Unknown Bronze Age Civilization is Discovered

Site ancient settlement high in Caucasus Mountains.

Researchers have discovered traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization in the peaks of Russia's Caucasus Mountains, using aerial photographs taken 40 years ago.

"We have discovered a civilization dating from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk," Andrei Belinsky, the head of a joint Russian-German expedition that has been investigating the region for five years, told AFP.

He said researchers had discovered stone foundations, some up to 3.3 feet high, at nearly 200 sites, all "visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the centre, and connected by roads."

The decorations and forms of bronze items found in the area indicate the civilization is linked to the Kuban civilization, which was discovered at the end of the 19th century at the foot of Mount Kazbek and is known for its artistic bronze works.

Click here for the complete PhysOrg.com article.

Bronze Age Timber Ritual Site Found in Ireland

Archaeologists unearth the remains of the timber circles.

Remains of a 4,000-year-old ritual circle in Tyrone County, Northern Ireland, are being deemed especially rare because the site was made of timber and not stone.

“The specific use of timber circles is not well understood but it is thought that they were used as ritual sites, perhaps for feasting or for commemorating the dead," archaeologist Kirsty Dingwall told the BBC. She said radiocarbon dating had confirmed that the site dates to the middle of the third millennium BC.

She said it was "made up of two concentric rings of timbers focussed on a central area, which appear to have replaced an earlier series of large pits".

“It had a large monumental porch on one side with a line of substantial timbers along the front, which would have formed an impressive façade for anyone approaching the circle,” she added. "The outer ring of the double circle comprised pits holding four posts in a square arrangement, which would themselves have pinned sections of wattle or planked walling in place."

"As a result, we can be fairly certain that it would not be possible to see into the centre of the circle from the outside, unlike other timber circles elsewhere in the British Isles, or at stone circles such as Stonehenge in Wiltshire or Callanish in Scotland, where an observer would have had glimpses of the activity.

“As timber circles are generally thought to have some form of ritual importance, the issue of restricting the views of what was happening inside the circle is an interesting one," Dingwall said.

Click here for the complete BBC article.

Crop Circle Pattern Reveals Huge Bronze Age Site

Underground remains of the Bronze Age burial complex are etched into the crops about 15 miles from Stonehenge.

A group of farmland patterns resembling crop circles in southern England have led to discovery of a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex a thousand years older than Stonehenge.

The site includes remains of wooden temples and two massive 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture," according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead of Kingston University in London. She said for such a site to have lain hidden for so long is "completely amazing."

Archaeologist Joshua Pollard agreed. The discovery is "remarkable," he said, given the decades of intense archaeological attention to the greater Stonehenge region. "I think everybody assumed such monument complexes were known about or had already been discovered," he told National Geographic.

At the 500-acre (200-hectare) site, outlines of the structures were spotted "etched" into farmland near the village of Damerham, some 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge. Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government's historic-preservation agency, the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth.

The central features are two great tombs topped by massive mounds called long barrows. The larger of the two tombs is 70 meters (230 feet) long. Such oblong burial mounds are very rare finds, and are the country's earliest known architectural form, Wickstead said. The last full-scale long barrow excavation was in the 1950s.

Click here for the National Geographic article.

Click here for previous post on the finding.

Mystery Surrounds 1,000-Year Lapse in Rites

Some of the standing stones marking Kilmartin Glen's ancient ceremonial site.

Archaeologists are having trouble accounting for a mysterious millennium-long absence of activity at an ancient Scots religious site.

Kilmartin Glen is one of the most important Neolithic sites in Europe, predating both the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Hunter-gatherer tribes practiced sacred rites there from 3700 BC or even earlier, to about 1100 BC. It contains at least 350 ancient monuments, including burial cairns, rock carvings and standing stones in addition to the spectacular remains of the fortress at Dunadd, capital of the kingdom of Dalriada.

But archaeologists have identified a period of almost 1,000 years in which no monuments were erected and the population virtually disappeared. There is some speculation that a dramatic climate change may have affected the area’s inhabitants.

“Kilmartin Glen is one of the richest archaeological areas in Scotland, with a very high concentration of ritual sites.” Alison Sheridan, head of early prehistory at the National Museum of Scotland, told the Times of London this week. “It was a place for ceremony, for burying people, and observing the movements of the Sun and the Moon.”

“We are not too certain what happened between 1100 BC and 200 BC,” Sheridan told the Times. “A hoard of swords has been found and a few artifacts buried as gifts to the gods in the late Bronze Age between 1000 and 750 BC. But there are few structures and no settlements. When you start getting settlements again around 200BC they are in little fortified settlements.

“It was no longer a happy valley, and people raided each other,” she said.

Click here for the London Times Online article.

Photo above shows Neolithic carvings at Kilmartin Glen.