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Archaeologists have made a groundbreaking discovery in a remote area of Siberia: They have unearthed an approximately 8,000-year-old fortress built by hunters and gatherers.
The Amnya I and II fortress is believed to be the oldest fortified settlement in the world and could cause historians to reassess how complex societies evolved.
The Amnya fortress is situated in a sandy area next to the Amnya River, suggesting that hunter-gatherers chose the site to control abundant fishing grounds.
Archaeologists found evidence that the site was burned to the ground several times due to stratigraphy, or the collection of sediment, soil and debris, and discovered arrowheads in the outer ditch, indicating violent conflict in the region.
The Amnya I and Amnya II settlements were discovered on the coast of the Amnya River in Siberia, Russia.
Archaeologists found structural depressions indicating it is the site of a long-term dwelling.
The team discovered wooden palisades indicating a fortified interior area during excavations of the site between 1987 and 2000.
“These things we think about now, like real estate and social inequality, are things people have been thinking about since we became human,” said Colin Grier of Washington State University. Science.org.
The remains of 10 pit depressions are found within the wall, forming Amnya I.
Another 10 huts were found outside the fortified structure, suggesting a hierarchical structure of an inner fortified area and an unprotected outer section identified as Amnya II.
Building features, such as raised central chimneys, indicated that the structures were long-term dwellings, contradicting the belief that permanent settlements and defensive structures only emerged in agricultural societies.
In their study, the Freie Universität Berlin authors state that Fort Amnya was built “many centuries before comparable enclosures first appeared in Europe,” adding that although ancient groups of hunter-gatherers built defenses throughout the world, ‘the very early appearance of this This phenomenon in the interior of Western Siberia is unparalleled.’
Previously, researchers and archaeologists operated under the assumption that competition and conflict did not exist in hunter-gatherer societies.
However, using radiocarbon dating of the collected samples, archaeologists were able to confirm “the prehistoric age of the site” and establish it “as the oldest known fort in the world.”
Radiocarbon dating is a technique that analyzes the decay of the carbon-14 isotope found in samples, which can accurately identify the age of materials dating back up to 60,000 years.
‘Through detailed archaeological examinations at Amnya, we collected samples for radiocarbon dating, confirming the prehistoric age of the site and establishing it as the oldest known fort in the world. “Our new paleobotanical and stratigraphic examinations reveal that the inhabitants of Western Siberia led a sophisticated lifestyle based on the abundant resources of the taiga environment,” says Freie Universität Berlin. Press release saying.
“This finding reshapes our understanding of early human societies, challenging the idea that only with the advent of agriculture would people have begun to build permanent settlements with monumental architecture and developed complex social structures,” he added.
Two sites were unearthed, revealing a settlement surrounded by a fortification and a separate, unprotected dwelling.
Archaeologists also discovered approximately 45 ceramic vessels at the Amnya site with pointed and flat shapes.
The study said that the two types of pottery represent two typological traditions, including ‘incised ornament’ and the second with a ‘comb seal decoration’.
Both types of pottery were found together, revealing an expansion of pottery use.
Preserved bone fragments of elk, reindeer and beaver were identified. The study said there was evidence of reoccupation in the wells of the Amnya I house in the Mesolithic phase in the 8th century and early 6th century BC.
The excavators discovered a fourth possible reoccupation in some of the wells of the Amnya II houses that are believed to have occurred during the Eneolithic phase in the 4th century BC
“The Amnya settlement complex marks the beginning of a unique and long-term phenomenon of defensive hunter-gatherer sites in northern Eurasia, an almost uninterrupted tradition that continued for almost eight millennia into the early modern period.”
These discoveries are changing the textbook view that permanent settlements containing fortifications could only have occurred by farmers.
“For many people, this is still not part of what hunter-gatherers are. …There is still an element in archeology that believes that complexity develops over time,’ Oxford University archaeologist Rick Schulting, who was not involved in the research, told Science.org.
“This is a good study that shows that you can have alternative paths to complexity.”