By: The Scribe on February, 2008
Twelve years passed without excavations at Zhoukoudian. Finally, in 1949, the political situation was stable enough for the work to continue, and work seasons were held in 1951, 1958-60, and again from 1978-80. A surprising number of additional fossils were found during these excavations:
1959: Almost full mandible belonging to an older female.
1966: Frontal and occipital skull fossils, allowing for a complete skullcap reconstruction. The skull fossils found here belonged to the same individual whose bones had been excavated in 1934-36.
Between the years of 1921 and 1966, the Peking Man fossils that were excavated brought the findings to a total of 6 almost full crania/skullcaps; 19 large skull fragments; many small skull fragments; 15 partial or incomplete mandibles; 157 isolated teeth; 3 humerous bone pieces; 1 clavicular; 1 lunate; and 1 tibia.
Studies on these fossil fragments then made several conclusions about this ancient man. Peking Man walked upright, like modern humans, and had a similar skeletal morphology – males were between five and six feet tall (about 5’11”), with the women just under five feet (about 4’73”). However, despite all the study done on the physical aspects of the people and examinations of cranial capacity… there is little that can be actually learned about Peking Man from fragments of bone. Instead, it’s the material remains that really makes a difference.
Fortunately, plenty of mammal fossils, ash piles, and other artifacts were found at the dig locations! Around 118 animal fossils were recovered, and reportedly about 100,000 other items were collected from the site – nothing was left behind, just in case it might provide some clue about Peking Man’s background.
The recovered stone tools from Zhoukoudian were made with various types of rock, which seems to suggest an aesthetic appreciation for different textures and densities – everything from vein quartz, to flint, to sandstone, to quartz crystals were used, alone with boulders and cobble to assist in tool creation. The tools were also made using different methods as time progressed!
Peking Man’s tool-making proficiency is often divided into three stages: in the early period, the artifacts were mostly middle to large, and typically made of quartz and sandstone. The flaking technique here is known as ‘block on block’ or ‘anvil technique’ – the large core rock is actually struck against a large, stationary rock (an “anvil”) to remove flakes of stone In the middle stage of tool industry, this manufacturing style was abandoned and a ‘bipolar technique’ was used, a modification of the first method. In this case, the core is placed on the anvil as support, and then struck with another object to function as a ‘hammer’, compressing the stone at both ends and causing the rock to shatter into hopefully usable pieces.
Unfortunately, both methods give very little control over the stone and the pieces that fly off it, creating rather dangerous and extremely sharp rock projectiles! Naturally, Peking Man wanted to find something better, and so the late stage of tool making was far more advanced. Tools became much smaller, were higher quality, and semi-translucent quartz was used for most of the objects. The technique used was called ‘direct percussion’: the core is held in one hand, and stuck with a hard hammer stone to remove the flakes, giving the flintknapper very close control of the object and the size of flakes that are removed.
But even more interesting? Peking Man had fire…
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Tomorrow: Part 3 of course!
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By: The Scribe on February, 2008
First discovered in 1921 during excavations at the site of Zhoukoudian near Beijing, the fossils of Homo erectus pekinensis have since been the source of controversy, speculation, and rather extensive research into human ancestry. Known more colloquially as ‘Peking Man’, the fossils have been dated to about 250,000-400,000 years ago, placing them in the Pleistocene.
The story of the fossils’ discovery begins in 1921, which was when the first surveys of the region were conducted. Locals told the men organizing the dig – the famous Swedish archaeologists Johan Gunnar Andersson and Otto Zdansky, a well known Austrian palaeontologist – that there were fossils on a hill opposite from where they were working, and figuring that locals probably knew the area better than they did, the men began a survey of the area and found two human-like teeth.
The teeth weren’t formally announced to the scientific community until a few years later, in 1926 – but the news was still potent enough to astonish the world, since up until that time, absolutely no ancient human fossils had been found in China, let alone the entire Asian world! As for which teeth they were, one was an upper molar, while the second was an unerupted lower premolar.
A Canadian anthropologist then had the opportunity to study the fossils, noting that it appeared to belong to an entirely new species of Hominidae! It was around this time that academics dubbed the molars as belonging to a “Peking Man”, though its official name is either Sinanthropus pekinensis, or more commonly, Homo erectus pekinensis. It was decided that further excavations were needed of the area, and in 1927, a second excavation was begun at Zhoukoudian.
The results were far greater than anyone had expected. In 1928, two lower jars were unearthed, allowing for the establishment of a specific research laboratory just for these fossils. Over the next seven years, archaeologists would find more than 40 fossil specimens, including 6 almost fully intact skullcaps.
While previous “human” fossils had caused considerable argumentation and unrest in the scientific community, it seemed that the Peking Man was indisputably human. Results from examination of the fossils deduced that Homo erectus was quite different from apes in terms of physical characteristics and cranial capacity, and that the skullcaps of Peking Man indicated by their physical form that they belonged to a creature capable of creativity, cultural development, the creation of fire, and systemized hunting.
