SMUGGLING FOUND BY ITALIAN ART POLICE IN CALABRIA

Italian art police investigating antiquities smuggling arrested on Monday 23 people and searched a number of locations in Italy and abroad. Investigators coordinated by prosecutors in the Calabrian city of Crotone believe the suspects were members of an alleged criminal holding that trafficked ancient items of huge value. The artifacts came from illegal archaeological digs in Calabria and were illegally exported outside Italy, investigative sources said.

In the course of the investigation, which kicked off in 2017, police retrieved several archaeological items worth a few million euros, investigative sources said.

Culture Minister Dario Franceschini on Monday said in a statement: "Thanks to sophisticated investigative techniques and the collaboration of Europol and foreign police forces" in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Serbia, as well as in Italy, Carabinieri cops "successfully concluded a vast operation to counter illegal trafficking of archaeological findings from Calabria to northern Italy and abroad, recovering thousands of items and seizing material used for the illegal digs"
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NORTHERN MONGOLIAN ICE MELTING EXPOSING CULTURAL ARITFACTS

Northern Mongolian "eternal ice" is melting for the first time in memory, threatening the traditional reindeer-herding lifestyle and exposing fragile cultural artifacts to the elements, according to a study published November 20, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by William Taylor.

The mountainous tundra of the northern Mongolian steppes features "munkh mus" or "eternal ice", ice patches which remain intact even in the summer. For the reindeer-herding Tsaatan people, they provide a place for heat-stressed reindeer to cool down, as well as fresh water, useful plants, and a reprieve from summer insects for herders and reindeer alike.

The authors of the present study visited the Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area of Mongolia to investigate the potential for cultural artifacts in the ice. They conducted an archeological survey on foot and on horseback, and also held ethnographic interviews with eight local families over 2018.

The families interviewed described how many ice patches had melted for the first time in memory between 2016 and 2018, while stressing the importance of eternal ice for reindeer and herding families alike. Many herders complained that recent declines in pasture quality had led to reindeer sickness and death.

The archeological survey revealed a number of wooden artifacts at one melted ice patch site which dated from the 1960s, when herders moved into the area - the first discovered artifacts from this region. Organic materials are preserved in ice but degrade rapidly upon exposure to the elements, meaning that melting ice could affect the archeological record.

As Mongolia continues to warm at a higher rate than the global average, the authors note that the eternal ice appears to be melting due to the increasing summer temperatures--and stress this puts both cultural heritage and traditional reindeer herding at extreme risk in the years to come. The authors add: "This study shows us that global climate change is an urgent threat in Inner Asia - melting ice is threatening both reindeer herding as a way of life, and the region's cultural heritage."

ECUADOR: INFANTS FROM 2100 YEARS AGO FOUND WITH HELMETS OF KIDS SKULLS

A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Universidad Técnica de Manabí in Ecuador has found and reported on ancient infant skulls that were excavated at a site in Salango, Ecuador. In their paper published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, the group describes how the infant skulls were encased in the skulls of older children.

The researchers note that the human head was often a powerful symbol for many early South American cultures, which might explain what they found. While on a dig in Salango, Ecuador, the researchers came across and unearthed the remains of 11 people buried at the site approximately 2100 years ago. The people that lived there at the time were called Guangala—the researchers also found multiple artifacts in addition to the bones.

The researchers report that among the remains they found were two infants, each with the skull of an older child fitted over their head—like a helmet. One of the infants was believed to have been approximately 18 months old at the time of death—its skull helmet came from a second child who was believed to have been approximately four to 12 years old at the time of death. The other infant was believed to have been approximately six to nine months old at death, and its skull helmet was believed to have come from a child approximately two to 12 years old at death. It is not yet known if the deceased children were related to one another, or the reason skulls were used as helmets for deceased infants. The researchers did note that the skull helmets fit snugly, which, they suggest, could indicate a simultaneous burial of the infant and the child that donated the skull helmet.

