̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Graeme Barker

Revealed: face of 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal from cave where species buried their dead

fpjl2 — Thu, 02 May 2024 06:46:45 +0000

A new documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Shanidar Z: what did Neanderthals do with their dead?

fpjl2 — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 12:11:16 +0000

Archaeologists have unearthed a Neanderthal skeleton in a famous cave in Iraqi Kurdistan.

̽��ֱ��Monuments Men of Libya

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 08:20:20 +0000

True heroes, generous hearts: these are the Libyan archaeologists who, with Daesh at their heels, have accomplished the feat of completing the excavation of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica, one of the most important prehistoric sites of all Africa. When, in 2013, the team of international researchers involved at the site was forced to suspend work, nine Libyan archeologists - two women and seven men - successfully completed the excavation by themselves, securing its secrets for posterity. Thus the history of human population along the North African coast over the last 100 thousand years can now be written.

Haua Fteah is, in fact, the largest karst cave in the Mediterranean (measuring 80 x 20 metres) and is open to the sea a short distance from the city of Susa, the ancient Apollonia. It is a sort of natural hangar, inhabited uninterruptedly by humans from prehistoric times until the present. Investigated for the first time between 1951 and 1955 by Charles McBurney - an archaeologist from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - the same university resumed the research in 2007 under the direction of Professor Graeme Barker, in collaboration with the Libyan Department of Antiquities and an international team of scholars, including myself.

Beginning at the earliest levels, at about 15 meters below the current surface and relating to the Middle Palaeolithic, the cave takes us on a breathtaking journey through time. We first move through the levels dating back to 70,000 years ago where the only human remains found so far at the site - two fragments of Homo sapiens lower jaw - were uncovered: a moving testimony to the arrival of our ancestors along the North African coast. We can then examine the layers of the Upper Paleolithic on our way to the Neolithic, when the first species of domesticated animals and plants of the Levantine regions made their appearance in North Africa. Continuing our journey towards the surface, through layers dating from the Classical Period and thence more recent ones, we arrive at the present day. Like a wonderful freeze frame which has lasted thousands of years, the cave is still in use to this very day - as a livestock shelter - by families of shepherds. It is greatly respected by the local population.

Despite the instability that has followed the collapse, in 2011, of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, we continued to work at Haua Fteah - albeit with considerable difficulty - until September 2012 when the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was assassinated in Benghazi. ̽��ֱ��terrible news reached us while we were actually digging in the cave. We were struck by a deep sense of loss, but also with concern for our own safety. We left Libya a few days later and, after months of indecision and another very brief campaign in 2013, Graeme Barker reluctantly decided to suspend the excavation. Daesh had definitively taken control of the city of Derna, just 60 kilometers east of Haua Fteah, and the risk to our safety was really too great.

However, our Libyan colleagues continued to monitor the massive open trench, and a short while later they informed us that its walls, exposed since 2007, were not going to last for long. To safeguard and bring to a conclusion the work of years, the excavation had to be completed as soon as possible. “We can do it ourselves,” said Ahmad Saad Emrage, archaeologist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Benghazi. “We can still work safely enough. We will be accurate and fast.” So, without any delay, the ‘command’ of operations fell to Ahmad and his team of local archaeologists: Fadl Abdulazeez, Akram Alwarfalli, Moataaz Azwai, Saad Buyadem, Badr Shamata, Asma Sulaiman, Reema Sulaiman and Aiman Alareefi.

Who are these ‘Fantastic 9’? They are, first and foremost, passionate archaeologists and serious professionals. Ahmad and Fadl are the ‘fathers’ of the group, always ready to guide and encourage the younger ones; then there is Moataz, the tireless ‘gentle giant’; then two young daredevils, Akram and Saad, who, after a day of excavation, love to dive from the beautiful cliffs of Lathrun; also Badr and Aiman, who make sure the rest of the troop always has tea in their cups and sheesha to puff on; and then the two sisters, Aasma and Reema, who have iron will. Nine different individuals, nine different histories, united by an immense passion for their homeland, Libya, and by a single unwavering desire: to save their country and its history.

