All posts tagged: bronze

The pigeon fanciers of the Bronze Age

The pigeon fanciers of the Bronze Age

Published by skeptic

Domestic animals have long been some of our closest companions. While dogs, cats, horses, cattle and chickens have all played major roles in human history, domestic pigeons may be a little less familiar. But they are no slouch when it comes to cultural importance. Charles Darwin wrote about domestic pigeon diversity to explore his theories of evolutionary change. Contemporary biologists have trained teams of pigeons to identify cancerous cells from certain medical images with an accuracy rivalling that of oncologists. Now, new research exploring ancient human-pigeon interactions in Cyprus has provided fascinating insights into the earliest stages of this millennia-long inter-species relationship. There are over 300 breeds of domestic pigeon, from homing pigeons used in competitive racing to the peculiar frillback, which looks like it has survived a rather nasty electric shock. In 2020, a Belgian racing pigeon named New Kim sold for €1.6 million (£1.4 million). A frillback pigeon. Muhammad Taayyab Saleem/Shutterstock But despite their contributions to contemporary society, we still know little about the origins of these pigeons. The wild form of all …

Bronze Age Britons fashioned copper-mining tools out of old bones

Bronze Age Britons fashioned copper-mining tools out of old bones

Published by skeptic

Wedges made of limb bones may have been used for splitting soft, copper-bearing rock O. Zagorodnia Even with the technology to make metal tools, people in Bronze Age Britain still used animal bone tools alongside metal ones to obtain copper, a practice spanning at least nine centuries between 3700 and 2800 years ago. A study of 150 bones from the Bronze Age copper-mining complex at Great Orme in North Wales, UK, suggests the bones were deliberately chosen and shaped for specific mining tasks essential for copper extraction, especially in softer rock. “It’s exciting because it challenges assumptions that Bronze Age mining was dominated by metal and stone tools; instead, we are seeing a more diverse and adaptable toolkit,” says Olga Zagorodnia at the British Museum, London, who conducted the work with Harriet White, an independent archaeologist. Since the first archaeological excavations at the site in the early 1990s, over 30,000 bone fragments have been discovered. Previous studies focused on species identification, finding that over half belonged to cattle, with others mainly coming from sheep, goats …

What Happens When a Globalized World Collapses: Archaeologist Eric Cline Explains How Bronze Age Civilizations Adapted, Survived or Vanished

What Happens When a Globalized World Collapses: Archaeologist Eric Cline Explains How Bronze Age Civilizations Adapted, Survived or Vanished

Published by José Betancourt

We live, as we’re often told, in the era of glob­al­iza­tion. In fact, we’ve been told it so often over the past few decades that it now hard­ly seems like an obser­va­tion worth mak­ing. But how­ev­er thor­ough­ly our era is defined by con­nec­tions between far-flung nations, soci­eties, economies, and cul­tures, we should­n’t flat­ter our­selves into think­ing we are pio­neers in a whol­ly new glob­al­ized real­i­ty. As clas­si­cist Eric Cline explains in this recent Big Think inter­view, an inter­con­nect­ed world flour­ished in the late Bronze Age, and espe­cial­ly the four­teenth and thir­teenth cen­turies BC. “Life was pret­ty good” in those days, he says, at least if you lived in one of the lands around the Mediter­ranean and Near East that con­sti­tut­ed what he calls the “ancient G8.” The mem­ber peo­ples of this ret­ro­spec­tive orga­ni­za­tion includ­ed the Myce­naeans and Minoans in Greece, the Hit­tites in mod­ern-day Turkey, the Assyr­i­ans and the Baby­lo­ni­ans in mod­ern-day Iraq, as well as the Cypri­ots, Egyp­tians, and Canaan­ites. Alas, as implied by the title of Cline’s 1177 BC: The Year Civ­i­liza­tion Col­lapsed, their …

Bronze Age Chinese Foundry Was State Controlled, Archeologists Say

Bronze Age Chinese Foundry Was State Controlled, Archeologists Say

Published by José Betancourt

During China’s Bronze Age (c. 2070 – 771 B.C.), the durable alloy was an indispensable resource, central to the development of early Chinese civilization. Under the Zia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, China developed advanced metallurgy techniques and, along with them, systems for managing them at scale. The Bronze age in China was thus not only characterized by its bronze tools and weaponry, but by its advanced social and political structures. As reported in the China Daily, excavations over the last two years at the Shenduntou archeological site near the Yangtze River have unearthed around 1,000 artifacts linked to the bronze industry under the Zhou dynasty. While more modest than the ritual bronze vessels prized by museums, these artifacts—simple knives, arrowheads, and broken clay molds—suggest a major metal-working site. Related Articles “The discovery of numerous bronze-casting remains proves this was a high-level workshop,” says Wang Zhigao, an archaeology professor at Nanjing Normal University, who is leading the excavation project. Perhaps even more interesting to Wang and his team was evidence of a “state controlled” system of …

Bronze Age shield returns to Scotland for first time in more than 230 years | UK News

Bronze Age shield returns to Scotland for first time in more than 230 years | UK News

