(ORDO NEWS) — An international team of archaeologists has found a tooth of Homo Sapiens: the find shifts the time of the arrival of modern man in Europe by 10 thousand years in the past.
Scientists at the University of Tübingen have found 18,000 clay shards with inscriptions in the Egyptian city of Afribis. Archaeologists have found in the UK a Roman-era burial site with 425 remains.
Sometimes one tooth found by archaeologists changes the picture of history
According to modern scientific data, the settlement of Homo Sapiens from Africa began about 200 thousand years ago through the Levant. Gradually, modern man populated all of Asia, and 65 thousand years ago reached Australia.
And all this long time, such a seemingly close Europe remained uninhabited. Not quite, however, uninhabited – Neanderthals lived there. The oldest remains of Homo Sapiens in Europe were found in the Apennines and dated no earlier than 47-43 thousand years ago.
And already 40 thousand years ago there were no Neanderthals left in Europe. Since 1990, an international team of archaeologists has been excavating the Mandrin Cave in the Rhone Valley in southern France.
Several cultural layers were discovered in the cave. And they are securely dated. Last finddescribed by archaeologists – seven different bones. Six – definitely belong to Neanderthals.
And one tooth belonged to a Homo Sapiens child. The find is dated 54 thousand years ago. That is, the arrival of modern man is shifted by almost 10 thousand years. This means that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens shared the same habitat for thousands of years.
The discovery significantly changes the picture of the settlement of Europe by modern man. And maybe the work of archaeologists in Mandren will reveal that dramatic time when the Neanderthals left forever.
Scientists from the University of Tübingen are excavating in the Egyptian city of Afribis. Archaeologists have found18 thousand ostraca – ceramic shards. The find dates back to the 1st century BC. In general, ceramics is the most private “catch” of archaeologists.
If there is nothing in the excavation, then there is still ceramics. But this time the ostracons are very special – they have thousands of inscriptions: three types of Egyptian writing – demotic, hierative (using hieroglyphs), Coptic. There are also inscriptions in Greek and Arabic.
Such shards were used instead of papyrus (it was very expensive). Schoolchildren learned to write on them, adults conducted financial calculations. Most of the inscriptions are in demotic script. This is an alphabetic letter with the inclusion of hieroglyphs. It was widespread in late Egypt.
The “bird alphabet” looks touching: on one of the tablets, opposite each letter of the demotic alphabet, a bird is drawn, whose name begins with this letter. ABCs were compiled on this principle over the next two thousand years. Perhaps found by archaeologists in Afribis, one of the first.
We have already talked about the work of the archaeological expedition at the site of the future HS2 high-speed railway in Buckinghamshire, UK. Excavations have been ongoing in this county since 2018. Most of the finds belong to the period of the conquest of Britain by Rome in the 1st century AD. e.
For example, a well-preserved Roman wooden figure 67 cm high was found . This time, archaeologists foundRoman cemetery. The graves contain the remains of 425 people. Moreover, in 40 buried the skull lies between the feet.
Archaeologists say that this type of burial is quite rare. Usually criminals were buried like this. In addition to the remains of the bodies, more than 1000 Roman coins and lead weights were found. Bone dice were found in one of the burials. They practically do not differ from modern ones – neither in size, nor in markings on the edges. Just a little heavier.
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