Colin Renfrew (born 1937) retired from the Disney Chair of Archaeology at Cambridge University in 2004. After joining the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield University as a lecturer in 1965, he became successively Professor of Archaeology at Southampton and then, in 1981, Cambridge, where he was also Master of Jesus College from 1986 to 1997. He was appointed a member of the House of Lords (Upper House) in the British Parliament in 1991, to serve as a "working peer" on the Conservative side, taking the title Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn. He is the co-author of the widely used textbook "Archaeology. Theories, Methods and Practice" (with Paul Bahn).

The interview was conducted in London on 15 October 2008 by Professor Anthony Harding, at the time President of the European Association of Archaeologists. These are the unedited original recordings of the interview, published with permission of the European Association of Archaeologists, Professor Anthony Harding and Professor Colin Renfrew. The transcription of the interview was published in revised form as follows: Anthony Harding (2008), A Conversation With Colin Renfrew (Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn). European Journal of Archaeology 11(2/3): 143-170. Listen to the interview at http://lnu.se/amnen/arkeologi/an-interview. No fee, no log in, just listen and bookmark.

Provided by Archaeology @ Linnaeus University, Sweden
 

Human brain detected - in an Iron Age skull
 

When the University of York was planning to expand its Heslington East campus, it discovered a human brain. The construction work in 2008 lead to the excavation of a muddy pit containing a skull. Surprisingly, the skull enclosed a yellowish, crinkly, shrunken soft tissue. The skull was accompanied by a jaw and two neck vertebrae, bearing evidence of hanging and then decapitation. Cut marks on the inside of the neck indicate that the head was severed while there was still flesh on the bones. The head once belonged to a man probably between 26 and 45 years old. Carbon dating suggests the remains date from between 673-482BC.	.....
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After being deposited in the water-logged pit, the Heslington brain began to change chemically, developing into a durable material and shrinking to a quarter of its size. The chemical details of the new material are still under investigation by scientists from the Departments of Archaeology, Biology and Chemistry at York, Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford, the Biocentre and the Department of Laboratory Medicine at Manchester University, and the UCL Institute of Neurology in London, lead by Sonia O'Connor, University of Bradford. The York Archaeological Trust handled the excavation in Heslington. This appears to have been a permanent settlement with ditches that divided the area into fields and walled parkways through which cattle could be driven.

Source: Archaeology News Network 25 March 2011: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/03/2500-year-old-preserved-human-brain.html
 

"Hey, dig here!"
 

After being deposited in the water-logged pit, the Heslington brain began to change chemically,  This is the apt title of a blog post by Chris Webster. In the pages of Random Acts of Science, he warns us that smart cell phones not only offer incredible possibilities, but also perils. "Who hasn't taken a picture of a landscape, feature, or artifact that they wanted to show their family and friends? Those of us that do archaeology on a daily basis get excited by what we find and want to share it with others," he says. However, sharing photos taken by smart phones on the internet, e.g. via Flickr, not only shows the image, but also geo data, since these useful small machines have GPS chips inside. "The default setting for the camera on these phones is to geolocate and tag the photos. Stored in the meta-data is latitude/longitude and elevation information. It's not difficult to find this information on a photo saved from the internet. The best way to prevent the location information from getting out is to turn off the location services on your phone," Webster warns us. He then goes on describing step by step how to find this device on your phone and to turn it off.	.....
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Of course we don't have to, but sometimes this may be an effective and simple means to avoid shouting to illegal collectors and looters: "Hey, dig here!"

Source: http://randomactsofscience.squarespace.com/blog/2011/4/6/geotagged-photos-or-hey-dig-here.html
 

Global Heritage Network monitoring endangered sites

Global Heritage Fund is a California-based nonprofit organization that focuses on historical preservation. It has launched a new internet platform to rescue endangered cultural heritage sites, called Global Heritage Network (GHN). The platform is set up as a threat-monitoring system for sites in developing countries, where financial resources and expertise are limited. GHN's database shows a collection of about 500 heritage sites in the developing world. Each site is identified by a colour, which determines the threats scale. Destroyed sites are marked with black spots, "rescue needed" sites are signed in red, while at-risk and stable sites are indicated with orange and green marks respectively. "Destruction of our global heritage is a 'silent crisis' happening far away in developing countries," Jeff Morgan, executive director of Global Heritage Fund, told Discovery News, revealing a somewhat colonial attitude. However, the database not only contains sites such as Nineveh in northern Iraq and the minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, it also records sites from developed countries such as the Roman imperial spa at Allianoi in Turkey, threatened by a dam (s. TEA No. 34, 2010).

