An archaeological excavation of a Neolithic site on the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand in central France uncovered about 50 burials and the remains of hundreds of structures from 4,000 years of occupation. Forty-one bone samples from animal remains and burials have been radiocarbon dated and they cover almost the entire range of the Neolithic period, making this site unusually dense with information about the artifacts, dwellings and funerary practices of people in Stone Age Auvergne.

The site was first identified during construction of the A75 highway in the 1980s, and archaeologists returned to excavate it further in 2019-2020 as part of a project to widen the A75. Archaeologists from France’s National Institute of Preventative Archaeology (INRAP) found the earliest Neolithic occupation of the site, attested to by ceramics, hearths and pits dated from 4750-4500 B.C., was transitory. In the second half of the 5th millennium, the temporary habitats disappeared. Only tombs from this period have been found at the site, indicating the settlement was abandoned to funerary use only.

The burials from this period include a wide variety of funerary practices and tomb architecture. Tombs range in type from crouch burials in simple pit graves without furnishings to complex dry stone structures covered with mounds that housed the remains of several individuals. Several significant cist burials — chambers with vertical slab walls topped by massive stone slabs — were found with ceramic grave goods. Some of the stone funerary architecture is very subtle, like one large stone placed on its edge at the head of a grave.

Another burial (5413), dated between 4337 and 4065 BC. BC, shows more imposing stone architecture. Its location is marked by a slab of peperite which was collected more than a kilometer away (at the nearest). This heavy, wide and thick slab rests on two smaller slabs laid on edge. Below was an individual without funerary goods and in the same position as his contemporaries.

Other tombs are characterized by the presence of large slabs laid horizontally. After removal of this covering, one of the burials (5130), dated between 4344 and 4061 BC. AD shows slabs laid on edge which outline a main chest and a secondary one, each having yielded an immature individual, without associated furniture. This type of architecture in a box covered with a slab finds comparisons in the “Chamblandes cists” mainly attested to the south of Lake Geneva and in Valais at the same time.

This stone funerary architecture finds its climax in a burial (5201), containing three individuals, one of which was dated between 4344 and 4061 BC. BC, is strictly in the same chronological horizon as the rest of the necropolis, despite a very different conception.

The domestic structures return in the first half of the 4th millennium and come the second half of the millennium, cremation burials appear as well as inhumation burials. The oldest cremation burial combines stone cist with ceramic cinerary urn. Burial 5280 consists of a cist of sideways limestone slabs containing two round urns and two smaller pots flipped upside-down.

The largest funeral urn is a spherical bottle of a very particular type, decorated with two paired buttons opposite two vertical cords. These vases qualified as gynecomorphs find comparison in Switzerland in Cortaillod. This example opposing breasts and stylized arms can be described as anthropomorphic. Like another urn from this tomb, it was “sacrificed” by a pickaxe struck between the breasts.

Another “sacrificed” ax was found in an enclosure that used to be a low mound. The enclosure contained no surviving human remains, but it was heavily eroded and limestone blocks arranged in a rectangle may be all that’s left of the central burial. Less than three feet away from the center of the enclosure, the INRAP team found a perforated double-headed ax broken into three parts. The quality of the workmanship is exceptionally high. Carved out of serpentine, axes of this type were made in Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland between 3300 and 3100 B.C.

New burials and structures emerge in the beginning of the 3rd millennium albeit on a smaller scale indicating a lower population density that persisted until the Early and Middle Bronze Age. The final burials associated with the settlement date to the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium. Three individuals were found in one grave placed on top of the skeletal remains of oxen quarters. Two were buried together at the same time, then the third added after some time had passed. A flint arrowhead was found in the pelvic basin of the third person. This is likely what killed him. Radiocarbon dating places the burial to between 2888 and 2632 B.C.

Archaeologists have uncovered a large Etruscan tomb in the San Giuliano Rock Necropolis in the Lazio region of central Italy that was hidden for centuries under thick vegetation. The tomb is approximately 2,300 years old.

About 45 miles northwest of Rome, the San Giuliano necropolis is one of several Etruscan rock necropolises located along the Via Clodia, a Roman road built in the 3rd century B.C. connecting Rome to Etruscan towns in central Italy along a far more ancient route that was part of the Vie Cave road network. The necropolis was associated with an Etruscan town occupied from the 7th through the 4th centuries B.C. that was built on top of a plateau. The Etruscan name of this town is unknown and almost nothing of it remains today, but the imposing size and rich variety of rock tombs in the necropolis bear witness to the wealth of its residents.

The tombs predominantly date to the Archaic period (7th-5th century B.C.) although the necropolis continued to be used through the 3rd century B.C. Many different types of Etruscan tombs were cut out of the soft tufa of the hill, including tumuli, cube tombs, pit tombs, niche tombs and two-story upper loggia tombs that are unique to San Giuliano. More than 500 tombs have been documented so far, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The tombs are located on steep slopes in thick scrub accessed by hiking through ravines, so much of the site remains unexcavated.

