The most amazing discoveries that turned out to be dinosaurs: From “sparrows” to ancient giants. Archaeological excavations in Sahara Sorting and identification

The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel involuntarily defined the work of a zooarchaeologist: “And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the spirit entered into them, and they lived and stood on their feet - a very, very great army” (Book of the Prophet Ezekiel 37:10 ). Zooarchaeologists literally put flesh on long-dead animals, reconstructing the environment and activities of ancient people to the extent that research on animal remains allows. Zooarchaeology is a field of knowledge that requires knowledge of paleontology and zoology.

Zooarchaeology deals with the study of animal bones found in archaeological material. Its goal is to reconstruct the environment and activities of ancient people to the extent that research on animal remains allows this to be done (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1984). Although some zoologists specialize in the study of animal bones from archaeological sites, most zooarchaeologists have training and experience in paleontology or the study of prehistoric fauna.

Taphonomy

The word taphonomy (from the Greek taphnos - grave; nomos - law) is used to describe the processes that occur with organic remains during the formation of fossil deposits (Lyman, 1994; Shipman, 1981). Simply put, it is the study of the transition of animal remains from the biosphere to the lithosphere.

DISCOVERIES
GHIRAM BINGHAM AT MACHU PICCHU, PERU, 1911

The "Lost City of the Incas" was one of the archaeological mysteries of the late 19th century, the legend of the last stronghold of the Incas, where their rulers hid from the rapacious Spanish conquistadors after Francisco Pizarro overthrew their empire in 1534. A young Yale graduate named Giram Bingham was influenced by this mystery and entered the Vilcabamba monument high in the Andes, only to realize that this was not the right settlement. He persuaded his wealthy university friends to finance a second expedition to the Andes.

Stubborn and extremely curious, Bingham was an experienced mountaineer and had a strong historical background. He left Cusco in 1911 with a caravan of mules and moved along the Urubamba River, admiring the wonderful views of snow-capped mountains, mountain streams and tropical vegetation. A chance meeting with a local peasant Melkor Artega gave him a story about some ruins in the mountains across the river. On July 24, 1911, Bingham, along with this peasant and a Peruvian sergeant, crossed the Urubamba on a wooden bridge. There could be no mistake. He climbed on all fours along a narrow path and climbed to a height of 600 meters in the forest on the opposite side of the river. After a short rest at an Indian settlement, he continued his journey upward. Beyond the spur of the mountain, he saw recently cleared stone terraces rising 300 meters. Above the terraces that the Indians had cleared, he entered a dense forest and found himself between buildings, among which was a three-sided temple with the same remarkable masonry as in Cuzco or Ollantayatambo. He stood before the walls of ruined houses, built with the greatest skill of the Incas. Giram made his way through the undergrowth and entered a semicircular building, the outer side of which, slightly inclined and slightly curved, was remarkably reminiscent of the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. Bingham entered the most famous of all Inca ruins, Machu Picchu (Fig. 13.1).

Fossil fauna passes through several stages before it comes from the biosphere into the hands of archaeologists. Bones originally come from what scientists call biocenosis, that is, the totality of living animals in their natural proportions. Killed animals or those that died due to natural causes form necrocenosis- carcasses or parts of carcasses located on the monument. Complexes of fossil remains - taphocenosis - consist of parts of animals that were preserved at the site before excavations. A specimen assemblage is what has reached the laboratory, that part of the fossil assemblage that has been collected or included in a collection (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1984). Any person involved in the analysis of fauna must solve two problems: the statistical problem of assessing the characteristics of a complex of fossil remains from a sample and the taphonomic problem - to draw a conclusion about the nature of necrocenosis from a complex of fossil remains.

There are two related areas of research in taphonomy. The first is the actual observation of recently dead organic remains and how they gradually become fossilized; Another direction is the study of fossil remains in the light of this information. This area of ​​research became relevant in the 1960s and 1970s, when archaeologists became interested in the significance of animal bone deposits at ancient sites such as Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, and especially the famous Australopithecus Caves in South Africa (Brain, 1981).

Many questions about the processes that transform living organisms into “archaeological” bones remain unanswered, despite some research into how the bones may have been transported and disintegrated by both carnivores and natural agents such as water. For example, experiments with hyenas in captivity have shown that they first select the bones of the spine and pelvic bones, which they usually destroy completely. The ends of the long tubular bones of the limbs are often chewed completely, while their bodies (diaphyses) often remain intact. These experiments are very important because they indicate that the supply of bones made by ancient hominids in the Olduvai Gorge was stolen by hyenas after the people left. This process resulted in the destruction of many body parts, and therefore it is impossible to say whether hominids selectively carried off parts of predators' prey or not (Marean and others, 1992). Humans dismembered animals with tools before the carcasses were destroyed by carnivores or natural processes, so systematic human action is considered at least a major factor in the study of damage to archaeological bones. Interpretation of prehistoric habitation sites and kill sites must be carried out with great care, since bone and artifact assemblages at such sites indicate not only human activity, but also complex and poorly understood natural processes.

Many zooarchaeologists believe that it is impossible to reconstruct the actual human habitat from bone assemblages from archaeological sites. However, Klein and Cruz-Uribe (1984) believe that viable paleological reconstructions can be made if several fossil assemblages are compared using statistical methods, provided that the quality of preservation of the bones and the conditions of their deposition are similar. Each situation must be assessed with great care.

Sorting and identification

Animal remains are usually fragmentary, being parts of carcasses butchered at an archaeological site or hunting site. What part of the carcass was transferred to the parking lot depended to some extent on the size of the animal. The small deer could be carried whole on the shoulder. Hunter-gatherers would sometimes camp at the site where a large animal had been killed, where they would eat some of the carcass and dry some of it. However, almost always the bones found at inhabited sites were broken into fragments. Any edible meat was scraped from bones, belts were made from tendons, clothes and bags were made from leather, and sometimes they were used for homes. They even ate the insides. The limbs were broken to obtain the bone marrow. Some bones were used to make tools - harpoon and arrow tips, hoes (Fig. 13.2).

