Researcher uncovers surprising cause of the demise of Easter Island indigenous population

Easter Island Credit: Yale

A new paper by a team of researchers including a Virginia Commonwealth University anthropology professor sheds new light on what led to the downfall of the indigenous population of Easter Island — also known as Rapa Nui — prior to European contact in 1722.

The study, "Variation in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Land Use Indicates Production and Population Peaks Prior to European Contact," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the population's demise likely had more to do with pre-existing environmental conditions than with environmental degradation by the indigenous people.

Christopher Stevenson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of anthropology in the School of World Studies in the College of Humanities and Sciences, recently discussed his team's findings with VCU News.

Your paper explores what led to the collapse of the prehistoric population of Rapa Nui. What did you conclude?

Our paper evaluates a longstanding debate and examines whether the prehistoric population of Rapa Nui experienced a significant islandwide demographic collapse prior to European contact in A.D. 1722. We have used dates from hydrated obsidian artifacts recovered from habitation sites as a proxy for land use over time. The analysis suggests region-specific dynamics that include abandonment of western coast and interior locations. These temporal land-use patterns correlate with rainfall variation and soil quality. The environmental stresses are regionally specific rather than islandwide. Significant erosion around the entire island generated by deforestation has been hypothesized by other researchers as a cause for economic failure. This does not hold up to scrutiny.

How would you characterize the significance of your findings?

This analysis demonstrates that the concept of a sudden "collapse" is a misleading characterization of prehistoric human population dynamics. As a result, we see our approach as useful in the study of other prehistoric societies for which a very rapid demographic collapse has been proposed in prehistory.

Although small, islands can be complex ecosystems that are structured by climatic variation and underlying geology. Human activities are constrained by these parameters and can even cause the ecosystem conditions to change appreciably through their manipulation of the landscape.

Were you surprised by what you found? In what ways?

The results of our research were really quite surprising to our team. Indeed, in the past we’ve published articles about how there was little evidence for pre-European contact societal collapse. When we proposed the [National Science Foundation-funded] project we were expecting that we would gather data supporting the notion that change did not occur until after European contact. In contrast our research suggests that significant changes in land use occurred prior to European contact. The connection between those changes in land use and notions of environmental degradation and subsequent societal collapse are limited.

There is no evidence that massive physical erosion took place on Rapa Nui before European contact and it is unlikely that physical erosion caused productivity decline and societal collapse. While we do not have direct population data, it is clear that people were reacting to regional environmental variation on the island before they were devastated by the introduction of European diseases and other historic processes. In short, our research does not support the suggestion that societal collapse occurred prior to European contact due to physical erosion and productivity decline, but it does indicate that use of less optimal environmental regions changed prior to European contact.

What did your research methodology entail?

We used a method called obsidian hydration dating to date the human creation of volcanic glass tools found at habitation sites. These dates were a proxy for the relative number of people on the island throughout prehistory. We also used an analysis of soil nutrients to look at the fertility of various landforms (e.g., coastal vs. upland) at different elevations up to 500 meters above sea level.

You've written several books on Rapa Nui. What led to your interest in this topic?

This is a continuation of my interest in looking at the development of agricultural systems in small island societies and how that impacts social and economic decisions made in prehistory.

What will you be working on next?

We will be applying some of the same concepts to the Canary Island agricultural systems which have a much higher diversity of geological ages and climatic conditions.

Source: Vcu

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Viking fortress discovery: Archaeological dating results

Two carbon-14 dating results have removed all doubt regarding the authenticity of the Viking fortress.
Credit: Image courtesy of Aarhus University

In September 2014, archaeologists from the Danish Castle Centre and Aarhus University announced the discovery of a Viking fortress in a field belonging to Vallø Manor, located west of Køge on the east coast of Sealand. This was the first discovery of its kind in Denmark in over 60 years. Since then, archaeologists have been waiting impatiently for the results of the dating of the fortress. Now the first results are available, and they will be presented at a seminar at Aarhus University on 18 November.

"When the discovery was published back in September, we were certain that we had found a Viking ring fortress, but since then there have been intense discussions online and amongst archaeologists about whether we were right. Now we know without doubt that we have found a fortress from the 10th century," says archaeologist Nanna Holm, curator of the Danish Castle Centre.

