Archaeology of music

Karl-James Langford
Archaeology Cymru
Is this the first musical instrument?
Researchers have identified what they say are the oldest-known musical
instruments in the world.
The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in
southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe
by modern humans - Homo sapiens.
Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and
43,000 years old.
The findings are described in the Journal of Human Evolution .
A team led by Prof Tom Higham at Oxford University dated animal bones in the
same ground layers as the flutes at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany's
Swabian Jura.
Prof Nick Conard, the Tuebingen University researcher who identified the
previous record-holder for oldest instrument in 2009 , was excavator at the site.
He said: "These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years
ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans
and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000-45,000 years
ago.
"Geissenkloesterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced
important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery
and musical instruments."
Musical instruments may have been used in recreation or for religious ritual,
experts say.
And some researchers have argued that music may have been one of a suite
Music could have played a role in the maintenance
of larger social networks, which may have helped
our species expand their territory at the expense of
the more conservative Neanderthals.
The researchers say the dating evidence from
Geissenkloesterle suggests that modern humans
entered the Upper Danube region before an
extremely cold climatic phase at around 39,000-
40,000 years ago.
Previously, researchers had argued that modern
humans initially migrated up the Danube
immediately after this event.
"Modern humans during [this] period were in central
Europe at least 2,000-3,000 years before this climatic
deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from ice
sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures
plummeted," said Prof Higham.
"The question is what effect this downturn might have
had on the people in Europe at the time."
Percussion Instruments [165,000 years ago]
A percussion instrument is any object which
produces a sound by being hit with an implement,
shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action
which sets the object into vibration. The human voice
was although the first discovered musical instrument,
but percussion instruments such as stones, sticks,
rocks, and logs were almost certainly the next steps
in the evolution of music especially the stones, they
were cut in different shapes and designs to change
quality and pitch of sound.
 Flute by Bob Flink [67,000 years ago]
The date and origin of the first device of disputed
status as a musical instrument dates back as far as
67,000 years old. In July 1995, Slovenian
archaeologist Ivan Turk discovered a bone carving in
the northwest region of Slovenia. The carving,
named the Divje Babe flute, features four holes that
Canadian musicologist Bob Fink determined could
have been used to play four notes of a diatonic
scale. Researchers estimate the flutes age to
be 67,000 years old, making it the oldest known
musical instrument and the only musical instrument
associated with the Neanderthal culture.
Mammoth Ivory Ice-Age Flute [43,400 years ago]
Second worlds oldest known musical instruments has
been discovered by German archaeologists. The
18.7-centimetre-long flute, which is carved from
mammoth ivory, has three finger holes and would
have been capable of playing relatively complex
melodies. The flute was found in 31 pieces in the
Geienklsterle cave in mountains near Ulm in
southern Germany. Carving a flute from solid ivory is
much more demanding than making a flute from
bird bones, which are already hollow. The crooked
mammoth tusk had to be split and the two halves
carefully hollowed out, then bound and glued
together along a perfectly airtight seam.
 Elephant Skin Drum [37,000 years ago]

The earliest known drum was 30,000 years old when

man used animal hide stretched to create sound.
The first discovered is from an elephant skin used
since it was preserved from scavenging in
Antarcticas ice age.
Pan pipes [30,000 years ago]

The pipes are one of the oldest made instruments

dating back to 30,000 years ago, these were
typically made from bamboo or giant cane.
The pan flute is named for its association with the
rustic Greek god Pan. Another term for the pan
flute is syrinx
 Bullroarer [17,000 BC]
The bullroarer or rhombus or turndun is an
ancient ritual musical instrument and
means of communicating over extended
distances. It dates back to the Paleolithic
period, being found in Ukraine dating from
17,000 B.C. The cord is given a slight initial
twist, and the roarer is then swung in a
large circle in a horizontal plane. The
aerodynamics of the roarer will keep it
spinning about its axis. In ancient Greece it
was a sacred instrument used in rituals.
 Rattle [11,000 BC]

Earliest known rattle consisted

of a hollow cane with sand and
small stones in it. Rhythmical
shaking of this instrument
produced repetitive, rather dry
timbre noises
 Slit Drum [7,500 BC]

