Huge medieval coin hoard found in southeastern Denmark

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 12, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Northern Europe

A treasure of 1,000 silver coins from the Middle Ages has been found in Vejle close to a forest. The coins, which are made of 80 percent silver and 20 percent copper, weigh approximately one gram apiece.

Some of the coins from hoard [Credit: VejleMuseerne]

Some 803 of them are loose, while the rest, up to 1,000, are attached to the remains of the pot in which they were buried.

The story behind the find is more or less a treasure hunt in itself! It all started back in March 2017 when an elderly couple walking in the woods by Uhrhøj found four coins lying on the path between some twigs and leaves. The couple later handed in the coins to VejleMuseerne.

In August 2018, another coin found in the same area was handed in to the museum, and then another one last month.

This prompted Kasper Terp Høgsberg, an archaeologist at VejleMuseerne, to visit the area with a metal detector on September 30, and it did not take him long to find the whole treasure.

Excavation of the coin hoard en bloc [Credit: VejleMuseerne]

The treasure is the first of its kind from the period found in the area, and the museum believes it might bring more nuance to the local history.

“It felt completely unreal. It is a once-in-a-lifetime thing to find such a treasure. It will never happen again in my career as an archaeologist!” said Høgsberg.

“I thought I was going to find a lost purse with 20 coins along a road, but it just kept going until I eventually had hundreds of coins.”

The coins are a mix between Danish coins and coins minted in German Hanseatic cities in the early 1400s. One of the Danish coins was minted in 1424, and experts believe the treasure was buried within the following two to three decades.

Coins attached to textile fragment [Credit: VejleMuseerne]

During those years, there were many conflicts between Denmark and the northern German Hanseatic cities. However, the Hanseatic League, despite the conflict, was Denmark’s main trading partner, which explains the mix of coins.

Archaeologists estimate that the value of the coins at the time would be the equivalent of buying 10 cows – or enough to feed a farmer’s family for more than a year.

The museum believes in the possibility there are more coins out there, and it has launched a call for people to hand over any coins found in the area to the museum.

Source: The Copenhagen Post [October 12, 2019]

Nordic Bronze Age attracted wide variety of migrants to Denmark

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on August 21, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Forensics, Northern Europe

Migration patterns in present-day Denmark shifted at the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Karin Frei of the National Museum of Denmark and colleagues. Migrants appear to have come from varied and potentially distant locations during a period of unprecedented economic growth in southern Scandinavia in the 2nd millennium BC.

Teeth from male individual from the site of Gjerrild (Rise 73a) [Credit: Marie Louise Jorkov]

The 2nd and 3rd millennia BC are known to have been a period of significant migrations in western Europe, including the movement of steppe populations into more temperate regions. Starting around 1600 BC, southern Scandinavia became closely linked to long-distance metal trade elsewhere in Europe, which gave rise to a Nordic Bronze Age and a period of significant wealth in the region of present-day Denmark.

In this study, Frei and colleagues investigated whether patterns of migration changed during this Nordic Bronze Age. They examined skeletal remains of 88 individuals from 37 localities across present-day Denmark. Since strontium isotopes in tooth enamel can record geographic signatures from an early age, analysis of such isotopes was used to determine individuals' regions of provenance. Radiocarbon dating was used to determine the age of each skeleton and physical anthropological analyses were also conducted to add information on sex, age and potential injuries or illness.

Cranium from individual RISE432 excavated from the Gjerrild burial site that shows a healed trepanation [Credit: Samantha S. Reiter, National Museum of Denmark/Frei et al. 2019]

From c. 1600 BC onwards, around the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age, the geographic signal of migrants became more varied, an indication that this period of economic growth attracted migrants from a wide variety of foreign locales, possibly including more distant regions.

The authors suggest this might reflect the establishment of new cultural alliances as southern Scandinavia flourished economically. They propose that further study using ancient DNA may further elucidate such social dynamics at large scales.

Karin Frei at the lab just before taking an enamel sample from one of the many Bronze Age individuals [Credit: Cristina Jensen]

Co-author Kristian Kristiansen notes: "Around 1600 BC, the amount of metal coming into southern Scandinavia increased dramatically, arriving mostly from the Italian Alps, whereas tin came from Cornwall in south England. Our results support the development of highly international trade, a forerunner for the Viking Age period."

