NORWAY— Science Magazine reports that archaeologist Hans Peter Blankholm of the
Arctic University of Norway and his colleagues found “unhealthy” levels of toxic metals
in the bones of Atlantic cod and harp seals recovered from garbage pits at eight
archaeological sites on Norway’s Varanger Peninsula. The sites range in age from 3,800 to 6,300 years old. The analysis revealed that the cod and seal bones both contained high levels of cadmium, lead, and mercury, which can cause organ damage in humans when consumed. The metals are thought to have leached into the water supply as sea levels rose and covered previously dry land. Blankholm and his colleagues said, however, that it is unclear if eating contaminated sea creatures harmed the people who lived in these prehistoric Arctic communities, since they also ate fruit and meat from reindeer and rabbits, and may not have lived long enough to accumulate many pollutants from the otherwise beneficial, high-protein foods from the sea. The next phase of research will analyze human remains recovered from the archaeological sites.
Antiquity Pollution Found in Norway’s Prehistoric Food Chain

Mughal prince Dara Shikoh is described as a “liberal Muslim” who tried to find commonalities between Hindu and Islamic traditions. (Wikipedia)
The Ministry of Culture recently set up a seven-member panel of the Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) to locate the grave of the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh (1615-59).
He is believed to be buried somewhere in the Humayun’s Tomb complex in Delhi, one of around 140 graves of the Mughal clan.
Headed by T J Alone, Director-Monument at ASI, the panel has senior archaeologists R S Bisht, Sayeed Jamal Hassan, K N Dikshit, B R Mani, K K Muhammed, Satish Chandra, and B M Pandey as members. It has been given three months. “For the findings to be conclusive, the three-month time can be extended. The panel will use architectural evidence from that time, and also written history and any other information that can be used as evidence,” Culture Minister Prahlad Patel said.

Dara Shikoh’s legacy
The eldest son of Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh was killed after losing the war of succession against his brother Aurangzeb. Dara Shikoh is described as a “liberal Muslim” who tried to find commonalities between Hindu and Islamic traditions. He translated into Persian the Bhagavad Gita as well as 52 Upanishads.
One of the archaeologists on the panel, Muhammed, described Dara Shikoh as “one of
the greatest free thinkers of that time”. “Dara Shikoh realised the greatness of the
Upanishads and translated them, which were earlier known only to a few upper caste
Hindus. Translations from that Persian translation have inspired a lot of free thinkers of
today, even inspiring the likes of former United States President Barack Obama .”
Dara Shikoh & Aurangzeb
Some historians argue that if Dara Shikoh had ascended the Mughal throne instead of
Aurangzeb, it could have saved thousands of lives lost in religious clashes. “Dara Shukoh was the total antithesis of Aurangzeb, in that he was deeply syncretic, warm-hearted and generous — but at the same time, he was also an indifferent administrator and ineffectual in the field of battle,” Avik Chanda writes in Dara Shukoh, The Man Who Would Be King.

Of late, there have been renewed attempts to compare Dara Shikoh’s legacy against that of Aurangzeb. At a recent conclave in Delhi, speakers included RSS functionaries called Dara Shikoh “a real Hindustani”. A research chair was set up in Dara Shikoh’s name at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) last year.
Prof Sunil Kumar, professor of medieval history at the University of Delhi, said:
“Whenever you use the past for modern political purposes, you will always twist it
because the past doesn’t serve modernity very well. You end up manipulating it for your
present intentions. If he was the monarch and not Aurangzeb, would India have been any different? These assumptions are coming from a misplaced understanding of Mughal history… He is made to be a good Muslim but why the search for his grave?”
The remains of Dara Shikoh
According to the Shahjahannama, after Aurangzeb defeated Dara Shikoh, he brought the latter to Delhi in chains. His head was cut off and sent to Agra Fort, while his torso was buried in the Humayun’s Tomb complex. Muhammed said: “No one knows where exactly Dara Shikoh was buried. All we know is that it’s a small grave in the Humayun’s Tomb complex. Most people point to a specific small grave there. Italian traveller Niccolao Manucci gave a graphic description of the day in Travels of Manucci, as he was there as a witness to the whole thing. That is the basis of the thesis.”