̽��ֱ��first excavation campaign began on May 9th 2015 and was supposed to last for two months, but it was suspended after only four weeks. Ahmad told me that “after work started with no particular problem, the situation had rapidly deteriorated. Local sources had reported to us that Daesh militants had recently been seen in the Susa area. When passing through the town we would often hear gunfire and screams. We were afraid, but we did not want to stop. During the raids against the Daesh positions in Derna, Libyan air force planes and helicopters flew over the cave. We were by no means certain that they were all aware of our presence in the area, and, for fear of being mistaken for terrorists, we would run to take shelter in the back of the cave every time we heard the noise of an approaching aircraft. I remember one day when I was carrying the long plastic tube we used to store the stratigraphy drawings of the excavation over my shoulder; on hearing the sound of an approaching helicopter, Fadl grabbed the tube and threw it away from us, for fear it could be mistaken for a rocket launcher. We were extremely tense, and when the helicopter finally moved away, we looked at each other and burst into laughter.”

“We were increasingly afraid but we continued to work. One day, however, a friend came running, shouting that the night before he had seen masked men in the vicinity of the cave, almost certainly Daesh militiamen. And shortly afterwards the Susa police arrived and forced us to stop work. It was not easy to convince the boys that we could not go on. ‘We can still do it - they kept repeating – we’ll be even more careful and fast’. Reluctantly, however, we collected the equipment and left the cave.”

But that was not the end by any means. Two months later, thanks to the liberation of Derna from Daesh militia, the 'Fantastic 9' returned to the cave and finally managed to complete the excavation. “Do not call us heroes,” Ahmad exclaimed when I told him that I would recount their adventure. “We just did what had to be done, as archaeologists and as Libyans.” However, in a country like Libya that sees its archaeological heritage so dramatically at risk, our colleagues’ achievement was exceptional in its significance: it showed that the Libyans have not given up, that they wish to reclaim their own cultural heritage and determine its fate themselves.

Inset images: Top: the Haua Fteah trench (credit: Cyrenaica Prehistory Project). Bottom: Saad Buyadem and Fadl Abdulazeez (credit: Cyrenaica Prehistory Project).

Dr Giulio Lucarini is a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge. Excavation at Haua Fteah has been principally funded by the European Research Council, with supplementary funding from the Society of Libyan Studies, the project’s sponsor.

This article was first published in Archeostorie. Journal of Public Archaeology.

With Daesh militia at their heels, a handful of brave Libyan archaeologists completed the excavation of the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica, North Africa. Cambridge archaeologist Dr Giulio Lucarini tells their story.

“We can do it ourselves,” said Ahmad Saad Emrage, archaeologist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Benghazi. “We can still work safely enough. We will be accurate and fast.”

Cyrenaica Prehistory Project

Members of the project at the end of the 2012 season

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Let’s go wild: how ancient communities resisted new farming practices

amb206 — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 11:01:15 +0000

A box of seemingly unremarkable stones sits in the corner of Dr Giulio Lucarini’s office at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research where it competes for space with piles of academic journals, microscopes and cartons of equipment used for excavations. These palm-sized pebbles were used as grinding tools by people living in North Africa around 7,000 years ago. Tiny specks of plant matter recently found on their surfaces shine light on a fascinating period of human development and confirm theories that the transition between nomadic and settled lifestyles was gradual.

̽��ֱ��artefacts in Lucarini’s office come from a collection held in the store of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) just a couple of minutes’ walk away. In the 1950s the well-known Cambridge archaeologist Sir Charles McBurney undertook an excavation of a cave called Haua Fteah located in northern Libya. He showed that its stratigraphy (layers of sediment) is evidence of continuous human habitation from at least 80,000 years ago right up to the present day. Finds from McBurney’s excavation were deposited at MAA.

In 2007, Professor Graeme Barker, also from Cambridge, started to re-excavate Haua Fteah with support from the ERC-funded TRANS-NAP Project. Until 2014, Barker and his team had the chance to spend more than one month each year excavating the site and surveying the surrounding Jebel Akhdar region, in order to investigate the relationships between cultural and environmental change in North Africa over the past 200,000 years.

