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Neolithic Sun Stones, Hidden Incan Tunnels and Powerful Celtic Women - TAS 293
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This week we cover three archaeology news stories. First, we look at “sun stones” that may have been buried as a ritual to bring back the sun after a volcanic eruption. Then, researchers in Peru think they have found an underground network of Incan tunnels in Cuzcos. Finally, women are found to have more power than previously thought in a Celtic group in Britain.
Links
- Neolithic Farmers May Have Buried These Mysterious Stones to Bring Back the Sun After a Volcanic Eruption (Smithsonian)
- Sun stones and the darkened sun: Neolithic miniature art from the island of Bornholm, Denmark (Antiquity)
- Archaeologists Discovered An Underground Inca Labyrinth, Confirming a Centuries-Old Rumor (Popular Mechanics)
- Huge Ancient Inca Underground Labyrinth Discovered Beneath Cusco, Starting At Sun Temple(IFL Science)
- Celtic tribe's DNA points to female empowerment in pre-Roman Britain (New Scientist)
- Celtic tribe's DNA points to female empowerment in pre-Roman Britain (New Scientist - Apple News)
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts head over to https://archpodnet.com/archaeology/293
Contact
- Chris Webster
chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com - Rachel Roden
rachel@unraveleddesigns.com
RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction to The Archaeology Show
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
Episode Overview: Sunstones and Incan Tunnels
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 293. On today's show, we talk about sunstones, hidden Incan tunnels, and powerful Celtic women. Let's dig a little deeper. I mean, there's gotta be some more tunnels down there.
Hosts' Updates and Apologies
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome to the podcast. Hello. Sorry for missing a week, but sometimes you're sick in the wintertime. Oh my gosh. It was just like back to back. Like first I was sick and I had no voice and then I was sick and you're sick and it was all of a sudden the week was gone. It was like, well, there's no point in doing one now. So it's like my one time though. It's your, you're sick all the time. I'm not sick at the time. Every other week. That's not true. And that's my one time. That is. Okay, all of that is not true. So, I had my deal, so hopefully I won't miss any more podcasts. Oh, okay, all right. You do have an interview coming up, so that's the guest next week. Yeah, it is next week. Yeah, so that'll be fun. I have no information, because I'm a bad podcast poster. I didn't even know you were going to say that. You'll get it together before your interview is fine. Yeah. No, I've looked at stuff. I just, it's on the calendar. Yep. I'm scheduled the night before on my calendar to look at it, send a link. Yep. Um, but well I'm doing the interview. Yeah. So this is actually the next episode or more than likely be that interview unless we hold it and do news. Yeah. It'll depend on when the recording happens and whether it, yeah. So either the next one or the one after that, it'll be that one. Yeah. So, but we got a lot of news to catch up on. So we do have so much news and like,
00:01:49
Speaker
Because we missed a week and we prepared this episode last week to record last week and then we both got sick, this news is already like a week behind. So there's even more just piling up. Indeed. Yeah. Indeed.
00:02:01
Speaker
So anyway. Okay.
The Mystery of Sunstones
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, this first article is called, it's from Smithsonian magazine, and it's called Neolithic farmers may have buried these mysterious stones to bring back the sun after a volcanic eruption. Yeah. Which is crazy that people just think, Oh, let me just make this thing and then bury it. And that will somehow I don't know. ah They probably didn't bury him. Maybe they didn't bury him. I think they were. This was a really cool story. And again, like we're getting into like some speculation stuff, which, you know, we, we always like to point that out. Yeah. Well, it's a lot of speculation when it's 5,000 years old. It's like archeology, right? Like a a lot of it just is speculation and you just have to like know that and be okay with it. Right. Okay. So what these are, they are engraved stone plaques and they date to 2900 BCE e and they have been found in Denmark.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, the picture just start with that. Yeah. Because they look like somebody was trying to either draw spider web or almost like a tree rings. Yeah, they do. They look like tree rings or, and some of them, like the one on the right in the picture, it looks more spider webby. And then the one on the left looks more like lattered almost yeah when you look at the the drawings, but, but they are very clear engravings and they definitely had a very clear purpose. We're just trying to figure out that purpose. So.