Threats are reported from the field from professional site monitors and international experts, as well as local communities, volunteers and travelers, and these reports are combined with satellite data. Photographs and video footage to document negative impacts or successful preservation efforts are uploaded continuously to GHN groups. GHN hopes that the international community and national governments will use the tools at their disposal to reverse destruction and work together "to save our vanishing heritage" and its economic value. A previous GHF report, called Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, estimated that the 500 sites listed in the GHN database have the potential to generate over $100 billion in visitor revenues annually by 2025, and millions of dollars in new jobs, business and investment opportunities.

Source: http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/website-tracks-at-risk-historic-sites-110315.html
 

Teeth nibble on theories of human origins
 

Eight ancient teeth found in Qesem cave east of Tel Aviv aroused the interest of academics as much as the public. A report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology spurred reports and interviews in print and online. The teeth are older than most of the hominin specimens previously found in southwest Asia, according to Avi Gopher, University of Tel Aviv. Using advanced imaging technology, comparative analysis and an analysis of the strata where the fossils were found they were dated to 300,000 to 400,000 years ago.	.....
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A team including anthropologists and archaeologists from Israel and the US has concluded, on the basis of X-rays and CT scans, that the features are neither a direct match to Neanderthals nor to Early Modern Humans. However, since Gopher sees the teeth to have a "stronger affinity" to Homo sapiens he hypothesizes that the teeth may be linked to modern human's ancestors, indicating that modern man in fact originated in what is now Israel and that early modern humans now can be dated back farther. This would change the whole picture of evolution, challenging the out of Africa hypothesis. Gopher stressed that further research is needed to solidify the claim.

In an interview with "Newser", Paul Mellars (University of Cambridge) acknowledges that the find is important, because remains from that critical time period are scarce, but he suggested that it is premature to say the remains are human. According to him the remains are more likely related to Neanderthals than to modern humans. Anthropologist Rolf M. Quam (State University of New York at Binghamton), part of the research team, discussed two possibilities, according to "Bloomberg Net": the teeth may belong to an ancient, direct ancestor of early humans that developed independently of others in Africa and Europe. Here, the Levant is perceived as a crossroads for human population movements, connecting Africa, Europe, and Asia. Alternately, the finding may reflect a local evolution of Neanderthals in the Near East, showing they were there earlier than previously believed, or that more than one species - one earlier in time, and one later - occupied that area, Quam said.

The excavations, conducted since 2004, will continue, and Gopher hopes for skulls and other bones to clarify the question.

Sources: Bloomberg Net, 28 December 2010: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-12-28/
ancient-teeth-found-in-israel-may-be-link-to-humanity-s-oldest-ancestors.html; Newser, 29 December 2010: http://www.newser.com/story/108431/team-earliest-human-remains-discovered-in-israel.html
Israel Hershkovitz, Patricia Smith, Rachel Sarig, Rolf Quam, Laura Rodríguez, Rebeca García, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Ran Barkai and Avi Gopher, Middle Pleistocene dental remains from Qesem Cave (Israel). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 144, Issue 4, April 2011, 575–592 (DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21446)
 

More on human origins: our lost uncles from Denisova?

New data on the human bones from the Denisova cave (see TEA issue 34, 2010) in the Altai Mountains of Siberia was recently published in "Nature". Information from nuclear DNA (not mitochondrial) from a finger bone supports the surprising idea that a previously unidentified hominid lived among us until at least 30,000 years ago. The Denisova research team identified that the Denisovans (as they have decided to name them) and Neanderthals come from a common lineage. Data coming from a search of modern genes for descendant remnants suggests that a small percentage of the modern genes of present-day Melanesians show some commonalities to the Denisovans, leading scholars to believe that the Denisovans may have been widespread over Asia. The finger bone was from a child and dated to approximately 30-45,000 years ago. The bone's mtDNA profile did not match either Early Modern Humans or Neanderthals.

