13 of the Weirdest Discoveries Archaeologists Have Made

Sandby Borg massacre

When archaeologists studying a fifth-century Swedish site found a human skeleton lying on the floor of a house, they wondered why no one had buried it. Then they found another. And another. All showed signs of having been executed with swords, axes and clubs and then abandoned until the walls of their houses collapsed in on them.

An archaeologist working on the dig told the New York Times that they found the remains of 26 people, along with a half-eaten fish (suggesting the attack was a surprise), coins and jewelry, but they have not found any indication of who the attackers were or what they were mad about. This weird archaeological discovery remains a chilling mystery.

78,000 years of human occupation

A network of caves in Kenya called Panga ya Saidi holds human artifacts from the Middle Stone Age straight through to modern times. Michael Petraglia, currently the director of the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, told Haaretz that with more than 1,000 square feet of space in its main chamber, the cave could have housed hundreds of people.

Perhaps contributing to the longevity of the site’s human habitation, the cave network’s tropical forest location has enjoyed a relatively steady climate while other parts of Africa have endured droughts. His team found large stone tools from the earliest inhabitants (about 78,000 years ago), and more specialized arrowheads and blades started appearing around 67,000 years ago. It’s one of the most significant and strange ancient finds uncovered in recent decades.

Injured zoo animals in ancient Egypt

Hierakonpolis was one of the most significant towns along the Nile River 5,000 years ago (hundreds of years before the pyramids were constructed), and its wealthy residents showed their status by keeping exotic pets. A cemetery excavation has turned up two elephants, several baboons and a hippo, among other animals.

But it wasn’t all kibble and petting—skeletons of several of the baboons and the hippo showed signs of bone fractures that had healed; researchers think they got hurt during capture or while being tied in place. The bones would only have been able to heal while the animals were protected, though, which is how we know they were kept in captivity. Though not a happy story for the wild animals, weird archaeology discoveries like this expand our knowledge of ancient animal domestication.

Kids with disabilities buried like royalty

About 34,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers buried several people, including two adolescent boys, at a site called Sunghir, east of present-day Moscow. When the graves were excavated, researchers found that the boys—who died at roughly ages 10 and 12, and who both showed signs of disability—were buried together with their heads adjacent.

Most intriguing? Included in the boys’ graves were 10,000 mammoth ivory beads, more than 20 armbands, around 300 pierced fox teeth, 16 ivory mammoth spears, carvings, antlers and human fibulae (leg bones) laid across the chest of each child. In contrast, the adults in the graves had very few treasures.

Advanced stone-age tools in India

More than 90 percent of modern humans descend from a small population of Homo sapiens that left Africa about 60,000 years ago, according to genetic evidence. Researchers think that group might have been so successful because they had developed superior stone tools—fine stone blades that could be used on the ends of spears, rather than bulky hand-axes.

But a site in southern India, where ancient human sites have not been well-studied, shows that people there had advanced tools more than 200,000 years ago. Whether that means that human ancestors left Africa in waves or that different hominids came up with similar innovations separately is unknown, but the weird archaeological news is certainly intriguing.

Hidden treasures in Utah

Just like his dad before him, Utah rancher Waldo Wilcox and his entire family kept mum about the ancient pit houses, prehistoric rock lines, paintings and stone tools that were all over their 4,000-acre property called Range Creek. The hidden artifacts had been left by a mysterious tribe called the Fremont Indians that lived in the area 1,000 years ago, and they remained mostly undisturbed, thanks to Wilcox’s gates and “road closed” signs erected to deter hunters.

When Wilcox decided he was too old to manage the ranch, he sold the property to the Bureau of Land Management. It’s now being overseen by the Utah Museum of Natural History.

Terracotta warriors

When laborers digging a well in China in 1974 discovered a life-size statue of a soldier, they knew it was something special. But they had no idea what else lay below the surface. Archaeologists started excavating, finding an estimated 8,000 clay statues. Most are warriors, each with its own facial expression and weapons, and there are full-size terracotta horses and chariots too.

The project was created as a mausoleum for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang Di, who took the throne in 246 B.C. Qin is buried in a tomb at the site that hasn’t yet been excavated because of concerns about its stability, but explorations around the edge of it have uncovered statues of dancers and acrobats.

