archeology

Book 34 for 2026: “Forgotten”, Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson

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The subtitle is “Searching for Palestine’s Hidden Places and Lost Memorials”. Published in 2025, the book follows the authors’ travels from their home in Ramallah in the West Bank in search of ancient buildings, churches, grave memorials, etc. For those who find it difficult to picture the location of Israel, Gaza, West Bank, etc. there is a detailed map at the beginning of the book.

The memorials they find vary from that for three Egyptian soldiers who died in the 1967 war to buried famous poets. They discover the remains of the wall that surrounded the great Bronze Age city of Tell Balata and a sophisticated water system from a Bronze and Iron Age city. In many cases these places are hidden among modern Israeli buildings or appear to be a bunch of rubble at first. Usually, they manage to find these places with the help of older locals.They find the tombs of saints, a Greek Orthodox monastery that had to be rebuilt, the remains of a deserted mosque destroyed by Israelis–all that is left is the minaret, the ruins of many ancient Palestinian villages that over time have been destroyed by the Israelis. In some cases ruins from the BC era have been built over with malls and parks, including one that is now under the Palestine Television Tower.

One thing they noted that has nothing to do with buildings or ruins is how the Dead Sea is becoming smaller and smaller due to excessive irrigation for crops farmed by kibbutzes. The Jordan River feeds into the Dead Sea and its level has gone down for the same reason. Drought and irrigation has increased the need for water for crops. The authors question the longterm sustainability of these irrigation methods. As I read this I thought of all the irrigation in the West of the US, the low water flow of the Colorado River, and how the Western US is facing some of the same issues.

Visiting Chaco Canyon

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Several weeks ago, I spent a day wandering around the ancient sites where native peoples gathered over a thousand years ago.

This explains the extensive influence this place, located in the northwestern New Mexico desert, held for people from as far away as Central America. To reach this park, you have to drive on a dirt/gravel, rough road for more than 25 miles north of Crownpoint, NM. It is definitely worth the effort. However, it is impassable in rainy or snowy weather. The rangers who care for the park live there.

One of the first things you see as you get closer to the park is this rock tower, Fajada Butte.

Archeologists climbed to the top and discovered petroglyphs, “Sun Daggers”. Created between rock slabs, they align with each solstice and equinox and at these events the light projects to other sites, e.g. Pueblo Bonito. Other petroglyphs on a section of the canyon wall represent a supernova that occurred in 1054 CE.

The following depicts an overview of the site as it would have been in the past. In the 1940s part of the wall of rock behind the site collapsed onto it and destroyed some of the buildings.

Here is how it looks today. Many of the doors and windows align with astronomical events, e.g. solstices, the two equinox, and astronomical events that occur only every 17 years.

All sites here contain many kivas, many of which are very large. It is speculated that these were used for various sorts of ceremonies, including religious events.

In this view you can see how the rocks that fell from the cliff have destroyed parts of the structures.

Many of the buildings were several stories high. In their heyday, they did not look like this. They were covered with something like stucco and painted white. What an impressive site they must have been–large white structures in the middle of the brown desert. Archeologists think few people lived here. It was a place for gathering, for ceremonies, for trade, for people from long distances to meet.

Across from Pueblo Bonito is the largest kiva found in the area.

Behind the bars on the far side of the photo is an area that was used for ceremonial dancers to don their costumes. At the bottom you can see a depression with a small door. Before centuries of sand filled it in, this place would have be large enough for the ceremonial dancers to enter through it.

If you follow a trail along the cliff from Pueblo Bonito, you will find another area built at different times hundreds of years ago.

Another large kiva and many smaller ones are located at this site, including this famous long wall built at two different times.

The following shows where at some point the wall stopped, then later it was continued using somewhat different building material and techniques.

The top photo is considered the newer part of the wall.

The wood used for tops of windows and doors was brought from forests hundreds of miles away. The desert air has enable it to be preserved.

When you walk the trails, you see wild flowers and native plants. This is desert rhubarb and it is edible.

While these are photos of the more impressive structures at Chaco Canyon, more than two hundred ceremonial and meeting sites can be found in this area of NM and AZ.

