Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

Gods, Graves, Glyphs ^ | 7/17/2004 | various

[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #205 Saturday, June 21, 2008
Prehistory and Origins
Here, there be dragons ["Hobbits" from Australopithecus garhi?]
	06/16/2008 2:20:28 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 238+ views Australian Life Scientist | June 13, 2008 | Graeme O'Neill When fossils of a diminutive, recently extinct race of humans were discovered in a cave on Flores, one of the most easterly islands of the Indonesian archipelago, researchers can be forgiven for assuming they were down-sized by the peculiar selection pressures that act upon insular species. On Flores, natural selection has morphed several familiar species to unfamiliar sizes. There be dragons: three metre, 200kg monitor lizards, also known as the Komodo dragon, plus the fossilised remains of an extinct giant rodent, Spelaeomys, and extinct Stegodon pigmy elephants. The tiny skulls of the Flores fossils ignited a heated, sometimes ad hominin,...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Oldest Wheat Found In Catalhuyuk
	06/20/2008 2:44:29 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 242+ views Today's Zaman | 6-20-2008 The oldest known wheat was grown in Catalhuyuk, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, experts have found. A series of DNA analyses conducted on ancient wheat samples have led scientists to conclude that the oldest known wheat was grown in Catalhuyuk, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia. Professor Mahinur Akkaya from the Middle East Technical University's department of chemistry says the world's oldest wheat found so far comes from Catalhuyuk, this according to a series of DNA analyses made on 8,500-year-old wheat samples. "Our discovery is of great importance as it gives us significant...
Ancient Autopsies
Ancient Mummy Opened: Scythian Cavalier Had Bone Disease
	06/20/2008 2:38:50 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 5 replies · 467+ views The Earth Times | 6-20-2008 An autopsy on the body of an ancient Scythian cavalier found in the Altai Mountains shows he had a degenerative bone disease for several years before he died, German scientists said Friday. The 2006 find of the preserved body and the man's rich possessions on the Mongolian side of the mountains was a scientific sensation. The Scythians were a nation of horsemen in central Asia. The man, who died about 2,300 years ago at the age of 50 or 60, would...
Egypt
Coils Of Ancient Egyptian Rope Found In Cave
	06/20/2008 2:50:54 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 29 replies · 806+ views Discovery Channel | 6-20-2008 | Rossella Lorenzi The ancient Egyptian's secret to making the strongest of all rigging ropes lies in a tangle of cord coils in a cave at the Red Sea coast, according to preliminary study results presented at the recent congress of Egyptologists in Rhodes. Discovered three years ago by archaeologists Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, the ropes offer an unprecedented look at seafaring activities in ancient Egypt. "No ropes on this scale and this old have been...
Africa
Ancient Christian "Holy Wine" Factory Found in Egypt
	06/19/2008 7:37:44 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 17 replies · 515+ views Nat Geo | June 18, 2008 | Andrew Bossone Two wine presses found in Egypt were likely part of the area's earliest winery, producing holy wine for export to Christians abroad, archaeologists say. Egyptian archaeologists discovered the two presses with large crosses carved across them near St. Catherine's Monastery, a sixth-century A.D. complex near Mount Sinai on the Sinai Peninsula. (See a map of the area.) More presses are likely to be found in the area, which was probably an ancient wine-industry hub, according to Tarek El-Naggar, director for southern Sinai at Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Weeks after discovering the first wine press, excavators unearthed a nearly identical...
Greece
Thracian Tomb Dated On 360 Year B.C. Found In Southern Tsarevo
	06/19/2008 7:16:11 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 455+ views International News BG | 6-19-2008 | Kristalina Ilieva A Thracian tomb with semi cylinder arch was found by archaeologists in the territory of the south seaside Tserovo municipality. Tombs of this kind haven't been found to the moment in the Strandja Mountain, the chief of the excavations works Daniela Agre informed. Undoubtedly the tomb is of a local dynasty ruler, who used to govern Southeastern Thrace and most probably controlled the production of ore. The tomb was incredibly beautiful with white soft limestone, but unfortunately is half destroyed by the...
Navigation
Replica of ancient ship to follow part of Argonauts' route
	06/16/2008 3:02:22 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 349+ views The Star (Myanmar) | Sunday June 15, 2008 | unattributed A replica of the Argo, the ship that according to legend carried Jason and the 50 Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, sailed Saturday from the central Greek city of Volos on a two-month journey to Venice in Italy. Turkey's refusal to guarantee the 93.5-foot (28.5-meter) wooden ship safe passage through the Bosporus Strait meant that the ship will not reach its ancient predecessor's destination of Colchis, in what is modern-day Georgia, at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Its route, instead, will retrace part of the Argonauts' return trip... The ship's crew comprises 50 oarsmen with another...
Rome and Italy
Digging into the Roman Legion
	06/16/2008 2:46:22 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 335+ views News Wales | Monday, June 16, 2008 | unattributed Archaeologists from Cardiff University today began excavating part of the remains of the 2,000 year old Roman Fortress in Caerleon, Newport. Led by Dr Peter Guest, of the School of History and Archaeology, the team of 50 archaeologists from Cardiff and University College London will excavate the remains of a monumental courtyard building in the south-western corner of the fortress. The building's existence was discovered during geophysical surveys undertaken by staff and students from the University and was investigated during trial excavations in 2007. This year's excavation will open a large trench over the building, which is believed to be...
