS

In October 2005, Bosnia became an area of international archaeological and media focus with the purported discovery that large hills around the town of Visoko are actually several thousand year old (or older) pyramids. Despite continuing excavations, there has been no evidence that meets scientific standards to support the notion that the hills are anything but natural. A good article on this appears in the July/August, 2006 issue of Archaeology (‘Pyramid Scheme’ by Beth Kampschror. The leading proponent of the pyramids as being cultural is Semir Osmanagic, who is directing excavations. Osmanagic has no academic archaeological qualifications, although he has written about the past before. In his book The World of the Maya, he claims the Maya were descendants of aliens.

FLORES ISLAND ARTIFACTS

Since the initial Fall 2004 media frenzy over the reported discovery of a new species of hominin, Homo floresiensis (popularly known as the hobbits) from the Liang Bua site on Flores Island in Indonesia, there has been much discussion in both popular and scholarly sources about the proper taxonomic classification of the skeletons. Often lost in the discussions is the discovery of stone tools found in association with the remains. There have been some, however, who use the artifacts in support of their claims that the proper classification of the skeletons should be Homo sapiens. These researchers suggest the technological sophistication of the tools is indicative of modern Homo sapiens. This notion is now being challenged.

The initial 2004 article on the archaeology of Liang Bau illustrated some of the artifacts found in association with the skeletal remains, including macroblades, microblades, a bipolar core, a perforator, and a burin core (Morwood et al. ‘Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia.’ Nature 431, 1087-1091). A follow-up 2005 article (Morwood et al. ‘Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia.’ Nature 437, 1012-1017) provides more on the archaeology of the site, including the depositional history; evidence of fire through charred bone and clusters of reddened and fire-cracked rock; and the identification of a high density of cores, flaking debris, retouched tools, animals, and faunal remains.

Two recent articles challenge the idea of using the technological sophistication of the artifacts to support a taxonomic classification of the associated remains as Homo sapiens. In the June 012006 edition of Nature, Brum et al (‘Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis.’ Nature 441, 624-628) conclude that the artifacts at Liang Bau are remarkably similar to those at a several hundred thousand year old site 50 km away. Also, a 2006 article by Moore and Brumm (‘Stone artifacts and hominins in island Southeast Asia: New insights from Flores, eastern Indonesia,’ Journal of Human Evolution) concludes “With regard to knapped stone, it now seems evident that there is no reliable technological signature of modern humans in Pleistocene island Southeast Asia.”

THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATIONS

Few books have generated as much interest in archaeology among the public as Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). The book’s main theme is that success depends on how societies respond to crises caused by environmental challenges. Reviews by archaeologists and others in closely-related fields illustrate a variety of views on Diamond’s research and conclusions. These include problems with his units of analysis (e.g. many of his case studies are islands or otherwise isolated groups; and even the use of the term ‘Maya’ is rife with problems); the treatment of societies as closed systems; his failure to adequately consider social and power structures; and the use of the politically-loaded term ‘collapse,’ especially when referring to the Maya. Specific criticisms can be found in ‘The Politics of the Past’ by K. Anne Pyburne (Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress vol. 2, no. 1. 2006) and in a special forum on the book in Current Anthropology (vol. 46, Supplement, December 2005).

last updated: December 21, 2006
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