Book 17 for 2024: “Cave of Bones”, Lee Berger and John Hawks

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This is the perfect book for those interested in hominid evolution. I’ve been fascinated by Homo naledi ever since I first learned about them more than a decade ago. In 2013, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger first discovered them in a sizable cave system in South Africa. The initial discovery included the largest pile of hominid bones ever found.

In “Cave of Bones” Berger details his and his teams repeated visits to this cave system and their discoveries over time which allowed them to find evidence that naledi buried their dead, used fire, and drew designs on the walls near passages from one part of the cave system to another. Before their discovery, it was thought that only homo sapiens did any of these things with exception perhaps of neanderthal. The naledi walked upright, lived during the same time as early homo sapiens, and had a feet and body structure like homo sapiens (except they were smaller than most people today), but their fingers were somewhat curved indicating they used them for climbing. Their brains were smaller than homo sapiens. This has made some scientists question the validity of the findings since it has long been held than brain size relates to intelligence and many of the abilities that are distinctively human. The book contains photos of the cave system, of some of the skeletons, the drawings, and other relevant material as well as an extensive bibliography.

Blackwater Draw

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I walk the mile long trail down into the depths,

caliche, gravel, larger rocks strewn by millennia.

The ancients–Clovis, Folsom, Portales

Man–hunted here at the shores of a lake

nearly 12,000 years ago. In 1929, an amateur

archeologist discovered a spear point lodged in bone.

Scattered cottonwoods whisper in the wind,

timeless voices call me, beckoning.

Who were these people? What did they

look like? Where did they come

from? In whose gods, goddesses, did

they believe? Doubtless hunger

drove them to this place of water

and plenty. Columbia mammoths, giant

sloths, dire wolves, saber toothed cats.

I walk this long path, read signs

that tell what diggers found at specific

spots along the trail: bison horns

spanning seven feet, mammoths twice

the size of elephants. I stand in the shade

of the cottonwoods. They whisper to me.

They tell me ancient tales of hunger, strife,

beauty, love, endurance, woe, war, weaponry,

courage and community. How did they overcome

danger, fear? My skin tingles strangely

in the summer heat. Now this land is dry,

desert, the water that sustained teeming life

evaporated in the crystalline air.

Twelve thousand years from now who will stand here?

Will this place exist? Will someone wonder the meaning

of our bones, who we were, what we believed?

Blackwater Draw-Part Two

/ Juliana Lightle / 3 Comments

The ancients hunted here at the shores of a lake

nearly 12,000 years ago.  In 1929, an amateur

archeologist discovered an ancient spear

point lodged in bone.  I walk the mile long trail

down into the depths.   Caliche, gravel,

larger rocks strewn by millennia.  For

thousands of years Clovis, Folsom, and Portales

Man left remnants of their hunting life.

The scattered cottonwoods whisper in the wind,

timeless voices call me, beckoning.

Who were these people?

What did they look like?

Where did they come from?

In whose gods and goddesses did they believe?

Doubtless hunger drove them to this place of water

and plenty.  Columbia Mammoths, giant sloths, dire wolves,

saber toothed cats  gathered here for thousands of years.

The diggers found an obsidian spear head with a

bison whose horns spanned seven feet and

mammoths twice the size of elephants.

Saber toothed cats competed with these

ancient ancestors at this place, all driven by

hunger, thirst, and instinct.  I wonder how

these people overcame danger, fear?

I walk the mile long path, stand in the shade

of these cottonwood trees , read the signs that

tell me what diggers found at specific spots along the trail.

The cottonwoods whisper to me.  They

tell me ancient tales of hunger, strife, fear,

beauty, love, endurance.  I hear the ancient voices

calling.  They tell me ancient tales of woe, war,

weaponry, courage, and community.  My

skin tingles strangely in the summer heat.  Now

this land is dry, a desert, the water that sustained

teeming life evaporated in the crystalline air.

Twelve thousand years from now who will stand here?

Will this place exist?  Will someone wonder the meaning

of our bones, who we were, what we believed?