09 DECEMBRE 2016 NEWS: Exploits River - Apunirereha - Bottle Creek - Bathonea - Bayeux - Tsymlyansk -
INSTITUT SUPERIEUR D'ANTHROPOLOGIE
INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ONLINE COURSES / COURS A DISTANCE
WINTER TERM : JANUARY 2017
REGISTER NOW
CANADA – 
Exploits River - An archeological dig has uncovered material that dates back more than 2,000 years on the Exploits River. Laurie Maclean, an archeologist, and Don Pelley, dig assistant, spent two weeks in November sifting through mud, clay and dirt on the edge of the river in search of items that belonged to the Groswater Paleoeskimos. They say they found historical tools during a salvage dig, and may have saved the material from being destroyed by the river. Tests came back placing some of the material at 2,200 years old. "This is the first radio carbon date from the interior for a Groswater site," said Maclean, who noted there are a number of Groswater sites in the area.
ILES SALOMON – 
Apunirereha - The Solomon Islands National Museum is proposing a special exhibition for materials excavated from a site at Apunirereha, East Are’Are in Malaita Province. These materials were excavated under an archaeological cooperation project between the Solomon Islands National Museum (SINM) and the Commission for Archaeology of Non-European Cultures of the German Archaeological Institute which started in 2012 at Apunirereha. The excavation revealed a huge amount of lithic products in all stages of ancient manufacturing process. Dr Johannes said the stone tools were widely used by native in former time in the area. He believed that it has a local source where people can access. “The high possibly for internal trade from the resource to other islands can be possible,” Dr Johannes said. A further archaeological excavation was also done in Ria cave in the vicinity of Apunirereha. The statement said the site is a rock shelter that is formed by an isolated natural limestone cliff and can serve as shelter for one or two families. “The archaeological potential of the rock shelter was suspected during a survey in the region in 2011 and finally confirmed through a first test sounding in 2013. “Ria rock shelter is very interesting because it shows evidences of human existence in prehistoric times. “The excavations under the rock shelter disclosed cultural deposits and features and a large collection of knapped stone tools, shells, faunal and human remains,” the statement said. “Radiocarbon determinations given on the sites are providing a Chrono-stratigraphic frame which covers a period of 1700 years starting from 50 BC until 1600 AD,” Ms Sonja said.
USA – 
Bottle Creek Indian Mounds - It looks like a hill, but what is a 45-foot-high hill doing in the middle of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta? It’s really a Native American mound. But why would Native Americans have built a town on an island that floods rather than on a bluff overlooking a river? And how did the Mississippians, ancestors of such tribes as the Alabama, Apalachee, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Mobilian and Seminole, know the site was the dead center of the delta? A remote location and a minimum of archaeology make the Bottle Creek Indian Mounds historically valuable and a place of mystery. A town was established somewhere around 1200-1250. The Mississippians built mounds on which they constructed their homes and temples. On this site, they used small clam shells and clay hauled with baskets to build mounds.“You dig a trench to put an upright pole in for structure of the walls,” Waselkov said. “Then you plaster that over with mud and put a thatch roof on. In very short order, you have a weatherproof house.” Those houses were good for about 20 years, before being methodically destroyed and rebuilt. The island holds 18 mounds. The largest is the 45-foot-high Mound A, among the largest in the Southeast. Lower, wider mounds most likely held two or three houses. Higher mounds were built to last longer.“We don’t know what buildings stood on the big mounds, but from other sites it’s pretty clear that they were primarily the houses of the chiefs, the elites,” Waselkov said. The Bottle Creek location, directly in the middle of the delta, may have had a symbolic religious or political significance, Waselkov said. It’s possible the Mississippians were trying to lay claim to the coast. The Mississippians were a farming culture, so the edges of delta land were used for farm fields that were fertilized by regular flooding. They also hunted, and they may have migrated seasonally to the Gulf Coast, where shell mounds on Dauphin Island date from the same period. The Mississippian era ran roughly from 1250 to 1550, when the culture began to change. When the French arrived on the Gulf Coast in 1699, smaller nations of Mississippian descendants lived here. By then, those descendants considered Bottle Creek a sacred site. The explorer Jean Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville probably gave an Indian a gun in return for taking him to the island and its temple. There Bienville removed five statues while his guide refused to go inside. Waselkov said the statues were sent to France, but no one has been able to locate them.