Now an analysis of stone grinders from the Neolithic layers of Haua Fteah (dating from 8,000-5,500 years ago), carried out by Lucarini as his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project ‘AGRINA’, in collaboration with Anita Radini ( ̽��ֱ�� of York) and Huw Barton ( ̽��ֱ�� of Leicester), yields new evidence about people living at a time seen as a turning point in human exploitation of the environment, paving the way for rapid expansion in population.

Around 11,000 years ago, during the early phase of the geological period known as Holocene, nomadic communities of Near Eastern regions made the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more settled farming existence as they began to exploit domesticated crops and animals developed locally. ̽��ֱ��research Lucarini is carrying out in Northern Libya and Western Egypt is increasingly revealing a contrasting scenario for the North African regions.

In a paper published today, Lucarini and colleagues explain that the surfaces of the grinders show plant use-wear and contain tiny residues of wild plants that date from a time when, in all likelihood, domesticated grains would have been available to them. These data are consistent with other evidence from the site, notably those from the analysis of the plant macro-remains carried out by Jacob Morales ( ̽��ֱ�� of the Basque Country), which confirmed the presence of wild plants alone in the site during the Neolithic. Together, this evidence suggests that domesticated varieties of grain were adopted late, spasmodically, and not before classical times, by people who lived in tune with their surroundings as they moved seasonally between naturally-available resources.

Lucarini is an expert in the study of stone tools and has a particular interest in the beginning of food production economies in North Africa. Using an integrated approach of low and high-power microscopy in the George Pitt-Rivers Lab at the McDonald Institute, and in the BioArCh Lab at the ̽��ֱ�� of York, he and his colleagues were able to spot plant residues, too small to be visible to the naked eye, caught in the pitted surface of several of the stones from Haua Fteah. Some of the grinders themselves exhibit clear ‘use-wear’ with their surfaces carrying the characteristic polish of having been used for grinding over long periods.

“It was thrilling to discover that microscopic traces of the plants ground by these stones have survived for so long, especially now that we’re able to use powerful high-power microscopes to look at the distinctive shape of the starch granules that offer us valuable clues to the identities of the plant varieties they come from,” says Lucarini.

By comparing the characteristic shape and size of the starch found in the grinders’ crevices to those in a reference collection of wild and domestic plant varieties collected in different North African and Southern European countries, Lucarini and Radini were able to determine that the residues most probably came from one of the species belonging to the Cenchrinae grasses. Various species of the genus Cenchrus are still gathered today by several African groups when other resources are scarce. Cenchrus is prickly and its seed is laborious to extract. But it is highly nutritious and, especially in times of severe food shortage, a highly valuable resource.

“Haua Fteah is only a kilometre from the Mediterranean and close to well-established coastal routes, giving communities there access to commodities such as domesticated grain, or at least the possibility to cultivate them. Yet it seems that people living in the Jebel Akhdar region may well have made a strategic and deliberate choice not to adopt the new farming practices available to them, despite the promise of higher yields but, instead, to integrate them into their existing practices,” says Lucarini.

“It’s interesting that today, even in relatively affluent European countries, the use of wild plants is becoming more commonplace, complementing the trend to use organically farmed food. Not only do wild plants contribute to a healthier diet, but they also more sustainable for the environment.”

Lucarini suggests that North African communities delayed their move to domesticated grains because it suited their highly mobile style of life. “Opting to exploit wild crops was a successful and low-risk strategy not to rely too heavily on a single resource, which might fail. It’s an example of the English idiom of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Rather than being ‘backward’ in their thinking, these nomadic people were highly sophisticated in their pragmatism and deep understanding of plants, animals and climatic conditions,” he says.

Evidence of the processing of wild plants at Haua Fteah challenges the notion that there was a sharp and final divide between nomadic lifestyles and more settled farming practices – and confirms recent theories that the adoption of domesticated species in North Africa was an addition to, rather than a replacement of, the exploitation of wild resources such as the native grasses that still grow wild at the site.