What was more, scientists argued that Peking Man stood in a position to occupy the intermediate stage of human evolution. Since then, scientists and historians have since admitted that this statement was perhaps too bold and premature, but they still consider Peking Man to occupy an important phase of human history.
In 1937, the Japanese moved into Beijing and occupied the area, forcing excavations to end. They were stored in a safe location until 1941, when they were packed up to be sent to the USA for safekeeping until the war had ended. However, as the fossils were en route to the port city of Qinghuangdao, the crate containing all the pieces mysteriously vanished…
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Tomorrow: Part 2!
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By: The Scribe on January, 2008
Discovered in a palace from the ancient city of Caesarea, a 1,400-year-old glass mosaic is thought to be the only one of its kind to exist in the current archaeological record.
The city of Caesarea was located on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee, and had successive occupations during the Roman period and the Byzantine era, and it also contains some ruins from the Crusades. The history of the palace that was being excavated, where the mosaic was found, is relatively unknown – the owner of the palace has yet to be discovered, and the time of the building’s original construction remains to be seen. However, judging by the history of the surrounding area, the occupants were likely Christian.
The gleaming glass mosaic found here is unique because of the style of tiling used in its construction: there were two motifs used, both crosses and eight-petal rosettes, while some tiling was done with gold glass and other portions were done using the traditional, multicolored & opaque glass tiles.
The mosaic’s preservation over the centuries was incredible, likely due to the way the panel fell: face down onto the earth, which protected the blue, green, and gold shades from damage and fading.
What the panel was originally used for is unknown – and whether it belonged to a window, or was simply a decorative piece, was unclear from the excavation context. Regardless, the mosaic is a one-of-a-kind discovery, and a clear testament to the high quality of craftsmanship at the time.
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By: The Scribe on January, 2008
Sister Maria Celeste, born under the name Virginia Gamba, came into the world on August 16th, 1600. She was the daughter of the now-famous astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher Galileo Galilei and a woman named Marina Gamba – Marina actually bore all three of Galileo’s children, but the two never wed. As a result, Virginia and her sister Livia were considered illegitimate and unmarriable – and so Galileo entered his two daughters into the San Matteo convent of Florence just after Virginia’s 13th birthday.
Galileo wanted his daughters to have a good life and to be cared for, and since they could not marry, life in a convent was the best option at the time. Unfortunately, the girls were considered too young to make the decision to enter a convent for themselves, and Galileo was met with significant resistance from the church authorities. After a time, Galileo was able to obtain special dispensation from the Cardinal Maffeo Barberini – who just so happened to be an admirer of Galileo’s work – and in 1613, his two daughters were placed in the San Matteo convent of Arcetri, Florence.
In 1616, Virginia realized that the life of a nun was truly what she wanted for herself, and proceeded to “take the veil”. She chose the name of Sister Maria Celeste – young women were expected to take a new name, symbolic of their new devotion – which represented both her reverence for the Virgin Mary, and her father’s passion for astronomy.
As Galileo’s scientific books began to stir up controversy among leaders of the Catholic Church, father and daughter began composing letters to each other, an activity which likely sustained Galileo through some of his darkest trials. While very little is known about Maria Celeste’s actual life, about 120 letters have survived – written between 1623 and 1634 – that she wrote to her father while in the convent. Unfortunately, only one side of the story survives – after Maria died, the church authorities burned Galileo’s letters to his daughter, not wishing to retain the writings of someone considered to be a heretic.
The picture of Maria that emerges from these letters is of a caring, loving daughter, who was not only constantly concerned with her father’s well being, but who also seemed to nearly match him in intelligence and wit. She often prepared her father’s manuscripts, a feat which must have been remarkable to accomplish inside the convent – under the rule of the very church that accused her father of heresy. However, Maria saw that Galileo was a devoted man of God whose scientific discoveries clashed in no way with his religious beliefs – yet, in 1633, Galileo was tried and convicted of heresy.
For a time, Maria served as the convent’s apothecary, and was able to send various remedies to her father, now living in Tuscany, for his ailments, and managed to appeal to him on more than one occasion to help the convent’s upkeep – the convent of San Matteo was extremely poor, as the nuns had no means with which to feed themselves or repair the buildings. After notifying her father of various problems, Galileo even took it upon himself to ensure that the convent clock was running properly at all times.
When Galileo was convicted of heresy, he was sentenced to house arrest in Arcetri – which happened to be near enough to the convent that he could see its outer walls and hear the bells each day. Another portion of his sentence had been to recite the seven penitential Psalms once every week for the next three years, which Maria Celeste took upon herself to perform for him – however, it wasn’t long before she contracted dysentery and died on April 2nd, 1634, only four months after her father’s return to Arcetri.
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