The Dartmouth-led study has made a groundbreaking discovery in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, uncovering a 1,000-year-old Native American farm system that challenges preconceived ideas about agriculture in the region. The Sixty Islands archaeological site along the Menominee River features a raised ridge field system dating back to around the 10th century to 1600. This is the most complete ancient agricultural site in the eastern half of the United States.

The researchers surveyed approximately 330 acres using drone-based lidar, which provided a dataset that revealed clusters of ridged garden beds ranging from 4 to 12 inches in height. These raised fields were used by ancestors of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin to grow corn, beans, squash, and other plants.

Lead author Madeleine McLeester noted that the scale of this agricultural system is 10 times larger than previously estimated, forcing a reconsideration of preconceived ideas about agriculture in the region and globally. The team’s findings also suggest that the ancestral Menominee communities were modifying the soil to rework the topography, using wetland soils to enrich the soil and remain from fires as compost.

The researchers conducted excavations at the site, recovering charcoal, broken ceramics, and artifacts, which suggested that remains from fires and household refuse were likely used as compost in the fields. The results showed that the farming system was a massive undertaking requiring organization, labor, and know-how to maximize agricultural productivity.

The findings have significant implications for our understanding of ancient agriculture in eastern North America and challenge existing forest history of the Upper Peninsula. The team is continuing their work with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin at the Menominee Sixty Islands site, planning to survey the site and locate ancestral Menominee villages.

This study demonstrates the importance of innovative technologies like drone-based lidar in uncovering hidden archaeological features and provides a unique window into pre-Colonial farming practices in the region. The discovery of this 1,000-year-old farm system serves as a reminder of the rich history and cultural heritage of the Native American communities that once thrived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The discovery of a 3,500-year-old cemetery in Hungary has shed new light on a pivotal period in Central European history. A team of international researchers, led by Tamás Hajdu and Claudio Cavazzuti, has conducted a comprehensive bioarchaeological investigation into the Bronze Age cemetery at Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom. The findings have rewritten our understanding of this era, revealing significant changes in people’s lives, diets, social systems, and even burial customs.

The multidisciplinary research was based on the excavation of a Bronze Age cemetery that was used during both the Middle Bronze Age (Füzesabony culture) and the Late Bronze Age (Tumulus culture). By comparing the subsistence strategies before and after this era-changing event, the researchers were able to identify key differences in people’s lifestyles.

The study aimed to answer whether the spread of the Tumulus culture was a result of new groups arriving or if it was simply an evolution of the autochtonous people’s way of life. The team also examined whether changes in settlement patterns around 1500 BC were indicative of a shift towards more mobile and pastoral lifestyles.

The results of this groundbreaking research are nothing short of revolutionary:

* Dietary changes: Nitrogen stable isotope studies revealed that people’s diets became more uniform but poorer during the Late Bronze Age, contradicting previous ideas about the Tumulus culture’s supposed focus on animal husbandry.
* Introduction of broomcorn millet: Carbon isotope analyses indicated that the consumption of this fast-growing and high-energy plant began at the start of the Late Bronze Age, marking the earliest known occurrence in Europe.
* Decreased mobility: Strontium isotope investigations showed that populations from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages had distinct mobility patterns. Fewer immigrants were identified during the Late Bronze Age, with a higher presence of individuals arriving from further geographical regions.

The study’s findings have significant implications for our understanding of this pivotal period in European history. By combining traditional archaeological and anthropological studies with modern bioarchaeological analyses, researchers can now better grasp the complex changes associated with the emergence of the Tumulus culture.

The world’s oldest synthetic pigment, Egyptian blue, has been recreated by a team of researchers from Washington State University. This breakthrough, published in the journal NPJ Heritage Science, provides valuable insights for archaeologists and conservation scientists studying ancient Egyptian materials.

Led by John McCloy, director of WSU’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, the research team collaborated with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute to develop 12 recipes for the pigment. These recipes utilized a variety of raw materials and heating times, replicating temperatures available to ancient artists.

Egyptian blue was highly valued in ancient times due to its unique properties and versatility. It was used as a substitute for expensive minerals like turquoise or lapis lazuli and applied to wood, stone, and cartonnage – a papier-mâché-type material. Depending on its ingredients and processing time, the pigment’s color ranged from deep blue to dull gray or green.

The researchers’ work aimed to highlight how modern science can reveal hidden stories in ancient Egyptian objects. After the Egyptians, the pigment was used by Romans, but by the Renaissance period, the knowledge of how it was made had largely been forgotten.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Egyptian blue due to its intriguing properties and potential new technological applications. The pigment emits light in the near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which people can’t see, making it suitable for fingerprinting and counterfeit-proof inks. It also shares similar chemistry with high-temperature superconductors.

To understand the makeup of Egyptian blue, the researchers created 12 different recipes using mixtures of silicon dioxide, copper, calcium, and sodium carbonate. They heated the material at around 1000 degrees Celsius for between one and 11 hours to replicate temperatures available to ancient artists. After cooling the samples at various rates, they studied the pigments using modern microscopy and analysis techniques that had never been used for this type of research.

The researchers found that Egyptian blue is highly heterogeneous, with different people making the pigment and transporting it to final uses elsewhere. Small differences in the process resulted in very different outcomes. In fact, to get the bluest color required only about 50% of the blue-colored components, regardless of the rest of the mixture’s composition.

The samples created are currently on display at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and will become part of the museum’s new long-term gallery focused on ancient Egypt. This research serves as a prime example of how science can shed light on our human past, revealing hidden stories in ancient objects and materials.