Earlier and Middle Stone Age tools from Egypt's Eastern Desert.

During the Pleistocene interglacial phases, Hominin and Human groups migrated out of Africa and into Asia through Egypt. For a long while it was presumed that the main route of migration was along the Nile, but in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that the Eastern Desert was also a significant migration route, although little is known about the populations that inhabited this region.

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity, Alice Leplongeon of the Center for Archaeological Research of Landscapes at KU Leuven, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, and Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme Préhistorique and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle at the Université de Perpignan Via Domitia, Maxence Bailly of the Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l’homme at Aix Marseille Université, and Gwenola Graff of the Département Homme et Environnement at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, report on a series of new Earlier Stone Age and Middle Stone Age finds in the Wadi Abu Subeira area of the Eastern Desert.

During 2022, Leplongeon et al. mapped 22 new sites, including single artefact sites, sites with scatters of stone tools, and workshops where stone was worked.  All were found either on plateaux tops or plateaux slopes, never in the wadis that separate the plateaux The isolated tools included a large symmetrical handaxe and a cleaver made from coarse ferruginous sandstone. Scatters of artefacts appear to have no pattern to them; the largest being over 500 m long, with an artefact density of between 0 and 10 artefacts per square meter. Tools were made from a variety of rock types, including quartz, silicified wood, silicified sandstone and chert. Of these, only quartz was available in the immediate area, although the other materials could often be found in wadi bottoms or on nearby plateaux. The items were a mixture of Earlier Stone Age tools, such as large axes, and Middle Stone Age tools, such as Levallois cores, probably representing an accumulation of items which had built up over a long period of time, and reflecting several distinct phases of occupation at the same sites, as well as, in places, accumulations of items caused by erosion.

Earlier Stone Age isolated finds: (A) & (B) context and photograph of cleaver L652; (C) & (D) handaxe L672. Leplongeon et al. (2024).

Leplongeon et al. identified five workshops where stone tools were manufactured, each comprising an accumulation of lithic artefacts next to a ferruginous sandstone, although the nature of this sandstone otherwise varied considerably. The highest density of artifacts was found at a workshop on a site referred to as the 'Leaf Plateaux', where there were more than 50 artefacts per meter squared, adjacent to outcrops of fine-grained red and yellow ferruginous sandstone. Blocks of material had apparently been broken from the outcrops, then reduced using a variety of knapping techniques. These include several Levallois cores, as well as blade cores and a few retouched tools including two bifacial points, indicating that this site is of Middle Stone Age origin. 

Middle Stone Age lithic workshop (L618-623). Overview (A) and detail (B) of an area of the workshop; (C) extraction face; (D) Levallois core; (E) bifacial point. Leplongeon et al. (2024).

About 800 m to the east of this Middle Stone Age workshop, an outcrop of a coarser type of ferruginous sandstone, another workshop yielded several large centripetally flaked cores and several handaxes and preforms. All of the artefacts here had a dark desert varnish (indicating age), and appeared attributable to an Acheulean technology. Acheulean sites are rare in northeast Africa, making this a significant discovery.

Earlier Stone Age lithic workshop (L602–603). (A) overview of the site with the two main concentrations of artefacts; (B) detail of area 2; (C) large centripetal core; (D) handaxe preform. Leplongeon et al. (2024).

The presence of two workshops from very different periods shows repeated utilisation of outcrops in the area by different waves of inhabitants, but also that these different peoples with different technologies selected slightly different types of stone as most ideal for their purposes. Notably, workshops and artefact clusters appear to be particularly connected to outcrops of the Nubia Sandstone and in particular the Timsah Formation, suggesting that ancient inhabitants of the Wadi Abu Subeira were capable of following a particular geological formation, apparently for the workable qualities of this material.

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Hoard of medieval silver coins found on Visingsö Island, Sweden.

Archaeologists from the Jönköping County Museum carrying out surveying work ahead of the installation of geothermal heating system in a church on Visingsö, an island on Lake Vättern in south-central Sweden, have uncovered a pair of medieval graves, one of which contained a hoard of silver coins. The coins were found close to the foot of the skeleton of a man thought to have been between 20 and 25 when he died. Similar finds are common in earlier, pre-Chistian burials in Scandinavia, but their inclusion in what is thought to have been a Christian burial is very unusual.

A hoard of silver coins discovered on Visingsö Island, Sweden. Jönköping County Museum.

The hoard comprises 170 coins of a type known as silver bracteates, which had a stamped motif on one side only, which were common in Germany and Scandinavia after between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. These coins retained their value for only a limited time, then had to be taken back to the issuing authority and restamped, which was intended as a way of ensuring that money continued to circulate and couldn't be hoarded. The coins in the Visingsö hoard are thought to date to between 1150 and 1180, and contain many stamps not previously seen by modern archaeologists.

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Determining the origin of the silver in the bracelets of Queen Hetepheres.

Egypt lacks any notable silver deposits of its own, and silver objects were rare during the Old Kingdom, with the metal not becoming a commonly imported commodity until the early Middle Kingdom, about 1900 BC. Silver objects dating to the Old Kingdom are therefore extremely rare, and generally associated with high status royal burials. One of the most notable groups of silver objects is a collection of bracelets from the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, the wife of the Pharoah Sneferu, who was the first ruler of the Forth Dynasty and reigned from approximately 2613 to 2589 BC, and mother to Pharoah Khufu, who built the Great Pyramd at Giza. 