00:03:19
Speaker
yep And then the site that they've been found at is called the Vasgard West archaeological site and it's on the Danish island of Bornholm and that island is located in the Baltic Sea in between Poland and Sweden. We'll say hi as we fly but fly past it yeah right on our way to see next week, and next month. yeah no So in the article, there's only the two that they show a picture of, I think. I think you only saw the two, yeah but they've actually you found a lot. Yeah. 614 whole or fragmented pieces. And they do, like you were saying before, they do seem like they were purposely deposited into these dishes and they were later filled in and covered with a layer of pottery and animal bones and artifacts. So either, either they were,
00:04:04
Speaker
put somewhere and then trash was deposited on top of it, or they were they were put this way on purpose with the stuff on top of it. Not really sure, but yeah. Yeah. They actually published this in January in the journal Antiquity and that link is in the show notes, so go check it
Ritualistic Burials and Volcanic Events
00:04:20
Speaker
out. Yes. Yeah. There is more pictures and stuff in that picture too, or in that link as well.
00:04:24
Speaker
So the researchers that saw this did not see spiderwebs or ladders or tree rings. They saw rays and for that reason they're calling them sun stones. And I don't know if, you know, maybe there's a history of this type type of thing in this culture. This culture is called the funnel beaker culture and that's the group of farmers that inhabited the island at that time. yeah A fairly well-known culture at that time. I think we have talked about them on various other episodes too.
00:04:53
Speaker
And I don't know, again, if this shape or this style or you know this whole thing, I mean, they're round. you know Lots of things are round, though. and and And with these, there is an emanation from the center, but lots of things in nature actually do that. And and again, they're calling them sunstones. And they're going to talk about linking these with with some other some other stuff here to solidify their theory here in a minute. But I'm just like, do you have sunstones? correlating evidence that these are related to the sun? I mean, do you have other ideas? How do you know this it's the sun? well I just like would not leap to that. Well, that's what's interesting about this article is like, they didn't know what they were for yeah at all. And they, there was an assumption at first, of course, that it was some kind of fertility offering ritual. Right. Cause like that's when you find something like this, you don't know what the meaning of it is.
00:05:41
Speaker
That's sort of always the like jump to conclusion thing because you you don't know, so therefore ritual. but But what I liked about this is that, no, you can't say for sure that these engravings are actual rays of a sun, right? yeah It's just, it could be. And then what they did is they were like, well,
00:06:00
Speaker
If these are rays of a sun, why would they have wanted to engrave these and then bury them in their agricultural fields? Let's go look in the geological record and see if we can find something that might've prompted them to make these engravings. So that's what they did. Right. So I was asking questions as you should as an archeologist, right? Yeah.
00:06:18
Speaker
like If I'm seeing something, is this a one-off or is this more common, right? And that's exactly what they did. They said if this were a more common thing, they would see them all the time. They would, yeah. But they don't. they Yeah. Yeah. So that that's why they're like, well, OK, so what does that mean?
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, they have only found these sunstones at this one site. And not only that, is it's it's limited to this one place, but it's also it also seems to be limited to a short short period of time, short archaeological archeologically speaking. So both of those things are like, okay, well, there must be some reason why they did this. Let's see if we can find that reason. yeah Yep, so they went looking in the geological record, because this was 5,000 years ago. That's pretty much the only place you can look. Yep. So they went looking in the geological record for evidence of a natural disaster or climatic event that could have affected crops. Because, I mean, these are farmers, and pretty much their whole livelihood is crop based. yeah So if they're going to bury these things, and they're going to go on the theory that this is crop fertility related, well, let's find something that will affect crops, right? Yeah. so and And they can find out a lot from the geological record.
00:07:23
Speaker
But they do need to have something to kind of direct their research and their focus. So because these stones do kind of look like the rays of a sun, ah they specifically looked for something that might have affected the visibility of the sun, and which would then affect the ability for crops to grow or you know that kind of thing.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, which kind of narrows it down a bit. It does narrow it down a bit. And it is kind of like trying to prove your own hypothesis sort of a thing. But you have to narrow it down in some way. Right, you can't just look in the entire world and say, hey, is anything going to hurt crops right now? There's not a library of geologic record that you can just go and see all the things. You have to focus your energy somewhere. There kind of is. But yeah, you can't be so broad. But ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica contain evidence of a volcanic eruption around 2900 BCE. Now you might be thinking, well, first off, Antarctica is quite a ways away from Denmark. Greenland's not. I mean, Greenland is owned by Denmark, as some people in our government are. And will continue to be. Yeah, will hopefully continue to be. Anyway. Not to get political. But anyway, Antarctica, and you're thinking, okay, why so far away? But anyway, you get a large volcanic event, and these things travel around the world, and then are just encased in these ice cores. Volcanic ash? Yeah, you'll find evidence of it everywhere. Yeah, it lands on there, and literally hundreds of millions of years of climatic change is recorded in ice cores. It's crazy.