The earliest slit drums, dating back 75 ,00 BC, were made
by cutting, burning or gouging a slit in the wall of a
hollowed-out piece of wood. Made of tree logs having
three slits, cut into the shape of an H . If, as is usual,
the resultant tongues were different lengths or thicknesses,
the drum produced 2 different pitches. The ends of a slit
drum were closed so that the shell becomes the resonating
chamber for the sound vibrations created when the tongues
are struck, usually with a mallet.
 Cuneiform Tablet [2,000 BC]

A cuneiform tablet from Nippur in Iraq dated

to 2000 BC indicates the names of strings on
the lyre and represents the earliest known
example of music notation. Although these
tablets were fragmentary, these tablets
represent the earliest melodies found
anywhere in the world.
 Xylophone (2000 BC)

Gusikows wood and straw xylophone.

The earliest evidence of a xylophone is from the 2000 BC in southeast Asia
according to the Vienna Symphonic Library, and there is a model of a similar
hanging wood instrument, dated to ca. 2000 BC in China. The original instrument
consisted of wooden bars seated on a series of hollow gourds, with the gourds
generating the resonating notes that are produced on modern instruments by
metal tubes. Tuning the bars was always a difficult procedure. Old methods
consisted of arranging the bars on tied bundles of straw, and, as still practiced
today, placing the bars adjacent to each other in a ladder-like layout. Ancient
mallets were made of willow wood with spoon-like bowls on the beaten ends.
Now listen to some of the music
from the instruments above.
Part 2 Welsh
Music
Three examples of 1700s
Welsh Pibgorn
Illustration of a Pib-gorn
from A Tour in Wales, 1778
pibgorn is a Welsh species of idioglot reed aerophone. The name translates
literally as "pipe-horn". It is also historically known as cornicyll and pib-corn.[1] It
utilises a single reed (Welsh: "cal", or "calaf"), cut from elder (Sambucus nigra) or
reed (Arundo phragmites), like that found in the drone of a bagpipe, which is
an early form of the modern clarinet reed. The single chambered body of the
elder pipe has a naturally occurring parallel bore, into which are drilled six small
finger-holes and a thumb-hole giving a diatonic compass of an octave. The
body of the instrument is traditionally carved from a single piece of wood or
bone (See photograph right). Playable, extant historical examples in the
Museum of Welsh Life have bodies cut and shaped of elder. Another,
unplayable instrument at the Museum, possibly of a later date, is made from
the leg bone of an unspecified ungulate . Contemporary instruments are
turned and bored from a variety of fruitwoods, or exotic hardwoods; or turned
from, or moulded in plastics. The reed is protected by a reed-cap or stock of
cow-horn. The bell is shaped from a section of cow-horn which serves to
amplify the sound. The pibgorn may be attached to a bag, with the additional
possibility of a drone, which is then called pibau cwd; or played directly with
the mouth via the reed-cap
William Morris writes in a letter to his brother the folklorist Richard Morris in 1759:
"(Translated) How pleasing it was to see the young farmworkers with their pibau cyrn (horn
pipes) under their arms....gathering the cows and piping 'Mwynen Mai' and
'Meillionnen."[10]
According to Daines Barrington, who presented the pibgorn specimen shown at the
Museum of Welsh life to Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London, an Anglesey
landowner called Mr Wynn of Penhesgedd, offered an annual prize for pibgorn playing
towards the end of the eighteenth century. One such competition at Castellior Farm
attracted 200 players. There is a further description by Sin Wiliam Prichard (1749-1829) of
Christmas celebrations on the Castellior farm where the pibgorn and other instruments
were played. Barrington described the tone of the instrument as played to him: "by one of
the lads [who had obtained the prize]... considering the materials of which the pibgorn is
composed is really very tolerable"[11][12]
David Griffith (Clwydfardd) (Died 1894) recalls his father telling him that "playing the
Pibgorn was a common thing in those days in the South and that farmers' servant men
were in the habit of carrying them with them when driving cattle to the fairs."[13]
Pipe and tabor player,
c. 13251335
Tabor or tabret (Welsh: Tabwrdd) refers to a portable
snare drum played with one hand. The word "tabor"
is simply an English variant of a Latin-derived word
meaning "drum"cf. French: tambour, Italian:
tamburo[1] It has been used in the military as a
marching instrument, and has been used as
accompaniment in parades and processions.
A tabor has a cylindrical wood shell, two skin heads
tightened by rope tension, a leather strap, and an
adjustable gut snare. Each tabor has a pitch range
of about an octave: the larger the tabor, the lower
the pitch. It is played by just one stick, which usually
strikes the snare head. The tabor is suspended by a
strap from the forearm, somewhere between the
elbow and wrist. When played, the shell is virtually
parallel with the ground.[1]
Tabwrdd (means a board or table)
Theres more:
Was a signalling drum and not a
marching drum, the purpose to
communicate.
Rev Meredith Morris found drawings of
the Tabwrdd in the Cwmgwyn Valley.
Traditional welsh maker still around in
the 1920s.
Thought to be identical to the ones in
Owain Glyndwrs time.
References to there use in North Wales
700 years ago, a noted player as such
at Llandeilo in the 1700s.
Still being made by Marcus Butler
Tredegar house.
The crwth (/kru/ or /kr/), also called a crowd or
rote, is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument,
associated particularly with Welsh music and with
Folk music of England (especially related to the
Middle Ages), now archaic but once widely played
in Europe. Four examples have survived and are to
be found in St Fagans National History Museum
Cardiff, National Museum Wales Aberystwyth,
Warrington Museum & Art Gallery and Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
Watercolour of a Crwth from
Pennant's A tour in Wales,
1781
The name crwth is originally a Welsh word, derived
from a Proto-Celtic noun *krotto- ("round object"[4])
which refers to a swelling or bulging out, a pregnant
appearance or a protuberance, and it is speculated
that it came to be used for the instrument because
of its bulging shape. Other Celtic words for violin also
have meanings referring to rounded appearances.
In Gaelic, for example, "cruit" can mean "hump" or
"hunch" as well as harp or violin.[5] Like several other
English loanwords from Welsh, the name is one of the
few words in the English language in which the letter
W is used as a vowel.
The traditional English name is crowd (or rote), and
the variants crwd, crout and crouth are little-used
today. In Medieval Latin it is called the chorus or
crotta. The Welsh word crythor means a performer on
the crwth. The Irish word is cruit, although it also was
used on occasion to designate certain small harps.
The English surnames Crewther, Crowder, Crother
and Crowther denote a player of the crowd, as do
the Scottish names MacWhirter and MacWhorter.
In this article crwth denotes the modern, or most
recent, form of the instrument (see picture).
A variety of string instruments so designated are thought to have
been played in Wales since at least Roman times. Continuous, clear
records of the use of crwth to denote an instrument of the lyre (or the
Byzantine bowed lyre) class date from the 11th century. [citation needed]