The origin of silver from this period is uncertain. It could potentially have come from local sources which have since been lost; the Ancient Egyptians are known to have mined gold extensively, and seams of silver in gold-bearing rocks are not unusual. Alternatively, silver could have been imported from one of the cities of what is now Syria, most likely Byblos on the southern coast, which Egypt had been trading with since at least the Naqada IIIA1 Period (about 3320 BC), although cities further north were also traded with, with Elba having been added to the trade network by the end of the Old Kingdom, about 2300 BC.

The tomb of Queen Hetepheres at Giza was uncovered in 1925, by a joint expedition of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts. This tomb had been undisturbed till this point, and contained a trove of artefacts including gilded furniture, gold vessels and jewellery. Among this jewellery was the remains of a wooden box containing twenty silver 'deben' rings (a 'deben' was a unit of weight, although the value of this appears to have changed over time). The rings were in a variable state when uncovered (unlike gold, silver will corrode over time), and the whole collection was sent to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In 1947 two intact rings from this collection, along with a number of fragments of silver from rings which had disintegrated, was gifted by the Egyptian Museum to the Museum of Fine Arts.

When worn, these rings would have been bracelets, with five worn on each limb. They are made from thin sheets of silver folded into a cresent shape, so that there is a cavity on the inner side, and inlaid with turquoise, lapis lazuli and carnelian, in a style which clearly establishes their Egyptian origin. A metallurgical analysis of the metal was carried out in the 1920s, finding it to be 90.1% silver, 8.9% gold, and 1.0% copper, but the distribution of the gold was uneven, giving the bracelets yellowish patches. Since that time no further metalogical examination of the rings has taken place.

In a paper published in the Joutnal of Archaeological Science: Reports on 1 May 2023, Karin Sowada of the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University, Richard Newman of the Museum of Fine Arts, Francis Albarède of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Gillan Davis of the Australian Catholic University, Michele Derrick, also of the Museum of Fine Arts, Timothy Murphy of the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, and of Newspec Pty Ltd, and Damian Gore, also of Newspec Pty Ltd, present an updated metallurgical analysis of the silver from the bracelets of Queen Hetepheres, and discuss the implications of their results for the likely origin of this metal.

(A) Bracelets in the burial chamber of Tomb G 7000X as discovered by George Reisner in 1925 (Photographer: Mustapha Abu el-Hamd, August 25 1926) (B) Bracelets in restored frame, Cairo JE 53271–3 (Photographer: Mohammedani Ibrahim, August 11 1929) (C) A bracelet (right) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MFA 47.1700. The bracelet on the left is an electrotype reproduction made in 1947. Sowada et al. (2023).

The bracelets donated to the Museum of Fine Arts were not available for study, but Sowada et al. were able to access the fragmentary material given to the museum at the same time. These samples were analysed using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to analyse their elemental composition. Furthermore, trace amounts of lead recovered from the sample were anlalysed using Multicollector Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry, in order to determine their isotopic composition, which is strongly linked to geogrsphical origin.

(A) Bag B1 of corroded bracelet fragments in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MFA 47.1702. MFA 47.1702 B1P4 shown second from left, centre. (B) Detail of MFA 47.1702 B1P4 (C)–(D) Metallic fragment recto (left) and verso (right) MFA 47.1702 B2P1. Sowada et al. (2023).

Sowada et al. found that the bulk sample of metal fragments was 98% silver, with 1% gold, 0.4% copper, and 0.04% lead. Patches of corrosion are dominated by silver chloride. Some other elements appear to have accumulated on the surface of the sample, notably calcium, but also iron, probably in the form of iron oxide grains. Examined under an a scanning electron microscope, fragments of the silver seen in section showed a pattern of dark and light layers typical of metal which has been worked heavily while cold, something often seen in Old Kingdom copper samples. Mapping of the elements in these profile sections suggested that the material was in fact about 90% silver and about 10% gold.

(A) Back-scattered electron image of part of the polished cross section from MFA 47.1702 B2P1 (B) Detail from image A at higher magnification, showing the metal structure to consist of elongated islands of uncorroded solver metal ('A') intercalated with a more porous matrix ('B') transitioning to an open framework of corroded metal ('C'). (C) Concentrations of silver and gold in small regions (purple outlines) were determined and plotted in (D). The plots begin at the top of the area shown in (C) and end at the bottom. The final data point is for the larger rectangular area and can be considered the average for this part of the sample (about 89% silver and 9% gold). Note that gold has higher concentrations and silver lower in the more heavily corroded areas (data points in the middle of the plots). Sowada et al. (2023).

The lead within the samples was found to have a lead²⁰⁶/lead²⁰⁴ ratio of 18.8816. This was compared to a database containing the isotopic rations of lead ores from 7000 locations between Iran and the Atlantic Ocean. This analysis susgests that the silver is most likely to have come from the Cyclades Islands, in the Aegean Sea to the southeast of the Greek mainland, and that the second most likely point of origin is the Lavrion mines of Attica. 

Map of the north-east Mediterranean and western Asia, showing potential silver sources. The lead isotope composition of a sample from MFA 47.1702 B2P1 is compared with the compositions of nearly 7000 samples of galena (white dots) distributed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon database. The distance (colour bar to the right) allows 128 galena samples with the closest lead isotope compositions relative to MFA 47.1702 B2P1 to be retained. Unlikely sources can be ignored. A black symbol colour indicates a high probability of provenance with the greatest density of ‘hits’ coming from Seriphos, Anafi, and Kea-Kithnos in the Cyclades, and to a lesser degree Lavrion. Red and orange symbols indicate less probable sources (Anatolia, Macedonia). The symbol sizes have been slightly jittered and enlarged to increase visibility of the less probable points. Sowada et al. (2023).