Two carbon-14 dating results have removed all doubt regarding the authenticity of the Viking fortress. The carbon-14 dating was performed by the AMS 14C Dating Centre at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University in close collaboration with Accium BioSciences' laboratories in Seattle.

"The two samples were both taken from the outermost tree rings of charred logs that were found in the northern gateway of the fortress. The results of the two samples are almost identical: The fortress was built in the period between the year 900 and the beginning of the 11th century," explains Marie Kanstrup, an employee at the AMS 14C Dating Centre at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University.

Dating is important in determining the role of the fortress in the history of the Viking age

Søren Sindbæk, a professor of medieval archaeology at Aarhus University, explains that archaeologists are still working to date the fortress more precisely.
"We would like to determine a specific year. The carbon-14 method can't provide that, but we are working on different methods that can help us date the fortress even more precisely."

Dating the fortress will be an important step towards understanding its role in the history of the Viking age.

"We can't say whether or not it's Harald Bluetooth's fortress yet, but now that we've dated it to the 10th century, the trail is getting hotter. The things we've discovered about the fortress during the excavations all point in the same direction. We already know that there's a good chance that we'll find conclusive evidence next year," says Sindbæk.

A structure meant to symbolise power

Even though the excavations have closed for this year, the finds bode well for future efforts. The archaeologists' investigations have also revealed that the Viking fortress was built right next to the open sea.

"The excavation showed that there was a basin of fresh or brackish water right next to one side of the fortress -- presumably a quite narrow inlet leading out to Køge Bay. When the fortress was built, hundreds of tonnes of the heavy clay subsoil would have had to have been dug out into the sea basin," explains Nanna Holm.

According to Nanna Holm, this work was undertaken for no other reason than to give the fortress an impressive location. The structure was meant to signal power.

The same master builder may be responsible

The excavation has also shown that the construction of the fortress is closely related to other Viking fortresses such as Fyrkat near Hobro, Aggersborg near the Limfjord and Trelleborg near Slagelse. These fortresses were undoubtedly built during the reign of Harald Bluetooth, and still more evidence suggests that Borgring, as the fortress has been named, might have belonged to the same building programme.

"There are a lot of similar details in these structures. And it's been wonderful to see the same things coming to light at Borgring. In addition to the structure of the rampart and the gates, we have also found traces of a street with wood paving running along the inside of the rampart -- just like in Fyrkat, Aggersborg and Trelleborg. The most striking thing, however, is the measurements of the fortress. The rampart of Borgring is 10.6 metres wide. That is exactly the same width as the rampart of Fyrkat. So it's hard to avoid the sense that the same master builder was responsible," says Sindbæk.

Source: Aarhus University

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Digging for answers: Gender inequality in archeology?

Dana Bardolph.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Santa Barbara

On an archaeology field trip in New Mexico as an undergraduate in 2006, Dana Bardolph noticed something that struck her as an odd gender imbalance: The professor leading the dig was a men, while the graduate assistant and all but two of the 14 undergrads were women.

"And it just got me thinking," Bardolph recalled. "Is this reflective of the profession as a whole, or is it an anomaly?"

The question stayed with her, and four years ago she decided to search for an answer. Her findings -- generated after digging through more than 4,500 peer-reviewed papers in 11 archaeology journals covering a 23-year period -- are published in a recent issue of the archaeology journal American Antiquity.

Bardolph, a Ph.D. student in UC Santa Barbara's Department of Anthropology, found that female authors are significantly and consistently underrepresented in American archaeology journals. Indeed, although the gender ratio among researchers is roughly equal, in the journals Bardolph surveyed, female authors account for slightly less than 29 percent of articles published.

"I found that there was no significant difference between any of the regions, any of the journals, so it was really a ubiquitous pattern across the study samples," Bardolph said.

The results, she and researchers familiar with the paper said, have deep implications not just for women in the field but for the direction and substance of archaeology itself. Bardolph argues, based on feminist theory, that the low rates of publication perpetuate a marginalization of female researchers in academia and demonstrate what she called "a pernicious historical bias with regards to the visibility, recognition, presentation and circulation of women's writing."

Bardolph's adviser, Amber VanDerwarker, associate professor of anthropology and director of UCSB's Integrative Subsistence Laboratory, said the paper has the potential to catalyze a movement toward greater gender equity in publishing and academia. "It is hugely significant because there have been articles here and there that talk about this issue of gender equity in the field," she said, "and none of the studies has done this much data collection and analysis; this is the first study of this scale looking at publication rates."