Medieval instruments somewhat resembling the crwth appear in

pictures (first in Continental Europe) as far back as the 11th century,
shortly after bowing was first known in the West. In Wales, the crwth
long took second place to the harp in the musical hierarchy. [6]

Schlesinger in the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica mentioned the

crwth in an article about transition of instruments from the lyre to
plucked and bowed instruments:
...The rotta represents the first step in the evolution of the cithara,
when arms and cross-bar were replaced by a frame joined to the
body, the strings being usually restricted to eight or less...The next
step was the addition of a finger-board and the consequent reduction
of the strings to three or four, since each string was now capable of
producing several notes...As soon as the neck was added to the
guitar-shaped body, the instrument ceased to be a rotta and became
a guitar (q.v.), or a guitar-fiddle (q.v.) if played with the bow." [7]
Welsh Bagpipe
(single-reed type)
made by John
Glennydd
Welsh bagpipes (Welsh: pipa cd, pibau cd,
cd-biban, cd-bibau,[1] pibgod, cotbib,
pibau cyrn, chwibanogl a chod, sachbib,
backpipes, bacbib) The names in Welsh refer
specifically to a bagpipe. A related instrument
is one type of bagpipe chanter, which when
played without the bag and drone is called a
pibgorn (English:hornpipe). The generic term
pibau (pipes) which covers all woodwind
instruments is also used. They have been
played, documented, represented and
described in Wales since the fourteenth
century. A piper in Welsh is called a pibydd or
a pibgodwr.
In 1376, the poet Iolo Goch describes the instrument in his Cywydd to Syr Hywel y Fwyall.[2] Also, in
the same century, Brut y Tywysogion ("Chronicle of the Princes"), written around 1330 AD, states
that there are three types of wind instrument: Organ a Phibeu a Cherd y got ("organ, and pipes, and
bag music").[3] Continuous use of the instrument has since waxed and waned in popularity according
to musical fashions. Pipe making has historically been localised and idiosyncratic, and piping since
the sixteenth century has generally been employed in celebratory or public roles such as weddings,
markets, or dances.[4]
"Mabsantau, neithioirau, gwylnosau, &c, were their red-letter days, and the rude merrimaking of the
village green the pivot of all that was worth living for in a mundane existence. I do not remember much
about the Gwylmabsant and the Gwylnos - I came a quarter of a century too late for those wonderful
orgies - but I remember the neithior with its all-day and all-night rollicking fun. We did not have the
crwth, but we had the fiddle, and occasionally the harp, or a home-made degenerate sort of pibgorn.
I myself am a tolerable player on the simplified bibgorn." [5]
A hiatus of fifty years occurred between the playing of Meredith Morris and the renaissance of native
instruments in the 1970s, during which piping in Wales was carried mainly on the Great Highland pipe.
The triple harp, often referred to as the Welsh triple harp (Welsh: Telyn deires), is a type of harp
employing three rows of strings instead of the more common single row. The Welsh triple harp today is
found mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.The triple harp first originated in Italy,
under the form of two rows of strings and later three, as the baroque harp (Italian: Arpa Doppia). It
appeared in the British Isles early in the 17th century. In 1629, the French harpist Jean le Flelle was
appointed musician for the harp at the King's court. Flelle played the Italian triple harp with gut
strings.

The triple harp was quickly adopted by the Welsh harpers living in London during the 17th century. It
was so popular that by the beginning of the 18th century the triple harp was generally known as the
"Welsh harp". Charles Evans was the first mentioned Welsh triple harpist. He was appointed harper to
the court in 1660, where his official title was His Majesty's harper for the Italian harp. As late as the
1680s, Talbot was describing the triple harp as the English harp, and the Welsh harp he describes
appears to be a large, diatonic gothic-style harp, with bray pins.
A description of the Welsh triple harp is given by the harpist John Parry (Bardd Alaw) (17761851) in
the preface to the second volume of his collection, The Welsh Harper (London 1839)
The Archaeology of food
 3 Surprising Discoveries From the Archaeology of Food

Deep in the pit, a thin cloud of dust and dirt makes visible the shaft of
light shining down from the setting sun. The top of the tomb is opened.
Images of the ancient objects inside reflect in the wide eyes of the
excavators.
Boy, I hope they find some charred millet grains.
The archaeology of food is filling in the gaps between all the grand
monuments and intricately crafted objects that occupied researchers
and the public for generations.
This week at the 2015 Dialogue of Civilizations in Beijing, top
archaeologists working at sites around the world have gathered to see
what more they can discover about each civilization by learning more
about them all.
Here are some of the surprising ways food is spicing up the conversation.
1. You Are What You Eat (and Drink)