Silver is known to have been mined in the Aegean region from the very beginning of the Bronze Age, and to have increasingly been traded around the Mediterranean as time passed; nevertheless, finding it as far afield as Egypt during the early Fourth Dynasty is surprising. Silver is known to have been imported to the Old Kingdom, with records dating to the reign of the Pharoah Sneferu mentioning the metal as an import, although not where it was imported from. The earliest records which do mention a source date to the late Sixth Dynasty (around 2300 BC), and record silver being imported from Byblos, in southern Lebanon. At the same time, records from Elba, in northern Lebanon, report silver being exported from that city to Egypt.

Heterpheres was the wife of Sneferu, who ruled 300 years before the Sixth Dynasty records were made, at a time when there is no direct evidence for trade between Egypt and Lebanon. A jug believed to have come from Cilicia in the Taurus Region of southern Anatolia is known from a slightly later tomb, suggesting that the Egyptians were trading this far north. This has been taken as evidence that Egypt could have traded silver from the cities of Lebanon, it is also known that silver from the Aegean was being traded in Anatolia by this time.

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Using strontium isotope ratios to determine the origin of textiles from archaeological sites in Nubia.

The manufacture of textiles by pre-industrial societies was typically a demanding, multi-stage process, which involved obtaining fibres from an Animal or Plant, spinning it into a thread, and weaving it into a cloth, with dyes potentially being added at different stages to achieve colours or patterns. As such, textiles from archaeological sites can be important sources of information about the societies that produced them, giving evidence about trade routes and manufacturing techniques, as well as the social status, gender and age of the wearer. 

Textiles from archaeological sites in Sudan have been studied since the early twentieth century, with material recovered from many sites in the mid Nile Valley. Wool and cotton are the most common fibres in these archaeological assemblages. Linen is also present, but in much lower quantities. Silk has never been produced in Sudan, so any silk discovered there can automatically be assumed to have been imported. Spinning of threads in Sudan was almost exclusively done in the S-direction (anticlockwise), while woven cloths were usually plain tabbies (a plain weave, with warp and weft threads crossing at right angles to form a criss-cross pattern) or weft-facing tabbies (cloths in which the warp is covered up by multiple, complimentary weft layers, enabling the building up of a pattern, which is typically angular in nature), often having bands or stripes in different shades.

However, determining the origin of fabrics from archaeological sites is complex, as plain and weft-facing tabbies are widely manufactured, and the textiles recovered from archaeological sites are typically very fragmentary. Even spinning direction is of limited use, as even in areas where the majority of spinning is done in one direction, the presence of local communities or even individual spinners doing the opposite cannot be excluded.

In a paper published in the Journal of African Archaeology on 11 August 2022, Magdalena Wozniak of the Department of African Studies at the University of Warsaw, and Zdzislaw Belka of the Isotope Research Unit at Adam Mickiewicz University, present the results of a study which used strontium isotope ratios to determine the origin of cotton and wool fragments from Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period recovered from archaeological sites in the Middle Nile Valley.

Strontium isotope ratios in water are strongly linked to local geology, and can be preserved in the tissues of Animals and Plants, making them a powerful tool in archaeology. Strontium isotopes have been used to track the movements of ancient Human and Animal groups, as well as tracing ancient trade routes by determining the origin of stone tools, glass, and textiles. This technique requires an understanding of the ratio of the isotopes strontium⁸⁷ and strontium⁸⁶ in the geology of the area, both locally and regionally. Armed with this it is possible to determine whether or not a material (in this case fabric) was manufactured locally, and in some cases where a non-local item originated from. Both Animals and Plants (the producers of wool and cotton) take up strontium from the environment in the ratios at which they are present, without any fractionation, with the strontium isotope ratios found in their tissues reflecting a mixture of that found in the bedrock and overlying soil as well as that from ground and surface water. However, the different ecologies of Animals and Plants mean that even when they live in the same area, they will have slightly different isotopic ratios.

Although obtaining an accurate strontium isotope ratio only requires about 100-150 mg of material, the desiccated and friable nature of most archaeological fabrics means that the process typically leads to the destruction of one or two square centimetres of fabric, so the choice of materials sacrificed must be made very carefully.

Wozniak and Belka used four textile samples from recent excavations near the fourth cataract, made available for the study by the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as three samples provided by the Sudan National Museum and the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums in Khartoum. All bar one of these was from a burial site, and all are of either wool or cotton. The sample was chosen to include samples which were presumed to be of both local manufacture and imported. None of the samples showed signs of decomposition or degradation, making it unlikely that they had had their isotope signatures overwritten by strontium from groundwater after being buried, something which can be a severe problem in wetter climates, but is less so in arid Nubia.

The first sample chosen, NT1, was a section of decorated warp-faced woollen fabric (woollen fabric in which the threads are packed together closely, hiding the weft) with roughly 14-16 warp threads and 8 weft threads per cm². This fragment was recovered from the bottom of a funerary chamber beneath Tumulus 24 in the El-Ar 1 cemetery, near the El-Ar village in Shamkhiya District. The El-Ar 1 cemetery has been dated to the 2-3rd centuries AD, with decorated fabrics being very rare there.

Fragment of warp-faced wool tabby, sample NT1. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

The second fragment used, NT2, is a piece of dark brown plain tabby woollen fabric, woven from S-spun threads, recovered from the El-Ar 4 Christian cemetery, and which could indicate a date anywhere between the sixth and fifteenth centuries AD. The fragment has 8-9 warp and 7 weft threads per cm², and comes from a section of shroud, which is in turn likely to have been a cloak or blanket used by the buried person and re-used as a shroud upon their death.