Karin Frei adds: "Our data indicates a clear shift in human mobility at the breakthrough point of the Nordic Bronze Age, when an unprecedented rich period in southern Scandinavia emerged. This suggests to us that these aspects might have been closely related."

Source: Public Library of Science [August 21, 2019]

The road to Scandinavia's Bronze Age: Trade routes, metal provenance, and mixing

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on July 24, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Northern Europe, Sweden

The geographic origins of the metals in Scandinavian mixed-metal artifacts reveal a crucial dependency on British and continental European trading sources during the beginnings of the Nordic Bronze Age, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Heide W. Nørgaard from Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues.

British-developed bronze flat-axe from Selchausdal, northwest Zealand (NM B5310, photo: Nørgaard). The 20-cm-long axe has a geometric decoration covering the surface. Low-impurity copper is alloyed with 10% Sn. Scandinavia  holds the largest proportion of British type axes outside the British Isles 2000-1700 BC [Credit: Heide W. Nørgaard (2019)]

2000-1700BC marks the earliest Nordic Bronze Age, when the use and availability of metal--specifically tin and copper, which when alloyed together creates bronze--increased drastically in Scandinavia. The authors performed isotope and trace-element analyses on 210 Bronze Age artifact samples, predominantly axeheads, originally collected in Denmark and representing almost 50% of all known existing Danish metal objects from this period.

The results of these analyses reveal the trading networks established to import raw metals as well as crafted weapons into Scandinavia via two major maritime trade routes: one leading down across the Baltic Sea towards the Únĕtice (a Bronze Age civilization in what is now eastern Germany and Bohemia), and another leading to the British Isles.

The predominance and importance of the trade of British axes to Scandinavia is underscored by the data showing particular isotopic signatures as well as their high tin contents with relatively pure copper used in many of the western-style axes studied. The authors also uncovered an unexpected predominance of Slovakian copper, and suggest that Únĕtice traders acted as middlemen to ship this desirable copper to Scandinavia.

The results provide new evidence for the earliest Bronze Age period in Scandinavia as distinct from the previous Neolithic period (prior to 2000BC) and the later "breakthrough" period of the Nordic Bronze Age, characterized by highly-sophisticated bronzework (1600-1500BC).

The analyses on these artifacts reveal metal recycling was common: smiths repeatedly hacked up imported and local metal objects to recast them for new local products. The metal mixing in this early period is distinct from the alloying of copper with tin to create high-quality bronze, though the authors also found evidence of rather pure copper (sourced from the eastern Alps) beginning to be used this early: this characteristic copper would become crucial to Scandinavian smiths during the breakthrough Bronze Age period to come.

The authors add: "4000 years ago, Britain and Central Europe supplied copper and tin to Denmark, which has no metal sources of its own. Instead finished metal objects were imported and recast to fit local tastes. In this creative process at the onset of the rich Nordic Bronze Age mixing of the original sources took place. This conclusion is prompted by robust archaeological and geo-chemical data."

Source: Public Library of Science [July 24, 2019]

Remains of rare prehistoric crocodile found in Denmark

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 11, 2019 / comment : 0 Denmark, Fossils, Palaeontology

The white cliffs of Stevns Klint are at the centre of yet another mesmerising palaeontological find following a discovery at the UNESCO Heritage site.

Thoracosaurus teeth and armour plates with rendering of the prehistoric sea crocodile [Credit: Jesper Milàn]

Inside a block of chalk, the locally-based amateur geologist Peter Bennicke discovered the remains of a crocodile that existed some 66 million years ago. The find includes two well-preserved teeth and two crocodilian armour plates.

“The patterns in the armour plates vary among different types of crocodiles, but along with the two long and slender teeth we can confidently deduce that the crocodile is of the Thoracosaurus genus, which was the most prevalent sea crocodile of the time – just about the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Tertiary period,” said Jesper Milan, a museum curator with Geomuseum Faxe.

Milan said the find was very exciting as there have been very few similar discoveries in Denmark until now. It fills an important gap in history, he contended.

The remains are expected to be displayed at Geomuseum Faxe later this year.