As water percolates through the ground and runs over the landscape, it picks
up a sample of elements from that areas rocks and soils. Once you slake your
thirst, a sample of those elementswith their distinct proportion of isotopes
are incorporated into your body. The same can happen from eating animals or
plants that consumed the water.
Tang Jigen of Peking University made use of this to show that humans sacrificed
to be buried with Bronze Age Shang dynasty rulers had been born far away
and had continued to live in those regions at least until shortly before their
death.
Earlier researchers had seen these sacrifices as evidence that Shang society
was based on oppressive slavery. Thanks to a sophisticated analysis of what
victims of sacrifice ingested in their lifetimes, Tang was able to prove this wrong.
It took 3,500-year-old meals to correct a fundamental error in interpretations of
the society.
The teeth of this skull from the Roman city of
Herculaneum contain strontium isotopes that could
help researchers pinpoint the persons location of
birth. (Photo by Luis Mazzatenta)
2. Every Meal Is a Map
Michael Rowlands is an emeritus professor of
Material Culture Studies at University College
London. Many of the other archaeologists at the
Dialogue of Civilizations studied his work when they
were in school.
Professor Rowlandss presentation focused on
identifying the underacknowledged impact of
populations outside of the best known centers of
civilization. One of his major illustrations was the
extensive use and trade of African grains and
vegetables in Southeast Asia, across the Indian
Ocean.
These people may not have built large,
permanent structures or left records in
writing of their beliefs and actions, but the
food items they harvested and traded left
behind virtually invisible traces that
modern analysis is finally bringing to light.
Genetic evidence can help us pinpoint
the location for domestication of a
particular plant or animal species, and
beyond that, microscopic remnants of
grains and other items can show just how
far away things were traded.
Using these techniques, remnants of an
ancient meal can help draw for us a web
of imports and exports, connecting any
culture with almost any other.
On the dry plains of Yemen in 1964 villagers still made use of
wheat and cotton in remarkably unchanged ways. (Photo by
Thomas Abercrombie)
These people may not have built large, permanent structures
or left records in writing of their beliefs and actions, but the
food items they harvested and traded left behind virtually
invisible traces that modern analysis is finally bringing to light.
Genetic evidence can help us pinpoint the location for
domestication of a particular plant or animal species, and
beyond that, microscopic remnants of grains and other items
can show just how far away things were traded.
Using these techniques, remnants of an ancient meal can help
draw for us a web of imports and exports, connecting any
culture with almost any other.
3. Feasts Leave a Footprint
The first time a kid eats dinner over at a friends house, hes likely
in for a bit of a shock. Even in such standardized cultural
practices as dinner with the family, local and individual
differences can create very different experiencesfood-based
ones in particular
Such distinctions can show up in the archaeological record as well, as Zhang
Chi from Peking University showed this week.
Roughly 4,000 years ago, in the northeastern region of what is today China,
people of both the Dawenkou and Liangzhu cultures were burying their
dead in double coffins. In the cemeteries of Liangzhu, the pit is otherwise
empty (as is the outer coffin), and the inner coffin contains just the highly
esteemed deceased and some personal prestige items like ceremonial jade
axe blades.
Whats that got to do with food, you say?

People in the Dawenkou burials are surrounded not just by personal

belongings, but also by pairs of small drinking vessels. Back between the
sides of the two coffins there are more drinking vessels in pairs and groups, as
well as the bones of animals, especially pigs.
Zhang discussed the number of pigs and calculated how much meat would
