Edward Higginbotham & Associates Pty Ltd | Archaeological service

Edward Higginbotham & Associates Pty Ltd

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24.01.2022 The date and circumstances of the arrival of humans into the Americas is a hotly contested issue. Readers may note some parallels with the issues of Australian aboriginal archaeology as well, with megafauna extinctions also occurring in the Americas. What is not considered is the possibility of seafaring among the earliest peoples. This must have been the case for Australia, but try and make the same case for the Americas and there will be a wall of incredulity!... Two articles provide a different take on the new evidence: https://artdaily.cc//Humans-in-America-30-000-years-ago--f http://www.sci-news.com//stone-tools-chiquihuite-cave-mexi

23.01.2022 Remember the Nebra Sky Disc? The story has everything - looting, illicit excavations, busting of crime rings, then controversy about dating and context. But among all that there is evidence that the metals were sourced in Cornwall, SW England, and that the disc was found in association with a henge monument similar to Stonehenge, but made with timber posts and located in Germany, near the River Elbe. Did you know that this area of N E Germany, namely Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, was home to a large number of Neolithic (megalithic) tombs, similar to those found in Britain?

23.01.2022 Footprints in the mud in Saudi Arabia - early man on the way to Australia, perhaps.

22.01.2022 It would be nice to think that the human lineage is a simple timeline from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, but that appears less likely to be the case every time there is a new discovery...

22.01.2022 Advances in the study of aDNA, that is ancient DNA, have shed light on the population mix of the Iberian peninsula, from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The picture of successive waves of peoples will eventually become clearer, revealing the equation between population, the advent of a farming economy and then metallurgy. It may even shed light on the origins and spread of the Indo-European languages.

21.01.2022 This gold sun pendant joins a large group of other gold objects, found in places across Northern Europe, from Ireland to Germany. Dating to the Bronze Age, it demonstrates something of the belief and value systems of the early farmers before they developed into the more warlike warrior societies of the Iron Age.

20.01.2022 The discovery of a wreck from the Dutch Golden Age not only reveals changes in ship construction, but also the cargo. The shape of the copper ingots is unusual, revealing aspects of pre-Industrial Revolution trade in metals.

20.01.2022 Lidar has been used to map some highly significant archaeological sites, like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, proving it was the centre of a vast urban agglomeration. Lidar mapping of the UK has also in recent years been made available to the general public, resulting in many new discoveries and answers to previously unsolved questions. Lidar provides a more effective technique than even aerial photography by enabling the archaeologists to see through vegetation and tree cover. Many years of groundwork can now be undertaken in a few days.

20.01.2022 In this era of climate change we are of course concerned about rising sea levels and how it will affect us, particularly islands in the Pacific that are low lying. Will these island nations still have a home in 50 or 100 years time. However if we go back into the past, the sea level has changed dramatically, much more than we are anticipating today. Think of a sea level 120 metres below the present level, then consider what our ancestors thought when the low lying coastal pla...ins were progressively flooded year by year until about 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. This article deals with a related issue. How did the first peoples get to Australia and when? This article would suggest a number of opportunities would be available when the land extended for beyond the current coastline. But let us not underestimate the abilities of our ancestors to sail the oceans in safety...with a few challenges along the way.

20.01.2022 Ancient DNA (aDNA) is again revolutionising our knowledge, this time with the ancestry of the Philistines. This evidence might just contribute to the controversy about the origins of the Sea Peoples, who caused so much destruction in the eastern Mediterranean from 1200-900 BC, including the collapse of the Mycenean civilisation. The Philistines were also known as the Carthaginians or the Poeni or Punic people, against whom the Romans waged war. Remember Hannibal.

20.01.2022 What was the unit of megalithic measurement. New research reveals fascinating information.

19.01.2022 Archaeology and history come together to provide us with a more accurate understanding of the past, in this case of cargo ships that plied the Nile in the times of Herodotus.

19.01.2022 The use of LIDAR to penetrate thick vegetation and survey archaeological results has again been demonstrated in spectacular fashion. It was used to map Ankhor and showed that the later Khmer capital was much more extensive than previously known. Now the earlier capital of the Khmer Empire has been mapped and its identification confirmed.

