An Israeli research team has discovered evidence that suggests some cave-dwellers were mining flint 300,000 years ago.
Flint blades from Tabun Cave, near present-day Haifa, in northern Israel, had an isotope called beryllium-10 in levels indicating they were made from mined flint. However, tools found in Qesem Cave, barely 60 miles to the south, bore the hallmarks of surface rock, indicating these individuals were still using whatever stones were lying around.
Not entirely sure of the significance of this find. As we are not all that well-versed on the early history of flint mining, this may represent an early (earliest?) example of attention being paid to raw material characteristics. OTOH, there can be little doubt that people making stone tools had always paid some attention to the raw material, since you need some minimal control over the stuff you start out with so you can get what you want. After all, you can't make a 10cm axe out of 3cm stone.
The mining part may be the key as it represents a more significant increase in the cost of manufacture. This is always a tradeoff and the costs/benefits of various technologies occupies quite a bit of many archaeologists' time. In fact, for the last several years, raw material acquisition has been one of the hot topics in lithic (i.e., stone tool) analysis. Obtaining the raw material is part of the production process and therefore incurs costs. You weight the costs of obtaining particular raw materials with the benefits which may accrue. So in some situations where a crucial tool can only be made with a particular form of stone, it might be cost-effective to go elsewhere and mine it rather than make do with what you have.
Raw material studies can also inform on trade and the movement of populations around the landscape. Showing how different raw materials were used over time can tell you how settlement patterns changed (e.g., they became less mobile and ceased using certain sources far away), how subsistance patterns changed, etc. It's one part of the whole chain of Manufacture ==> Use ==> Discard.
And speaking of which. . . Stone tools suggest bison hunting site in Alberta on trade route
PURPLE SPRINGS, ALTA. - Archeologists in Alberta have found a large bison kill site containing stone tools that point to an early trade route.
The bison bones are behind wind-swept sand dunes in a small, shallow valley near Purple Springs, Alta., about 70 kilometres from Lethbridge.
Archeologists think more than 1,000 years ago, hunters stalked, slaughtered and processed thousands of the animals at the site, primarily in the winter.
Since arrowheads and tools found at the site are made from materials found only in North and South Dakota, scientists think the tools were brought from hundreds of kilometres away.
Remote sensing update Survey of commons maps buried history
One of the last great mysteries of Britain's past is being unravelled by archaeologists in the first ever survey of the "people's land" - urban commons that have been protected from development for up to 1,000 years.
Significant finds are expected from up to four years' research into swaths of open space close to the heart of some of the country's busiest cities and towns, from undisturbed bronze age burial sites to temporary medieval fairgrounds.
Archaeologists using satellite mapping techniques moved on to one of the most promising sites yesterday - the network of three large commons which almost encircle the Yorkshire market town of Beverley. Traces of the original 18th-century local racecourse have already been detected by aerial surveys, along with telltale signs of bronze and iron age barrows.
Ancient Moabite fort provides insight into history of weaving
Weaving has existed in the Middle East for thousands of years. And yet exactly how far back in the history of the region it goes is a matter of some debate.
However, a recent discovery of a cache of clay loom weights at Khirbat al-Mudaybi in Central Jordan is shedding new light on ancient textile crafts and industries.
While scholars have long assumed weaving was both an important cottage as well as specialized industry in ancient Moab, physical evidence for such manufacturing has not always been forthcoming. Now, the evidence that the early Mudaybi weaver left behind is permitting scholars to reconstruct the details of this ancient industry.
This is a great article and highlights one of those situations archaeologists long for: a pretty clear and unambiguous set of remains that indicates the function of a structure. A lot of times (probably most of the time) a given structure or room within a structure just has a few odd artifacts and you can't tell what the heck they were doing there. When you can find a bunch of objects that you have a good idea of what they were used for and you can be reasonably sure that they are about where the people left them, it's a Godsend. Lewis Binford called this the 'Pompeii Premise', after (duh) Pompeii where daily life was literally stopped in its tracks.
But that's the trick, of course. People generally didn't just drop whatever they were doing and leave a place, never to return. They usually end up doing their thing in a place, picking up all their junk, going somewhere else to do it, and maybe doing something else in the original place. Again, a great deal of ink has been used trying to determine 'room function'.
A perfectly splendid study of this concept can be found in The Spatial Structure of Kom el-Hisn, a truly remarkable work that belongs on everyone's bookshelf.
Roman remains found at an airport
The remains of five Roman bodies have been uncovered during redevelopment work at Humberside airport.
The bodies of four adults and one child were found when archaeologists carried out excavation work.
The bodies are at least 1,700 years old and were lying east to west, which suggests they were Christians. One body was lying face down.
The remains have been taken to Lincoln where they will be cleaned up and examined.
Don't bother clicking, that's the whole thing.
Antiquities Market update Feds offer looted artifact deal
Federal prosecutors in the Four Corners states began a 90-day amnesty Thursday for people with illegally obtained ancient Indian artifacts, such as pots or stone tools.
Looters or buyers of artifacts can return them by August 18, "no questions asked," said U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico. Federal prosecutors in Arizona, Colorado and Utah also are taking part in the amnesty.
Looting ancient sites has been illegal since 1990, when a federal law was enacted protecting sacred objects and sacred places on federal and Indian land. Objects gathered before the law was enacted are exempt.
Egypt in Nubia and vice versa
An exhibition featuring photographs of the dismantling and re-erection of the temples of Abu Simbel held in the Egyptian Museum last month reminds Jill Kamil of the debate fuelled during the UNESCO salvage operations
Today we remember the dramatic dismantling, transportation and reconstruction of the great temples of Nubia, now tourist attractions at their relocated sites at home and abroad. We tend to forget the specialised studies carried out by international experts who worked there between 1958 and 1971, when the High Dam was completed, that cast light on Nubia's many cultures. So many blanks in the history of the region were filled in during those years that more is known about the indigenous cultures of Nubia than many archaeological zones in the world, even in Egypt.
This is a FANTASTIC article. Jill Kamill is a terrific writer on things Egyptological and this piece of work provides a lot of good information about a generally under-appreciated aspect (at least popularly) of Egyptian history.
An additional note, the construction of the Aswan High Dam and subsequent flooding of a large area, jump started a LOT of archaeology in Egypt. Besides the Scandinavian expedition noted in the text, is the Combined Prehistoric Expedition that began as a salvage operation to survey and excavate prehistoric sites within the flood area of Lake Nasser. It was led by Fred Wendorf, late of the Southern Methodist University, and Romuald Schild, and included several luminaries of Egyptian prehistoric archaeology such as Angela Close and Bahay Issawi (the latter a geologist). The CPE has been ongoing and has produced an extraordinary number of papers and books, and is largely responsible for our current views of 'Egypt before the pharaohs'. Here are a few links, but many more can be found just by Googling/Yahooing the researcher's names.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/wadi/hd_wadi.htm
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/publicat/frontier/11-98/11astronomical.htm
http://www.caller2.com/autoconv/newsworld99/newsworld11.html