It would be a mistake to assume that bone fragments in an archaeological layer can be used to estimate the exact number of animals killed by its inhabitants, or to provide a picture of the environment at the time of occupation of the site (Grayson, 1984). These bones have undergone various processes since entering the archaeological layer. Taphonomic processes significantly modify buried bones; the bones of small animals can be completely destroyed, although this cannot be said about the bones of large ones. In addition, there are human factors: people could bring game from afar or slaughter all their goats right at the settlement. We have no way of knowing anything about the ritual role of some animals in ancient societies, or what taboos were imposed on hunting some animals and which were not. As already indicated, we also have no way of knowing exactly the comparative proportions of different animal species in prehistoric times. Of course, researchers cannot use animal bones from archaeological sites to answer such questions. The difference between what might be called a proper "animal" and an "archaeological animal" identified by scientists is always unknown (S. J. M. Davis, 1987; Grayson, 1981). The archaeological animal is a scattering of bones broken by humans, which were then subjected to the destructive action of the soil for hundreds and thousands of years.

In most cases, identification is made by direct comparison with known species. It is relatively easy, and anyone with a keen eye can easily learn it (S. J. M. Davis, 1987). But only a small proportion of the bones in the collection are complete enough for this purpose. Drawing of a dog in Fig. Figure 13.3 illustrates a typical mammalian skeleton. Small fragments of the skull, spine, ribs, shoulder blades, and pelvic bones are usually of little use in distinguishing a domestic animal from a wild one or one species of antelope from another. It is easy to identify the upper and lower jaws, the arrangement of teeth in them and individual teeth, the bony core of the horn and sometimes the articular surfaces of long bones. Teeth are identified by comparing the sharp projections on their surfaces with teeth from comparative collections carefully assembled in the region of the site (Fig. 13.4).

In some parts of the world, the articular ends of long bones can also be used, especially in southwest Asia or parts of North America, where the local mammal fauna is quite small in number of species. In southwest Asia, it is even possible to distinguish domestic and wild animals of the same weight from long bone fragments, provided that the collections are large enough and the comparative material is sufficiently complete to include all ages of individuals and variations in the sizes of females and males. But in other regions, such as parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the local fauna is so rich and varied and the variations in skeletal anatomy so great that only the core of an antler or teeth can help distinguish between antelope species or between wild and domesticated forms of the animal. Even the teeth are sometimes misleading, because the sharp projections on the teeth of, for example, buffalo and livestock are very similar and often the only difference is the smaller size of the latter. Experts often disagree on the question of what makes a bone identifiable, so it is better to operate in terms of different levels of identification than to simply reject the possibility of identifying many fragments. For example, it is sometimes possible to identify a bone fragment as belonging to a medium-sized carnivore, although it cannot be said to be from a wolf. The identification stage of bone analysis is the most important because it requires answering fundamental questions: are these species domesticated or wild? What is the ratio of each group? What kind of livestock did the inhabitants of the monument keep? Did they have any hunting preferences that would be reflected in the proportion of game found in the occupation strata? Do all the wild species that characterized the fauna of the past exist in the region today?

Comparison of bone complexes

Zooarchaeologists Richard Klein and Catherine Cruz-Uribe (1984) describe criteria for calculating taxonomic abundance to distinguish between real bone assemblages and those that have been displaced, that is, those resulting from biased collection or other factors. They use the same criteria to estimate the relative abundance of different species. Number of identified samples (NSI)- the amount of bones or bone fragments from each species in a bone sample. This criterion has obvious shortcomings, especially since it may overemphasize the importance of some species that have more bones than others simply because the carcasses of those species were butchered more thoroughly than others. NIR can be affected by both human actions, such as butchering, and natural processes, such as weathering. However, NIR has some important implications, especially when used to estimate the minimum number of individuals that produced identified bones. Minimum number of individuals (MNO)- the number of individuals required to obtain such and such a number of all identified bones. This value is less than the NIR and is often based on a careful count of individual body parts such as the heel bones. The MNO is not subject to many NIR restrictions because it is a more accurate estimate of the actual number of animals. However, accuracy depends on the specialists using the same method for calculating the MPR, which is often violated (Grayson, 1984).

Taken together, NIR and MNR allow us to estimate the number of animals present in a bone sample. But they are very imperfect methods for measuring the abundance of animals in an archaeological collection, let alone allowing bone materials to be correlated with populations of living animals in the past. Klein and Cruz-Uribe, among others, have developed sophisticated computer programs to overcome some of the limitations of NIRs and MFRs, programs that produce baseline information vital for comparisons between samples.

Species structure and cultural changes

During the Ice Age, most long-term changes in animal species composition were caused by climatic changes rather than cultural ones. But some changes in it must also reflect human activity, the way in which people used animals (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1984). These changes, however, are very difficult to distinguish from those caused by changes in the environment. One such place where it has become possible to document such changes is South Africa.

Game

Although a list of game and a description of the habits of animals provide insight into hunting practices, in many cases the contents of this list take on special significance, especially when we want to understand why hunters focused on some species and apparently ignored others.

Taboo. The dominance of one game species could be the result of economic necessity or convenience, or simply a matter of cultural preference. Many communities restrict the hunting of certain animals or the consumption of certain game meat based on gender. The modern Kung Seng tribe of the Dobe region of Botswana have complex personal taboos regarding the consumption of mammalian meat, depending on age and gender (Lee, 1979). No one can eat the meat of all 29 species of animals, and each person has his own taboos that are not repeated by anyone. Some mammals can be eaten by all members of the tribe, but not all parts of the animal. Ritual overseers may impose other restrictions: primates and certain carnivores must not be eaten. Such complex taboos are repeated with many variations in other hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies, and this is undoubtedly reflected in the proportion of game remains found at archaeological sites.

Examples of specialized hunting have been common since ancient times, although the reasons for one preference or another can rarely be explained. Husbandry based on big game hunting among the Prairie Indians is well known (Frison, 1978). Another factor that determines specialized hunting is overhunting or the gradual extinction of favored species. A well-known example is the European aurochs or wild bull Bos primigenius (Fig. 13.5), which was the main prey of Upper Paleolithic hunters in Western Europe and was hunted in post-glacial times and even after food production began (Kurten, 1968). . The last aurochs died in Poland in 1627. From descriptions and images we know what this animal looked like. They were large, up to two meters at the withers, often with long horns. Males were black with a white stripe on the back and light long hair between the horns. German and Polish biologists, through long-term selection work, successfully recreated this animal. In the wild, the recreated aurochs are very temperamental, fierce and active. These experiments produced a far more convincing reconstruction of one of the most fearsome mammals of the Pleistocene than any number of reconstructions from skeletons or artist drawings could have produced.