The newly-discovered tomb came to light after funds were secured for a three-year project to clean and restore some of the most important tombs in the necropolis. The first site chosen was the area around the monument Queen’s Tomb, a 5th century B.C. two-story tomb 46 feet wide and 33 feet high with a side staircase leading to the upper terrace and two Doric doors leading into the two funeral chambers. It is the largest known tomb in the necropolis.

The clean-up the façade revealed a previously unknown three-chamber tomb next to the Queen’s. It is a semi-cube type tomb and has three unfinished fake doors carved into the top half.

This operation is thus proving to be fundamental to shed light on a part of necropolis previously unclear and that will increase knowledge of the varieties of tombs of the 5th and 4th sec. a.C. as well as the “urbanistic” plant of what presents itself as a real “city” dug on multiple levels and which includes more than 500 known graves so far from the 7th c. B.C. to the 3rd c. B.C.

A group of Bronze Age metal objects including axe heads and sickles has been discovered outside Słubice in western Poland. Members of a local metal detecting group scanning with the permission of the Lubusz Provincial Conservator of Monuments found the deposit two weeks ago scattered in an area known as Lynx Field. The grouping consists of three sickles, two axes, four bracelets (three of them with engraved decoration), six rings, two pieces of wire and a part of a bronze pin. There was also a remnant of foundry waste.

Archaeologists have not yet commented on the significance of the find. However, it is difficult not to associate it with previous finds of the so-called foundry or bronzesmiths’ treasures. This is indicated by the heterogeneous nature of the discovered objects (ornaments, weapons, household items) and foundry waste. For example, the previous such find, from the vicinity of Gubin, is associated with the creation of the Lusatian Urnfield culture community from the Bronze Age and is tentatively dated to the 4th period of the Bronze Age (1000-800 BC). In fact, there have already been several such discoveries in Lubuskie. Because times were turbulent then and bronze was worth its weight in gold, bronze makers often hid their treasures.

Access to the find site has been blocked to other metal detectorists until authorities have the opportunity to explore it further. The artifacts will be transferred to a museum for study and conservation.

The deadly sharped wooden spikes from Roman forts unearthed near Bad Ems, Germany, have been unveiled in all their threatening glory after conservation at the Leibniz Center for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz. The 23 wooden skewers have been undergoing conservation for almost three years and posed a multi-layered problem. Conservators had to stabilize the wood to keep it from drying out and shrinking or cracking. They also had remove the thick layers of sediment which were attached to the wood with unusual strength.

The spikes were discovered in a 2019 excavation at the site of two previously unknown early imperial military camps on the river Lahn. Found in a v-shaped trench still in their original upright or angled positions, ready to impale an unwary attacker, the carved wooden spikes were preserved in exceptional condition by the waterlogged clay soil. Known from ancient sources like Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, these are the first (and so far only) examples of this type of defensive barrier ever found.

Dubbed pila fossata (ditch spears) by the archaeologists (there are no specific names for them in the ancient sources), they were made of oak and were an average of 65 cm (26 inches) long and 4.5-6cm (1.7-2.3 inches) in diameter. They were sharped on both ends and had two notches, one cut out of the bottom and the other at the top on the opposite side of the stake, giving it mean barb to look extra threatening and making it harder for anyone who had the misfortune to fall onto it to extricate themselves than a plain sharpened spike would be. The bottom notch appears to have been used to hammer it into the dense clay soil, as the wood fibers in the notch were squashed down from the impact. The top notch was cut into the opposite side of the stake. They were installed angled outwards, upwards and inwards, bristling in all directions at once much like the barbs on barbed wire. Between the pila were thin rods or branches of brushwood extending lengthwise along the trench. They may have been tossed into the ditch when the camp was dismantled and their defenses buried to prevent the enemy from using them.

The traces of the two Roman military camps, which were occupied for a few years around the middle of the 1st century AD, were uncovered as part of the three-year scientific project between 2017 and 2019. The evaluations could be completed in 2023. The camps are most likely related to the search for silver veins under the Roman governor Curtius Rufus, which was reported by the Roman historian Tacitus. The larger of the two camps, with an area of ​​​​around 8 hectares, had space for 3,000 men. It was fortified with pointed ditches, an earthen rampart and wooden towers. This discovery was only made in 2016 by the volunteer monument conservator Jürgen Eigenbrod.

Until now, the area in the forest on the “Blöskopf” was considered a Roman ironworks since the 19th century due to its location above the Bad Ems silver mines and in the vicinity of historical mining traces (Pingenfelder). Due to its proximity to the Limes, it has been dated to the 2nd to 3rd centuries. After prospecting and excavations between 2018 and 2019, the researchers found that it was a small fort measuring approximately 0.1 hectares, which apparently served to control a Roman mining area around 50 AD. Inside this small fort is one of the second oldest stone buildings on the right of the Rhine, which could be identified as the central defensive structure in the complex.