Published by Daniella Wilson

A Bronze Age shield has returned to Scotland for the first time in more than 230 years. The shield was discovered during labouring work near Beith in North Ayrshire around 1779, and in 1791 was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London where it remained ever since. It has now been brought back north of the border on loan for the first time ahead of the Scotland’s First Warriors exhibition, which opens at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh this summer. Ahead of the show it was brought together with five other shields, discovered in the Borders and Aberdeenshire in the 19th century, which are part of the NMS collection. Image: The Bronze Age shield discovered in Beith, bottom left, with five other shields, discovered in the Scottish Borders and Aberdeenshire in the 19th century. Pic: NMS/PA Four of the shields, including the one from Beith, will feature in the exhibit – but bringing the six together beforehand has given experts the opportunity to compare the craftsmanship of the items, which date …

America’s Official Mammal, the Bison, Gets a Bronze Tribute for the Country’s 250th Birthday

America’s Official Mammal, the Bison, Gets a Bronze Tribute for the Country’s 250th Birthday

Published by Sam Flores

Three bison statues cast in bronze have taken up a permanent display outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The pieces — which are larger than real-life bison — made their public debut in the nation’s capital on Friday. The bison earned its official status as the nation’s mammal under a law signed by former President Obama in 2016. Millions of bison once roamed the Great Plains but were nearly driven to extinction in the 1800s. “It’s a wonderful story of conservation working, it’s a story of people seeing a need and getting behind that to conserve an animal that is specific to North America,” said Gary Staab, a paleoartist who made the statues. Staab designed and sculpted the statues in Kearney, Missouri, where he works full-time to create sculptures of animals and historical artifacts for museums around the world. For the bison, Staab sculpted the full-size statues in foam and clay before they were cast in bronze and assembled at a foundry in Colorado. The three statues depict a bull, a …

3,400-Year-Old Loom Sheds Light on Bronze Age Textile Production

3,400-Year-Old Loom Sheds Light on Bronze Age Textile Production

Published by José Betancourt

A team of six researchers led by Ricardo E. Basso Rial and Gabriel García Atiénzar, archaeologists at the University of Grenada and the University of Alicante, respectively, have published new research concerning remnants of a wooden Bronze Age loom discovered in Spain in 2008. The 3,450-year-old loom was inadvertently preserved when a fire decimated the surrounding Iberian village and a roof collapsed on top of it; typically, wooden looms don’t survive, with only the loom weights existing as archaeological artifacts. Loom weights, often made of clay, are used to hold vertical threads taut during the weaving process. Related Articles The ones uncovered at this site, known as Cabezo Redondo, are lighter weight than is typical of these object, indicating that the textiles produced at this village during the time of the fire (ca. 1000 BCE) were made of more delicate materials like wool. In contrast, heavier loom weights would have been required for weaving flax thread textiles. According to the report in Antiquity magazine, over 200 loom weights have been discovered in various houses at …

The late Bronze Age was the last time our world was this connected

The late Bronze Age was the last time our world was this connected

Published by Jenni Sidey

ERIC CLINE: I’m Eric Cline. I’m an archaeologist and an ancient historian. I’m also the author of 1177 BC, and its sequel After 1177 BC. The period that we’re discussing today is incredibly important in the history of humankind. It’s the late Bronze Age, in particular, which goes from about 1700 to 1200 BCE, or BC, if you prefer. This was a time where people were basically globalized around the Mediterranean in a way that is not frequently seen. And so what happened to them back then may have implications for us today. So it turns out to be a much more important period to study than one might expect, even though it’s more than 3,000 years ago. [MUSIC PLAYING] In part one, we’re going to take a look at the civilizations as they existed and what occurred to make them all collapse one after another in one set of decades. In the second part, we’ll take a look at whether or not that could have been avoided, what led up to it, what do you …

Lioness Lucy Bronze on Princess Charlotte’s ‘amazing’ football future – exclusive

Lioness Lucy Bronze on Princess Charlotte’s ‘amazing’ football future – exclusive

Published by Daniella Wilson

When the Chelsea footballer and Lioness Lucy Bronze steps onto the pitch to play Manchester United in the Women’s Subway League Cup Final in Bristol on Sunday 15 March, it’s likely that young royal football player and fan, Princess Charlotte, will be following the action. Women’s football star Lucy, 34, who was part of England’s Euro 2022 and 2025 winning squads, famously playing with a fractured tibia in the latter, has met Prince William and his family a few times, she tells HELLO! in this exclusive interview. © GettyLucy Bronze celebrating on pitch “I remember the first time I met him back in 2015,” says Lucy of the royal heir. “Before every major tournament, he’s been in to see the girls at camp. One year, we had a little England shirt printed for Charlotte with her name on the back. “Prince William’s a huge fan of ours, and I’m sure his kids are as well, so it’s really nice to get that support. He’s such an important person to the country and has such a …

Ireland’s native goats date back to Bronze Age

Ireland’s native goats date back to Bronze Age

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Some 3,000 years of history is locked inside the DNA of a single species—the old Irish Goat (Capra aegagrus hircus). This rare indigenous breed is Ireland’s only native goat species and shares a genetic link to goats living across the country during the Late Bronze Age. According to a study published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science, understanding this genetic time capsule reshapes our understanding of Ireland’s agricultural past and supports goat conservation efforts as a living link to prehistoric farming communities. “This research is a huge milestone for the Old Irish Goat, and provides powerful scientific validation of what local communities and conservationists have long believed—that the Old Irish Goat represents a living piece of our ancient heritage,” Sinead Keane from The Old Irish Goat Society said in a statement. “It also underscores the urgency of protecting this critically endangered breed, which carries within it a living genetic record of Ireland’s ancient past.” The old Irish goat …