Zooarchaeologist Richard Klein explored the problem of correlating species structure and cultural change by studying large samples of fauna from two coastal caves in the Cape Province, South Africa. The Claesis River Cave (hereafter Claesis Cave) was inhabited by Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers between 130,000 and 95,000 years ago, during a warming climate, and then until about 70,000 years ago, when the climate became much colder. In warmer times, the sea came close to the cave. Numerous shellfish, seal bones, and the remains of penguins told us a lot about the diet of people in this cave in the Middle Stone Age. Remains of fish and seabirds are rarely found. Remains of eland antelope are more common than remains of other mammals, for example more than 2 times more common than remains of buffalo. The remains of other land mammals belong to species common in modern historical times. In contrast, the nearby cave at Nelson's Bay (Nelson's Cave) shows evidence of human habitation in the Late Stone Age, approximately 20,000 years ago. During that period of the last glaciation, the sea was already several kilometers from the cave. This cave contained many remains of flying seabirds and fish, but only a third of the remains of eland, as many as buffalo.

Klein also points out that the sets of tools were completely different in these caves. The Middle Stone Age people of Clacis River Cave used large flake tools and spears, and the hunters of Nelson's Cave had bows and arrows and a large assortment of small stone tools and bone artifacts, some made for specific purposes such as fishing birds and fisheries. These innovations allowed Late Stone Age hunters to kill more dangerous and wary animals with greater frequency. Thus, the reason that Middle Stone Age people encountered eland more often is not that it was more common, but that more difficult game was killed less frequently. All indications are that the Clacis tribes were behaviorally less advanced than the Nelson Cave people (Klein and Cruz-Uribe, 1984).

Klein combines some other information about the fauna with climatic data. The Clacis River site contains remains of turtles and limpet clams much larger than in later times, as if these creatures were allowed to grow much longer. These facts suggest that there was less pressure on turtle and shellfish populations from smaller human populations before more technologically advanced tribes emerged.

Changes in hunting. Hunting has changed a lot lately. Richard Lee (1979) recorded stories of old Sen tribesmen about hunting in ancient times. Back then there was more game and more hunters in central Botswana. Their ancestors hunted buffalo, giraffe and elephant in large groups. Today, the predominant type of economy of the tribe is gathering; in addition, it is the consumption of meat from 29 species of mammals, mainly those from which comparatively more meat can be obtained from one carcass. Hunting is carried out by pursuit, the main source of meat is the African pig - warthog and small game. These changes in hunting are a direct result of the importation of guns and the early hunting safaris, which destroyed Africa's remarkable fauna within three generations.

Seasonal classes. Many prehistoric hunter-gatherers and farmers, like their modern counterparts, lived lives based on the seasons, their livelihood activities changing seasonally. On the northwest Pacific coast, when salmon began to move upstream in the summer, Indians gathered near them, caught thousands of fish and dried them for the winter. At the beginning of the dry season in Central Africa there was an abundance of wild fruits, which formed an important part of the diet of ancient farmers 1,500 years ago. How do archaeologists study seasonal activities and reconstruct “economic seasons”?

Every aspect of the life of ancient hunter-gatherers was associated with the changing seasons. During the long winter months, the Northwestern Indian tribes engaged in complex rituals. The life of the Kho-Kho cattle breeding tribe in the Cape of Good Hope region changed dramatically during the dry or rainy seasons (Elphick, 1977). During the dry months, they gathered at several permanent sources of water and near never-drying rivers. When the rains came, they drove their cattle to nearby lands, saturating their herds with moisture from the standing water left after the rains. How do archaeologists study seasonality? A variety of methods have been successful (Monks, 1981). In the simplest of them, with the help of bones and plant remains, they determine when people were at the monument. For example, the 1,000-year-old site in San Francisco Bay was visited by people every year around June 28, when the cormorants were still young (Howard 1929) (see discussion of birds later in this chapter). The presence of cod bones in ancient Norwegian sites suggests that they were inhabited during winter and early spring, the optimal time for drying fish. This type of analysis is fine provided that the habits of the animals or the availability of the plants in question in a given situation are well known and have not changed over time. Many plants are available for most of the year but are only edible for a few weeks.

Knowledge of the ecology of both animals and plants is necessary because the “schedule” of resource use, although perhaps not precise, was certainly a critical factor in the life of ancient communities (see box “The Practice of Archaeology”). Some animals, such as deer, are relatively indifferent to seasonal changes, but people used them differently at different times of the year. For example, the Salish Indians of the Pacific Northwest took males in the spring and females in the fall (Monks, 1981).

In addition, there are physiological phenomena in the life of an animal by which archaeologists can determine the season of meeting it. During the 15th century AD. e. a group of Great Plains hunters regularly hunted bison near a water source near Gairnsey, New Mexico (Speth, 1983). John Speth analyzed body parts at the slaughter site and found that hunters had a clear preference for males during the spring hunting season. Those who butchered the carcasses left on the monument those parts of the body that provided little meat - the heads and upper parts of the neck, and those parts that provided a lot of meat, fat and bone marrow were scarce. Also, more bones were taken from males than from females for later use. Speth believes that hunters preferred males because they were in better condition after winter and their meat was fatter.

Sometimes the age of the animals can indicate seasonal activities. As the animal matures, the epiphyses at the end of the limb bones slowly connect to the main body of the bone, and these sites become completely ossified. When studying them, it is possible to determine the general age of animals, say, at a hunter's camp, but factors such as nutrition, even castration of domesticated animals, can affect the speed of this process. Some species, ducks for example, mature much faster than deer. It is clear that this approach requires knowledge about age-related changes in joints.
Everyone knows that as they grow older, baby teeth fall out, and people often have problems with their wisdom teeth. Teeth are such durable animal remains that many archaeologists have tried to use them to determine the age of wild and domestic animals. It is quite easy to study tooth loss from complete and even fragmented jaws, and this has been done in domestic sheep, goats and wild deer. Again, factors of nutrition and domestication can influence the rate of tooth loss, and the rate of tooth wear can vary greatly among different populations (Monks, 1981).