16.01.2022 The renewal of archaeological research excavation in Corsica reveals important new evidence for the interaction between the Greeks, Cathaginians and Etruscans in the fist millennium BCE. Each traded goods into Iron Age Europe leading to developments like the Hallstatt and La Tene or Celtic cultures. http://artdaily.com//Inrap-archaeologists-discover-an-Etru

16.01.2022 Notre Dame will soon be back on time.

15.01.2022 Some great historical views of Brisbane in the aftermath of cyclones and storms.

15.01.2022 Interdisciplinary studies are always a good way to investigate the past, in this case seasonal transhumance between summer and winter pastures along the Silk Road in China. The same seasonal pattern was practiced in Kurdistan, further west along the Road, as well as in Europe. Shepherds in Italy still follow this pattern.

15.01.2022 The ancestry of mankind is always fascinating.

15.01.2022 I'm posting this because I am sure my Facebook friends would like to experience Palaeolithic cave art in a way that is as close as possible to how it would have been seen by the original explorers and painters in this incredible cave system in the Ardèche Department in France. This film takes you into the cave, step by step, until you are immersed in the flame lit darkness, surrounded by light and shadow, forms and shapes. Then finally you see a herd of wild beasts running across the open savannah, fleeing from feline animals of prey. Discovered in 1994, it has been open to the public since 2015 as a replica of the original, which is too delicate to be viewed by masses of people. This film is only available for free until 7 June 2020.

14.01.2022 The historical rich list. To be truthful I have never wondered how rich was William the Conqueror or Augustus Caesar. But if you want to know this article will give you the answer Then you have to wonder about the richest man of all time, Musa Mansa. Had he lived in a kingdom well known to Europeans, would we have invented another phrase for the very rich - "richer than Croesus".

13.01.2022 One of the enigmas of archaeology that may be solved by work being undertaken by ANU in conjunction with the Lao government. A great PhD idea!

13.01.2022 The Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. This is one of the places I learned about when I went through University, studying archaeology and anthropology. A romantic sounding name, but it was also a cave where Neanderthal peoples buried their dead. The evidence indicates that they did this with care and reverence and with flowers. In the past we have considered Neanderthal people as too primitive to be part of the human DNA or genome, but more and more we have come to realise tha...t they contributed to our ancestry. Evidence is accruing that they were responsible for cave painting and artistic endeavour and now the renewed excavations at Shanidar show that they had the whole range of human emotion, grief and love. If we are to look at our human story and the evolution of what we like to call civilisation, then perhaps we need to start here, with the Neanderthal peoples.

11.01.2022 Only in NSW politics. While this backflip saves the Powerhouse Museum, it demonstrates even more the turpitude of our government.

10.01.2022 The destruction of world significant indigenous places (Juukan Cave System) by RIO is like the destruction of Bamiyan or Palmyra by ISIS and related terrorist groups. A government inquiry is now taking place and one hopes that justice will be done and in a timely fashion.

10.01.2022 The Neolithic landscape of the Brú na Bóinne complex, more famously known as Newgrange, is world heritage listed and a great destination for all those interested in archaeology and prehistory. Studies and fieldwork continue to find more evidence of the religious and ceremonial landscape, enabling us to have a better understanding of the complexity of life for the earliest farming communities in Europe.

10.01.2022 Aerial photography is always a great way to look for archaeological sites in historical landscapes. If it wasn't for spy plane photography in the 1950s and 1960s, we would never have such a detailed resource of Near Eastern landscapes, recording sites dating back to the Neolithic early farmers and also pastoral communities of a similar date.

09.01.2022 Long known as the seat of the kings of Ulster, new evidence suggests the site continued in use well into the medieval period. For those who know the history of Ireland, what are the central places for the other high kings of Ireland? And what is the is special significance of the Hill of Tara?

08.01.2022 This is to give you a bit of background to my next post, regarding the Juukan rock caves, destroyed by RIO this year, soon after the Black Lives Matter campaign commenced in the USA with the death of George Floyd (ABC, 5 June 2020). The destruction of this cave system, with nearly 40,000 years of occupation by indigenous peoples, is equivalent to the destruction of our libraries and universities and courthouses and parliament. Why? Because anyone with a modicum of understandi...ng of how people store knowledge in pre-literate societies will know that the indigenous peoples store all their knowledge in places like this. To destroy the heritage of a people, even a preliterate people, is to destroy their culture completely. There was also a useful article published by the SMH, but it may be protected by a paywall, if you have read too many articles. It provides more background (SMH 26 May 2020). https://www.smh.com.au//blast-destroys-one-of-country-s-ol

07.01.2022 If you ever get lost, this may be a solution. If you want more on art, archaeology, etc, this may be good to follow.