Among the articles surveyed in the major journals, Bardolph found 71.4 percent were lead-authored by men and 28.6 percent by women. The regional journals revealed nearly identical numbers. In addition, the data were consistent over time.

While the data demonstrated a clear gender bias, what they didn't show is the source, said Bardolph, whose specialty is paleoethnobotany, a study of the relationship between humans and plants in the past.

The journals don't track submissions by gender, so there's no way to tell if men are being favored explicitly, she said. Other studies, however, have found that men submit papers far more often than women do, with equal rejection rates among the genders.

Based on her research, Bardolph said she suspects the bias is likely a result of authorial behavior rather than editorial or reviewer bias. Women, she noted, are more likely to take on "nurturing" roles in academia and accept positions in smaller teaching colleges as opposed to large research universities with their more abundant resources.

"When you have grad students you can collaborate with, you publish more than you would if you were doing everything by yourself," VanDerwarker said. "I spent a few years at a teaching college just struggling to keep up with the publication record."

Another potential factor Bardolph noted is more subjective: braving the sometimes-brutal journal submission process. The anonymity of peer reviewers occasionally engenders harsh rejections. And archaeology, which has long been dominated by men, is no exception.

"I think it's highly plausible that the issue of rejection ¾ and whether you do decide to revise and resubmit or discard the manuscript -- has a lot to do with confidence issues," Bardolph said. "I wouldn't be surprised if that was in fact the case, that perhaps women were revising and resubmitting less often than men."

For Bardolph, getting academia to acknowledge gender bias is just one step on a long road to equality. "People aren't really realizing this sort of inequality is still pervasive," she said. "My real goal is to bring awareness to the issue and to inspire people to delve more deeply into their particular subdisciplines and continue this type of research so we can continue to explore why these inequities perpetuate and think about what we can do about them."

Source: University of California - Santa Barbara

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Findings at viking archaeological site show power trumping practicality

Baylor archeologist Davide Zori and assistant at Viking farmstead. Credit: Image courtesy of Baylor University

Vikings are known for raiding and trading, but those who settled in Iceland centuries ago spent more time producing and consuming booze and beef -- in part to gain political clout in a place very different from their Scandinavian homeland, says a Baylor University archaeologist.

The seafaring warriors wanted to sustain the "big man" society of Scandinavia -- a political economy in which chieftains hosted huge feasts of beer and beef served in great halls, says Davide Zori, Ph.D., a Denmark native and archeological field director in Iceland, who conducted National Science Foundation-funded research in archeology and medieval Viking literature.
But instead, what Zori and his team discovered is what happened when the Vikings spent too long living too high on the hog -- or, in this case, the bovine. 

"It was somewhat like the barbecue here. You wanted a big steak on the grill," said Zori, assistant professor in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core. He co-edited the book Viking Archaeology in Iceland: Mosfell Archaelogical Project with Jesse Byock, Ph.D., professor of Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"It made it really showy -- if you could keep it up." The Viking chieftains used such wealth and cultural displays to flex political muscle with equals or rivals -- plus to cement good relations with local laborers, Zori said.

Zori and Byock's team excavated a farmstead called Hrísbrú in Iceland's Mosfell Valley. The farm -- inhabited by some of the most famous Vikings of the Icelandic sagas -- included a chieftain's longhouse nearly 100 feet long with a "feast-worthy" great hall, a church and a cemetery of 26 graves indicating a mix of pagan and Christian traditions. Males sometimes were buried with ship remnants rather than in the simpler Christian manner of leaving earthly possessions behind.

Carbon dating and studies of volcanic layers indicate the longhouse was built in the late ninth or early 10th century and abandoned by the 11th. The archeological team uncovered 38 layers of floor ash, including refuse dumped atop the abandoned house, also discovering bones, barley seeds and valuable glass beads imported from Asia. "By applying anthropology and medieval texts, we can excavate and compare," Zori said.

Viking sagas, first written in the 13th century and based on oral accounts, included such details as where people sat at feasts, "which shows your ranking . . . These texts read almost like novels. They're incredible sources. They talk about daily life," Zori said.

"Yes, the Vikings may have put axes to one another's heads -- but these accounts also describe milking cows."

