Archaeology

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 5,000 years ago, a Tyrolean farmer was walking along minding his own business when an enemy put an arrow into his back, so that he fell into a glacier. He stayed there until 1991, when global heating revealed his frozen mummy to some hikers. What could be more echt […]

Archaeology

Dismantling the Myth that Ancient Slavery “Wasn’t that Bad”

The Conversation

By Chance Bonar, Tufts University | – As someone who researches slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world, especially in the Bible, I often hear remarks like, “Slavery was totally different back then, right?” “Well, it couldn’t have been that bad.” “Couldn’t slaves buy their freedom?” Most people in the United States or Europe in the […]

Africa

Dear Ron DeSantis: Consider all the Valuable Skills the Enslaved Taught Cracker Slave-Holders (For Which they were never Paid)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The new Florida history curriculum on slavery says that some enslaved persons learned skills while enslaved that later benefited them, provoking shock and outrage across the nation. One of the things that is wrong with this way of looking at the issue is the white nationalist assumption that white slavers […]

Archaeology

416,000 Years Ago, All Greenland’s Ice Melted and Raised Sea Levels 5-20 Feet: A Warning from the Past

The Conversation

By Paul Bierman, University of Vermont, and Tammy Rittenour, Utah State University | – About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea […]

Archaeology

Egypt in uproar over Netflix’s “Black” Cleopatra, but Race is the Wrong Lens Anyway

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor ( Mustafa Amin at the Akhbar al-Yawm [News Today] reviews the controversy in Egypt over Jada Pinkett Smith’s African Queens series of documentaries on Netflix. The first installment focused on Njinga, ruler of an early modern West African kingdom in what is now northern Angola. The second treats Cleopatra, and the trailer insists […]

Africa

DNA Study Sheds Light on Arab Expansion in Africa, Axum and other Empires

The Conversation

By Nancy Bird, UCL | – Pre-colonial African history is alive with tales of civilisations rising and falling and of different cultures intermingling across the continent. We have now shed more light on some of these societies using the science of genetics. In a study published in Science Advances, my co-authors and I used DNA […]

Archaeology

DNA Study: Medieval Iranian Merchants account for Half of the Ancestry of Swahili People of East African Coast

The Conversation

By Chapurukha Kusimba, University of South Florida and David Reich, Harvard University | – The legacy of the medieval Swahili civilization is a source of extraordinary pride in East Africa, as reflected in its language being the official tongue of Kenya, Tanzania and even inland countries like Uganda and Rwanda, far from the Indian Ocean […]

Archaeology

Does Megadrought of the 500s in Yemen help Explain the Rise of Islam?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the journal Science gives evidence for a prolonged dry spell in the kingdom of Himyar (which now would comprise Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia and Oman) in the 500s. Since the Prophet Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 567 or 570, any new information […]

Archaeology

Palestinians: Bust of 4500-yr.-old Goddess Anat found in Gaza “attests the Depth of Ancient Palestinian Civilization”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A farmer plowing his land in Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip, recently found the head of a statuette of the ancient Levantine goddess Anat from 4,500 years ago, AFP reports. Everything in Israel/Palestine is political, including, and maybe especially, archeology. In 2500 BCE the ancient Levantine civilization, sometimes called “proto-Canaanite,” […]