00:09:00
Speaker
anyway Because the they had ice cores from the you know two opposite sides of the world, yeah they were able based I'm guessing based on the volume of the ash that they found in the ice core samples, they were able to figure out that the blast seems to have occurred near the equator and that it likely did affect a large area resulting in ash plumes and haze that might have blocked out the sun. sure So that's what those those samples from the different sides of the world could tell them about this potential eruption.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, so it would have been a pretty bad time. So the sun's getting blocked, temperatures would have dropped, yeah cats and dogs sleeping together. It's just a whole mass hysteria. yeah Wow. Oh, dude, you got bonus points for who gets the movie quote. I don't know.
00:09:45
Speaker
Ghostbusters. Oh, right. Sorry. that's and That was on my wheelhouse. Come on. I hope somebody got that. Anyway. So yeah, the effects would have been devastating and not only to the current crops, but also to the future seasons because they need the seeds from the current crop in order to plant for the next season. So like it just would have interrupted the entire like growing process.
00:10:09
Speaker
I mean, I could have just gone to Village Depot and picked up some more. Seriously. um So they kind of touched on this in the article, but it it it also feeds into like a larger theory or idea about Europe at this time. but it There's a thing called the Neolithic decline, which is basically a decrease in Europe's human population also at this same time around the entire continent. and You know, there's lots of reasons put forth by various academic peoples over the years, and honestly, it's probably a combination of all of them. You know, disease, war, famine, all of the things that caused a human population to decline, but we can throw this climactic event in there as well as another thing that would have helped drive this population decline. One more piece to the puzzle. One more piece. It's not one big reason. It's always like multiple things. I think that's like the one takeaway i I've learned over the years from reading articles like this, you know?
00:11:07
Speaker
All right. Well, we're going to go from here over to the other side
The Secrets of Chincana Tunnels
00:11:11
Speaker
of the world. And to what I'm going to call is basically just an Indiana Jones style article because it's like a professor going off a rumor from an old exploration. And it's just like, yeah, you find a cavern and an a labyrinth and it's just unrealistic that somebody's going to make a movie. You can't. It's like unbelievable that this is true. All right. Back in a minute.
00:11:33
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 293 of The Archaeology Show, and now we're going to go over to Peru, South America, and we're going to find out what some incredibly popular mechanics like to think about archaeology. Again, not the unpopular mechanics.
00:11:51
Speaker
the popular mechanics. Why they care about archaeology, I couldn't tell you. Just trying to get clicks. Do you think that mechanic refers to a person? Or maybe it's just the mechanics of a thing? Listen, I understand it's the mechanics of a thing, but archaeology? They're just trying to get clicks. They are. Stay in your lane, popular mechanics. My grandpa used to build boats and radios and things out of popular mechanics. Not read archaeology articles. Well, people who like that kind of stuff are just interested in things. You need to stop ranting about popular mechanics. That's your last one. You're done. You're cut off. And also, when I found this article, I found one from IFL Science, too, because I like that website. So we have two to choose from. So if you have a vendetta against mechanics, apparently, like you, then. IFL that website.
00:12:39
Speaker
Okay. So what this is about is the existence of a tunnel network under the ancient Peruvian city of Cusco. Apparently it's been rumored for centuries, which is, you know, so cool yeah and not shocking at all. And I've talked about this before, but you know, I've been here many, many years ago at this point and any time, any time Rachel talk about going all right seriously,
00:13:05
Speaker
It was so, it was just such an influential time in my life. i I loved it there so much. And Cuzco is such a cool city. And yeah, so of course I was drawn in by this article. called Yeah. It was said that there was a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Incan temple of the sun in Cuzco. And this network of tunnels is known as a Chincana. Yeah, I got the impression. Yeah, I think that is just the Spanish word for labyrinth or tunnel network or something like that. Yeah. yeah Now this is so cool. The first mention of the tunnels was by an anonymous Spanish Jesuit priest who wrote about a tunnel in 1594 that connect the bishops housing and area, which was somewhere in Cusco to the Cusco cathedral. right So that's when they say rumors, they like like really mean rumor. Like that's a deep rumor, right? Like a 600 year old rumor or whatever, 400 year old rumor. um So that's what they're talking about when they say rumors.
