Lost Worlds of Archaeology

Following on from my previous post, the figure of Heracles is just too complex to be just a fantasy. The ancient Greeks, for their part, considered the demigod to be at least partly historical, but too far removed from their own time to make any precise judgment about if and when. Herodotus, for instance, was ambivalent about which was older, the Greek version of Heracles or the Egyptian / Levantine equivalent, the god Melqart, and guessed that one of them had lived roughly 900 years before his own time, i.e. the 14th century BCE.  While the deeds and traits stuck onto the demigod across history are invented products of different social contexts - the travels of Heracles to Sicily and Rhegium, for instance, sound very much like a justification for Greek colonizing efforts in the region - the 'original' Heracles must have been inspired by some historical role or personage, for ancient writers, dynasts and statesmen to consider him an ancestor in the first place.  There are lots

 Heracles, Hercules, Ercle, - whatever you call him, there's no mistaking the iconic demigod and wonder-worker in the muddle known as Greek and Roman mythology. From the earliest Homeric poems to Disney animation, it's well known that he was believed to be the son of Zeus, king of the Gods residing on Mount Olympus, and after murdering his family in a fit of rage, sought to redeem himself by fulfilling Twelve Labours that were asked of him, blundering around the known world in the process. Equated by classical writers with the Phoenician demigod Melqart, he's in all respects the pre-Christian equivalent of a saint or prophet, earning his way back to paradise through good deeds.  The nature and the spread of the myth of Heracles has long been studied by both ancient and modern authors, but there is an interesting thread to the myth that hasn't been as well explored. Heracles appears as the founder of many Greek and colonial Greek dynasties, and the many variants of the t

While it's well established that the islands of Polynesia, including Rapa Nui, were first settled by migrants arriving from the west, in a gradual process since the Lapita culture of the 1st millennium BCE, what's less clear is that if any movement came from the other direction; if communities from the New World, with capable enough craft, found their way deliberately or accidently in contact with the world of the Pacific. The Kon-Tiki voyage undertaken by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 certainly proved it was possible, but so far, no tangible evidence has been publicised to argue that it indeed took place.  However, there have been recent advances in ecology, genetic analysis and fresh interpretations of the enigmatic Rongorongo script; a ritual language that was only preserved on a handful of wooden tablets; and its pronunciations known only from the aggressive interrogation of an elderly surviving indigenous priest in the 1930s. These have the potential to challenge the mainstream o

Climate change is threatening the existence of the Maldives, a part of the world densely inhabited by both marine organisms and humans; by 2070, most, if not all of the country's cities, towns and ports will be submerged in a highly acidic Indian Ocean. Due to rapid urban development in recent years, archaeology of the archipelago's historic and prehistoric past is difficult, if not impossible, and what archaeology there is consists of reports of small finds and sunken features supporting to varying extents texts and oral tradition. Like every other place on Earth, the people of the Maldives have in their native tradition their own semi-mythical ancestors; the Dheyvis, who came from the sea from a land called Kalibangan around 1680 - 1580 BCE, who were in turn succeeded by the Redis, Sarandivis and finally the Aryas, or communities from northern India, around 500 BCE, who introduced Hinduism to the archipelago. The Dheyvies used boats known as  dhoani to travel to the Maldives,

It's been well established that Roman Britain was not just a fringe outpost occupied by necessity and held together by tacit agreements between continental officers and local tribes. Romans from Syria, north Africa, Spain, Egypt, the Black Sea and the Arabian peninsula fought, won their freedom, lived and died on the island, as we know from inscriptions set up in their name, as well as DNA and morphological evidence from burials.  But there is an interesting phenomenon that hasn't been explored in depth, but as an aside in lengthy discussions about the historicity of King Arthur, the legacy of Rome inherited by the incoming Angles and Saxons, and explorations about the nature of the late Roman military. This is the presence of distinct, ethnic communities of foreign soldiers and their families established in garrison towns close to the Caledonian frontier and the north Sea, associated with the line of defences making up the Saxon Shore. Historians in the past have mentioned thi

The 17th of June 1596 is traditionally seen as the first time that a European, or indeed any human, set foot upon the frozen archipelago of Svalbard, historically a hub for the destructive whaling industry and now home to the world-famous seed vault and a number of scientific research bases. Several Russian historians and archaeologists, writing in the journal Fennoscandia Archaeologica , have long claimed that the Pomors, seagoing Arctic Russians making a living trading with the Norwegian coast in the 14th and 15th centuries, discovered Svalbard prior to the Dutchman William Barentz. Historians studying Icelandic and Norse sagas have also contended that Svalbard was discovered sometime in the 11th century and known to the poets of the time as being four days' sailing distance from Iceland, although that has been challenged on the basis that Svalbard simply means 'cold edge' in old Norse, and could refer to any Arctic or sub-Arctic island, such as Jan Mayen or Byornmoya (Be

Although it's already been discussed by the Archaeology News Network and their podcast on Spotify, the findings made by several archaeologists published last October are worth considering. According to a new ScienceAdvances article, the presence of charcoal in several peat cores on the coast and on the islands of East Falkland (Mount Usborne), Bleaker Island and New Island show periods of fire activity beginning at around 1,000 years ago, or more precisely around 1350 - 1400 CE.  This is well before, around 120 years, Ferdinand Magellan ventured through the straits to find a way across to the Pacific Ocean, and for comparison the article includes more well-known fire actity from 250 years ago, when the French and British colonized the island and forcibly resettled the remaining Yaghan, Selknam and other tribal groups from the Tierra del Fuego. So, given that there's no evidence for drastic sea level changes thousands of years ago which could have left an indigenous population o