PRACTICE OF ARCHEOLOGY
ENVIRONMENT AND SEASONALITY AT THE STAR CARR MONUMENT, ENGLAND

The Star Carr site in north-west England was settled by a small group of Stone Age hunter-gatherers around 8500 BC. e. This tiny settlement, where rare artefacts of bone and wood were found well preserved half a century ago, is renowned around the world for providing a remarkably complete picture of life in northern Europe in the immediate aftermath of the last Ice Age. Between 1949 and 1951, archaeologist Graham Clark (1954) of the University of Cambridge discovered a small birch-wood platform strewn with fragments of stone tools, bone and wood artifacts, and numerous food remains. Using carefully recorded artifact counts, animal bones, pollen analysis, and various sophisticated identification techniques, as well as a generous dose of traditional European folklore, Clark reconstructed a small hunting camp in the reed beds near the lake. Pollen analysis has shown that Star Carr existed at a time when birch forests first spread across northern Britain and much of the southern North Sea was still dry land. Clark and his colleagues argued that the monument was inhabited in winter, evidence of this was the horns of the deer. Clark analyzed methods for making spear points from bone, related stone tool technology to those being made in Scandinavia at the same time, and described a remarkable series of tools made from bone and wood, including elk antler hoes (one of which had a remnant of wood handles), a solid wooden canoe paddle, an awl, and even pieces of bark and moss for starting a fire (Fig. 13.6).

Over the course of half a century, the Star Carr site became an important testing ground for new ideas about hunter-gatherer societies. Archaeologists Paul Mellars and Petra Dark (1999) recently completed 12 years of highly selective palaeoecological and archaeological research at the site, using all the resources of modern science to reinterpret the site. When Clark initially excavated Star Carr, he focused on a small wetland area in a ravine. After three seasons he interpreted the monument as a small settlement, perhaps used irregularly by four or five families. The new, expanded excavations extended into drier areas and revealed that the monument was much larger than Clark had imagined. Using field surveys and careful digging of test pits, archaeologists discovered scatterings of flint artifacts at a distance of 12 meters from the shore of the ancient lake. By carefully studying the original topography of the monument, Mellars and Dark and their colleagues discovered a clay-filled channel that once ran through the center of the monument, separating the wetland area that Clark had studied from drier areas.

Clark argued that the inhabitants of Star Carr had little impact on the habitat. Dark was able to use higher-resolution microscopes to study the distribution of coal particles associated with a new array of radiocarbon dates obtained using accelerating mass spectrometry. It showed that there was an initial period of intensive coal deposition that lasted about 80 years. This was followed by 100 years of low activity, followed by fairly prolonged deposition for another 130 years. Botanist Jon Hater identified the embers as coastal reeds burned dry between autumn and spring, when new growth begins. Mellars and Dark believe that people burned the reeds repeatedly, mainly because charcoal samples show that the fires were contained to the monument, as if the fire was under control. Such fires could provide a better view of the lake and surrounding area, as well as a convenient place for canoes to land, and new vegetation would attract feeding animals.

Clark's original report described Star Carr as a winter settlement. Now, x-ray analysis of retained deer teeth and comparison with modern specimens has identified many 10- and 11-month-old animals that would have been slaughtered in March or April (R. Carter, 1998). This new evidence of seasonality is consistent with the discovery of tightly coiled bulrush stems burned early in growth between March and April, and aspen bud scales that date from the same time of year. Star Carr is not a winter settlement and was inhabited from March to June or early July.

The interpretation of seasonal occupations depends heavily on ethnographic analogies. The classic example is wild wheat. Botanist Gordon Hillman studied wild wheat harvesting in southwest Asia and showed that harvesters must time the harvest very precisely. This had to be done before the ears fell or the grains were eaten by birds or animals (Hillman and Davis, 1990). It is reasonable to assume that such precise planning was necessary in prehistoric times. This analogy has allowed southwest Asian archaeologists to interpret seasonal occupations at sites in Syria and elsewhere.

By studying not only large mammals and large plant remains, but also the smallest molluscs and fish scales, it is possible to refine the scope of seasonal occupations to surprisingly narrow limits.

Pets

Almost all domestic animals are descended from wild species that are prone to interact with humans (Clutton-Brock, 1981, 1989). This is not to say that all domestic animals come from one part of the world; they were domesticated in their natural habitat. Scientists suggest that domestication of wild animals occurs upon reaching a certain cultural level. It seems that everywhere domestication began when a growing population needed a more regular supply of food, when large groups of people had to be fed. Domestication depends on this condition and is a prerequisite for further population growth.

Wild animals lack many of the qualities valued in their domesticated counterparts. Thus, wild sheep have abundant wool, but its quality is not the same as that of domestic sheep, which is suitable for spinning. Wild goats and buffaloes produce enough milk for their young, but not in the quantity needed for humans. During domestication, people developed the properties they needed in animals, the changes that occurred often made the animals unsuitable for survival in the wild.

The history of domestic species is based on animal bone fragments found in layers of numerous caves, shelters and open sites (Clutton-Brock, 1989). The osteological study of wild and domestic animals is constrained by both the fragmentation of bones at most sites and the wider range of age variability of domestic animals compared to wild animals (Zeder and Hesse, 2000; Zeder et al., 2002). Nevertheless, at a number of sites, evidence of gradual osteological changes in the direction of domestic animals was obtained. If you compare the bones of a wild species of some prehistoric domesticated animal with the bones of that domestic animal over time, the range of changes in size first increases, then eventually the choice is made in favor of smaller animals, and the changes in size also become smaller. This transition is smooth, and therefore it is extremely difficult to identify domestic or wild animals from individual bones or small collections.

The bones of domestic animals show that wild species were highly adaptable. People found it necessary to change the size and properties of animals in accordance with their needs, which was reflected in the skeletal remains of animals. Since the beginning of animal domestication, different breeds of cattle, sheep and other domestic animals have been developed.