be represented by the several jaw bones in a particular burial. It was, to say
the least, more than someone could eat even on his way to the afterlife.
With all that beer and all that pig meat, and the symbolic leftovers of
the meal making it back into the ground, its clear that Dawenkou burial
In another vintage view, a
timeless landscape stretches
beyond a man and his oxen,
threshing wheat in Pakistan.
(Photo by J. Baylor Roberts)
The Dialogue of Civilizations is an annual
conference organized by the National
Geographic Society and partners in a host
country bringing together top archaeologists
focused on different ancient civilizations from
around the world. In public presentations they
discuss what they can learn by better
understanding each others sites and how those
lessons can help us better understand and
navigate the world today.
Welsh food

There are few written records of traditional Welsh

foods; recipes were instead held within families and
passed down orally between the women of the
family. The lack of records was highlighted by Mati
Thomas in 1928, who made a unique collection of
18th century "Welsh Culinary Recipes" as an award-
winning Eisteddfod entry.
Those with the skills and inclination to write Welsh
recipes, the upper classes, conformed to English
styles and therefore would not have run their houses
with traditional Welsh cuisine. Upper-class households
would take on any English fashions, even adopting
English names. The traditional cookery of Wales
originates from the daily meals of peasant folk, unlike
other cultures where meals often started in the
kitchens of the gentry and would be adapted.
Historically the King of the Welsh people would travel, with his court, in a
circuit, demanding tribute in the form of food from communities they visited as
they went. The tribute was codified in the Laws of Hywel Dda, showing that
people lived on beer, bread, meat and dairy products, with few vegetables
beyond cabbages and leeks. The laws show how much value was put on
different parts of Welsh life at the time, for example that wealth was measured
in cattle;[5] they also show that the court included hunters, who would be
restricted to seasonal hunting sessions.[6]
Towards the start of the 11th century, Welsh society started to build
settlements.[7] Food would be cooked in a single cauldron over an open fire
on the floor, it would likely be reheated and topped up with fresh ingredients
over a number of days. Some dishes could be cooked on a bakestone, a flat
stone which could be placed above a fire to heat it evenly.[5]
Gerald of Wales, chaplain to Henry II, wrote after an 1188 tour of Wales, "The
whole population lives almost entirely on oats and the produce of their herds,
milk, cheese and butter. You must not expect a variety of dishes from a Welsh
kitchen, and there are no highly-seasoned titbits to whet your appetite."[5] The
medieval Welsh used thyme, savory, and mint in the kitchen, but in general
herbs were much more likely to be used for medicinal purposes than culinary
ones.[8]
Towards the end of the 18th century, Welsh land owners divided up the land to allow for tenant-
based farming. Each small holding would include vegetable crops, as well as a cow, pigs and a
few chickens.[6] The 18th and 19th centuries were a time of unrest for the Welsh people. The Welsh
food riots began in 1740, when colliers blamed the lack of food on problems in the supply, and
continued throughout Wales as a whole.[9] The worst riots happened in the 1790s after a grain
shortage, which coincided with political upheaval in the form of forced military service and high
taxes on the roads, leaving farmers unable to make a profit.[10] As a result of riots by colliers in the
mid 1790s,[11] magistrates in Glamorgan sold the rioters corn at a reduced price. At the same time
they also requested military assistance from the government to stop further rioting.[12] Due to the
close-knit nature of the poor communities, and the slightly higher status of the farmers above the
labourers,[13] the rioters generally blamed the farmers and corn merchants, rather than the
gentry.[14]