The researchers note that the find is the only known instance of using children's skulls as helmets for infants as part of a burial ceremony. They also note that it was possible that those who buried them were attempting to confer some sort of protection in the afterlife. They also note that it was possible the infant and/or the child involved in the ceremony were part of a ritual meant to calm a nearby active volcano, though they also suggest either of the deceased young ones could have died as a result of starvation due to the aftereffects of the volcanic eruption.

MEGALITHIC TEMPLE UNCOVERD IN PERU C.3,000 YEAR OLD

Archaeologists have discovered a 3000-year-old megalithic temple in Peru that an ancient "water cult" used for fertility rituals.

The temple, found at the Huaca El Toro archaeological site, is located in modern-day Oyotún in the Zaña Valley of northwestern Peru. It is the first megalithic temple, or one made from large stones, found in this valley, which sits between two rivers that join together and give rise to the Zaña River.

The ancient cult, whose members worshiped water, likely built the temple in an area where a new river rises as a kind of "territorial symbolism," said Edgar Bracamonte, an archaeologist with the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum in Peru, who took part in the excavations. "Water is the most important element to live, and in this time, water was so difficult to access without technology."

COLORADO HIGHWAY ROUTED OVER ANCIENT NATIVE AMERICAN SITES

Just outside Durango, Colo., archeologist Rand Greubel stands on a mesa surrounded by juniper trees. He points to a circular hole in the ground, about 30 feet across and more than 8 feet deep. There's a fire pit in the center of an earthen floor, ventilation shafts tunneled into the side walls and bits of burned thatching that suggest how the structure once continued to rise above the ground. It's a large pit house from what's known as the Pueblo I period.

It is awe inspiring, standing inside this space that has held human history for so long. But its existence will be short-lived. This pit house is about to be filled in and covered up by a highway, as are six other important ancient sites on this mesa.

Dan Jepson, an archaeologist with the Colorado Department of Transportation, says all of these cultural resources were discovered as a result of the highway project itself. Under federal law, potential sites for things like road expansions must be surveyed and then sometimes excavated to see what important historical features might lie below the ground. And that's how these pit houses were found.
Over the last two decades, Jepson says, the department has explored scores of other possible routes for the road to avoid destroying cultural artifacts. But because southwest Colorado is so full of Native American history, every option would have hit potential archaeological sites.

His agency reached out to dozens of tribes in the region to offer them a chance to participate in the project and give feedback. The Southern Ute tribe agreed to consult with the agency. The new construction site will cross the outer boundaries of the tribe's reservation. But some Southern Ute citizens are still upset that the digs are happening at all, and they don't feel empowered to stop them.

Just down the road, crews are using pickaxes, shovels and brushes to finish excavating the last of the seven sites. Trucks barreling up the hill behind them are a reminder of the regular heavy road traffic that already passes through this area. Sam Maez, a member of the Southern Ute tribe, is here too. The Transportation Department invited him to talk with the archaeologists about their work and the highway project as a whole. The tribe isn't fighting the construction legally. But Maez isn't afraid to speak his mind.

You know, those are my family's bones in there. Sam Maez, Southern Ute tribe member "You know, after generations and generations of basically exterminating us and getting rid of everything that we believe in, and here we are picking the scabs of Mother Earth, you know, and wondering what, why and who these people were," Maez says. "Well, they're us." He alludes to the human remains that the archaeologists found while excavating several of the sites under the proposed highway path. "You know, those are my family's bones in there," Maez says. "We don't have a ceremony to dig them up and put them somewhere else." He says projects like this have forced tribes to adapt to that process and create new rituals to remove and rebury remains.

SWEDEN ROCK ART SHOWS SEAFARING IN THE STONE AGE

south-west Sweden's best preserved rock painting has now been dated—it is from the late Stone Age. With the aid of new technologies, researchers at the University of Gothenburg have been able to reveal a number of previously unknown motifs that are no longer visible to the naked eye. The most important of these newly discovered motifs are boats with elk-head stems. This is the first time that these kinds of boats have been documented in southern or western Scandinavia and these motifs provide further evidence of the long-distance sea voyages undertaken by Stone Age maritime hunters.

