Excavations from 2021 to 2023 at Cave 338 in the eastern Pyrenees in Spain near the border with France uncovered well-defined archaeological layers of human occupation in phases from the early 5th millennium B.C. to the late 1st millennium B.C. At above 7,333 feet (2,235 meters) above sea level, it’s the highest-altitude cave with sustained prehistoric human occupation in the Pyrenees.

Archaeologists unearthed four layers of occupation: a thin top layer with a few artifacts from historical periods indicating it was barely used, an oldest layer consisting solely of charcoal fragments and two middle layers with dense remains of combustion pits, animal bones, ceramic vessels and an extraordinary assemblage of green mineral fragments believed to be malachite.

Almost 200 pieces of green stone fragments were found alongside charcoal in 23 combustion pits. Malachite is not native to the cave so must have been transported there. Researchers believe it was brought to the cave to convert the mineral into copper. Heating malachite breaks it down into carbon dioxide and copper oxide. Adding charcoal then releases the carbon dioxide and leave a nugget of copper behind. Many of the fragments were This is one of the earliest archaeological contexts documenting prehistoric high altitude copper mining in Europe.

“Many of these fragments are thermally altered, while other materials in the cave are not, which clearly suggests that fire played an important role in their processing and that there was a deliberate intention behind it,” said Dr Julia Montes-Landa of the University of Granada, co-author. “In other words, they weren’t burned by accident.”

The hearths cut across each other, indicating that the visitors reused this space frequently, but are still distinct, which suggests that those visits were separated by plenty of time. Radiocarbon dating puts the hearth found in the second layer at about 3,000 years old, while the hearths in the third layer are around 5,500 to 4,000 years old.

The excavation also uncovered the remains of at least one child and jewelry. A finger bone and a baby tooth from a child around 11 years of age were found in the third layer. It’s not currently possible to determine if the two came from the same child, but they do indicate the site was used for burials and there may be more to be found deeper in the cave. A shell pendant and a brown bear tooth pendant dating to around the second millennium B.C. were found in the second layer. There are comparable shell pendants known from prehistoric sites in Catalonia, which suggests ties between communities or shared cultural traditions, while the bear tooth is a rarity that may have been found in the cave or environs.

“For a long time, high-mountain environments were seen as marginal, places prehistoric communities passed through occasionally,” said Prof Carlos Tornero of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. “But we found a really rich archaeological sequence, including multiple combustion structures and a very large number of green mineral fragments. We can’t say exactly how long people stayed each time, but the repeated use of the space and the density of remains suggest occupations that were short to medium in duration, but happening again and again over long periods of time.”

The study has been published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology and can be read in its entirety here.

An excavation in the Moharam Bek district of Alexandria, Egypt, has uncovered the remains of a rare circular public bath from the Ptolemaic era and a Roman-era villa with intricate mosaic floors. These findings shed new light on the urban development of Alexandria from the Ptolemaic period through the Roman era and into the Byzantine period, and redraw the map of the city.

The Moharam Bek district was the southeastern sector of the ancient city, an area that has not been extensively excavated before now. The discoveries confirm that the area was still inside the walls of the ancient city into the Byzantine era before later changes in the city’s urban fabric marginalized the neighborhood.

The circular bath takes the classical tholos form, characterized by a ring of columns that supported a domed or conical roof. In ancient Greece, these structures were intended for a variety of functions, both secular and religious, but public baths are exceedingly rare.

The villa had a small plunge pool fed by an advanced water management system. A variety of mosaic techniques were found decorating the floors of the bath and the villa, including fine examples of surviving sections of opus tessellatum and opus sectile, emphasizing the diversity of artistic workshops in Ptolemaic and Roman Alexandria.

Over the months of excavation, the team recovered important moveable artifacts as well as the architectural remains. The most notable finds were marble statues of deities including Bacchus and Asclepius, god of health, headless statue bodies with finely sculpted draping and statue heads with surviving stone eye inlays and polychrome point. One of the decapitated heads matches one of the bodies.