The majority of food riots had ended by 1801, and there were certain political undertones to the
actions, though lack of leadership meant that little came of it.[15][16] By the 1870s, 60% of Wales was
owned by 570 families, most of whom did no farming. Instead, they employed workers, who were
forced to vote Tory or lose their jobs.[17]
Around the end of the 19th century, the increase in coal mining and steel works around Wales led
to the immigration of Italian workers.[18] The workers brought families who integrated their culture
into Welsh society, bringing with them Italian ice cream and Italian cafes, now a staple of Welsh
society.[19]
5,500-Year-Old Honey? 10 foods that make it into archaeology.

Through explorations around the world, archeologists and deep-

sea divers have discovered all kinds of ancient food and drink.
We know that wine tastes better with age; a bottle might be
stored in a cellar for two to 20 years before its uncorked. Some
wines, though, forgotten or abandoned, are left to age for
decades or even centuries before theyre discovered again, if at
all. Were talking about wines from as long ago as the
seventeenth century.
Last year, archeologists found remnants of 40 wine jars in an ancient wine cellar the
largest and oldest wine cellar unearthed in the Near East in Northern Israel that was
built around 1,700 B.C.E. So, are they still drinkable, or is 3,714 years too long to age
wine?
Through explorations around the world, archeologists and deep-sea divers have
discovered all kinds of ancient food and drink, some buried in thousand-year-old
tombs, others abandoned in shipwrecks, and still more that have been dug up from
prehistoric settlements
Ceramic jars containing the worlds oldest honey (as far as archaeologists have
found) about 5,500 years old were discovered in the tomb of a noblewoman in
Georgia, not far from Tbilisi. They say honey never expires, but this honey is really old.
Divers examining a 2,000-year-old shipwreck discovered in waters off the coast of Italy
found about 200 pots on board containing remnants of fish as well as grain, wine, and
oil.
And these are just a few of the worlds oldest food and drink finds.
Archaeologists uncovered a tomb buried in the
fourth century in Speyer, Germany, which held
a bottle of wine believed to date back to 325 C.E.
The First Noodles
A bowl of ancient noodles
2,500 years old along with
cakes, porridge, and meat
bones, were found in a
cemetery in China
2,000-Year-Old Boat Food
Divers examining a 2,000-year-old
shipwreck discovered in waters off
the coast of Italy found about 200
pots on board containing remnants
of fish as well as grain, wine, and oil.
Bog butter
Barrel of Butter
An oak barrel, three feet
long, almost a foot wide,
and filled with butter, was
uncovered in a peat bog
in Ireland by two peat
workers and is thought to
be about 3,000 years old.
The large lump of butter was unearthed from a peat bog in Ireland by turf cutter Jack Conway while he
was working near his home in Emlagh Bog, County Meath.
He said he knew immediately what he had discovered, almost 5 metres underground, and contacted th
local Cavan Country Museum.
Curator Savina Donohoe told Fox News while the discovery was not unusual, this find was particularly
important because the bog butter was not buried in a wooden container or keg as was the norm in
ancient times.
"It may have been an offering to the gods," she said.