Slaughter and cutting of carcasses

Some insight into the exploitation of wild and domestic animals can be gained by studying not only the animal bones themselves, but also their frequency and distribution in the soil.

Gender, age and slaughter. It is clear that determining the sex of an animal and the age at which it was slaughtered helps in studying hunting or the methods of keeping herds by the people who did the slaughtering. Archaeologists have many methods for determining the sex and age of animals from bone fragments (S. J. M. Davis, 1987).

Male and female individuals of many mammals differ significantly in size and structure. For example, stallions have fangs, but mares do not. In humans, the structure of the pelvis of women differs from that of men, which is associated with childbirth. We can estimate the ratio of males to females at sites such as the Garnsey bison slaughter site by comparing the number of male and female carcass parts, since the difference between the two is known for this species. Such analyzes are much more difficult to perform when little is known about size differences or when the bones are very fragmentary. Zooarchaeologists use multiple bone measurements to distinguish between sexes, but this approach is fraught with statistical and practical difficulties; it only works well with intact bones. Even then, it is only possible to identify the distribution of different dimensions (sizes), which may or may not reflect differences between the sexes.

At what age were these cattle slaughtered? Did the inhabitants of the settlement prefer the meat of immature wild sheep or adults? For many monuments these are important issues. To answer them, researchers must determine the age of the animals in the sample at the time of their death. Typically, teeth and epiphyses of the ends of the limbs are used for this. In almost all mammals, bones on which the epiphyses are not fused belong to young individuals. This fact allows us to talk about two classes: immature and adult animals. If we know the age at which the epiphyses fuse, as is sometimes the case with species such as cattle, additional classes can be introduced. Unfortunately, epiphyseal fusion is too general a method to obtain the data that archaeologists need.

Fortunately, the teeth of the upper or lower jaws make it possible to more accurately determine the age of animals. Teeth are a continuous thread that defines life from birth to old age. Whole upper and lower jaws allow us to study immature and mature teeth as they fall out, so we can identify not only young animals, but also old ones.

Individual teeth can also provide information about the age of an animal. Some biologists use growth rings on teeth, but this method is still experimental. A promising method is to measure the height of the tooth crown. Richard Klein, an expert on African animal bones, measured the height of the crowns of Stone Age mammal teeth found in caves near the Claesis River and in Nelson Bay in the Cape Province of South Africa. Divided into two groups, the dental measurements provide interesting general information about hunting during the Middle and Late Stone Age in this region (Klein, 1977). Klein compared the mortality distributions of Cape buffalo and other large and medium-sized species with the mortality curves of their modern populations. He identified two main distributions for Stone Age bones (Klein and Cruz-Uribe 1983). There are fewer old individuals in the catastrophic one-time age profile. This is the normal distribution of living populations of ungulates (Fig. 13.7, column on the left) and is usually found in places of mass slaughter, when herds are driven into a swamp or into a ravine from a steep cliff, as well as when the entire population dies due to natural causes. The sparse age profile (Fig. 13.7, column on the right) shows an insufficient proportion of animals at their best age relative to their number in living populations, but young and old individuals are overrepresented. This profile is thought to be the result of carrion feeding or simple spear hunting.

Klein found that the age distributions of Cape buffalo at both sites were close to those observed for modern buffalo killed by lions, and this may be because young and old males are vulnerable targets due to their isolation from large herds of mature, formidable animals. He therefore argued that the Stone Age hunters of both caves exploited the buffalo populations steadily and over a long period of time. The distribution of eland and hartebeest hybrids (smaller gregarious antelopes) looks much more like a catastrophic profile. Klein suggests that they are similar because these species were hunted in mass drives, like bison on the American Great Plains plateau. Thus, entire populations could be killed at once. Age distributions may reflect any other activity. There are no young deer at the Star Carr site in north-east England. Most of the animals were three or four years old, and inexperienced juveniles died when they left their mothers (Legge and Rowley-Conwy, 1988).
The hunting and slaughter of animals is influenced by a variety of small factors, many of which are described by Lewis Binford (1978, 1981b). While studying the hunting practices of the Nunamiut tribes in Alaska, he discovered that the slaughter of animals by hunters was part of a much larger subsistence strategy. Nunamiuts for most of the year, they rely heavily on harvested meat, so when hunting they are guided by both harvesting goals and many others.In the fall, they can hunt deer fawns for leather for winter clothing, and the heads and tongues of these animals provide food for those who processes the skins.Binford emphasizes that it is difficult to interpret slaughter patterns without an accurate understanding of the cultural system of which hunting is a part.

Pets are a controlled source of meat and completely different selection criteria apply. In more developed agricultural societies, cattle or horses might be kept into old age as draft animals, excess males would be castrated, and females would be maintained until they stopped producing milk, offspring, or were no longer useful in plowing the land. Even if they did not keep riding or working animals, the problem of extra males persisted. This surplus provided an abundant source of meat, and these animals were often slaughtered in early adulthood. In many traditional societies, livestock was a measure of wealth, as it still is today, and livestock is slaughtered on special occasions - at weddings or funerals. In this way, the surplus of the herd was consumed and the demands of the herd owner were satisfied.

Slaughter. Bone fragments at the population level are the end product of the slaughter, butchering and consumption of domestic or wild animals. In order to understand this process, the articulation of animal bones must be studied at the levels where they were found, or the anatomical composition of the bones must be carefully studied. At the Olsen-Chubbock Monument in Colorado, evidence suggests the slaughter of a herd of bison. The hunters set up camp nearby, where they skinned and skinned the carcasses and possibly dried the excess meat for later consumption. Cutting tools were found in direct association with bones, thus the “moment” of carcass cutting was forever preserved at these excavations (Wheat, 1972).

Interpreting cutting methods is complex because many factors influenced how carcasses were dismembered. The Nunamiut Indians relied heavily on stored meat, and how they dismembered the deer depended on how much meat needed to be stored, the yield of meat from different parts of the body, and the distance of the main site. At any site, the number of bones found depends on the size of the animals: the bodies of goats, chickens or small game could be brought whole, but the carcasses of large animals were delivered in parts. Sometimes animals with a large yield of meat were eaten where they were killed, without leaving a single piece of meat or entrails. Interpretation is very difficult even for the IChO and NIO indices.