High Times and Hard Times

When the Vikings arrived in uninhabited Iceland, they found forested lowlands, ample pastures and sheltered sea inlets. Excavations show that choice cattle were selected for feasts, with ritual slaughter and display of skulls, according to research published by Zori and others in the journal Antiquity. Barley seeds unearthed from floors or refuse heaps indicate barley consumption, and pollen studies demonstrate barley cultivation. Barley could have been used for bread or porridge, but beer's social value makes it very likely barley was used mainly to produce alcohol, Zori said.

Over centuries, as temperatures in the North Atlantic dropped during the "Little Ice Age," being a lavish host got tougher. "Nine months of winter -- and three months that are only a little less than winter," Zori said.

While sheep could find food free range most of the year and were suited for cold, prized cattle had to be kept indoors in large barns during the winter. Savvy supply-and-demand reckoning was crucial to be sure the food lasted -- both for cattle and humans -- and could be preserved.

"They had to decide how many to slaughter and store," Zori said. "They didn't have salt, so they had to use big vats of curdled milk as a preservative." As the landscape changed due to erosion, climate shifts and cleared forests, it became harder to rear larger numbers of cattle.

High-status households also struggled to grow enough grain for beer-making, based on historical accounts and confirmed by a growing body of archeological data. With a shorter growing season and colder climate than in their homelands, Icelandic Vikings would have needed more laborers to improve the soil -- and as the chieftains' power waned, they would have had trouble attracting workers. As barley cultivation stopped, the local chieftains are no longer mentioned in the Viking sagas.

Changing Directions

"You can see in the archeological evidence that they adjusted their strategy and gave it up eventually," Zori said. "It got harder and harder to keep up that showiness -- and when that collapsed, you didn't have that power, that beer and big slabs of beef to show off."

When barley was abandoned, the pollen record shows native grasses for grazing increased. Archeological findings show that the proportion of cattle to sheep bones declined, as Hrísbrú residents shifted to more practical, less laborious sheep-herding.

"You wonder what came first for the chieftains at Hrísbrú: Were they no longer powerful and didn't need barley and beef? Or could they just not keep it up and so they lost power? I favor the second explanation," Zori said.

"What we're doing now is to let the archaeology speak, both for itself and for proof to verify (the texts)," he said. "Investigating politics breathes life into it, instead of just saying, 'Here are three rocks.' You can ask deeper questions."
Zori argues that Viking chieftains' drive to produce expensive beef and beer caused them to put their political aspirations above the greater good of the community.

"Maybe we don't need the Vikings to prove this," he said. "But it shows you that politics can become more important than creating a productive society."

Source: Baylor University

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Major Viking hall identified in Sweden

Using ground-penetrating radar. Credit: Martin Rundkvist

A Viking feasting hall measuring almost 50 metres in length has been identified near Vadstena in Sweden. Archaeologists from Stockholm University and Umeå University used ground-penetrating radar, a non-invasive geophysical method, to locate and map the house foundation. The study was published today in the journal Archaeological Prospection.

The Aska barrow, where the hall has been found, was long seen as a burial mound. But archaeologists have now revealed that it is a foundation platform for a large building, most likely dating from the Viking Period. The hall was probably the home of a royal family whose rich graves have previously been excavated nearby.

"Parallels are known from several of the era's elite sites, such as Fornsigtuna near Stockholm and Lejre near Roskilde. The closest similarities are however seen in a recently excavated feasting hall at Old Uppsala near Stockholm. Such close correspondences suggest intensive communication between the two sites," says Martin Rundkvist of Umeå University

The building was about 14 metres wide and was equipped with double walls and four entrances. The measurements also indicate a large fireplace at the centre of the floor.

"Our investigation demonstrates that non-invasive geophysical measurements can be powerful tools for studying similar building foundations elsewhere. They even allow scholars to estimate the date of a building without any expensive excavations," says Andreas Viberg of the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University who directed the fieldwork.

Source: Stockholm University

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Roman Gladiators ate a mostly vegetarian diet and drank a tonic of ashes after training

Anthropology unlocks clues about Roman gladiators' eating habits. Credit: OEAI, Pietsch

Roman gladiators ate a mostly vegetarian diet and drank ashes after training as a tonic. These are the findings of anthropological investigations carried out on bones of warriors found during excavations in the ancient city of Ephesos.