“Archaeologists talk about a ‘Neolithic package’ – made up of domestic plants and animals, tools and techniques – that transformed lifestyles. Our research suggests that what happened at Haua Fteah was that people opted for a mixed bag of old and new. ̽��ֱ��gathering of wild plants as well as the keeping of domestic sheep and goats chime with continued exploitation of other wild resources – such as land and sea snails – which were available on a seasonal basis with levels depending on shifts in climatic conditions,” says Lucarini.

“People had an intimate relationship with the environment they were so closely tuned to and, of course, entirely dependent on. This knowledge may have made them wary of abandoning strategies that enabled them to balance their use of resources – in a multi-spectrum exploitation of the environment.”

Haua Fteah continues to pose puzzles for archaeologists. ̽��ֱ��process of grinding requires two surfaces – a hand-held upper grinding tool and a base grinding surface. Excavation has yielded no lower grinders which made have been as simple as shallow dish-shaped declivities in local rock surfaces. “Only a fraction of the extensive site has been excavated so it may be that lower grinders do exist but they simply haven’t been found yet,” says Lucarini.

̽��ֱ��uncertain political situation in Libya has resulted in the suspension of fieldwork in Haua Fteah, in particular the excavation of the Neolithic and classical layers of the cave. Lucarini hopes that a resolution to the current crisis will allow work to resume within the next few years. He says: “Haua Fteah, with its 100,000 years of history and continuous occupation by different peoples, is a symbol of how Libya can be hospitable and welcoming. We trust in this future for the country.”

Inset images: Giulio Lucarini analysing the artefacts at the microscope, George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (Aude Gräzer Ohara); Upper grinder found in the Neolithic layers of the cave, with plant residues stuck inside a crevice (Giulio Lucarini); Anita Radini collecting plants and algae for reference collection in Fezzan, Libya (Muftah Haddad); Cenchrinae starch granules from the Haua Fteah archaeological tools (a-c) and modern starch granules of Cenchrus biflorus (d) scale 20 µm (Anita Radini); Cenchrus ciliaris L., Burkina Faso (Arne Erpenbach, African plants - A Photo Guide www.africanplants.senckenberg.de).

Analysis of grinding stones reveals that North African communities may have moved slowly and cautiously from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to more settled farming practices. Newly published research by Cambridge archaeologist Dr Giulio Lucarini suggests that a preference for wild crops was a strategic decision.

Rather than being ‘backward’ in their thinking, these nomadic people were highly sophisticated in their pragmatism and deep understanding of plants, animals and climatic conditions

Giulio Lucarini

Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, Libya. ̽��ֱ��cave’s entrance.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Cambridge academics honoured in the 2015 New Year Honours List

pbh25 — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:25:29 +0000

Professor Sharon Peacock and Professor Graeme Barker are among those who have been given honours in this year’s New Year Honours list.

Clinical microbiologist Professor Sharon Peacock was awarded a CBE for her services to Medical Microbiology. Peacock is known for her work with the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas Programme in Thailand where for seven years she directed a wide-ranging programme of bacterial disease research. In the UK she has focused on the role of sequencing technologies in diagnostic microbiology and public health.

Peacock chairs the Cambridge Infectious Diseases Initiative and is deputy director of the Wellcome Trust Cambridge Centre for Global Health Research. She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2013. “Delighted” to have won the award, Peacock said: “I have the privilege of working with an outstanding group of scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and at the Sanger Institute, and this honour reflects their support and efforts. ̽��ֱ��award also reflects the importance of basic and applied microbiological research for individual and public health.”

Professor Graeme Barker was awarded a CBE for services to Archaeology. ̽��ֱ��former Disney Professor of Archaeology and director, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, is known for his research focussing on prehistoric archaeology, the relationship between landscape and people, transitions from foraging to farming, and the origins of human behaviour and migrations.

Barker has worked all over the world, including in the rainforest of Borneo, and the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa. One of his major contributions has been work showing how humans have adapted to climate change in the past, and the lessons that can be learned from this today.

