Female 'Amazon' warrior buried 2,500 years ago in Altai Moun
Dec 8, 2015 11:51:57 GMT 3
H. İhsan Erkoç likes this
Post by galvatron prime on Dec 8, 2015 11:51:57 GMT 3
Female 'Amazon' warrior buried 2,500 years ago in Altai Mountains was... male
New DNA findings alter the sex of one of most famous recent Siberian archeological finds of human remains.
A Swiss taxidermy expert brought 'her' to life, recreating the 'virgin' warrior's looks from facial bones, and some observers commented on her distinctly masculine appearance.
Yet archeologists and anthropologists believed she was not only female - and a pig-tailed teenager - but a member of an elite corps of warriors within the Pazyryk culture which suggested likenesses to the fabled Amazon warriors of known to the Greeks.
Entombed next to a much older man - perhaps father and daughter? - the remains lay beside shields, battle axes, bows and arrowheads, while the warrior's physique indicated a skilled horse rider and archer.
Cowrie shells, amulets for female fertility but exceptionally rare in Pazyryk burials, were a tell-tale sign that this was a young woman, but so were various adornments to the grave - for example, the 'coffin', the wooden pillow, the quiver, all smaller in comparison to usual male burials. In a singular honour, nine horses - four of them bridled - were buried with the skeleton, an escort to the afterlife.
But a major revamping is now underway. New DNA analysis indicates unequivocally that the remains were male and not female.
The pioneering research was conducted by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Novosibirsk State University.
siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0506-female-amazon-warrior-buried-2500-years-ago-in-altai-mountains-was-male/
What do you think?
Could she be a male?
New DNA findings alter the sex of one of most famous recent Siberian archeological finds of human remains.
A Swiss taxidermy expert brought 'her' to life, recreating the 'virgin' warrior's looks from facial bones, and some observers commented on her distinctly masculine appearance.
Yet archeologists and anthropologists believed she was not only female - and a pig-tailed teenager - but a member of an elite corps of warriors within the Pazyryk culture which suggested likenesses to the fabled Amazon warriors of known to the Greeks.
Entombed next to a much older man - perhaps father and daughter? - the remains lay beside shields, battle axes, bows and arrowheads, while the warrior's physique indicated a skilled horse rider and archer.
Cowrie shells, amulets for female fertility but exceptionally rare in Pazyryk burials, were a tell-tale sign that this was a young woman, but so were various adornments to the grave - for example, the 'coffin', the wooden pillow, the quiver, all smaller in comparison to usual male burials. In a singular honour, nine horses - four of them bridled - were buried with the skeleton, an escort to the afterlife.
But a major revamping is now underway. New DNA analysis indicates unequivocally that the remains were male and not female.
The pioneering research was conducted by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Novosibirsk State University.
siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0506-female-amazon-warrior-buried-2500-years-ago-in-altai-mountains-was-male/
What do you think?
Could she be a male?