Fragment of the wool shroud, sample NT2. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT6 is a course wool plain tabby, woven with 8 warp and 8 weft threads per cm², taken from the shroud of a naturally mummified body (i.e. preserved by burial in a dry environment, rather than Human intervention). The fragment is brown in colour, and very desiccated. The mummy was buried in a supine position, with hands resting on hips, which is indicative of a Christian burial, again implying the 6th-15th centuries AD.

Close-up of mummy’s shroud, sample NT6. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT7 is a section of woollen kilim (woven tapestry rug). This has a dense weave with 7 warp threads and 32 weft threads per cm², and is woven in the slit-tapestry style, which creates the same pattern on both sides. The warp is a 2-ply z-spun (clockwise) cream wool, while the weft is single-ply z-spun wool in a variety of colours, including red, green, blue, orange, yellow and pink, giving a pattern of geometric and floral designs against a red background. The kilim was discovered in the town of Meinarti near the 2nd cataract in 1963, and has been dated to the 14th century AD.

Fragment of wool kilim from Meinarti, sample NT7, before conservation. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT3 is a piece of weft-faced tabby cotton cloth from the El-Ar 4 Christian cemetery. The threads are S-spun and of a golden colour, with the weft threads thicker than the warp threads, and a thread-density of 11 warp threads and 19 weft threads per cm². This is a common, medium-quality cloth type at archaeological sites on the Middle Nile.

Fragment of cotton tabby, sample NT3. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT4 is a fragment of cotton plain tabby from a Late Antique (2nd to 5th century AD) burial site at El-Ar. It is comprised of Z-spun white threads with traces of blue, green, and red pigments, probably a sign of resist dying (dying a finished fabric, while using wax or a similar substance to control which parts of the fabric the dye reaches), and a thread density of 22-24 threads per cm² for both warp and weft.

Bi-coloured threads from the cotton tabby, sample NT4. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT5 comes from the shroud of a naturally mummified body of unknown providence in the collection of the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. The textile is desiccated, low density, cotton tabby with a thread count of 8 warps and 8-9 wefts per cm². The threads are Z-spun, and have a golden colour. This mummy was also preserved in a supine position, with hands on hips, indicating a Christian burial, between the 6th and 15th centuries AD.

Fragment of cotton tabby woven from Z-spun threads, sample NT5. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Precambrian rocks of the Arabian-Nubian shield are widely exposed between the 2nd and 5th cataracts of the Nile. These exposures show a large variety of magmatic and metamorphic rocks, separated by suture zones with small occurrences of ophiolites and deep-water sedimentary rocks. To the west of the Nile Valley these are bordered by younger sedimentary rocks, predominantly Silurian sandstones. These rocks are overlain unconformably by the rocks of the Nubian Sandstone, which spreads across much of northern Africa, and includes a range of continental, esturine and marine sediments (predominantly sandstones), which in Sudan are predominantly of Cretaceous age. These Nubian Sandstone deposits have been mostly eroded away in the northeast of the country, exposing the underlying Precambrian basement, but extensive exposures are still present in the Bayuda Desert in the south, and the area to the west of the Nile. Tertiary Basalt rocks, which have intruded into these overlying strata, are exposed in the south of the country, around Abu Hamad. The floodplains of Nile Valley is also home to an extensive succession of Tertiary Sediments. 

Simplified geological map of northern Sudan. Red asterisks  indicate places where the investigated wool and cotton textiles were found. Numbers refer to the samples numbers. Inset shows the location of the study area. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

The volcanic rocks of the Precambrian basement of northern Sudan have strontium⁸⁷/strontium⁸⁶ ratios in the range 0.7024 to 0.7071, while the plutonic and metamorphic rocks of the basement have ratios in the range 0.7158 to 1.0039. The Cretaceous sediments of the Nubian Sandstone have strontium isotope ratios reflective of those of the basement rocks, with two clusters of values, around 0.7070 and 0.7160.

The alluvial sediments of the Desert Nile Valley are dominated by material derived from the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers, which drain from the Ethiopian Highlands, an area dominated by Cainozoic Volcanic rocks. These sediments have isotopic ratios in the range 0.7047 to 0.7076, a range which includes that of modern Nile water, at 0.7062. Nile muds dating from the end of the African Humid Period, about 45 000 years ago, show a strontium isotope ratio of 0.7052–0.7057, while those dating from between 1000 BC and 500 AD (i.e. between 3000 and 1500 years ago) show an isotope range of 0.7058–0.7076.

Samples NT1, NT2, and NT6 are all low-density woollen tabbies made from S-spun threads, technologically consistent with local manufacture. Sample NT1 contains cream and dark wool, used to make a pattern, while NT1 and NT6 are made entirely of undyed, dark wool. Lighter, cream-coloured wools are rare in the El-Ar assemblage, which may reflect the genetic structure of the local flocks (i.e. many brown Sheep and few cream Sheep). Alternatively, the local Sheep of the period may have been entirely brown, with cream wool being an imported commodity.

Sample NT7 is quite different from these, made up of coloured, Z-spun threads woven together using the split-tapestry technique to produce a decorative pattern, which is likely to indicate that this was an imported item. Furthermore, furthermore, the red dye used on some of the wool appears to have been treated with a lac dye, derived from the Scale Insect, Laccifer lacca, which is found in South and Southeast Asia and South China, but quite alien to the Nubia, where red dyes were traditionally derived from the Madder Plant. This apparently non-local item dates from the 14th century, a time when Meinarti was occupied by the Beni Ikrima, a nomadic group from the Maghreb region.

All four wool samples yielded strontium isotopic ratios within the range 0.7075 to 0.7084. In order to better compare these to the local environment, Wozniak and Belka also obtained strontium isotope ratios from Sheep and/or Goat remains (the two are hard to tell apart) from several archaeological sites between the 2nd and 4th cataracts. All of these remains are known to be older than the wool samples, dating to between 2500 and 500 BC, and gave isotopic ratios in the range 0.7068 to 0.7082 (one set of remains gave a much higher reading, of 0.7109, though this is likely to indicate that the Animal was of non-local origin).