00:14:02
Speaker
I mean, what was the text that was like the rumor? This this Jesuit priest just going, yeah, I'll bet he's got a backdoor to his room from the labyrinth. Like, what was the rumor? I think he just mentioned that there was an underground passage to get from one to the other in a letter to somebody. And like, that that's, that's, they've got that. They know that that existed. Apparently, there were also other mentions of of tunnels in later documents that gave researchers an idea of where to look. i mean If you've got one rumor back here, you've got mentions in other documents that are not connected, yeah chances are there's something to it, unless they're all building up each other. They could be, but yeah the more you have, the more likely it's that there's something to this rumor.
00:14:45
Speaker
And in this case, they decided to start with what they're calling acoustic prospecting, which I guess is basically like banging on the ground to find any areas that sounded like hollow or different. Only archaeologists would call it acoustic prospecting. I know, acoustic prospecting. Seriously. I'm like, what do those guys look like walking down the cobblestone streets of Cusco? Like, ting, ting, ting, ting.
00:15:09
Speaker
Then they used actual
Mapping Cusco's Underground
00:15:11
Speaker
like acoustic prospecting, ground penetrating radar, but not acoustic. Yeah, yeah so radar prospecting to map these specific tunnels. Yeah, so I guess the acoustic thing gave them a general area to look in and then they... Yeah, which is cool. And then they used GPR to to actually create a map. so yeah And a real map, they think that they found actual tunnels including this is from archaeologist Jorge Calero Flores who said he thinks that they found a main branch connecting the temple in Cusco to sexy woman which if you remember our episode or one of our episodes about ancient apocalypse we talked about that which is it's outside of the city over a mile away so that is a really long way for an underground tunnel to to go and to still be intact too and See, what was in that Jesuit priest's like diary? He was like, the bishop told me he could get to a sexy woman from his bedroom chamber. He's like, I know there's a tunnel somewhere. Oh, you're such a 13-year-old boy. Oh, waiting forever. Just saying. He overheard something. He's like, I don't know what this means, yeah but I know what I heard. Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
and Anyway, there are also three smaller branches to other areas of the city, one near the church of San Cristobal, and another to the tenure of the fortress, and a third to, I don't know how to pronounce this word, Calispuqueo? Calispuqueo. Calispuqueo. Calispuqueo. It's just another part of the city, basically. Yeah. So, yeah, it's really cool. um they They've done just this GPR and the mapping from it so far. So, you know, they've got some more work to do here, obviously. but The Peru Archaeologists Association said that the Incas would have first dug trenches and then supported them with stone walls and then put in curved beam ceilings apparently. So I guess they must have evidence from other sites on how they would have built tunnels to know how they would have done this. That's what I'm guessing anyway from reading this. I really hope the Peru Archaeologists Association goes by Parkas.
00:17:15
Speaker
They might. I don't know. Yeah. We want to join that. OK. Yes. Calero Flores says that the tunnel system is roughly 8.5 feet wide and 5.2 feet high. I love how he said roughly. Yeah. And then gives decimal feet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's because it's meters. Kids can go from meters into the feet. Either way. Yeah. That's pretty precise. Well, also in 5.2 feet is not that high even for 500 years ago. So that would have been tough to walk through. That would have been tough for me to walk through. Very tough for you. A little bit easier for me. Of course, the next step is to figure out how to get inside them. They just need an entrance point. They're probably not going to want to destroy the tunnels.