In an interesting side note, it’s worth pointing out that the amateur geologist Bennicke has been behind several major finds at Stevns Klint – including the remains of a mosasaur, a prehistoric marine reptile, and an enchodus, a long extinct predatory fish.

Source: The Copenhagen Post [May 11, 2019]

Freshwater mussel shells were material of choice for prehistoric craftsmen

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on May 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Germany, Romania

A new study suggests that 6000-years-ago people across Europe shared a cultural tradition of using freshwater mussel shells to craft ornaments.

Prehistoric shell ornaments made with freshwater mother-of-pearl [Credit: Jérôme Thomas (UMR CNRS 6282 Biogeosciences, University of Burgundy-Franche-Comté]

An international team of researchers, including academics from the University of York, extracted ancient proteins from prehistoric shell ornaments - which look remarkably similar despite being found at distant locations in Denmark, Romania and Germany - and discovered they were all made using the mother-of-pearl of freshwater mussels.

The ornaments were made between 4200 and 3800 BC and were even found in areas on the coast where plenty of other shells would have been available.

Archaeological evidence suggests the ornaments, known as "double-buttons", may have been pressed into leather to decorate armbands or belts.

Senior author of the study, Dr Beatrice Demarchi, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and the University of Turin (Italy), said: "We were surprised to discover that the ornaments were all made from freshwater mussels because it implies that this material was highly regarded by prehistoric craftsmen, wherever they were in Europe and whatever cultural group they belonged to. Our study suggests the existence of a European-wide cross-cultural tradition for the manufacture of these double-buttons".

Freshwater molluscs have often been overlooked as a source of raw material in prehistory (despite the strength and resilience of mother-of-pearl) because many archaeologists believed that their local origin made them less "prestigious" than exotic marine shells.

Co-author of the paper, Dr André Colonese, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "The ornaments are associated with the Late Mesolithic, Late Neolithic and Copper Age cultures. Some of these groups were still living as hunter gatherers, but in the south they were farmers with switching to a more settled lifestyle."

"The fact that these ornaments look consistently similar and are made from the same material suggests there may have been some kind of interaction between these distinct groups of people at this time. They may have had a shared knowledge or tradition for how to manufacture these ornaments and clearly had a sophisticated understanding of the natural environment and which resources to use."

Mollusc shells contain a very small proportion of proteins compared to other bio-mineralised tissues, such as bone, making them difficult to analyse.

The researchers are now working on extracting proteins from fossilised molluscs, a method which they have dubbed "palaeoshellomics". These new techniques could offer fresh insights into some of the earliest forms of life on earth, enhancing our knowledge of evolution.

Dr Demarchi added: "This is the first time researchers have been able to retrieve ancient protein sequences from prehistoric shell ornaments in order to identify the type of mollusc they are made from."

"This research is an important step towards understanding how molluscs and other invertebrates evolved. We hope that using these techniques we will eventually be able to track an evolutionary process which began at least 550 million years ago."

The study is published in the journal eLife.

Source: University of York [May 07, 2019]

Medieval sword found in Denmark

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on February 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Northern Europe

A plumber and a machine operator in Aalborg made a sensational discovery when they discovered an intact and well-preserved sword while at work on Tuesday.

Credit: Nordjyllands Historiske Museum/Scanpix 2019

After making the remarkable find, Jannic Vestergaard and Henning Nøhr called the Historical Museum of Northern Jutland, which later confirmed the discovery via its website.

Kenneth Nielsen, an archaeologist from the museum, examined the 1.1 metre-long sword and quickly concluded it was of 14th-century Medieval origin.

The sword was found in ground on top of the oldest layer of paving on Algade, one of the northern city’s central streets.

“Discoveries from here generally point in the direction of the 1300s, so the sword must have ended in the ground in that century,” Nielsen said in the press statement.

The sword is described as having an “extremely high level of workmanship” with detail that only highly-skilled armaments makers could have produced.

That includes a fuller, or a rounded longitudinal groove, a feature designed to reduce the weight of the more than metre-long weapon, which weighs just over 1 kilogram.

Credit: Nordjyllands Historiske Museum/Scanpix 2019

Swords were expensive items in the Middle Ages, and were only owned by wealthy segments of society such as the nobility.

As such, Nielsen said he was surprised by the location of the discovery in what would have been a normal town street, given the tradition for warriors to be buried with their weapons. Most swords of this kind are found at burial mounds.

