Chemical traces of  “black drink” have been found for the first time ever on pottery vessels from Cahokia. Black drink, which is mentioned in seventeenth-century accounts of Europeans exploring southeastern North America, is brewed from the leaves of a shrub that grows along the coast between eastern Texas and Florida, where it was served in shell cups. The new tests indicate that Cahokians were trading for the highly caffeinated beverage between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. “We haven’t yet analyzed other types of pottery, so we can’t say that these beakers were for black drink exclusively,” said Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico. These beakers were found in an area thought to have ritual significance. Similar beakers have been found at other sites as far north as Wisconsin.

Archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology have found a woman’s complete skeleton surrounded by hundreds of pieces of bones from individuals from different age groups. The 500-year-old burial was discovered near the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. A circular structure made from volcanic rock was also found in an area of ceremonial buildings. It contained a tree trunk that may have been part of a sacred tree dedicated to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli.

A 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck has been discovered in deep water off Italy’s northwestern coast. The ship had been transporting an estimated 200 amphorae filled with food. The containers had been buried in sandy mud, and are well preserved, with their lids of pine and pitch intact.

A mass burial pit unearthed in London in the 1990s was thought to hold the remains of thousands of people killed by the Black Death or the Great Famine of the fourteenth century, but radiocarbon dates for the bones told a different story. Evidence of a massive volcano on the other side of the world that would have caused temperatures to drop and crops to fail is now being blamed for the deaths. “It’s amazing to think such a massive global natural disaster has been identified in a small area of east London. I’m always surprised when incredible discoveries like this come to light—this is the first archaeological evidence for the 1258 volcano,” said osteologist Don Walker of the Museum of London.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, August 7, 2012. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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