Diagram showing the strontium isotope signatures of the  investigated wool textiles (yellow spots; numbers refer to sample numbers) in comparison to Strontium isotope  composition of Ovis/Capra remains found in the region  between the 2nd and 4th cataracts. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Three of the investigated wool samples, NT1, NT6, and NT7, had isotopic ratios entirely consistent with archaeologically derived Sheep/Goat remains from the region, and the fourth, NT2, fell only slightly outside this range, and still within the range of Cattle and Human remains from the Desert Nile Valley.

Of the three cotton samples, only one, NT3, was made of a yarn spun in an anticlockwise, S-direction, typical of local manufacture in Nubia or Egypt. The other two, NT4 and NT5, were spun in a clockwise, Z-direction, which may indicate non-local manufacture. One of these, NT4, also shows signs of a resist-dying technique, not known in Nubia in the 2nd-5th centuries AD, but common in textiles from India during this period.

These three samples show a narrow isotope ratio range, from 0.7084 to 0.7086, which makes it likely that they were derived from crops grown within a limited geographical area. As a crop, cotton requires a rather specific set of conditions, with a hot dry climate, and large amounts of available water for several months of the year. This can be provided in the Nile Valley between the confluence of the White and Blue Niles and the 2nd cataract, although water and plants derived from this region show isotope ratios below 0.7075, ruling this region out as an origin point for the cotton in the study. Cotton is also grown around the Nile Delta, and ancient cotton fibres and seeds have been recovered from other sites along the Lower Nile, suggesting that cotton may have once been grown more widely. Strontium isotopic signatures are not available for sediments from all of these areas, but the isotopic signature of the Nile water, at about 0.7069, makes it unlikely that any of these floodplains have an isotopic ratio above about 0.7075. Similarly, the sediments of the Atabara and Blue Nile valleys have average isotope ratios between 0.7041 and 0.7060. All of these locations therefore seem unlikely as a point of origin for the cotton used to make the textiles included in the study. 

However, cotton grown in the Western Desert of lower Nubia typically has an isotopic value of about 0.7085, and limestones from the Western Desert of Egypt can have strontium isotope signatures in the range 0.7077 to 0.7078. Cotton is known to have been grown in this region in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, using irrigation systems which drew upon shallow groundwater reservoirs, supplied by rainwater that had filtered through Eocene carbonates, which could conceivably produce a cotton with a strontium isotopic signature of about 0.7085.

Cotton is also known to have been produced in Meroe, on the lower White Nile to the south of Khartoum, during the Roman period, although both the water and plants from this region tend to have a higher isotopic ratio than the cotton from the study, excluding this region as a point of origin. 

Diagram showing the strontium isotope composition of the investigated cotton textiles (green spots; numbers refer to samples) in comparison to Sr isotope composition of selected elements of the natural environment in the Nile and White valleys. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

There is strong evidence for the production of cotton in Egypt and Sudan in Roman and later times, but the possibility of material also being imported from further afield should not be ruled out. Cotton was widely cultivated in India and on the Arabian Peninsula during antiquity, and both raw cotton and finished textiles could easily have been imported to Nubia via the Red Sea. Cotton seeds and textiles excavated at Mleiha in the modern United Arab Emirates have been shown to have originated from western India by their strontium isotope ratios. Unfortunately, strontium isotope information is only available for a few locations on the Arabian Peninsula or from India or Pakistan. However, several regions would be compatible with the isotope signatures obtained from the cotton samples, including the lower Indus River Basin, in India and Pakistan, the Kathijawar Peninsula on the west coast of India, the area covered by modern Kuwait, and the Oman Peninsula.

The isotope signatures obtained from the wool samples from archaeological sites in the Nubian Nile Valley all support a local origin. This is also supported by the technological features of three of the samples, NT1, NT2, and NT6, but not the fourth, NT7. This sample, a kilim rug from 14th century Meinarti, appears to have been made with a technology entirely alien to this part of the Nile Valley. However, it also dates from a time when the city of Meinarti was occupied by an alien group, the Beni Ikrima, who originated from the Maghreb region. Since the Maghreb has a geology with similar strontium isotopic ratios to that of northern Sudan, it is possible that the kilim was brought to the area by the Beni Ikrima from their homeland. However, it is also possible that the kilim was made locally by Beni Ikrima craftspeople from wool obtained from local, Nubian, flocks. Wozniak and Belka conclude that, given the available isotopic evidence, the more likely scenario is that the kilim was made locally, contrary to previous expectations.

In contrast, the isotopic signature of the cotton samples examined fits poorly with an origin in the Nile Valley. The samples all have very similar isotopic signatures, which seems to imply a common origin, although this is at odds with the different spinning techniques used. One of the samples, NT3, has an isotopic signature that fits well with the Dakhla/Kharga oasis in the Egyptian Western Desert, which has previously been identified as a possible site of ancient cotton cultivation. This piece also shows a technology consistent with production in the Nile Valley, notably an S-spun yarn. Importing cotton textiles from an oasis in the Western Desert would only make sense if local, Nubian, production was failing to meet demand. The frequency of cotton fabrics from archaeological sites in Nubia has been observed to have dropped during the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods, so this is not implausible, although an alternative explanation could be that the deceased person for whom this item was used as a shroud had travelled during their lifetime, either moving from the Western Desert to Nubia and bringing the cloth with them, or at some point visiting the Western Desert and obtaining the item there.