06.01.2022 There are many aspects of Vindolanda that make it one of the most important archaeological sites in Britain. In this article are described early remains of a Christian Church, dating to the 500s AD, after the Roman garrison had left for ever, and the finding of a chalice inscribed with Christian graffiti. Nothing completely fell apart after the Romans left and this is a good example of a Roman fort that survived as a place of settlement into what some call the Dark Ages and in Europe, the Migration period. Times were nonetheless somewhat uncertain, just like our COVID lives today.

05.01.2022 For those who have ever visited a château in the Loire Valley, this will be of interest. Leonardo da Vinci lived the last years of his life at Amboise nearby. The question is, did he have anything to do with the design of Chambord, one of the most impressive and architectural of all the châteaux.

05.01.2022 The French will be so pleased that the Gauls outdid the Greeks in civilisation, even before Asterix clouted the Romans.

04.01.2022 Some of the oldest monumental structures in the world have been found at Göbekli Tepe in South East Turkey. They are over 11,000 years old and surprisingly the food and animal remains appear to be associated with a hunter gatherer society. The buildings reveal the existence of a well organised society, based on the hunting and gathering of locally abundant resources. Elsewhere in the Near East the changes to a farming economy were occurring around 12,500 to 9,500 years ago in what is called the Natufian Culture of the Levant. This site is one for the bucket list, as are those of the Natufians. Maybe one day we can travel again...

04.01.2022 Akrotiri, on the island of Santorini, is one of the type sites for the Minoan Civilisation in the Aegean world. Excavations continue to unearth more evidence from the settlement, which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption around 1828 BC. Other well known Minoan sites include Knossos in Crete.

03.01.2022 What I love about history and archaeology is how it can reveal the struggles of each person in the past to make the most of their circumstances in whatever situation they found themselves. That's one of the best things about "Who Do You Think You Are." How would you make the most of your life in a particular historical context? Can you do better than Hans Jonathan? Such is humanity.

02.01.2022 Finally comes recognition of an Australian Aboriginal site, which shows how close the population came to settled life before European settlement/invasion. One of the earliest aquaculture sites in the world.

02.01.2022 Prehistoric aboriginal peoples of Australia committed all their knowledge to memory, using the landscape, place, art, ceremony, mythical beings and other methods to store that knowledge accurately. It is not so surprising therefore that there are stories preserved of a time when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, but perhaps extraordinary that there are now claims of stories relating to volcanic eruptions that are 37,000 years old. If you are interested in how knowledge was stored and transmitted from one generation to the next in societies without writing, then I recommend Lynne Kelly's book, the Memory Code, which takes the aboriginal experience and explores just how far it can be applied to other prehistoric societies around the world.

01.01.2022 The use of aDNA (ancient DNA) to unravel ancient population migrations has proven very valuable. To those familiar with UK and European prehistory the results of this study should have come as little surprise. It is well known that the farming economy of the Neolithic spread from the Near East into Europe. A simple examination of geography reveals 4 possible routes: 1. North from Greece. 2. Via the Carpathians, then the Russian Steppes, either up the Danube or 3. Via the Nort...h European Plain, and finally by 4. The Mediterranean sea route, then up the Atlantic Coast. The fact that megalithic monuments are found in the Near East and all along the seaboards of the Mediterranean and Atlantic should have revealed the importance of the sea route into Western Europe. None of us should underestimate the navigational and sailing skills of these peoples. The debate in archaeology has long been whether changes in material culture are associated with the movement of peoples, or simply marketing of goods. The migration thesis is gaining ground. While not the primary focus of this article, research is beginning to reveal that the migration of people with Beaker pottery across the N European Plain and into the UK may be associated with the spread of Indo-European languages. This research leads to some difficult questions regarding continuity of traditions in the UK and Europe. For example, how far back can we extend our knowledge of Celtic societies of the Iron Age into a distant past? An important question when we attempt to understand prehistoric societies of the Neolithic. See more

01.01.2022 One should possibly not be surprised that the oldest figurative art in the world has been discovered in Indonesia. After all it is on the doorstep of the oldest surviving culture in the world, namely the Australian aborigines.

01.01.2022 Ancient DNA has then potential to answer many archaeological questions, providing ethical concerns can be overcome.