http://www.lagniappemobile.com/mystery-surrounds-bottle-creek-indian-mounds/
TURQUIE – 
Bathonea - Nearly 20,000 pieces of glass have been unearthed and evaluated amid excavations at the ancient site of Bathonea on the Küçükçekmece Lake Basin in Istanbul’s Avcılar district. According to archeologists, the glass findings reveal that locals in the area 1,500 years ago had high living standards, using strained glass in buildings as well as window glasses. An expert on ancient glass design and the history of glass, Şeniz Atik, the deputy head of excavations, said the excavations unearthed large basilica-like structures and 20,000 glass pieces were found in graves on the coast of Küçükçekmece Lake, as well as numbers of window glasses and golden-gilded mosaic pieces (tesserae). “Most of the 20,000 glass pieces unearthed in previous years were the ones used in windows. It is remarkable that the region is rich in window glasses used in ancient structures and specially-made thin strained-glasses. These strained-glasses were used as panel and window glasses in important buildings,” Atik said. “We also found lots of mosaic pieces, glass cups, candles, bowls and stemware. Most of the archaeological finds are in good quality. This is a proof that life standards were high here. Some glass bottles found in the region are different from the ones in Anatolia. Considering all this, we believe that some of these glasses were local and some were imported. All these findings are being examined in scrutiny. Since they are too small, they will first be classified and reunited. Then drawings will be made and then they will be defined. It takes a long time to carry out analyses and prepare a publication,” he added. Atik, who recently released a publication about the glass pieces extracted in the excavations in Marmaray in Istanbul’s Yenikapı, said the Yenikapı finds were similar to the finds in Bathonea. “This shows that there was an important production center in and around Istanbul. Because Yenikapı was a big port, some of the glasses in Bathonea were possibly imported from there. After the works on the findings are completed, the relations between Bathonea and Istanbul and other cities will be revealed. An important part of the findings are from between the 5th and 7th centuries. This field was also active in the later periods, especially in the 10th and 12th centuries. We also have findings from the late Ottoman period,” he said. Speaking on the importance of specially-cut strained glasses and golden-gilded mosaic pieces, Atik said they drew the conclusion from the archaeological findings of glass from 5th and 7th centuries of Bathonea that living standards were very high.
FRANCE – 
Bayeux - Depuis septembre, des fouilles archéologiques ont lieu, entre les routes de Tilly et celle d’Audrieu. Depuis un mois, une équipe de chercheurs est à pied d’œuvre sur une parcelle proche de la zone industrielle. Ils ont découvert des vestiges datant du VIIIe siècle avant notre ère. Avant que les travaux ne démarrent, plusieurs chantiers de fouilles sont réalisés. « L’État a prescrit des fouilles préventives, pour étudier, conserver et récupérer tout ce qui peut l’être, avant la destruction des sols », résume Cécile Germain-Vallée, archéologue au service départemental du Calvados. Jusqu’à la fin du mois de janvier, son équipe intervient à proximité de la zone industrielle de la gare. La parcelle fouillée, grande comme deux terrains de foot, a permis de retrouver des vestiges de la fin de l’Âge du bronze et du début de l’Âge du fer. « Soit 800 à 900 ans avant Jésus-Christ, estime Cécile Germain-Vallée. Une période encore peu connue. »
RUSSIE – 
Tsymlyansk - An impressive array of horse bits dating back nearly 1300 years have been recovered during an archaeological dig in the Lower Don region of Russia. The first detailed account of the discoveries, unearthed in 2013, has has been published in the Povolzhskaya Arkheologiya, which reports on archaeological findings around the the Volga River region. Valery Flyorov, a senior research scientist at the Institute of Archaeology, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the items were recovered from the remains of a construction known as the Tsimlyansk Square. It measured about 130 metres by 130 metres and was barely discernible on the surface. About 170 objects were recovered, including 60–70 horse bits. The finds date from the early 700s. Items were also recovered from a nearby burial mound known as the Barrow Pyramid, which rises to a height of more than 10 metres. Arrowheads recovered from this area date from the late 700s to early 800s.