Historic sources report that gladiators had their own diet. This comprised beans and grains. Contemporary reports referred to them as "hordearii" ("barley eaters").

In a study by the Department of Forensic Medicine at the MedUni Vienna in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern, bones were examined from a gladiator cemetery uncovered in 1993 which dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BC in the then Roman city of Ephesos (now in modern-day Turkey). At the time, Ephesos was the capital of the Roman province of Asia and had over 200,000 inhabitants.

Using spectroscopy, stable isotope ratios (carbon, nitrogen and sulphur) were investigated in the collagen of the bones, along with the ratio of strontium to calcium in the bone mineral.

The result shows that gladiators mostly ate a vegetarian diet. There is virtually no difference in terms of nutrition from the local "normal population." Meals consisted primarily of grain and meat-free meals. The word "barley eater" relates in this case to the fact that gladiators were probably given grain of an inferior quality.

Build-up drink following physical exertion

The difference between gladiators and the normal population is highly significant in terms of the amount of strontium measured in their bones. This leads to the conclusion that the gladiators had a higher intake of minerals from a strontium-rich source of calcium. The ash drink quoted in literature probably really did exist. "Plant ashes were evidently consumed to fortify the body after physical exertion and to promote better bone healing," explains study leader Fabian Kanz from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the MedUni Vienna. "Things were similar then to what we do today -- we take magnesium and calcium (in the form of effervescent tablets, for example) following physical exertion." Calcium is essential for bone building and usually occurs primarily in milk products.

A further research project is looking at the migration of gladiators, who often came from different parts of the Roman Empire to Ephesos. The researchers are hoping that comparison of the bone data from gladiators with that of the local fauna will yield a number of differences.

Source: Medical University of Vienna

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Laser from a plane discovers Roman goldmines in Spain

These are ancient goldmines in the Eria river valley, with channels and reservoirs for exploitation. The model generated with LiDAR data (left) allows these structures to be located on aerial photos (right). Credit: J. Fernández Lozano et al.

Hidden under the vegetation and crops of the Eria Valley, in León (Spain), there is a gold mining network created by the Romans two thousand years ago, as well as complex hydraulic works, such as river diversions, to divert water to the mines of the precious metal. Researchers from the University of Salamanca made the discovery from the air with an airborne laser teledetection system.

Las Médulas in León is considered to be the largest opencast goldmine of the Roman Empire, but the search for this metal extended many kilometres further south-east to the Erica river valley. Thanks to a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) laser system attached to an aircraft, the ancient mining works of the area and the complex hydraulics system used by the Romans in the 1st century BC to extract gold (including channels, reservoirs and a double river diversion) have been discovered.

"The volume of earth exploited is much greater than previously thought and the works performed are impressive, having achieved actual river captures, which makes this valley extremely important in the context of Roman mining in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula," as Javier Fernández Lozano, geologist at the University of Salamanca and co-author of this study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, said.

The specialists consider that the systems for the transport and storage of water were copied from those already existing in North Africa, where the Egyptians had been employing them for centuries. Some details of the methodology used appear in texts such as those of the Pliny the Elder, the Roman procurator in charge of overseeing mining in Hispania.

"We have established that the labour that went into extracting the resource until its exhaustion was so intensive that after removing the gold from surface sediments, operations continued until reaching the rocks with the auriferous quartz veins underneath," explains Fernández Lozano.

The researcher stresses that the real discoverer was the LiDAR technology: "Unlike traditional aerial photography, this airborne laser detection system allows the visualisation of archaeological remains under vegetation cover or intensely ploughed areas."

From aircraft or drones
LiDAR comprises a laser sensor which scans the ground from an aircraft or drone with geographical references provided by GPS ground stations. The data obtained is represented by point clouds, which are processed with a piece of software to construct a cartographic model where the forms are identified, such as old reservoirs or channels.

This technology was developed by NASA in the sixties to analyse the retreating sea ice in the Arctic and composition of the oceans. Since then their use has been extended to topography, cadastral mapping, geology and archaeology. According to the authors, the study of Roman mining in the Eria valley is the first piece of 'geo-archaeology' performed with LiDAR in Spain.

"Our intention is to continue working with this technique to learn more about mineral mining in the Roman Empire and clear up any mysteries such as why Rome abandoned such a precious resource as gold from one day to the next," concludes the researcher.