The way forward
The ASI’s biggest problem is that most graves in the complex have no names.
Panel member Hassan, a former ASI Director, said, “The Shahjahannama compiled by
Muhammad Saleh Kamboh… has dedicated at least two pages to the last days of Dara
Shikoh, on how he was brutally murdered and buried somewhere in the complex.”
But most on the panel are uncertain about how conclusive evidence can be found. “I
don’t know how it will be concluded. Let people go for further research and find out from
literary resources. All people on the panel will apply their areas of expertise,” Mani said.
Muhammed said the committee hasn’t met yet, so no methodology has been decided.
“You can’t say with certainty, but probability is there,” he said. “Let us hope, even as we
can’t open any tomb, that it works out. It’s a step in the right direction. It should have
been done earlier.”
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-government-locate-dara-shikoh-
tomb-asi-6271332/

Once we thought that ours was the only species to use rituals to mourn the dead. Then archaeologists discovered hints of pollen from colourful meadow flowers around a Neanderthal skeleton in a remote cave in Iraq. Now, half a century later, new remains of these human cousins have been unearthed at the same “flower burial” site in Shanidar Cave, about 150 kilometres from Mosul. “It’s almost the entire top half of a body from the waist upwards,” said Emma Pomeroy, an archaeologist from the University of Cambridge who led the discovery.
“We’ve got the skull, we’ve got the left arm and hand fairly complete, the right shoulder and the right hand, then the spinal column down to about the waist level and all of the ribs as well.” Dubbed Shanidar Z, the new Neanderthal skeleton is the most intact discovered anywhere in the world over the past 25 years, the team report in the journal Antiquity

According to a statement released by the University of Oregon , a team of researchers led by archaeologist Robert J. DiNapoli has demonstrated that the people of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, continued to construct monumental stone statues well after 1600, a date around which some scholars believe society on the island suffered a collapse. The team investigated the construction sequence of the statues, also known as moai, by studying radiocarbon dates taken at 11 sites. They found that the islanders began to build moai soon after they settled Rapa Nui in the thirteenth century and continued to construct them at least 150 years after the supposed collapse around 1600. Accounts left by Dutch explorers who reached the island in 1722 suggest the islanders were still using the moai for rituals. Later Spanish voyagers, who landed on the island in 1770, also reported the moai were still in use, though by 1774 the British explorer James Cook found that Rapa Nui was in a state of crisis and that many moai had been overturned. “The way we interpret our results and this sequence of historical accounts is that the notion of a pre-European collapse of monument construction is no longer supported,” DiNapoli said.

Almost 400 years after storms sent one of Spain’s greatest treasure galleons to the bottom of the sea off Mexico , archaeologists from the two countries are to renew their search for the ship and its precious cargo of gold, silver and jewels.
Even before the tempests hit, the omens for the Nuestra Señora del Juncal’s return voyage in October 1631 were decidedly ill. A day before the fleet of which it was a part
set sail from Mexico, its commander died. The ships pressed on even though the Juncal
was in a poor state of repair and taking on water.
After weathering a fortnight’s storms, cutting the main mast and tossing cannons and
other heavy objects overboard in a desperate attempt to lighten the ship, the crew could
do no more. Of the 300 people onboard, 39 survived by climbing into a small launch.
In May, underwater archaeologists from Spain and Mexico will begin a 10-day search for the Juncal. It is hoped that the work will be just the beginning of a two-decade-long
scientific and cultural collaboration.
The joint project, which comes six years after Spain and Mexico signed a memorandum
of understanding over their shared underwater cultural heritage, aims not only to locate
and protect the Juncal but also to train a new generation of Latin American underwater
archaeologists.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/10/spain-and-mexico-renew-search-for-
17th-century-treasure-galleon

ATHENS, GREECE Haaretz reports that thirty well-preserved lead curse tablets have been discovered in a 2,500-year-old well in downtown Athens by a team of archaeologists from the German Archaeological Institute, who were investigating the
water supply for a nearby bathhouse built in the first century B.C. More than 6,000 ancient graves have also been found in the area, which served as the ancient city’s primary burial ground. The researchers explained that Athenians often placed tablets engraved with curses near wells or tombs, in the belief that the souls of the dead would carry the tablets to the gods of the underworld, who would enact the curse. Curses were written anonymously against named personal enemies, adversaries in court battles, athletes wishing bad luck on opponents, and rival merchants.