Woodland Princess

Scientists discover Rhine valley woodland city

March 31, 2010 24:12:27 PM

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(Basel, Switzerland) -- March 29, 2010.

A team of Dutch, German, and French archaeologists announced today in Paris they have nearly completed a three-year excavation of an ancient woodland city hidden away in the Rhine valley for thousands of years. Radiocarbon testing conclusively dates artifacts from a period near the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. Scientists also reveal for the first time a nearly complete skeleton of a human-like female recovered from the excavation site.

In a quiet forest no more than a few square kilometres large, Dutch archaeologist Ernst Voorst, Director of the Reinhard Van Gelder Institut für Anthropologie und Archäologie (Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology) at the Universität des Rheins (University of the Rhine) has led a team of 13 French, German, and Dutch archaeologists (and about 20 students) in careful excavation and analysis of an ancient gravesite near what the team describes as "a city in the trees". Reports of the prehistoric tree-community began to circulate on the Internet in late 2008 and early 2009 until University officials clamped down on leaks. Fearing the site would be pillaged by amateur archaeologists and dealers in illegal antiquities, the French, Dutch, and German governments declared the forest an international no-travel zone. The European Commission on Antiquities extended grants to provide for tight security around the forest, which fortunately happens to lie within a NATO reserve.

"Dr. Van Gelder would have been overjoyed to see the success of our project," Dr. Voorst said in a wistful tribute to his mentor, the late internationally esteemed Reinhard Van Gelder whose career spanned more than 2 decades. The Van Gelder Institute is dedicated to advancing the sciences of prehistoric research. Van Gelder himself bequeathed the first grant to Voorst's project in his will. Reinhard Van Gelder died in early 2008 after a long bout with pneumonia. A special commemorative stone has been commissioned for erection in the site of the hidden forest.

"The trees in the Golden Wood are magnificent," says Professor ordinarius Felecia Bonnet of the Van Gelder Institute. Bonnet holds the Chair of Rhine Valley Studies, the first department established for the institute by the university. "We called it the Golden Wood because of their beautiful sunset glaze in the afternoon light," she explained.

The woodland region was probably settled before the glaciers began retreating from northern Europe. This area of the Rhine valley was well forested at the time and would have provided the inhabitants with an abundance of game and local fruits and grains. "There is some question about whether the 'Princess' is a modern human," Professor Bonnet mentioned cautiously. "We do not think there is a Neanderthal burial here," she quickly explains. "More study must be performed. Perhaps a DNA analysis will reveal some clue as to the lady's origin."

The team named her the Princess of the Golden Wood because her grave was found beneath a small mound near the remnants of an ancient treehouse village. Archaeologists were able to find evidence of wooden structures that could only have been used in trees. "The tree houses are truly amazing structures," Dr. Voorst notes. "We have only just begun to discover the extent of this ancient culture."

When asked if there is a connection between the golden woodland and a nearby castle that Dr. Voorst and another team previously excavated, he shrugged. "Ja! We have to find that out, but I will say that several members of my expedition believe they have found some connections." He will not disclose any more information on the possible connections pending further analysis.

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