It is not just catastrophic events, such as tidal waves and flash floods, earthquakes or volcanoes, but fires that engulf buildings or settlements they too can also preserve intimate details of former living conditions. Must Farm in the UK is a prime example. Now we have a site in the Pyrenees – go to https://phys.org/news/2024-05-devastating-years-moment-life-war.html … which concerns a settlement that was torched, it is thought, by Hannibal’s army during the Second Punic War [with Rome]. One building was excavated recently and it had suffered a devastating fire, amid many other buildings, yet to be excvated. Fire destroyed almost everything. Archaeologists descended on the Iron Age site – and C14 established it dated to the 3rd century BC. The settlement was a hill fort of the Cerratami people who appear to have opposed the army marching through their territory.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-05-paleolithic-people-cyprus-thousands-years.html …. Pleistocene hunter gatherers settled in Cyprus, we learn – thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This appears to contradict mainstream ideas that such islands were unreachable or inhospitable.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-05-pottery-residue-explores-culinary-traditions.html … pottery styles are used extensively to make interconnections between regions. They are even used to describe cultures. Now, we have the study of the contents of the cooking pots – from the Early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture [from around 7000 years ago] to the bronze ages – right down to the Iron Age.
At https://phys.org/news/2024-05-horse-pagan-christian-networks-horses.html … horse sacrifice was a highly visible and symbolic public rite across most of Europe prior to the coming of Christianity. This was probably a legacy of people with an origin on the Russian steppe zone, who moved into Europe around 3000BC, and again, around 2300BC – amd no doubt on many other occsions as well. It seems horse sacrifice continued in pagan regions into the 14th century AD – in Russia and Lithuania for example. Enterprising Scandinavians seem to be in control of the supply chain.