University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Primitive Brits Ate Mostly Meat
No wonder they were able to build a great civilization.
---
Prehistoric Brits Ate Like Wolves
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
Sep. 5 — The 7,700-year-old remains of a woman, nicknamed the Lady of Trent, reveal that she ate nearly as much meat as a wolf, according to a press release from the Archaeological Consultancy of the University of Sheffield in England.
The finding suggests meat played a more important role in the diet of Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic (about 10,000-5,000 years ago) humans in the region that is now England than previously thought. Before now, it was thought that even meat eaters rounded out their diet with gatherer fare, like vegetables and nuts, and fish and shellfish, according to the report, released last week.
A thighbone belonging to the Lady of Trent became the focus of study when the fairly well- preserved bone was found in a dried-up channel of the River Trent. Scientists at Bradford University measured the bone for nitrogen and carbon levels. From the measurements it was determined that this lady was quite a carnivore.
Glyn Davies, senior project archaeologist at the Archaeological Consultancy, explained, "The results of the testing gave a (nitrogen) figure of 9.3 for the human bone. As a comparison, cattle would have a figure of about 6 and a carnivore like a wolf would give a figure of around 10."
He added, "This suggests that the individual here had a very high proportion of meat in (her) diet."
Supporting his conclusion were several animal bones found near the human remains. One was a bone, which had cut marks most likely from butchering and skinning, according to Davies. Additionally, a wild cattle vertebra was found, along with two ribs from large mammals, such as other deer or cattle, which also possessed cut marks from defleshing.
Debate still exists as to whether or not prehistoric Europeans moved between coastal and inland sites, Davies said. However, since the Lady of Trent hadn't enjoyed a fish dinner for many years, her reliance on meat suggests Stone Age humans may have stayed put more often than thought.
Andrew Myers, an archaeologist with the Derbyshire County Council who has recently undertaken a review of the Mesolithic in England's east Midlands, was not entirely surprised "that terrestrial animals provided the main source of dietary protein."
But he was astonished by the extent to which land meats dominated over other potential sources, like vegetable and nut proteins.
Myers agreed with Davies that the Lady of Trent's meat-heavy diet indicates Mesolithic man may have been less nomadic than previously believed.
"If (the Lady of Trent's) movements were so restricted that she had not been to coastal areas (for the last 10-12 years of her life)," said Myers, "this could suggest that the differing dietary strategies of inland and coastal groups may have been reinforced or sustained by some degree of group territoriality."
2]
Mystery Culture In 11th century Illinois.
Ancient Illinois village unearths lode of questions
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Digging under a blazing sun in an Illinois cornfield, archaeologists this summer unearthed a fascinating anomaly: a 900-year-old square hilltop village. The discovery near Shiloh -- about 15 miles southeast of St. Louis -- challenges previous notions of the area's first people and adds a piece to the puzzle that was Cahokia, a huge "mother culture" that suddenly appeared, and just as suddenly vanished, leaving only traces of its majesty and meaning in the 11th century.
Until now, archaeologists believed that large Cahokian populations settled only on the floodplains and that their villages sprawled in free-form fashion. This "new" ridge-sitting village with four linear sides and a rigid orientation of buildings "was mind-blowing," said lead archaeologist Timothy Pauketat, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "I can't think of another village in this area that's like this." The great mystery:
What was the purpose of this unique hinterlands village 12 miles from the major population center in Cahokia, and why did it have a large central residence and religious structures -- a plaza and four temples, all atypical of Cahokian villages?
Pauketat's hunch is that it was a farming village, a "feeder" for Cahokia, and an administrative outpost where a top official and, perhaps, functionaries, oversaw farming and "controlled that piece of the economy." The "evidence of authority" in the hinterlands "makes Cahokia look more like a centralized civilization and less like an elusive free gathering of Native Americans," Pauketat said.
University archaeologists have been digging near or at the so-called "Grossmann Site" for several years, but it was only this summer that Illinois graduate student and chief supervisor Susan Alt, Pauketat and a group of Illinois students found the third and fourth sides -- now only stains in the ground – of the village, the 75 small rectangular houses that lined the sides, and the four giant temples. In the center of each temple, they found the holes that once held the telephone-pole-sized roof supports. The temples had huge vaulted ceilings and thatched roofs, "something you usually see on a mound top. We were completely shocked." They also found some temple "ritual debris," including a figurine -- fire-splintered into perhaps 2,000 pieces, plus crystals and burned tools. These probably are "the remains of annual ritual burnings, ceremonies called 'renewing the temple.' "
Cahokia was "drawing great numbers of people into it," Pauketat said. "It goes from 1,000 to 10,000 people in a matter of 50 years. Most went to Cahokia, but some ended up in places like this, sent to help administer the farmers." Why so many people relocated so rapidly is still a mystery, he said.
Some archaeologists, including Pauketat, think of Cahokia as a mother culture. "They do something that is entirely unique and they do it much earlier. Within a century or two, people up and down the Mississippi and across the coastal plain of the Southeast are copying them, so you get Mississippian mounds and large settlements, but you never get anything that rivals this. So, Cahokia is just a moment, an experiment in civilization, that falters and goes away and never really comes back."
###
The National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society also supported the dig. |