Sample NT4, on the other hand, appears much more likely to be of Indian origin, where a block printing technique using resist dying was common at this time. The isotopic signature of this sample matches that of the Kathijawar Peninsula on the west coast of India, leading Wozniak and Belka to conclude that this item was most likely imported from India. This adds evidence to the inclusion of the area around the 4th cataract into long distance trade networks, something previously indicated by the discovery of glass beads of foreign manufacture in the region.

Sample NT5 also appears to be non-local in origin, with a Z-spinning technique having been used, and a non-local isotopic signature. However, there is insufficient evidence to give a precise origin for this fragment at this time, with possible points of origin including  Indus River basin in Pakistan, the west coast of India, Kuwait, and the Oman Peninsula.

Although Wozniak and Belka were not able to determine the point of origin of all the fabrics in the study, their study shows the potential for determining the origin of ancient fabrics using strontium isotope ratios. The development of a wider data set of strontium isotope values for textiles could add to the information obtained by examining the technological aspects of textile-making, to provide a better understanding of the manufacture of and trade in cloth in the ancient world.

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Investigating burial customs in Bronze Age Finland.

Bronze age Scandinavian burial practices are well documented from southern Norway and Sweden, as well as Denmark, where a wide range of burial styles, including large elite burial mounds, gallery graves, cairns and flat ground cemeteries. Away from this area the range of practices is much less diverse. In Finland, where the Bronze Age is thought to have lasted from about 1800 to about 500 BC, the only form of burial known from this period is the cairn. There are, however, a very large number of these cairns, some estimates suggesting as many as 10 000, of which only a tiny fraction have ever been excavated. Furthermore, many of the cairns that have been investigated have yielded no archaeological material. Where material has been found beneath cairns, the most common thing recovered is burned Human bone, apparently produced when the dead were cremated. Since many of the cairns which have been investigated were excavated at a time when methods in archaeology were rather less vigorous, it is possible that many of these also contained burned bone, but that this was overlooked. However, there are other possible explanations for the boneless cairns; they may have formerly contained unburned burials in wooden coffins (something known from southern Scandinavia), which would have decomposed far more quickly than burned bone in the acidic soils present across most of Finland. Alternatively, the interpretation of these sites as burial cairns may be completely wrong, they may simply represent piles of rocks formed as agricultural land was cleared, as landmarks used by sailors, indicators of land ownership, or sacred sites of some other, non-burial related nature. These possible explanations have been debated for over a century, without any evidence being found to favour one theory over another. 

Bronze Age cairns in Finland, particularly those found close to the coast, tend to be different to those constructed in the Stone Age (9000-1800 BC), being more monumental in nature. The largest of these Bronze Age cairns are the largest prehistoric monuments in Finland. The practice of cremating the dead appears to have been introduced to Finland at the beginning of the Bronze Age, and to have persisted till the end of the Iron Age, which in Finland is placed at 1050 AD. However, the way in which the cremated remains were buried changed considerably over that time, starting with large stone cairns in the Early Bronze Age, which shrank over time. Later a soil infill between the stones appeared, eventually progressing to the remains being buried beneath the ground in flat cemeteries. 

In a paper published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology on 9 June 2022, Kati Salo, Jarkko Saipio, Maddie Hentunen,  Kristiina Mannermaa, and Markku Oinonen of the University of Helsinki, present a review of cremated bone remains from cairn burials in Bronze Age Finland held in the National Museum of Finland, and provincial museums in Finland. They examine the number of burials beneath each cairn, the location of the cairns in relationship to resources such as agricultural land, and the health of those buried, as reflected by pathologies detectable on the cremated remains. They also look at the distribution of the cairns across Finland, and their timescale, introducing a number of new carbon-dates, and compare the burials to Bronze Age burials elsewhere in Scandinavia and around the Baltic Sea. Salo et al. aim to understanding the relationship between the changing use of food resources, health of the population, and burial customs over the course of the Bronze Age in Finland.

Bone material from 218 cairns was examined, including material from 76 cairns in the Satakunta Region of central Finland, where the densest concentrations of cairns are found, 50 cairns from the northern coast of Ostrobothnia, most of which have been shown to be Iron Age in origin, 36 cairns from the Southwest Finland Region, 33 cairns from the southern coast of the Uusimaa and Kymenlaakso regions, 16 from inland regions, and 7 from the Åland Islands.

Location of the cairn burial sites in this study. Dashed lines represent land uplift isobases. As the land uplift is greatest in the Ostrobothnian area (northern coast), these cairns have also mostly been located near the coastline in the Bronze Age. Wesa Perttola in Salo et al. (2022).

The study concentrates on the Bronze Age, and includes material from 118 cairns dating to this period, but also includes material from 57 Iron Age cairns, 37 cairns that may be either Bronze Age or Iron Age, and 6 cairns that have been shown to contain material from both the Bronze and Iron ages.

The cairns range from 1.6 to 21 m in width, 1 to 20 m in width, and 0.2 to 3 m in height, with an 'average' cairn being roughly 8 m long, 7 m wide, and 1 m high. Ninety seven of the cairns are built on top of identifiable stone rings, made of larger stones than the rest of the cairn, 31 are built around large individual boulders, and 24 are built around stone cists (small stone-built coffin-like boxes or ossuaries used to hold the bodies of the dead).

Bronze Age cairn in Satakunta (Kaupinvuori in Rauma). Leena Koivisto in Salo et al. (2022).