Further, a tooth found at Denisova in 2000 from a young adult was analyzed, and its mtDNA also reflects the Denisovan pattern. The tooth is a large molar, and it is outside the normal size range for most members of the Homo family, and closest to Australopithecus in size. It is most definitely not a Neanderthal tooth. Scholars believe the young adult was part of the same hominid population as the child.

However, the dating of these finds is problematic. Radiocarbon dates from the layer where they were found suggest that there are at least two and perhaps more occupations in the same layer, one older than 50,000 (the upper limit of C14 dating) and one between 23,000-30,000 years ago. The phalanx and molar both appear to be from the earlier occupation.

Sources: About.com 27 December 2010: http://archaeology.about.com/b/2010/12/27/update-on-denisova-cave.htm ; D. Reich et al. 2010. Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature 468:1053-1060.
 

Update on Areni Cave

Issue 34 of TEA also reported on a shoe discovered in the cave of Areni-1 in southwestern Armenia. Now there is more news from this cave. A packed clay platform excavated inside the cave appears to represent the earliest wine production installation yet discovered. It is dated to between 3700-4200 cal BC. The platform is slanted downwards towards the mouth of a large jar inserted in the platform's edge. Other large jars of the same shape and size, interpreted as storage jars, surround the platform. Desiccated grapes, grape seeds, rachises and skins, preserved in the exceptionally dry environment of Areni-1, were identified nearby. Excavators believe that grapes were crushed on the top of the platform, and the grape juice then allowed to flow down into the storage jars.

In an article for the Journal of Archaeological Science, chemical evidence for this hypothesis is presented using a new method to detect the anthocyanin malvidin that gives grapes and pomegranates their red color. Using solid phase extraction (SPE) and alkaline treatment of the samples, followed by combined liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), this method was applied to authentic standards and four ancient potsherds from Armenia and Syria. A positive result was observed for two of the samples from the Areni-1 cave complex. However, this doesn't prove the fermentation process, since maldivin is found in the unfermented fruits, so unfermented liquids or crushed fruit of pomegranate or red grapes could have been stored in the vessels. Nevertheless, the authors take this as additional evidence supporting the hypothesis that wine was produced in the Near Eastern highlands in the Late Chalcolithic Period.

Source: About.com 24 January 2011: http://archaeology.about.com/b/2011/01/24/wine-production-at-areni-1.htm
 

Heritage and its many adversaries
 

An ancient harbour discovered in the United Arabian Emirates in 2008 may be lost when UAE's first nuclear power plant will be constructed. The yet undated stone walls of the harbour are located in Sag Barakah in Al Gharbia and were detected by Mark Beech, the cultural landscapes manager of the Historic Environment Department at Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach). Beech and other archaeologists working in the Emirates presented the results of their surveys at a conference in March in Al Ain organized by Adach's Historic Environment Department, and agreed on the common enemy of development.	.....	Zahi Hawass announces the recovery of four  pharaonic artifacts [Credit: Rania Galal]
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In Italy, culture minister Sandro Bondi resigned earlier this year after a political furor over the 
upkeep of Italy's priceless cultural monuments. His successor, Giancarlo Galan, announced a major new restoration project for the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, following international outrage over the collapse of a house and a wall at the site after heavy rain in late 2010.

On 22 March, a UNESCO delegation embarked on a three-day tour of archaeological sites subject to looting during and since Egypt's January revolution. About 1,000 relics have been stolen from museums and archeological sites. Christian Manhart, chief of the Museums and Cultural Objects Section within UNESCO, was pleased that 12 missing objects of the Kairo Museum have been retrieved and he promised to help Egypt to regain all its missing artefacts. Manhart went on to say that the UNESCO visit was wrongly reflected in the media. "We did not come to Egypt in an inspecting tour, as was written, but to extend a helping hand to Egyptians to restitute their missing heritage." Later, Zahi Hawass, antiquities minister, presented a statue of King Tutankhamun to the media, which has been returned to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo along with three other pharaonic artifacts. Hawass, re-appointed as antiquities chief in the newly-formed cabinet, announced that a special police force will be set up to protect sites and museums around the country.