Source: Plataforma SINC

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Hippos-Sussita excavation: Silent evidence of the earthquake of 363 CE

The city of Hippos-Sussita, which was founded in the second century BCE, experienced two strong and well-documented earthquakes. The first was in the year 363 CE and it caused heavy damage. The city, did, however, recover. The great earthquake of 749 CE destroyed the city which was subsequently abandoned completely. Evidence of the extensive damage caused by the earthquake of 363 was found in earlier seasons. None, however, was as violent, thrilling and eerie as the evidence discovered this year. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Haifa

Silent evidence of a large earthquake in 363 CE -- the skeleton of a woman with a dove-shaped pendant was discovered under the tiles of a collapsed roof by archeologists from the University of Haifa during this excavation season at Hippos-Sussita. They also found a large muscular marble leg and artillery ammunition from some 2,000 years ago. "The data is finally beginning to form a clear historical-archaeological picture," said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, head of the international excavation team.

The past fifteen excavation seasons at Hippos-Sussita, run by archeologists from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, have not stopped providing a constant flow of fascinating findings. The team digging at the city site -- situated east of the Sea of Galilee in the Sussita National Park, which is under the management of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority -- has grown over the years, with more and more teams and excavators from various countries joining them. This time, the security situation in the south of Israel "sent" them a Canadian team, led by Dr. Stephen Chambers, as reinforcement.

The city of Hippos-Sussita, which was founded in the second century BCE, experienced two strong and well-documented earthquakes. The first was in the year 363 CE and it caused heavy damage. The city, did, however, recover. The great earthquake of 749 CE destroyed the city which was subsequently abandoned completely. Evidence of the extensive damage caused by the earthquake of 363 was found in earlier seasons. None, however, was as violent, thrilling and eerie as the evidence discovered this year.

To the north of the basilica, the largest building in town that served as the commercial, economic and judicial center of the city, the dig's senior area supervisor Haim Shkolnik and his team unearthed the remains of several skeletons that had been crushed by the weight of the collapsed roof. Among the bones of one of the women lay a gold dove-shaped pendant.

This year, evidence was found for the first time that the great earthquake of 363 CE had destroyed the Roman bathhouse, which was uncovered by the team run by Arleta Kowalewska from Poland. Like the basilica, it too was not rebuilt. According to Dr. Eisenberg, the evidence found so far shows that the earthquake was so powerful it completely destroyed the city, which took some twenty years to be rebuilt. Among the wreckage from the bathhouse, an excellent Roman marble sculpture of a muscular right leg of a man leaning against a tree trunk was found. "It is too early to determine who the man depicted in the sculpture was. It could be the sculpture of a god or an athlete; it was more than two meters tall. We hope to find more parts of the sculpture in the coming seasons to shed some light on his identity," said Dr. Eisenberg.

Excavations were resumed in the bastion, the main defense post of the Roman period city built on the southern edge of the cliff, where the work focused on the fortified position of a projectile machine that propelled/launched ballista stones. The catapult was some eight meters long according to the size of the chamber. So far the archeologists have found a number of ballista balls that fit the massive catapult, as well as smaller balls that were used on smaller ballista machines. These machines were positioned above the bastion's vaults and were used to launch basalt ballista balls slightly smaller than soccer balls as far as 350 meters.

A section of the western part of the city's main colonnaded street, which traversed its entire length of 600 meters from east to west (the decumanus maximus) was excavated this year with the help of a Canadian team, after their planned dig in the south was cancelled. The archeologists uncovered another original piece of the wall that supported the street columns, confirming the theory that it had been a magnificent colonnaded street similar to those of the Roman East cities that were built at the peak of the Pax Romana -- the Roman era of peace during the first few centuries CE.

While working on the dig the team also invested a lot of work on the site's conservation. "I am extremely proud that we were able to organize a sizable conservation team this year as well, from our own internal budgets and with the help of the Western Galilee College in Acre. Twenty-two students from the college's Department of Conservation together with five experienced conservators under the direction of Julia Burdajewicz from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw conducted the conservation work. This is one of the major tourist destinations in the northern part of the country, and as such I see this as a national mission, even if the budget comes primarily from our own sources, without government support," concluded Dr. Eisenberg.

Source: University of Haifa

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