In recent years, what we know about prehistory has undergone quite a change thanks to ever-advancing technological development. Today, there are new technologies for documenting and analysing rock paintings that are many thousands of years old. This technology has made it possible for the first time to date the rock painting in Tumlehed. It is from the late Stone Age and was painted some time between 4200-2500 years BCE by mobile hunters who had come by boat to the west coast of Sweden to hunt seal and whales.

Many motifs previously unknown in the area were discovered, the most important of these being pictographs of boats with elk-head stems—motifs that have only been found before in Finland, Russia, the north-east of Norway and northern Sweden.

The new technologies used on the Tumlehed rock painting included the digital image enhancing program Dstretch, which was originally developed by NASA and is being increasingly used in rock art research. It was used to digitally enhance symbols that are no longer visible to the naked eye.

The most important findings from the study were the new motifs that emerged showing boats with elk-head stems. "Elk-head boats are often associated with hunting and fishing scenes, and we have interpreted the motifs in Tumlehed as three elk-head boats related to a small whale, a seal and four fish," says Bettina Schulz Paulsson.

The Tumlehed rock painting indicates similar maritime voyages during the Stone Age that are culturally connected to the peoples of eastern and northern Fennoscandia, an area that covers Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Kola Peninsula and Russian Karelia.
"Deer, reindeer and elk are frequent depicted motifs in Fennoscandian rock art. These species were important game for hunting but may also have had important symbolic and spiritual roles for these societies," says Bettina Schulz Paulsson.

The study entitled Elk Heads at Sea: Maritime Hunters and Long‐Distance Boat Journeys in Late Stone Age Fennoscandia has been published in the November issue of the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

WESTERN IRAN PALEOLITHIC EXCAVATION SHOWS HISTORY OF THE REGION

TEHRAN - Excavations in a cave in western Iran have shed new light on the history of the region, which has previously proved to have links to the Paleolithic times. “An analysis of the sediment layers in the cave, conducted by a joint Iranian-Danish [archaeological] delegation, revealed that the cave bears evidence of the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and Upper Paleolithic ages,” senior Iranian archaeologist Hajat Daribi said on Sunday, IRNA reported.

The Paleolithic, also called the Old Stone Age, is a period in human prehistory distinguished by the original development of stone tools that covers c. 99% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 cal BP.

The cave was first excavated in 1974 by a team of Danish experts led by archaeologist Mortensen Peter who was able to discover evidence of the three Paleolithic periods, which at the time yielded poor information about the sequence of the findings.

The onset of the Paleolithic Period, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, has traditionally coincided with the first evidence of tool construction and use by Homo some 2.58 million years ago, near the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.58 million to 11,700 years ago). In 2015, however, researchers excavating a dry riverbed near Kenya’s Lake Turkana discovered primitive stone tools embedded in rocks dating to 3.3 million years ago—the middle of the Pliocene Epoch (some 5.3 million to 2.58 million years ago). Those tools predate the oldest confirmed specimens of Homo by almost 1 million years, which raises the possibility that toolmaking originated with Australopithecus or its contemporaries and that the timing of the onset of this cultural stage should be reevaluated.

EGYPT WILL JAIL ANYONE SMUGGLING ARTIFACTS OUT OF THE COUNTRY

Egypt's parliament is set to change the law to implement harsher jail sentences and stiffer fines for smuggling ancient artifacts out of the country, and to criminalize abusing or climbing the country’s monuments.

A new article that punishes anyone found in an archaeological site or museum or climbing any antiquity without obtaining a license with at least one month’s imprisonment and/or a fine of not less than EGP 10,000 and not more than EGP 100,000. The penalty will be doubled if the acts are associated with violations of public decency.

"The amendments aim at stopping thuggish acts toward Egyptian antiquities," Suzy Nashed, a member of the committee, said during the meeting. Ahmed Maher, an advisor to the antiquities minister, said that these amendments aim to protect Egyptian artifacts after recent abusive practices, the latest of which was the climbing of one of the pyramids of Giza by a foreign person who committed a “negative deed.”

Maher added that no one has the right to enter any archaeological site without permission or a ticket.