The bog butter, which was said to have "smelt like cheese", has been given to the National Museum for
preservation.
Assistant keeper in the museum's Irish Antiquities Division Andy Halpin told the Irish Times the discovery wa
significant because it was found in the Drakerath area where 11 townlands and the boundaries of three
ancient kingdoms met.
"These bogs in those times were inaccessible, mysterious places," he said.
"It is at the juncture of three separate kingdoms, and politically it was like a no man's land.
"Theoretically the stuff is still edible but we wouldn't say it's advisable."

Originally made from cow's milk, bog butter was often buried to preserve it to be dug up at a later date
and takes on a wax-like texture through the years.
In a statement on its website, the Cavan Country
Museum said bogs were excellent for preservation
with low temperatures, low oxygen and highly acidic
environments.
"In early medieval Ireland butter was a luxury food
often used as a means to pay taxes and rents," the
museum said in a statement after the discovery.
"It was sometimes used as a offering to the spirits and
gods to keep people and their property safe
when used as offerings it would have been buried
and never dug up again."
Bog butter is found every year by turf cutters in
Ireland.
The Smithsonian noted in 2009 a 34-kilogram 3,000-
year-old oak barrel of bog butter was found in
County Kildare, and in 2013 a turf cutter found a 45-
kilogram, 5,000-year-old chunk was unearthed.
Survivor Champagne
A still-drinkable bottle of
champagne was recovered in the
remains of a shipwreck that
happened in the Baltic Sea near the
land Islands, between Sweden and
Finland, about 200 years ago.
Ancient Wine Cellar
Researchers found
remnants of 40 wine jars
in an ancient wine cellar
the largest and oldest
wine cellar unearthed in
the Near East in
northern Israel that was
built around 1700 B.C.E.
Archaeologists have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wine cellar in the ruins of a Canaanite palace in
Israel, and chemical analysis has revealed the sophistication of the period's wine-making
techniques.
Samples from the ceramic jars suggest they held a luxurious beverage evidently reserved for
banquets, researchers said.
"It's not wine that somebody is just going to come home from a hard day and kick back and drink,"
said Andrew Koh of Brandeis University. He found signs of a blend of ingredients that may have
included honey, mint, cedar, tree resins and cinnamon bark.
The discovery confirms how sophisticated wines were at that time, something previously suggested
only by ancient texts, said Eric Cline of George Washington University. He, Koh and Assaf Yasur-
Landau of the University of Haifa in Israel spoke to reporters on Thursday before their work was
presented on Friday at a meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
The wine cellar was found this summer in palace ruins near the modern town of Nahariya in
northern Israel. Researchers found 40 ceramic jars, each big enough to hold about 60 litres, in a
single room. There may be more wine stored elsewhere, but the amount found so far wouldn't be
enough to supply the local population, which is why researchers believe it was reserved for palace
use, Cline said.
The unmarked jars are all similar, as if made by the same potter, Yasur-Landau said. Chemical
analysis indicates the jars held red and possibly white wine, Koh said. No liquid was left, but he
analysed the residue.
Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania, an expert in ancient winemaking, said the
discovery shed important new light on the development of winemaking in ancient Canaan, from
which it later spread to Egypt and across the Mediterranean. He said the chemical analysis would
have to be published before the ingredients of the wine could be assessed.
Curtis Runnels, an archaeologist at Boston University, noted that the chemical analysis showed
each jar held wine from the same recipe, showing the "consistency and control you'd expect in a
palace".
Oldest Pot of Beef
Archaeologists exploring an
ancient tomb in Chinas Shaanxi
found a bronze pot filled with
beef that is believed to be 2,000
years old and is the earliest beef
product discovered in China.
Worlds Oldest Cheese
Cheese that was buried beneath Chinas
Taklamakan Desert about 3,600 years ago was
discovered fastened to the necks and chests of
Chinese mummies, and is believed to be the worlds
oldest cheese.
Ancient Popcorn
Researchers dug up ancient corncobs, husks,
stalks, and tassels at two prehistoric sites in Peru,
Paredones and Huaca Prieta, and learned that
early Peruvians werent just eating corn 6,700 years
ago; they were popping it, too!