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SUEDE – Enköping - A team of archaeologists have found parts of a centuries-old ship in the central Swedish town of Enköping. The finds include parts of a merchant vessel, a cog, dating back to the 13th century, as well as some imported German and Danish ceramics, possibly brought to Sweden on the same ship.This could be evidence that Enköping was an important trade city in the Mälardalen area, archaeologist and project manager Emelie Sunding told The Local. In medieval times, Enköping was close to the shoreline, with a beach located in what is now the city centre. That location made the town a crucial international location for medieval trade. After the outbreak of the Black Plague in the 18th centrury, though, Enköping's importance was lost in history, which Sunding said makes the new findings even more exciting. These remains have included parts of 16th-century living quarters and traces of urban cultivation during the 12th and 13th centuries. An analysis of the cultural layer from that period then showed that the people cultivated plants. The archaeologists will now continue searching for remains in the deeper soil deposits. "We are not quite done yet," said Sunding. "In fact, we are expecting to excavate some older remains, which could date back to the 10th century."
https://www.thelocal.se/20181024/archaeologists-find-medieval-ship-and-german-ceramics-in-enkping
ITALIE – Pompéi - The Italian news agency ANSA says new excavations in the ancient buried city of Pompeii have yielded the undisturbed skeletons of people who had taken refuge from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D.79. The director of the Pompeii archaeological site, Massimo Osanna, told ANSA on Wednesday the skeletons — believed to be two women and three children — were still intact, having been left undisturbed despite looting at the site centuries ago. Osana called it “a shocking find, but also very important for history.” The bodies were discovered inside a house holding a charcoal inscription that historians say dates the deadly eruption to October, two months later than previously thought. Archaeologists believe they sought safety in a small room but were either crushed when the roof caved in or burned by the fiery cloud.
https://apnews.com/02b28342097d4766aa7d1cca7898f288
IRLANDE – Kilkenny Union Workhouse - Heavy smoking by victims of the Irish Famine caused badly rotten teeth, according to researchers. More than half of adults were missing teeth and 80% had tooth decay, a study of a representative sample suggests. The 19th century famine wiped out around a million people. Researchers from Queen’s University in Belfast studied the teeth of 363 victims who died in the Kilkenny Union Workhouse between 1847 and 1851. Archaeologists discovered their remains in 2005 in an unmarked mass burial ground. Professor Eileen Murphy from the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s said the research gave extra evidence about how smoking affects oral health. She added: “The study also gives us a unique insight into the living conditions of the working classes in Victorian Irish society at the time of the Great Famine. “Smoking was evidently an important part of life for these people, a habit that they could enjoy amongst deprived social conditions and a very harsh and difficult life, but it may have contributed to their ill-health.” This is the first study that explores the relationship between smoking and oral health in an archaeological sample of a historical population. Dr Jonny Geber from the Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago said the bad condition of the teeth studied was due to widespread pipe smoking in both men and women, rather than their diet of potatoes and milk.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/too-much-smoking-left-great-famine-victims-with-rotten-teeth-study-suggests-37454421.html
IRAN – Khandan-tappeh - Copper age potteries have been found during the excavations conducted in Khandan-tappeh site near Hamedan city in western Iran, head of the speculation team said. The site covers a 4.5 hectare area and is the biggest of its kind in the area that contains copper age objects,” said Reza Nazari-Arshad, according to the news released by Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT). Khandan-tappeh is one of the main ancient mounds in Bahar city near Hamedan, along with Hegmataneh, and Zino-Abad archeological sites. The excavation project aims at defining the borders of the archeological site to prepare programs to preserve its possible unrevealed objects. Khandan-tappeh lands has been utilized for agricultural purposes during the past decades and RICHT is planning to protect it.
http://www.irna.ir/en/News/83077171
AFRIQUE DU SUD – Suikerbosrand - Archaeologists from the University of Witwatersrand have used specialised laser technology to recreate a lost 15th century city to the south of Johannesburg that was likely inhabited by Tswana people.LiDAR uses laser light to create images of the landscape and virtually strip away the vegetation, thus permitting unimpeded aerial views of ancient buildings and monuments. Researchers have estimated that the builders of the revealed stone-walled structures occupied this area from the fifteenth century AD until the second half of the 1800s. Although they have had difficulty in estimating the size of its population, between 750 and 850 homesteads have been counted. The city, which has been named SKBR in the interim, may eventually be given a Tswana name for the Tswana-speakers that most likely inhabited it. In the 1820s all the Tswana city states dotted along the northern parts of South Africa collapsed in what became known as the Difaqane civil wars, a time of widespread chaos and war among indigenous ethnic communities in southern Africa from 1815 to about 1840. In an article published on The Conversation, Professor Karim Sadr wrote, “The evidence we gathered suggests that SKBR was certainly large enough to be called a city. The ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur was less than 2km in diameter, while SKBR is nearly 10km long and about 2km wide.” The size and cattle infrastructure of SKBR led the team to guess that the area housed families of great wealth and social standing. However, it will take another decade or two of field work to fully understand the birth, development and ultimate demise of this African city. “This will be done through additional coverage with LiDAR, intensive ground surveys and excavations in selected localities,” Professor Sadr elaborated.
https://thisisafrica.me/witwatersrand-discovered-tswana-lost-city/
USA – Buttermilk Creek - Spear points that pre-date the Clovis culture by up to 2,500 years have been discovered at the Buttermilk Creek archaeological site in Texas. The weapons were found in layers beneath those containing Clovis spear points and they date to between 13,500 and 15,500 years ago. The discovery could potentially mean one of two things—either humans at the site changed their style of spear, or there was another, separate wave of migration into North America. The latest findings were published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday. “The dream has always been to find diagnostic artifacts—like projectile points—that can be recognized as older than Clovis,” Waters said. The new point forms are found below a layer containing Clovis artifacts and points. In total, we have 130 time-diagnostic artifacts (mostly projectile points) overlying the pre-Clovis deposits.”What this means in terms of human migration is still unclear. Waters says the first people at Buttermilk Creek might have experimented with different styles of spear before settling on that which is associated with the Clovis Culture. Another hypothesis is that it represents an entirely different group of people with connections to the west, where other stemmed spear points are found. “Both hypotheses are equally viable,” he said. “It will take more research and finding additional sites.”
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-ancient-weapons-pre-dating-clovis-people-discovered-buttermilk-creek-1185767?piano_t=1