The artifacts are currently undergoing preliminary restoration before they are transferred to specialized laboratories. When conservation is complete, a selection of the most important pieces will go on display at the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria.

The 2nd century grave marker of a Roman naval soldier found in a New Orleans back yard has been repatriated to Italy. The inscribed marble slab was officially returned to Italy in a ceremony in Rome on Wednesday, April 29th. Other artifacts, including a large Etruscan urn from the 7th century B.C., Greek pottery, and Egyptian statuary, were repatriated at the same ceremony.

Tulane University anthropologist Daniella Santoro and her husband Aaron Lorenz found the stone last year while doing yard work at their historic shotgun house in New Orlean’s Carrolton neighborhood. They reached out to archaeologists and Latin experts, including Tulane University classical studies professor Susann Lusnia, to research its history and translate the inscription. The text identified the deceased as Sextus Congenius Verus, soldier of the fleet of Misenum, an inscription matching one recorded as missing from the National Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia after World War II.

Lusnia traveled to Civitavecchia in person to investigate the mystery of how this slab went from its find site, to the local museum, then across an ocean to a New Orleans back yard. The previous homeowner, reading the story of the find in the press, solved the last part of the mystery — her grandfather had served in Italy during World War II, married an Italian woman and brought her home to New Orleans. Presumably the slab came with them.

Santoro, Lusnia, other experts and cultural heritage organizations worked together with the Civitavecchia museum on how best to get the grave marker back to the museum. Due to the complexities inherent in the repatriation process, they decided to bring in the FBI’s Art Crime Team. They took custody of the funerary marker in November of last year while the FBI in Rome coordinated the return of the slab and a number of other significant ancient artifacts with Italian authorities.

Professor Susann Lusnia:

“It is especially gratifying to know that this object will soon be home in the collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia. I think that those of us in New Orleans who experienced Hurricane Katrina understand the joy that accompanies the return of things that we thought were lost forever.”

“Cultural heritage is worth protecting … Every object returned builds trust and international cooperation, which I think is especially important now,” she added.

A 7,000-year-old bone pit containing the skeletal remains of at least 12 beavers likely hunted for their fur has been discovered near Alsleben, Germany.

The early Neolithic pit was discovered by a team from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology (LDA) Saxony-Anhalt in advance of high-voltage line construction in 2024. It was located above the Saale River in an area known to have had Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age settlements. The excavation uncovered numerous remains from the Neolithic-era occupation — postholes, burials, storage pits — including one small pit less than 32 inches in diameter that was packed with animals bones. Archaeologists knew at first glance that beaver were among them, because of their distinctive orange teeth. A flint object found in the fill of the pit suggested a Neolithic date.

The bone pit was removed in a soil block for careful excavation in laboratory conditions. The bones were radiocarbon dated and found to date to between 4935 and 4787 B.C. when the Stroke-Ornamented Ware Culture occupied the area and much of Central Europe.

While archaeological evidence has been found that beaver meat was eaten at this time and later, that was not the purpose of this hunt. There are no cut marks on the bones typically left by butchering and had the carcasses been consumed, the skeletal remains would be complete when they were discarded.

The bones are exceptionally well preserved and mostly unfragmented. Based on the skulls already uncovered, it can be assumed that the remains of at least twelve individuals were disposed of in the pit. The absence of some bones and the lack of anatomical coherence among the existing remains indicate that the animals were already skeletonized at the time of deposition. Various age classes, from quite young (1 year old) to old animals (over eight years old), can be identified based on the bones.

Hunting beavers along the Saale River in Alsleben was likely possible during the Neolithic. The concentration of bones in a single find suggests a unique event. Presumably, the animals were hunted for their fur, skinned, and the carcasses left until they decomposed, possibly on a garbage heap. The individual bones were later disposed of in the pit. The Alsleben find thus not only points to specialized hunting strategies in the early Neolithic period, but also allows us to draw conclusions about clothing at that time, which we can imagine to have been quite elaborate.