00:17:57
Speaker
More than likely, want what kind of clearance they would have in Peru to do that? What kind of laws and regulations do they have? If they can't find an entrance, are they going to get the ability to just kind of like you know like just like cut through and get in there? Because they've mapped it. There's probably a ah thin spot, maybe, yeah know where they could get through with minimal damage, but then they have no idea what they're damaging. Yeah. So this article was like a good example of more of a press release as opposed to an actual academic article. um So they didn't really give any specifics about yeah how they thought that they could get inside these tunnels or anything like that, or what the actual, like you said, the thinness or the thickness or what the walls are made of or anything like that. They're, they're kind of just building off of speculation right now. So. Well, if I was to draw up a plan, speaking archeologically, and and digging a little bit deeper, if you will. ah We do like to do that. We do like to do that. hu You would use the available evidence. Hopefully the GPR gave you some some idea of depth, which it can. Yeah. And you would you would obviously want to find one ah two things. One, you would find a spot where the distance between you and the tunnel is is ah less, right? Yeah. So you don't have to dig very far. Yeah. and then also
00:19:09
Speaker
if you I don't know if they got an idea of the thickness of the ceiling of the tunnel or the the wall or whatever they're next to on the tunnel, like where where is it on the tunnel, right? yeah Because if they can excavate, well first off, they gotta watch their safety, right? Because if they excavate down, will the tunnel cave in? right well What about the researchers, right? Because if they can excavate dirt out of the way, they might be able to lift out stones because chances are it's got like a stone ceiling. But then like I said, that thing is gonna just cave in at some point. Well, that's what I was thinking. I was like, what are the chances that this mile long underground tunnel is truly still a tunnel? It's probably in very safe to collapse all the way down. Yeah. So yeah I don't know. But my thought with getting into it is if they know that it begins and ends at these certain very specific places, like when you start there and try to find the access point, the original access point, right because that would seem like
00:20:06
Speaker
the easiest way to get in. It just might take some trial and error and you don't want to ruin any, some part of an old building or something like that in the process, obviously. But yes, that would take some tunnel and error to get in there. Um, yeah yeah I think, uh, anyway, super cool. I will be very excited to see what comes of this Indiana Jones tunnel excavation. and So I feel like it needs to be like a movie or something. You know, who they need running that project.
00:20:34
Speaker
A powerful Iron Age woman. They do. They can find one in Britain. They could. All right, let's go there. Bye. I mean, back in a minute. We're not done.
00:20:47
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 293 of The Archaeology Show.
Powerful Women of Pre-Roman Britain
00:20:52
Speaker
Don't shake your head. Don't shake your head. That's right. That's how it goes. I didn't even know all of that out. No, I know. I'm probably editing this at this point. And it's all staying in.
00:21:03
Speaker
Okay, so this is another article in our long-standing series of women did more craft than we thought they did. Yep. My favorite thing. My favorite thing.
00:21:15
Speaker
The article is called, Kelty Tribe's DNA points to female empowerment in pre-Roman Britain. Now take this with a grain of salt. It's from New Scientist. They're just getting off the ground. They're new with this, kind but they are scientists. so but One thing I didn't realize, though, when I picked this article is that you, I guess, have to have an account to read it, and they say it's free. I don't know. We read it on Apple News, where we have an account. so Did you leave the other link in there? I put the Apple article in. so And the other one? Yeah, they're both in there. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, youre but if you want a new scientist account, you can go get one and read it online. And I don't know if they're free or not. Whatever. If you happen to have an Apple device, you can read it on Apple news yeah for free just to find it. um by you bor If you have an Apple news subscription. But yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
I think the basic Apple news is free. Apple news plus is what you pay for. yeah Anyway, yeah but um either way. So so this this was cool. Of course, it again grabbed our attention because we love this this topic and the yeah more and more research is coming out about it. So it's really great. yeah but so anyway Oh, and real quick, this is based on work that was published in Nature, which is also open source. So you can go and look at it there as well. yeah It's just very, you know, jargony and sciency. All right.
00:22:38
Speaker
so So researchers did a... Oh, you know what? I have to mention something really fast. okay Because, again, there might be Apple haters out there, but that's okay. Something I just noticed on the last article, and I was going to mention this before the end of the last segment, and I totally forgot. When I'm doing this on my iPad, so I'm not sure if my computer's doing this or not, but when I'm doing this on my iPad and I've got the Safari link open, I usually go into reader mode. Okay. Because reader mode gets away all the all the ads and everything. Well, I noticed something on the last article because I'm in the Apple news article now, so I don't know it on this one. The last article, it had a summarize button and Apple intelligence for all your iPhone users out there has been summarizing emails and texts and all kinds of stuff now. Well, I hit the summarize button while we were talking about that and it did a damn good job of just AI summarizing the article.