Describing himself as “thrilled” to be awarded the CBE he said: “I changed to archaeology half way through my undergraduate degree at Cambridge inspired by meeting Colin Renfrew, then a research fellow, and was privileged to succeed him as Disney Professor in 2004. It has also been a privilege to work in archaeology, which has so much to tell us about what it means to be human. It is a team subject par excellence and in accepting the award I have felt very much that it celebrates the achievements of so many colleagues, and good friends from all parts of the world whose support has been so important to anything I have achieved.

Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment, was also awarded a CBE, for Services to Education.

Simon Lebus, Group Chief Executive of Cambridge Assessment said “We are all delighted that Tim has been so honoured; it is a signal recognition of the body of work he produced during his time as a Group Director at Cambridge Assessment.”

Oates, who joined Cambridge Assessment in May 2006, said “I would like to thank all those at Cambridge Assessment who enabled me to make this contribution to improving our education system.”

Trevor Llewellyn Richards, formerly Capital Project Liaison Officer at the ̽��ֱ��’s School of Clinical Medicine, was awarded a BEM for services to Biomedical Research and the Welfare of Animals in Research. Mr Richards was Director of Central Biomedical Resources from 1996 to 2012 and has been described as an “outstanding bio-facilities manager.”

Members of the ̽��ֱ�� have been recognised for their outstanding contributions to society.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

Yes

Evidence of the first modern humans in North Africa

lw355 — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:18:51 +0000

In 1948, Cambridge academic Professor Charles McBurney stumbled upon a large cave on the north coast of Libya. Returning to excavate it three years later, he sank a trench 14 metres into the floor of the cave, finding layer upon layer of evidence of human occupation going back thousands of years into deep prehistory.

Over 50 years later, excavation resumed in 2007 when Professor Graeme Barker, Director of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, led an expedition of 30 academics from 10 research institutes back to the Haua Fteah Cave. Now, mid-way through this five-year project, the researchers have made a fascinating discovery that sheds new light on when modern humans first arrived on Africa’s northern shores.

‘McBurney’s work was a seminal contribution to world prehistory. With techniques available to him in the 1950s, he concluded that the trench spanned about 80,000 years of history. He believed the human jaws that he discovered deep down were pre-modern in anatomy and that modern humans (Homo sapiens) arrived in North Africa around 40,000 years ago, which is about when they reached Europe,’ explained Professor Barker. ‘ ̽��ֱ��advent of new technologies has enabled us to re-evaluate this. Already our findings are showing that this site is probably far older than McBurney realised. ̽��ֱ��jaws are now recognised to belong to Homo sapiens, and we now have definite evidence of our species being in North Africa for at least 80,000 not 40,000 years.’

̽��ֱ��team has painstakingly emptied the sediment that McBurney used to re-fill the trench, revealing the original walls of the pit. They have now reached a depth of 10 metres, just below where the jaws were discovered. Using dating technology such as optical stimulated luminescence – which essentially measures the last time a grain of quartz saw the light of day – the researchers have established that they have reached sediment that is 90,000 years old.

‘Now that we have the first definite evidence for our species being in North Africa at least 80,000 years ago, the question is whether they were behaving in ways we would recognise as modern. We are looking for evidence of their technologies and hunting practices and their level of cognition,’ explained Professor Barker. ‘And since we have another 6 metres to go before we hit bedrock, the deepest archaeological trench in North Africa has potentially a 200,000-year-old story to tell.’

For more information, please contact Professor Graeme Barker (gb314@cam.ac.uk), the Disney Professor of Archaeology. This research was principally funded by the European Research Council, with supplementary funding from the Society of Libyan Studies, the project’s sponsor.

Excavation of the deepest archaeological trench in North Africa half a century after it was first dug is offering a glimpse of up to 200,000 years of human history.

We now have definite evidence of our species being in North Africa for at least 80,000 not 40,000 years.

Professor Graeme Barker

Graeme Barker

Haua Fteah cave

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes