THE WORLD'S WILD LION population is in grave danger. There are only 600 Asiatic lions remaining, all of which live in a wildlife reserve in the Gir Forest in northwest India. And just 23,000 African lions roam the land between the southern edge of the Sahara and northern South Africa. The total number of wild lions worldwide has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last half century. But in the past, lions were among the most geographically widespread animals on Earth. Each ancient culture that encountered lions had its own way of embracing their power, and the big cats became symbols of spirituality, kingship, bloodlust, divinity, and even safety and peace.
RITUALS
Spain
More than 15,000 years ago, a group hunter-gatherers in northern Morf of Spain killed a lion and brought it home. Cave lions (Panthera spelaea) had roamed Europe for at least 400,000 years, but by this time, their numbers were declining as they were forced to compete for prey with an increasing human population. The lion must have been a great prize. Rather than cut up the feline for food at their cave's entrance, as they did with their other prey, the people carried parts of the huge animal 425 feet into the cave, now called La Garma, to an area known as the Lower Gallery. There, archaeologists discovered nine of the animal's phalanges, the part of the paw to which the claws are attached.
The faunal remains in La Garma's Lower Gallery are uniquely well preserved and provide rare evidence of the daily lives of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and of the animals they interacted with. More than 4,000 mammal bones and fragments have been uncovered in the Lower Gallery, but none more fascinating than the lion's.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September/October 2023 من Archaeology.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September/October 2023 من Archaeology.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Digs & Discoveries - A Friend For Hercules - Archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
Digs & Discoveries - A Fortress Sanctuary - A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
Like Cats And Dogs – Archeologist fund the skeleton of a male Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a notoriously shy creature.
Оn the periphery of Zamárdi, an ancient lakeshore settlement in west-central Hungary, archaeologists uncovered a nearly five-foot-deep beehive-shaped pit with the skeletons of four adult dogs buried in successive shallow layers.
A Dynasty Born In Fire- How an upstart Maya king forged a new social order amid chaos
At the beginning of the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 810-1000), many of the great kingdoms of the southern Maya lowlands-among them Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul-were being abandoned or collapsing. For many years, scholars have assumed that most, if not all, the other kingdoms across the Maya world must have also been in steep decline.
Medical Malfeasance - Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy.
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. Starting in 1847, medical students were required to have practical experience studying human anatomy, but legal options to procure cadavers were limited
RISE AND FALL OF TIWANAKU
New dating techniques are unraveling the mystery of a sacred Andean city
Making a Roman Emperor
A newly discovered monumental arch in Serbia reveals a family's rise to power in the late second century A.D.
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world's grandest imperial capitals
Java's Megalithic Mountain
Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors
THE SONG IN THE STONE
Located in a desert gorge in southern Peru, Toro Muerto is one of the richest rock art sites in South America. It includes at least 2,600 boulders bearing petroglyphs, many featuring figures known as danzantes who appear to be dancing.