00:23:30
Speaker
And I was like, that's ah that's a pretty quick way to just... Digest the information. Yeah, to just quickly digest what's in there. Now you have to, if you're not going to read the whole thing, you're kind of trusting the AI to get it right. Yeah. And then we did read the article, so I know that the AI got it right in that case. but That's cool. Just check that out. it was in a yeah I only saw it because I went into reader mode. So that was an interesting thing. That's so cool. Anyway, back to this one. So researchers did a genetic analysis of the people buried at a Celtic cemetery in England.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, and the cemetery belongs to the Durotriges. Durotriges. Durotriges tribe but of Celtic people. And it dates to about 2,000 years ago. The um site itself is at Winterborne, Kingston in Dorset, UK.
00:24:20
Speaker
the Durotriges. Is that how we're going to say it? I don't know. and How else would you say it? Durotriges. Durotriges. Durotriges. It's D-U-R-O-T-R-I-G-E-S. So pronounce it how you will. Durotriges.
00:24:36
Speaker
Dorotrishes, yeah. I probably don't even have the emphasis on the red syllable. Anyway, they occupied the central southern, which we're going to be in, in a month and a half, English coast from around 100 BC to AD 100, so just a couple hundred years, and probably spoke a Celtic language. Yeah. Yes, listened to a lot of Enya.
00:25:00
Speaker
And Iron Age burials in Britain are relatively rare because they often cremated their dead, number one. Or if they didn't cremate them, then they would deposit them in like wetlands or just, you know, anywhere they would bury their dead that would just decompose everything. And even the bones would be fully decomposed. So we would just have nothing left to look at of yeah of the burials.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yep. The D people, which I'm going to call them, were different because they buried their dead in formal cemeteries in the chalk landscape, which helped preserve them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the, it's the chalk, like you see the chalk cliffs, right? That's all chalk. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like chocolate right below the surface too. And you just like dig into it. I imagine in some places it is. I guess it must be, huh? Yeah, there's chalk all over the place. And I mean, I would be willing to bet in some places there's soil development. You could have been farmers. Yeah, right, right. But you dig down far enough, and you get the chalk bedrock. Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
So the women in the cemetery were more often buried with valuable items, more valuable than their male counterparts. And that suggests, of course, that they had high status. And, you know, when you have women of higher status, then that could potentially suggest that the society was like more women centric or women held higher status or something, something slightly different is going on here than the typical assumption anyway. You know, real quick here, we always make the assumption across all cultures throughout all time until we are proven otherwise that if you're buried with nicer things, so to speak, or more things, that you have a higher status. Well, you had more money. You had more more things equals more money equals more status, right? and Right. And we would assume that grave robbers would assume that as well. Like they're going to go to the high status burials to find the good stuff, right?
00:26:51
Speaker
Well, if people figured that out, if people figured out that, hey, our graves are getting robbed, do you think somebody would have said, hey, maybe we should put all our good stuff in the lady graves because ah they're not going to get robbed?
00:27:07
Speaker
I don't think that their first thought when they're burying their dead is how to trick grave robbers, though. Tell that to the Egyptians. Well, maybe. But I think it was more about honoring the person that died in in their afterlife. so Well, I see your point. right I don't know that they would have adjusted. Yeah. It's all about the religion and the ritual. Yeah. yeah they the kid They can't get past the... ah Yeah. Yeah. They're not thinking of grave robbers. Right. right And if they are thinking of grave robbers, they're thinking about better caskets or tombs or tricks and stuff like that. Yeah, how to keep them out, not to... It's just something I was thinking about with somebody who's done that. But that is why we have elaborate things like pyramids and elaborate graves. That's true, yeah, to try to keep them out, yeah.
00:27:53
Speaker
Anyway, researcher Laura Cassidy and her team decided to analyze the genomes of 55 individuals buried at the cemetery, and the results were kind of shocking. Yeah, like actually, like we we really were shocked. Yeah.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, archaeologists are shocked. That's what they should have had this article. I know they should have. yeah But they found that the same genetic sequence in the mitochondrial DNA... Sorry, let me start over. They found the same genetic sequence in the mitochondrial DNA of more than two-thirds of the individuals.