Once again, the challenge is to establish the significance of archaeological distributions for understanding human activity. How difficult this is in the context of butchering can be seen from Binford's (1978) comments that Nunamiut criteria for meat selection include the amount of meat that can be eaten, the time required to process it, and the quality of the meat.

Perhaps everyone has at least once seen some documentary film in which archaeologists carefully cleaned dust and dirt from the remains of a long-dead creature with a small brush. This is how archaeologists work in real life, because archaeological rarities require careful handling. But sometimes researchers discover remains that are amazingly well preserved, despite the passing of millennia. In our review, the archaeological “ten” that surprised and pleased scientists.

1. Mammoth Yuka

Although researchers have discovered several examples of well-preserved mammoths in the past, Yuka is certainly a unique specimen. The remains of this 1.8-meter baby woolly mammoth were accidentally discovered in August 2010 in Yakutia. The animal was between six and nine years old when it died, and the baby mammoth is estimated to be around 39,000 years old.

Researchers say Yuka was most likely killed by humans because clean cuts were found on his carcass and some of the meat was removed. This makes Yuka the first mammoth to show evidence of interaction with humans. The animal also has the best preserved mammoth brain ever discovered by modern scientists.

2. Trilobites

Don't let their appearance fool you; trilobites were actually very effective predators in their time. These marine arthropods lived 521 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian period of the Earth. Trilobite fossils have been found on every continent on Earth, and some of the best-preserved specimens still have soft body parts such as gills and antennae.

They went extinct about 250 million years ago during the Permian mass extinction event. Because trilobites lived for over 300 million years and there were over 20,000 different species, they are considered the most "successful" animal of all time.

The well-preserved remains of a baby Chasmosaurus belli (an adorable cousin of the Triceratops) were discovered in Alberta, Canada in 2015. In 2016, scientists announced that the baby dinosaur was 75 million years old and its skeleton was preserved in stunningly perfect condition, despite its age, in its entirety, and not in parts.

4. Woolly rhinoceros

The 10,000-year-old remains of a woolly rhinoceros have been discovered on a frozen Siberian river in Yakutia. The rhinoceros was nicknamed Sasha after the hunter who found him. Sasha was only a three to four year old "teenager" at the time of his death and is essentially the only complete baby woolly rhinoceros ever found. Although researchers have discovered well-preserved adults of this species, the remains of young rhinoceroses have not yet been encountered.

Sasha was donated to the Yakut Academy of Sciences for study. Although woolly rhinoceroses lived at the same time as woolly mammoths and even shared the same habitat, the two species are not related. The woolly rhinoceros is distantly related to modern rhinoceroses, while the mammoth is related to modern Asian elephants.

5. Cave lion cubs

Animal mummies are often found in Yakutia, because this region is famous for its permafrost. A pair of 10,000-year-old cave lion cubs were also discovered in the region in a Siberian glacier. The two cubs, named Dina and Uyan, were barely a week old when they died. Experts believe their lair was covered by a landslide, and the lack of air is why the bodies were so well preserved.

6. Ancient pregnant mare

In 2000, in archaeological excavations near Darmstadt, Germany, the remains of a distant ancestor of the horse, Eurohippus messelensis, were discovered. Moreover, this ancient horse was in an advanced stage of pregnancy when it died about 48 million years ago, and the fetus inside it was very well preserved. The researchers used micro-analysis using high-resolution X-rays and scanning electron microscopes to learn everything they could about the fetus.

They discovered that the mare's placenta, her internal organs and even the contents of her stomach were still intact. It is the earliest and best preserved fossil specimen of its kind to date. The ancient horse was the size of a modern fox and had four toes on each of its four legs.

7. Bison Mummy

The mummified remains of Bison priscus, an ancient relative of the modern bison, were discovered in the Siberian lowland between the Yana and Indigirka rivers. The frozen climate of Northern Siberia protected the bison from decomposition, so its brain and internal organs were perfectly preserved even after 10,000 years.

Olga Potapova, curator of collections at the Mammoth Site Museum in Hot Springs, South Dakota, helped study the ancient remains. She stated in an interview with Living Science magazine that it is rare to find complete specimens in Siberia and North America. Typically these remains are partially eaten or destroyed.

8. Dog Tumat

Usually, when someone says "place" to a dog, they don't expect the animal to remain in place for 12,000 years. This specimen was found on the banks of the Siberian river Sillyakh by the brothers Yuri and Igor Gorokhov, who were looking for mammoth tusks. The ancient dog is believed to be around 12,400 years old.

Experts examined the body of the dog, named Tumat, for four years. However, an autopsy was carried out only in 2015 and it turned out that the internal organs of the animal were simply perfectly preserved.

9. Dunkleosteus

Dunkleosteus is the most terrible prehistoric fish, the existence of which until recently no one knew. As recently as 380 million years ago, these heavily armored fish were widespread in shallow seas around the world. Typically, they were 9 meters long and weighed up to four tons, i.e. they were the largest vertebrates at that time.

Today their remains are spread throughout the Earth. The skeletal head of Dunkleosteus usually looks like that of a leatherback turtle because it does not have teeth, but plates like a pair of blades.

10. Moa Paw

Moas were flightless birds native to New Zealand. They were completely covered with feathers, except for the beak and paws. Moa were also the largest birds at the time of their existence (they first appeared about 15.8 million years ago). They were New Zealand's dominant herbivores and flourished until the arrival of the Polynesians in the 13th century. Due to overhunting, the moa disappeared about 500 years ago, around 1500.

During an expedition in the Owen Mountains cave system in New Zealand, archaeologists discovered a mummified moa claw, which was practically intact: even the muscles and skin were preserved. Archaeologists sent the claw for analysis and were shocked to discover that it was 3,300 years old.

Anyone who is interested in antiquities will be interested in seeing and.

Around 9,000 years ago, during the Neolithic period, parts of what is now the Sahara Desert experienced a very humid climate. For several thousand years this "green Sahara" was home to many domestic and wild animals, as well as people. In 2000, a burial area was discovered in Niger containing hundreds of skeletons from two different archaeological cultures, each dating back thousands of years. In addition to human skeletons, hunting tools, fragments of ceramics, and animal and fish bones were found in the burials.