Tiny human (or alien)

In 2003, a six-inch-tall skeleton with a pointed head was found naturally mummified in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Although many people have claimed that the skeleton came from an alien, scientists have been able to sequence and study its DNA. Its bone density was characteristic of a (human) 6-year-old, despite its tiny size.

Ata, as the female mummy is known, was most closely related to indigenous Chileans but also had some European ancestry. Researchers found seven different mutations of her genes that are involved with growth, but they’re not sure which caused her skeletal malformation.

Antikythera mechanism

A Greek ship sank off the coast of the island of Antikythera about 2,000 years ago, and sat on the sea bottom until it was discovered in 1900. As archaeologists sorted out the artifacts that were retrieved from the wreck, they came across an object they didn’t know what to make of. It had multiple layers of brass gears that precisely fit together and were built into a wooden box.

A half-century later, a science historian figured out that this weird archaeological discovery could predict the positions of the planets and stars in the sky by date. Since then, researchers have found Greek text on the artifact that showed it could predict eclipses and moon phases, and could even track the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games.

Pet cemetery

Peruvian anthropologist Sonia Guillen was excavating a 1,000-year-old cemetery south of Lima, but her team found more than humans: 43 dogs had been buried there by the people of the Chiribaya culture, which preceded the Inca Empire. The valued pets, which were used for herding llamas, had separate plots near their human owners, and many were buried with treats and blankets.

Because the desert climate preserved the bodies of the dogs, Guillen could see how similar they looked to a popular modern breed called the Chiribaya Dog, or Peruvian Shepherd Dog, and her team is now trying to prove a genetic lineage.

Medieval maternity

About 1,300 years ago, a pregnant woman in the Italian town of Imola died before she gave birth. Archaeologists discovered the skeleton of her fetus between her legs, making her an example of a rarely observed “coffin birth,” where gases build up inside the body of a deceased pregnant woman and push the fetus through the birth canal. Scientists also noted another unusual finding: Someone had created a small hole in the mother’s skull before she died.

Drilling such a hole is called trepanation, and it has been performed throughout history and all over the world to treat head injuries, headaches and possibly to get rid of evil spirits. In this case, researchers wonder if she was suffering from preeclampsia or eclampsia—pregnancy-related conditions involving very high blood pressure and possibly seizures.

Early city? Gobekli Tepe

More than 11,000 years ago, at the end of the Stone Age, hunter-gatherers remained nomadic; they had not yet settled down to the agricultural lifestyle which formed the basis of our cities and towns today. However, this archaeological site in Turkey has cast doubt on the timeline, because it has large pillars with animal carvings, stone rings and loads of rectangular rooms. It might be the oldest known architecture in the world, and many researchers think it may be a religious complex.

Surprises in Egypt

Many historical relics are found by regular people just going about their day, like construction workers. But sometimes weird archaeological news come from the archaeologists themselves.

In 1914, an Egyptologist named Dows Dunham tossed a bronze Roman coin he’d just bought at a Cairo antique shop into a burial chamber that was about to be excavated. He wanted to see whether his boss, renowned Egyptologist George Reisner, would be confused. It didn’t work: As soon as the objects from the chamber were sorted out, Reisner knew his protégé had planted the coin.

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Sources:

• New York Times: “A Massacre Frozen in Time: Skeletons in Sweden Reveal Ancient Attack”
• Haaretz: “Cave Found in Kenya in Which People Lived for 78,000 Years”
• Hierakonpolis Online: “Hierakonpolis: City of the Hawk”
• National Geographic: “In Ancient Egypt, Life Wasn’t Easy for Elite Pets”
• Archaeology: “Utah’s Ancient Ones”
• National Geographic: “Emperor Qin’s Tomb”
• National Geographic: “Tiny Mummy’s ‘Alien’ Appearance Finally Explained”
• Smithsonian Magazine: “Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism, the First Computer”
• Archaeology: “Peru’s Mummy Dogs”
• Smithsonian Magazine: “Rare Case of ‘Coffin Birth’ Seen in Medieval Grave”
• Atlas Obscura: “Gobekli Tepe”