The most common item recovered from the cairns other than bone was ceramic, with 58 cairns producing ceramic fragments. This was followed by iron artefacts, recovered from 42 cairns, bronze objects, recovered from 41 cairns, quartz, 41 cairns, flint, 18 cairns, other lithic items, 37 cairns, and burnt clay, 14 cairns. However, some of the ceramic, stone, and burnt clay items may have come from Stone Age settlements overlain by the cairns, while some of the metal items may post-date cairn construction.

Salo et al. obtained 15 new carbon dates from bone fragments recovered from 14 cairns during the course of the study. These were added to previously obtained carbon dates, contributing to a growing chronological database for Bronze Age Finland. Altogether, 67 dates have now been obtained from 43 cairns. This dating of cairns in Finland has enabled the connection of cairn-building activities to be connected to other events in ancient Finland, such as shifting shorelines.

Nine of the new dates obtained by Salo et al. were from Satakunta, and six were from the Åland Islands. Thirteen were obtained from cremated Human bone, one from cremated Dog bone (which was found with cremated Human bones), and one from a Sheep or Goat bone. The two bones dated from the same cairn were the Dog bone and a Human bone, both from a cairn in the Åland Islands, with both dating from the Late Bronze Age. The Sheep or Goat bone was of Iron Age origin.

The dates obtained showed that many late Bronze Age cairns in Satakunta were built on top of Late Neolithic or Early Bronze age settlements, something which had previously been suspected, but which archaeologists had been unable to confirm by now. Late Bronze Age cairns in Satakunta were also often built around large solitary stones, generally glacial erratics (large stones deposited away from their source after being carried by glaciers). Furthermore, they demonstrate a connection between the distribution of Late Bronze Age cairns and agricultural land; in the Early Bronze Age cairns tended to be built on high up on prominent features, while Late Bronze Age cairns are typically located close to good agricultural land, and often known Bronze Age settlements. In Gotland (Sweden) the Late Bronze Age saw the appearance of permanent settlements, and across southern Scandinavia population levels are known to have risen from about 1000 BC onwards, leading people to expand into new areas. These changes are likely to have been linked to changing economic circumstances. An increase in the number of bronze artefacts originating from Scandinavia has also been recorded in Satakunta in the Late Bronze Age, something not observed in other parts of Finland. 

Salo et al. were able to identify the remains of a minimum of 212 individual Humans from 164 cairns. The majority of the cairns (132) nappeared to hold only a single burial, with 32 cairns holding the remains of between two and five individuals. The single cairn that contained the remains of at least five individuals also yielded Iron Age material, but with a single Bronze Age metal item. Two cairns in the Luistari cemetery in Eura were shown to contain at least four individuals. Both appear to have been repeatedly used over a long period of time, but with their oldest remains dating to the Late Bronze Age. 

Five left zygomatic bones (cheekbones) from the Salo Palomäki Cairn, indicating a minimum of 5 individuals were buried beneath the cairn. Kati Salo in Salo et al. (2022).

Iron Age cairns were more likely to contain multiple burials than Bronze Age cairns, although it is also possible that all the cairns contained more individuals than have been recorded, since the numbers are based upon the minimum number of individuals that could have produced the recovered remains. One Iron Age site, Cairn 89 from Rieskaronmäki, in Nakkila, in the Satakunta Region, is thought to contain five-to-six individuals, buried at different locations within the cairn over a period of about 270 years, based upon radiocarbon dates.

Single-burial cairns are also common in Bronze Age Sweden, although here double-burials are more common. Salo et al. also note that several other burial types are present in Bronze Age Sweden, and that in some of these multiple burials are more common. 

Ninety five cairns were shown to contain identifiable Animal bones, 53 of which also contained Human remains. A further 15 cairns contained unidentifiable Animal remains; although in all of these cases the sample of material was very small, i.e. less than 3 g. The majority of these Animal bones were uncremated; 27 of the cairns were found to contain cremated Animal bones alongside cremated Human remains, but these were all dated to the Iron Age. Additionally, some of the cremated Animal bones found in Bronze Age cairns may actually come from older, Stone Age, settlements covered by the monuments. This absence of cremated Animal remains from Bronze Age cairns in Finland appears to be significant, implying that the burning of Animals with the deceased and/or the deposition of burned Animal remains alongside the deceased, was not a common practice. These practices were common in Middle and Late Iron Age burials in Finland, and in Bronze Age burials elsewhere in Scandinavia. This difference in timing may be linked to the later adoption of field-cultivation in Finland than elsewhere in Scandinavia.

Iron Age cairns in Finland were also more likely to contain artefacts than Bronze Age cairns, and were more likely to be built on top of older settlements, which may also reflect improving agricultural knowledge.

Between fifteen and eighteen individuals from fifteen Bronze Age cairns and seven individuals from Iron Age cairns could be diagnosed with porotic hyperostosis; a pathological condition in which patches of spongy bone form on the cranium as a result of anemia, which in turn may be a result of malnutrition or a genetic condition. A further nineteen cairns, ten of which could be dated to the Bronze Age, produced remains with signs of osteoarthritis.

Porotic hyperostosis in Rauma Huhdanniska (KM2800:17A), Eura Junnila (KM8307:2), Parainen Trollberg (KM20434:2), Harjavalta Kaasanmäki (KM5104:12), Laihia Murhaasto (KM10858:1), and Vöyri Viskusbacken (KM9385:14). Cribra orbitalia from Nakkila Kuusisto site (KM6126:38). Kati Salo in Salo et al. (2022).

Two Iron Age Cairns and two Bronze Age cairns produced remains with signs of having lost teeth before death. Two Bronze Age cairns produced remains with signs of periapical lesions (tissue produced by a bone or tooth in response to an infection), and one Bronze Age and one Iron Age cairn produced remains with signs of  periosteal bone formation, which is generally provoked by an injury. Osteochondritis dissecans, caused by repetitive trauma to a joint, was observed in remains from a Bronze Age cairn, and may also be present in remains from an Iron age Cairn. One Bronze Age cairn produced a vertebra with a possible Schmorl's node, a form of spinal disk herniation, which would probably have been caused by repetitive injury.

