Page 26 - Archaeology - October 2017

WORLD ROUNDUP BY JASON URBANUS
LOUISIANA: ICELAND: ENGLAND: Geophysical survey
Two people Some- within one of Avebury’s stone
walking times circles detected previously
along the modern unknown evidence of an older
banks of the place standing stone monument,
Red River in names but one whose megaliths were arranged instead
northwest can in a square. Erected in the 4th millennium b.c., the
Louisiana discovered a mas- provide clues about past hu- 10,000-square-foot complex is the first of its kind iden-
sive Caddo Indian canoe. The man activities, as is the case tified, and may be 1,000 years older than Avebury’s and
34-foot-long, 2.5-foot-wide, at Dynes along the Eyjafjörður even neighboring Stonehenge’s stone circles. Research-
dugout canoe is believed to fjord. The term Dynes comes ers believe that the stones may have commemorated a
be between 800 and 1,000 from an old Icelandic word wooden building that was perhaps associated with the
years old and was carved meaning burial mound, and, original Neolithic settlement.
from a single tree trunk. It fittingly, archaeologists recently
took a large team of workers discovered several Viking Age
using heavy machinery to fi- tombs there, including as
nally remove the vessel, which many as three rare ship buri-
may be the largest intact pre- als. Although the graves were
historic watercraft ever found partially destroyed by ocean
in the United States. erosion, one ship contained a
Viking chieftain who was en-
tombed alongside his weapons
and his dog.

FLORIDA: Rare 1,000-year-old
Calusa Indian artifacts, includ-
ing pieces of wood, rope, and
fishing net, were retrieved
from a waterlogged midden
located along the ancient
shoreline in Pineland. The fish-
ing net, likely fashioned from
cabbage palm fiber, has some
of its knots still attached. This
allowed researchers to deter-
mine that its grid is around an SPAIN: Cats have assumed various roles in human societies:
inch wide. The deposit also house pets, rodent deterrents, even Internet memes. In
contained clamshell weights Spain, some 1,000 years ago, it appears that they were also
and unburned seeds from a exploited for their fur. Analysis of nine cat skeletons from a
gourd-like squash, possibly all medieval rubbish pit at the El Bordellet site shows that the
that remains of the attached skinning process left definitive cut marks on the bones. The cats ranged from 6 to 25 months
gourds that once enabled the in age, apparently the optimal age for producing a suitably sized hide but young enough so
net to float. the fur was unlikely to have been damaged.

24 ARCHAEOLOGY • September/October 2017