This dinosaur skeleton, found in Agadez (Niger), was presented to the country of Niger by paleontologist Paul Sereno in a ceremony to mark the end of the five-year civil war. This creature with the body of a dinosaur and the head of a crocodile is about 110 million years old.

Human skeleton with the middle finger inserted into the mouth.
Average daily temperature in this part Sahara desert(49 degrees) is far from the times of the “green Sahara” 4-9 thousand years ago.

Men from one of the local tribes of Niger dancing and singing at the annual festival. Representatives of this tribe may be descendants of those who lived in these places many thousands of years ago, during the existence of the “green Sahara”.

An aerial view of a camp by a small group of archaeologists excavating among huge sand dunes in the completely deserted region of the Sahara. Looking at these places, it’s hard to believe that thousands of years ago everything here was surrounded by greenery.

Nigerian Army Soldiers, hired to protect archaeologists from a possible attack by bandits, are overseeing the excavation of an old skeleton, which is about 6 thousand years old. In this region of the Sahara, archaeologists have found many skeletons, tools, weapons, pottery shards and jewelry.

Six thousand years ago there were mother and two children buried. They lie in the grave holding hands. Someone carefully placed flowers at their head and at their feet, traces of which were discovered by scientists. How exactly these people died remains unclear.

Frequent sandstorms, whose speed reaches 30 miles per hour, greatly interfere with the work of archaeologists, falling asleep and destroying skeletons.

One of the best-preserved skeletons, lying in the sand for 6 thousand years, looks as if it was buried quite recently. The position of the skeleton suggests that the person was buried in a sleeping position.

Archaeologists are examining the skeleton of a woman who died at the age of twenty.

This man was buried with a pot on his head. Among the grave goods, archaeologists also found crocodile bones and wild boar tusks.

This 8,000-year-old rock carving of a giraffe is considered one of the best petroglyphs in the world. The giraffe is depicted with a leash on its nose, which implies the domestication of these animals by people. This image was discovered relatively recently on the top of Granit Hill by local Tuaregs.

These two skeletons are almost perfectly preserved and were found at the very beginning of the excavation process. The skeleton on the left was found with the middle finger inserted into its mouth. The skeleton on the right was buried in a grave where bones from a previous burial had been pushed to the side.

Interestingly, ancient sands can store information about the last time they “saw” light. To explore the original bottom of the former lake, it is necessary to carry out excavations on a moonless night. Optical luminescent studies of sand carried out in a US laboratory proved that the bottom of this lake was formed 15,000 years ago during the last ice age.

There have always been many historical mysteries in the world. Fortunately, the answers to many questions were practically under our very noses, or rather under our feet. Archeology has opened up ways for us to understand our origins through found artifacts, documents, and more. Until now, archaeologists are tirelessly digging up more and more new imprints of the past, revealing the truth to us.

Some archaeological discoveries simply shocked the world. For example, the Rosetta stone, thanks to which scientists were able to translate many ancient texts. The discovered Dead Sea Scrolls turned out to be extremely important for world religion, allowing the texts of a Jewish canon to be confirmed. Similar significant finds include the tomb of King Tut and the discovery of Troy. Finding traces of ancient Roman Pompeii gave historians access to knowledge of ancient civilization.

Even today, when it would seem that almost all science is looking forward, archaeologists are still finding ancient artifacts that can change our understanding of the planet’s past. Here are the ten most influential discoveries on world history.

10. Khisarlyk mound (1800s)

Hisarlik is located in Turkey. In essence, the discovery of this hill represents evidence of the existence of Troy. For centuries, Homer's Iliad was nothing more than a myth. In the 50-70s of the 19th century, trial excavations were successful, and it was decided to continue the research. Thus, confirmation of the existence of Troy was found. Excavations continued into the twentieth century with a new team of archaeologists.

9. Megalosaurus (1824)

Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to be studied. Of course, fossil skeletons of dinosaurs had been found before, but then science could not explain what kind of creatures they were. Some believe that the study of Megalosaurus was the beginning of many science fiction stories about dragons. However, not only this was a consequence of such a find, there was a whole boom in the popularity of archeology and mankind’s fascination with dinosaurs, everyone wanted to find their remains. The found skeletons began to be classified and exhibited in museums for public viewing.

8. The Treasure of Sutton Hoo (1939)

Sutton Hoo is considered Britain's most valuable treasure. Sutton Hoo is the burial chamber of a King who lived in the 7th century. Various treasures, a lyre, wine cups, swords, helmets, masks and much more were buried with him. The burial chamber is surrounded by 19 mounds, which are also graves, and excavations at Sutton Hoo continue to this day.

7. Dmanisi (2005)

Ancient man and the creatures that evolved into modern homosapiens have been studied for many years. It would seem that today there are no blank spots left in the history of our evolution, but a skull 1.8 million years old, found in the Georgian city of Dmanisi, made archaeologists and historians think. It represents the remains of a Homoerectus species that migrated from Africa, and supports the hypothesis that this species stands alone in the evolutionary chain.

6. Gobekli Tepe (2008)

For a long time, Stonehenge was considered the most ancient religious building in the world. In the 1960s, this hill in southeastern Turkey was potentially said to be older than Stonehenge, but it was soon recognized as a medieval cemetery. However, in 2008, Klaus Schmidt discovered stones there that are 11 thousand years old, which were clearly processed by prehistoric man, who did not yet have either clay or metal tools for this.

5. Headless Vikings of Dorset (2009)

In 2009, road workers accidentally stumbled upon human remains. It turned out that they had unearthed a mass grave in which more than 50 people were buried with severed heads. Historians immediately looked into the books and realized that there had once been a massacre of Vikings here, it happened somewhere between 960 and 1016. The skeletons belong to young people about twenty years old, from history it follows that they tried to attack the Anglo-Saxons, but they resisted very zealously, which led to massacre. The Vikings are said to have been stripped and tortured before being beheaded and thrown into a pit. This discovery sheds some light on the historical battle.