In Britain, a new television series describing the exploits of metal-detector enthusiasts has come under fire from archaeologists. The British Museum has become embroiled in the controversy after opening its archives and providing expert help to the programme-makers of Britain's Secret Treasures, a series being developed by ITV 1. Stimulated by "treasures" such as the Staffordshire gold hoard - 1,500 items dating from the 7th or 8th century - more people might buy the equipment, critiques said, and create "collateral damage" to the sites they plunder. A 2009 survey found that more than a third of sites attacked by illegal metal detecting between 1995 and 2008 were categorized as "nationally important". These are, in theory, legally protected.

Iraq wants to conclude a new international agreement that will designate the dealing of antique Iraqi artefacts a crime, to preserve the country's heritage from thieves and smugglers. Moreover, according to Baha al-Mayyah, an adviser at the Iraqi Tourism and Historic Monuments Ministry, Iraq plans to convene an international conference in Baghdad to discuss the creation of a new international organization, because it strives for a new convention on prohibiting and preventing illicit trade that will include objects obtained before 1970. Currently the UNESCO convention allows countries to keep what they acquired before that date, "even if it was done illegally".

Sources: The National (UAE), 31 March 2011; AFP, 13 April 2011; Ahram Online, 21 March and 23 March 2011; Discovery News, 12 April 2011; The Independent, 3 April 2011; Radio Free Europe 23 April 2011
 

Neolithic farmers not so peaceful after all

The daily business of investigating human bones sometimes can challenge public views of prehistory. Eighty-five skulls from Orkney's Isbister Chambered Cairn (also known as the "Tomb of the Eagles") were analyzed in a collaborative project between the University of Bradford and Orkney Museum, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; 16 of them displayed signs of serious wounds inflicted by weapons. This lead to newspaper headlines about prehistoric violence. It is said the supposedly long-held belief that Neolithic farmers were peaceful now is refuted. The skulls of male, female, and subadult individuals showed injuries caused by one or more severe blows to the head inflicted by a weapon. Some of these head wounds healed, other individuals obviously died from their injuries. David Lawrence from Orkney Museum said, some attacks were so severe that the whole skull has split in two horizontally. Other wounds are very subtle and are most easily observed inside the skull, where splinters have been bent inwards. Some were caused by a blunt force, like a stone or a mace, others point to arrows or axes. According to Lawrence, this was not ritual violence because of the great variety in the places where people were hit and the instruments used: "I can't say if they were fighting each other or different tribes." Well, who could?

The study's conclusion thus is that Scotland's early settlers were not the friendly farmers that historians for a long time thought them to be, and newspapers say that this "is in line with recent results from studies and finds in Europe", obviously referring to Neolithic sites such as Herxheim and Talheim in Germany.

Source: Mail Online 09 March 2011- http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/03/skull-that-proves-neolithic-farmers.html
 

Lewis R. Binford (1931-2011)

Lewis Binford, one of the most influential American archaeologists of the last half-century, died on 11 April at his home in Kirksville (USA). He was 79. 

Binford's name evokes an entire intellectual movement within archaeology, since he was an early advocate of a more scientific approach to investigating ancient cultures. Lewis Roberts Binford was born on 21 November, 1931. He graduated from the University of North Carolina (Bachelors), and the University of Michigan (Masters and PhD). He produced over 150 publications in the last 50 years, many of which became seminal papers in archaeological theory and method. In 1962, as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, Binford published his article "Archaeology as Anthropology" in American Antiquity, one of the (if not the) founding papers of processual archaeology. His vision for a scientific approach to archaeology led him and his followers to the use of scientific methods aimed at explaining cultural processes and site formation processes.

From his base, first at the University of New Mexico and then at Southern Methodist University, he took to the field in Alaska, Australia and Africa, studying living hunters and gatherers to better understand similar societies that had existed in the past.

His widow, Amber Johnson, said that she and a colleague planned to finish editing one more book written by Binford, his 19th. You may want to express your condolences at a website set up by Antiquity: http://antiquity.ac.uk/tributes/binford.html. Also WAC has established a memorial book to honour the life and work of Binford. WAC would like to encourage people who knew Binford, or whose life and career was affected by his work, to contribute to this memorial book:
http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/home/lewis-binford. If you would like to send images for the associated photo gallery, please email them to info@webcreator.com.au. The tributes in the WAC book will be collated and given to Binford's family in a hard copy volume.

Sources: New York Times 22 April 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/us/23binford.html?_r=1
World Archaeological Congress: http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/component
/content/article/67-headlines/527-professor-lewis-binford-1931-2011