00:28:27
Speaker
And what that means is that these individuals, two thirds of them, all descended from a single maternal lineage that originated with some common female ancestor probably centuries earlier. right That's what mitochondrial DNA means. It's passed down by the mother, and it's mostly unchanged from from person to person too, I think, yeah which is why it's really great for tracing this kind of lineage. Yeah. yeah And that basically in indicates... ah My new favorite word.
00:28:57
Speaker
natural locality, yeah or husbands moving to live with their wives' families, so was the norm for this locality. Yeah, which is unusual. Because the wives were moving. Usually, we assume, we being the modern we, assume that groups in the past were patrilocal, meaning that they went out and found brides elsewhere and brought them into their community. yeah But in this case, it seems like it was the other way around.
00:29:26
Speaker
yeah and It still makes me wonder if like the men ranged out you know and went and found a bride and was like, okay, I guess I'm living here now. yeah like yeah how How did that work? how did they yeah Did they meet at a location like Stonehenge, for example? oh yeah you know during some so some big kind of festival ritual thing, and then pair off. Find your mate, and then the men would move around with their new families. Head off to her village. Yeah, maybe. That would make sense, because we certainly know that there's definitely interchanging of people among these groups. It wasn't like there was a lot of inbreeding or anything like that. There was fresh people coming into the group. It's just that the female line has this direct unbroken thing going on. England has a long history of arranged marriages too. And I just like wonder where all that, that has a long history too. And I wonder, you know, if there's a long, long line of that. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is a little bit of a pet peeve of mine though. It's like the arranged marriage thing was with Royal people and high status people. Like your farmers are not engaging in arranged marriages for the most part or merchants or whatever, you know, like,
00:30:39
Speaker
No, but you know if if ah if ah if a marriage suits somebody, they might ah push somebody in one direction or another. They might. I mean, come on. Well, sure. Yeah. I mean, the family has to approve of whoever your chosen mate is. But I think there was more choice there than you know yeah popular culture has you think sometimes. Yeah. but So in this research, they after they realized that they had this mitochondrial DNA connection through many of the inhabitants of the cemetery, inhabitants, like they live there. You drive a cyber truck through there, you might think they do.
00:31:16
Speaker
They broadened their research to include data from another large genetic survey of Iron Age Britain and Europe, so it was both. yeah And again, they found cemeteries across Britain where more individuals were maternal descendants of a small set of female ancestors.
00:31:33
Speaker
in Britain, not so much in Europe. So this it just kind of adds to this like growing pile of evidence that Iron Age women were you know relatively empowered and like maybe these family groups or family communities were centered around the women and yeah are they in and they were the center of the family. Maybe they weren't making the decisions necessarily, but you know if the men are moving in into in with their brides, then that you know tells you what kind of level of power the women in that community had. yeah
00:32:06
Speaker
I love this bit too, because part of what they were talking about was that apparently there's these Roman written accounts, contemporaneous Roman written accounts about these so-called powerful women. And it was previously thought that it was sort of this exaggerated thing for like the Mediterranean audiences who were reading about this, the other Roman people who were like, oh, those crazy Celtic women who have all this power and do all these things. but Anyway, I guess like you know this evidence actually kind of backs it up. like Maybe they weren't exaggerating. Maybe they really did have quite a bit of power. So that's kind of cool. Nice. Yeah. yeah Men still typically dominate formal positions of authority, according to the article. yeah But women can wield a huge influence through their strong networks of matrilineal relatives so and their central role in the local economy. It just makes me think of ah
00:32:55
Speaker
doing prophecy, which we're watching right now. Oh, yeah, totally. One more episode to go. Yeah, see, isn't that so interesting, because that's a really good example of this, because this is like a female group who have so much power, but it's like power, they they're standing behind the men yeah who have the power, but they're pulling the strings. The perceived power. Yeah, and they're controlling them, so it is very similar to that. Yeah, yeah this this is probably more of a,
00:33:23
Speaker
of a working together scenario as opposed to a pulling the strings scenario, but now yeah. All right. Well, I don't know if it's going to be news or interview next time. We'll find out, yeah but you'll find out too. wait hey All right. See you next time.
00:33:48
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:34:12
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.