4. Petrified Man (2011)

Findings of fossilized human remains are far from new, but this does not make them any less terrible and, at the same time, attractive. These beautifully mummified bodies reveal a lot about the past. Recently, a fossilized body was found in Ireland, its age is approximately four thousand years, scientists suggest that this man died a very cruel death. All the bones are broken and his posture is very strange. This is the oldest fossilized human ever found by archaeologists.

3. Richard III (2013)

In August 2012, the University of Leicester, in collaboration with the City Council and the Richard III Society, led to the discovery of the lost remains of one of England's most famous monarchs. The remains were found under a modern parking lot. The University of Leicester has announced that it will initiate a full DNA study of Richard III, so the English monarch could become the first historical figure to have his DNA examined.

2. Jamestown (2013)

Scientists have always talked about cannibalism in the ancient settlements of Jamestown, but neither historians nor archaeologists have ever had direct evidence of this. Of course, history tells us that in ancient times, people in search of the New World and riches often met a terrible and cruel end, especially in the cold winter time. Last year, William Kelso and his team discovered the fractured skull of a 14-year-old girl in a pit containing the remains of horses and other animals that settlers had eaten during times of famine. Kelso is convinced that the girl was killed to satisfy hunger, and the skull was pierced to get to the soft tissue and brain.

1. Stonehenge (2013-2014)

For many centuries, Stonehenge remained something mystical for historians and archaeologists. The location of the stones did not make it possible to determine what exactly they were used for and how they came to be arranged in this particular way. Stonehenge remained a mystery that many struggled with. Recently, archaeologist David Jackis organized excavations that led to the discovery of the remains of bison (in ancient times they were eaten and also used in agriculture). Based on these excavations, scientists were able to conclude that in the 8820s BC Stonehenge was inhabited and was not at all conceived as a separate site. Thus, previously existing assumptions will be revised.

The Kotelnichsky site of animals of the Permian period is considered one of the best in the world, since only there they find complete skeletons of pareiasaurs and other herbivorous and predatory creatures that inhabited the planet approximately 260 million years ago. For science, such finds are of great value.

Place of scientific success

This year the excavation season began on the 20th of June. During the first reconnaissance, employees of the Vyatka Paleontological Museum discovered two skeletons on the coast of the Vyatka River. And this weekend - three more.

Two skeletons of pareiasaurs were found (and this is a rare scientific success), a cluster of bones of pareiasaurs, individual bones of these herbivorous lizards and two skulls of Suminia, said Alexey Toropov, director of the Vyatka Paleontological Museum. - We can already safely say that this is one of the most successful seasons in recent years; our research work will continue until September, weather permitting.

After the skeletons of ancient creatures are dug out of the rock, they are sent to Kirov for preparation. The process of examining and extracting bones from dense clayey rock - marl - takes more than one month. And only after the completely fossilized bones are cleared of the host rock, they are put on display as exhibits for visitors. At the moment, the collection of animal skeletons of the Permian period is one of the richest in the world.

For more than 20 years, the fossil fauna of the Kotelnichsky locality has expanded from three species - Pareiasaurus, Dvinosaurus and Proburnetia Vyatka to 20 species of a wide variety of ancient animals, said Albert Khlyupin, founder of the Vyatka Paleontological Museum. - And now we can safely say that the location in the Kotelnichsky region provides a good chance for paleontologists around the world to study the unusual world of the Permian geological period. The issue of giving the location the status of a natural monument of federal significance is currently being decided. From time to time, the Kotelnichskoye location presents us with surprises; sometimes we find there the skeletal remains of one of the most progressive animals of the Permian period - therocephalians (beast-like reptiles). Millions of years before the appearance of dinosaurs, these animals were already covered with hair and may have been warm-blooded, being the ancestors of mammals. The good news is that we were able to create a precedent when a group of specialists works at one location for many years.

How it all began

The natural monument Kotelnichsky location of pareiasaurs received state status only in 1962. But the location itself was formed as much as 260 million years ago in the Permian period of the Paleozoic era. The very first find was made in 1933 by hydrogeologist Sergei Kashtanov. He carried out research, and in the area of ​​​​the villages of Boroviki and Vanyushonki, in the red rocks that make up the coastal cliff of the Vyatka River, he discovered the remains of pareiasaurus skeletons. He reported his discovery to Moscow State University; at that time, this institution was engaged in paleontology. This direction was supervised by the very famous paleontologist researcher Alexandra Paulinovna Hartman-Weinberg. She became interested in the finds of Kashtanov, who was not a paleontologist and could not make a professional sampling of the skeleton. And a year later, an expedition under her leadership leaves for the location. They worked for several days, but during this time two skeletons of pareiasaurs were recovered from the river bank, and scientists brought them to Moscow. It turned out that the found pareiasaurs are very close to similar lizards found earlier in South Africa. So the right to discover the location belongs to Kashtanov, and the first finds and their scientific interpretation belong to Hartmann-Weinberg.

Local residents from the villages of Rvachi, Vanyushonki, and Boroviki also helped the expeditions. Even years later, one of them, every spring, went in search of the skeletons of pareiasaurs washed away by river water, covered them with plastic film and reported them to Moscow, to the Academy of Sciences, so that they would come and take away the finds. But the expedition arrived only in the post-war years. By that time, the Kotelnichsky location had become known throughout the world and was included in the list of the most promising locations of lizards of the Permian period. It stretched from the village of Mukha (9 km from Kotelnich) to the village of Vishkil. According to the results of Boris Pavlovich Vyushkov’s research in 1948-49 (despite the post-war devastation, money was found for the expedition), in the catalog about the locations of the Permian and Triassic periods it was written: “The Kotelnichsky location is, perhaps, the world’s largest accumulation of remains of pareiazars.” And they were not far from the truth. A similar grand site exists on the Karoo Plateau in South Africa. But the preservation of the skeletons there is much worse than at Vyatka.

Excavations began again in 1990, when Moscow paleontologist Dmitry Sumin arrived in Kotelnich. Since then, excavations have been carried out almost every summer. And over 25 years of work, it was possible to create a huge scientific base for the study of animals of the Permian period. A museum was also founded in Kotelnich, which in 2009 moved to Kirov (Spasskaya St., 22).

It is also planned to give the Kotelnichsky location federal status, and then add it to the list of unique natural sites of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.