The unusual placement of the discovery may be related to its being lost under violent disturbances, according to Nielsen, given that the 1300s were a period of instability in Danish history with a series of internal power struggles.

“The best explanation we can come up with is that the owner of the sword was defeated in a battle. In the tumult, it was then trod down into the layer of mud that formed the street back then,” the archaeologist said.

The sword will now be treated for conservational purposes with a view to being placed on display at the Historical Museum of Northern Jutland – which is in fact located in Aalborg’s Algade, the very street where the battle item was lost centuries ago.

Source: The Local [February 07, 2019]

Excavations for Copenhagen Metro dig up evidence of interglacial period

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on February 01, 2019 / comment : 0 Denmark, Earth Science, Geology, Palaeoclimate, Palaeontology

Work on the new Metro station revealed traces of a hitherto unknown interglacial period in Denmark, science media Videnskab.dk writes based on research published in the journal Boreas.

The soil layers at the Trianglen excavation, as seen in the picture here, lie in the same order as the layers at the Copenhagen Free Harbour, which have long been a thorn in the eye of the geologists [Credit: Joakim Stiel Korshøj from the company Geo]

Analysis of amino acids enabled researchers to demonstrate the existence of a period around 200,000 years ago which punctuated two ice ages, otherwise known as an interglacial.

An interglacial is a warmer period such as the one we are currently living in, which falls between two ice ages.

The Copenhagen Metro find is remarkable due to its location, according to Ole Bennike, a geologist with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS).

In the cliff at Trelde, Professor Emeritus Bent Vad Odgaard found in 2013 an unprecedented intermediate period in Denmark [Credit: Bent Vad Odgaard]

“This is certainly a surprise, because lots of drillings have been done in Copenhagen. It’s very unlikely to come across these types of interglacial deposits,” Bennike told Ritzau.

Global climate has varied between ice ages and interglacials for millions of years. The current interglacial began around 11,700 years ago.

Researchers have previously found evidence of four interglacial periods in Denmark, with the new find representing the fifth.

Aerial view of the Copenhagen Metro construction site [Credit: Copenhagen Metro]

Further discoveries in future are likely, according to Bennike.

“Our ability to date [sediment] layers is becoming better and better. New methods are being developed with which to date these layers,” he said.

Source: The Local [February 01, 2019]

Viking-era bones reveal growth of domestic Danish cats

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on December 19, 2018 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Denmark, Europe, Northern Europe

Study of animal bones from the late Bronze Age has helped scientists in Denmark to make new discoveries about the domestic cat.

Skull bones from Viking (upper right corner) and modern Danish (lower right corner) house cats show how cats have grown over 2000 years [Credit: Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen]

Domesticated cats have become around 16 percent bigger since they were first introduced to Denmark, according to University of Copenhagen research published in the Danish Journal of Archaeology.

“We were surprised, when we looked at the bones, to find that both skeletons and bodies (of cats) have got a little bigger,” said Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, an external professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and one of the co-authors of the paper.

“Normally, jaws and teeth are what we call the conservative parts of the skeleton, the parts which don’t grow. But those parts have grown markedly since the Middle Ages and through modern times,” Gotfredsen said.

One explanation for cats’ growth in stature could be easier access to food, the researcher said.

Another possible cause may be genetic, but further research would be needed to confirm this, she said.

“We don’t yet know exactly when the last wild cats died out and when the first domesticated cats really came to Denmark,” Gotfredsen said.

“The cat as a domestic animal closely resembles its wild version, whereas dogs, for example, are far from their wild equivalent, the wolf. The transition to domesticity is still surrounded by many unanswered questions,” she continued.

The review of cat bones conducted in the study is thought to be the first of its kind.

Although the first evidence of domestic cats comes from a near-10,000 year-old grave in Cyprus, scientists can be certain that the animal was domesticated in Denmark no later than 200 CE – during the Iron Age.

Later, Vikings kept cats for their warm fur and ability to chase off disease-bringing rats.

Researchers studied bones dating from before 1000 CE until the 1600s and compared these with later cat bones from after 1870.

Gotfredsen and co-author Julie Bitz-Thorsen carried out much of the analysis in the study.

Source: The Local [December 19, 2018]