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Uncanny Archaeology of Halloween

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Vlad the Impaler
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« Reply #45 on: October 30, 2009, 02:18:15 am »

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« Reply #46 on: October 30, 2009, 02:18:40 am »



Mixing of bones from different individuals was common in the Galatian burials at Gordion. Here, the jaw of one individual was placed at the top of another's spine. (Mary M. Voigt / Sondra Jarvis and Carrie Alblinger, Gordion Project)
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« Reply #47 on: October 30, 2009, 02:18:54 am »

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« Reply #48 on: October 30, 2009, 02:19:39 am »



A large deposit of animal bones with a few human remains mixed in, bone cluster 3 may be the remains of a Celtic autumn feast. (Mary M. Voigt/Gordion Project)
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« Reply #49 on: October 30, 2009, 02:19:57 am »



The Gundestrop cauldron; detail shows a man being put into a cauldron (Malene Thyssen, Wikimedia)
« Last Edit: October 30, 2009, 02:20:29 am by Vlad the Impaler » Report Spam   Logged
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« Reply #50 on: October 30, 2009, 02:20:51 am »

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« Reply #51 on: October 30, 2009, 02:21:17 am »



Stone foundations from the Galatian settlement at Gordion belie earlier interpretations of the site as a poor farming community. (Mary M. Voigt/Gordion Project)
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« Reply #52 on: October 30, 2009, 02:21:37 am »

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/halloween/
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« Reply #53 on: October 30, 2009, 11:46:44 pm »

Witches of Cornwall
Volume 61 Number 6, November/December 2008
by Kate Ravilious

Macabre evidence of age-old spells surfaces in an archaeologist's front yard

Over the centuries, many in the British Isles have appealed to witches in times of need--to cure a toothache, concoct a love potion, or curse a neighbor. Witchcraft, the rituals of a number of pagan belief systems, was thought to offer control of the world through rites and incantations. Common as it has been over the past several centuries, the practice is secretive and there are few written records. It tends to be passed down through families and never revealed to outsiders. But archaeologist Jacqui Wood has unearthed evidence of more than 40 witchy rituals beneath her own front yard, bringing to light an unknown branch of witchcraft possibly still practiced today.

Wood's home is in the hamlet of Saveock Water in Cornwall, a county tucked in the far southwest corner of the country. For thousands of years people have raised crops and livestock in its fertile valleys, and its coastline of dramatic cliffs, secluded coves, and pounding surf was once a haunt for smugglers. Cornwall is a place time forgot; steeped in folklore, myth, and legend; and purported to be inhabited by pixies, fairies, and elves. So it should come as no surprise that it has also been home to the dark arts.
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« Reply #54 on: October 30, 2009, 11:47:41 pm »

When I visit Saveock Water it is raining, which adds to its unearthly atmosphere. Wood, a warm lady with sparkling hazel eyes, greets me in her cozy white-washed barn while rain hammers on the roof. She moved to Saveock Water 15 years ago because it was an ideal location for her work in experimental archaeology, replicating ancient techniques, including those used in farming or metallurgy. Since then she has carried out her experiments, such as growing ancient crop varieties, unaware of what lay under her fields. In the late 1990s, Wood decided to do some metalwork research by re-creating an ancient kind of furnace. "I dug down into the ground to construct a shelter close to the furnace and I discovered a clay floor," she says.
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« Reply #55 on: October 30, 2009, 11:48:05 pm »

Wood was excited but busy with other projects and left the find undisturbed for a few years. In 2001, she gathered some archaeology students to explore it further. "It was a nightmare to dig because the field is covered in a soft rush grass with a dense web of roots, and the soil is heavy and laden with water," says Wood.
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« Reply #56 on: October 30, 2009, 11:48:25 pm »

As the group peeled off layers of turf, they discovered the clay floor was an extensive man-made platform--probably a foundation for a group of ancient dwellings. During a break in the rain, Wood takes me out to have a look. What used to be a half-acre marshy field is now a slippery clay surface, covered with small plastic crates protecting finds. Based on flint fragments embedded in the clay, a Danish specialist dated the site to the late Mesolithic, around 8,500 years ago.
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« Reply #57 on: October 30, 2009, 11:48:41 pm »

But as Wood and her team excavated the platform over the next few seasons, unusual features began to emerge. They came across strange rectangular holes, about 15 by 10 inches, in the clay. "At first we thought they must be postholes or something," says Wood. But the first of the holes, about 6 inches deep, was lined with white feathers. The pits cut through the clay platform, so Wood knew that they had to date to a later time, but only an expensive radiocarbon test could pin it down. "We guessed it might have been a bird-plucking pit, a common farming practice at the turn of the 19th century," says Wood.
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« Reply #58 on: October 30, 2009, 11:48:55 pm »

But that couldn't be the case--Wood found that the feathers were still attached to the skin, which had been laid in the pit with the feathers facing inward. A bird expert from the local zoo confirmed they came from a swan. On top of the swan skin, Wood found a pile of pebbles and a number of claws from different birds. She later learned that the stones came from a coastal region 15 miles away, though no one knows why they were brought from so far. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to gather the contents of this pit. That season, Wood and her colleagues found eight pits, two of which contained odd collections of bird parts, and six of which had been emptied, but with a few telltale feathers and stones left behind.
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Vlad the Impaler
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« Reply #59 on: October 30, 2009, 11:49:19 pm »

"Over the last 30 years I've been quick to dismiss ritual as an explanation for unusual archaeological finds," says Wood. "It usually means that the archaeologists can't think of anything better. So now it seems especially ironic that I end up with a site absolutely full of ritual."
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