Joint conditions. Possible Schmorls node from Eura Kivimäki site (vertebral body, KM 7412:4). Signs of degerative joint disease from Uusikaarlepyy Råbacken (vertebral body, KM24015:20), Nakkila Rieskaronmäki (articular facet of a rib, SatM16455:4), Laihia Riitasaari (body of a cervical vertebra, KM10435:1), Pedersöre EsseLillmossbacken (scapula, glenoid KM10105:9), and Isokyrö Kaaminmäki (atlas, articular facet for dens axis KM10678:60). Possible osteochondritis dissecans (first hand phalanx, proximal) from Eura Uotinmäki (KM5629:232) and Laihia Riitasaari (KM 10435:1) sites. Kati Salo in Salo et al. (2022).

The commonest form of pathology seen in archaeological material is dental. However, teeth seldom survive cremation, and the material used in Salo et al.'s study was no exception to this, with only small fragments of tooth found. Some of the alveolar fragments found showed signs of dental problems - tooth loss and periapical lesions - showing that these conditions were present in the population, but providing little other information. 

Cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, spongy bone formation around the orbit and cranium, respectively, both of which are caused by chronic iron deficiencies, were observed in several sets of remains. These can be caused by a direct shortage of iron in the diet, by other dietary problems, such as a lack of vitamin B12, or genetic conditions, something which today is most common among people living around the Mediterranean Basin. Similar conditions can also be caused by Malaria, something common in Finland until the early twentieth century.

The mostly densely populated areas in Bronze Age Finland were around the coast, making it highly likely that Fish were an important dietary resource. Remains from archaeological sites close to the coast around Europe over a wide range of times have been shown to be more prone to porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia than inland populations, and it has been suggested that these conditions might have been caused by parasites contracted from Fish. 

The adoption of agriculture has been widely linked to declining health in many Human populations, and the Bronze Age is thought to have been the period during which agriculture became widespread in Finland.

Cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis have been shown to be rare in populations from the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in southern Sweden, and the Late Bronze Age of Estonia. These conditions have been shown to be very common in Early Bronze Age Poland, where they are found in more than 20% of the population, however, this is in a sample of remains with much better overall preservation, so direct comparison is difficult.

The other common pathology found in the collection is marginal osteophytes, or signs of osteoarthritis. This is found in 10 individuals, who are typically older than the majority of the samples. Of the 10 individuals, all but one were found in Satakunta, and all but one were found in cairns built on top of former settlements. The majority of the remains with osteophytes appear to have been male, which is common in ancient populations. This may be a sign that the individuals had been undertaking hard physical labour, associated with agriculture, which is believed to have been adopted in Satakunta before other regions of Finland. The practice of building cairns on top of former dwelling sites appears to have been linked to the adoption of agriculture, something which had happened by the Late Bronze Age in Satakunta, but which did not happen until the Iron Age in other parts of Finland. Other studies have shown that early agriculturalists were particularly prone to osteoarthritis of the vertebral joints, which seems to be the area most affected in the individuals from Satakunta.

Another practice that appears to have been adopted earlier in Satakunta than other areas is that of placing more than one individual beneath the same cairn. These cairns with more than one internment were also the ones which had the highest rates of osteophytes and porotic hyperostosis, with these individuals also being more likely to be male. Thus these were older male individuals who had been involved with hard manual labour, probably agriculture related, and were suffering from iron-deficiency, something also associated with the adoption of agriculture, which led to lower levels of meat consumption. Analysis of Animal bone from Late Bronze Age cairns in Satakunta suggests that Seal meat was disappearing from the diet at this time. 

Other pathologies, such as trauma or periostitis, were much less common, but this does not mean that they were absent from the population. Other studies of cremated remains have shown that these are generally much less common, suggesting that this is related to the cremation process, rather than the health of the population, possibly because new bone growth tends to split away from older bone when burned. Degenerative joint disease and porotic hyperostosis are more likely to survive cremation, and have been shown to be more common in other populations where cremation was practised.

It is likely that future excavations will uncover more remains from cairns in Finland, and that this will lead to a more detailed understanding of cairn-building people and the lives they lead. Salo et al. suggest that more detailed studies of Iron Age cairns may lead to a better understanding of the transition to an agricultural lifestyle across Finland. 

Strontium isotope analysis could potentially be used to determine the origin of the individuals within the cairns. Studies using this method have been carried out in Estonia, and Gotland (Sweden), where genetic analysis of Bronze Age burials has also been undertaken, although this is not likely to be possible in Finland, where cremation appears to have been a universal practise, as DNA cannot usually be recovered from cremated remains.

The Bronze Age is the earliest period in Finland where sufficient remains exist for a large scale comparison between sites, and Salo et al.'s study provides insights into this little-known area of the European Bronze Age. The common Bronze Age practise appears to have been to bury a single individual beneath a large cairn, although this appears to have changed over time, with multiple burials appearing in the Late Bronze Age and becoming more common in the Iron Age, apparently reflecting a change in burial custom associated with the spread of agriculture. These single burials appear to have been much less likely to have been accompanied by Animals or artefacts than contemporary burials in southern Scandinavia, probably reflecting cultural and economic differences between the two areas. Porotic hyperostosis is more common than in other Bronze Age populations around the Baltic Sea, and osteophytes are seen to appear earlier in Satakunta than other areas of Finland, apparently connected to an earlier adoption of agriculture.

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