Travel
A Village is Reborn
	06/18/2008 6:57:54 AM PDT · Posted by WVKayaker · 7 replies · 271+ views Budgettravel.com | Jul/Aug 2008 | Reid Bramblett Ancient Italian villages are being turned into a new kind of hotel, where the rooms are spread out across town and you share the streets with residents. One of the best of these alberghi diffusi is Sextantio, in the Abruzzi mountains. by Reid Bramblett | July/August 2008 issue On the day he found Santo Stefano di Sessanio, the ancient Italian village that would change his life, Daniele Kihlgren was lost. He had set out on his motorcycle to explore the Abruzzi mountains, two hours east of Rome, and was trying to locate a back road from the ruins of a...
Peru
5,000-Year-Old Anthropomorphic Figures Found In Huaura, Lima
	06/15/2008 6:30:22 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 17 replies · 973+ views Andina | 6-8-2008 In the last days, a team of archaeologists headed by Ruth Shady has discovered a number of anthropomorphic figures believed to be some five thousand years old near the district of Vegueta in the province of Huaura on the coast north of Lima. These relics have been unearthed in the archeological site of Vichama, or "hidden city", a place that belongs to the same civilization of Caral and which is located 159 kilometers north of Lima. Caral is considered the oldest city...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Ancient Stone Tools Found In South Carolina (Topper)
	06/19/2008 10:25:55 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 9 replies · 603+ views Atlanta Journal Consitiution | 6-17-2008 | LIZ MITCHELL A local man has unearthed two ancient stone tools in an archaeological dig in Allendale County, S.C., a rare find that could provide more information about how early Americans lived. And if more evidence proves the artifact is a new type of tool and one archaeologists haven't found before, it could be named after Matthew Carey of Hilton Head Island. The 22-year-old University of South Carolina anthropology major volunteered at the Topper Site...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Ebb and flow of the sea drives world's big extinction events
	06/15/2008 12:06:45 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 26 replies · 417+ views University of Wisconsin-Madison | Jun 15, 2008 | Unknown If you are curious about Earth's periodic mass extinction events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you might consider crashing asteroids and sky-darkening super volcanoes as culprits. But a new study, published online today (June 15, 2008) in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions during the past 500[sc1] million years. "The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty...
Climate
Greenland Ice Core Analysis Shows Drastic Climate Change Near End Of Last Ice Age
	06/19/2008 3:33:44 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 52 replies · 1,092+ views Physorg | 6-19-2008 | University of Colorado Caption: The North Greenland Ice Core Project camp. Credit: NGRIP Temperatures spiked 22 degrees F in just 50 years, researchers say Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation. The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just...
Near East
First Farmers Made 'Lucky Beads'
	06/16/2008 7:54:59 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 4 replies · 200+ views BBC | 6-16-2008 Some of the first farmers in the Near East probably used green beads as amulets to protect themselves and their crops, a study suggests. The authors of the research suggest that early agriculturalists attached special importance to this colour. Beads they recovered from dig sites in Israel had been made from a variety of green minerals and the farmers went to great efforts to obtain them. Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer, from Israel's University of Haifa, and Naomi Porat,...
Lost Tribes
Journey to the East [Looking for the Lost Tribes of Israel}
	08/15/2002 2:39:11 PM PDT · Posted by LostTribe · 40 replies · 483+ views Wall Street Journal | August 8, 2002 | BRET STEPHENS Sometime around the year 1165, a Spanish Jew named Benjamin ben Jonah set out from his hometown of Tudela and made for the East. After reaching Constantinople, he headed south for Cyprus and the Holy Land, cut eastward through Damascus to Baghdad and Persia, then circled around the Arabian peninsula to Egypt. Six years later he returned to Europe and published an account of his adventures, known to posterity succinctly as "The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela."</p>
Let's Have Jerusalem
Historian: Jewish Towns Populated by Arab Late-Comers
	06/18/2008 5:02:15 AM PDT · Posted by SJackson · 18 replies · 355+ views Arutz Sheva | 6-18-08 | Hillel Fendel Historian Dr. Rivka Shpak-Lissak has embarked on an ambitious project, detailing the history of Jewish towns in the Land of Israel that are now known as Arab. Seven of her articles in this series have appeared on the Omedia website, and she has many more coming. The bottom line, Dr. Lissak told Israel National News, is that the Arabs have not been here for thousands of years, as they claim, and that in fact most of the formerly Jewish towns of the Galilee were populated by Arabs only within the last 300 years or so. "The goal of all...
Moslems Digging Christian Origins
[deleted]
Faith and Philosophy
Oxford lab to revisit carbon dating of Shroud of Turin [OPEN]
	05/23/2008 11:52:59 AM PDT · Posted by markomalley · 44 replies · 651+ views CNA | 5/23/2008 A physics professor has persuaded an Oxford laboratory to revisit the question of the age of the Shroud of Turin, the reputed burial shroud of Jesus Christ. The professor argues that carbon monoxide contaminating the shroud could have distorted its radiocarbon dating results by more than 1,000 years. In 1988 and 1989 scientists at three laboratories drew on the results of radiocarbon dating to conclude that the shroud was a medieval forgery. They dated its creation to between 1260 and 1390 AD. The Denver Post reports that John Jackson, a physics...
Oxford lab to revisit carbon dating of Shroud of Turin [Open]
	05/23/2008 1:36:57 PM PDT · Posted by NYer · 11 replies · 375+ views CNA | May 23, 2008 A physics professor has persuaded an Oxford laboratory to revisit the question of the age of the Shroud of Turin, the reputed burial shroud of Jesus Christ. The professor argues that carbon monoxide contaminating the shroud could have distorted its radiocarbon dating results by more than 1,000 years. In 1988 and 1989 scientists at three laboratories drew on the results of radiocarbon dating to conclude that the shroud was a medieval forgery. They dated its creation to between 1260 and 1390 AD. The Denver Post reports that John Jackson, a physics lecturer...
Turin Shroud to go on public display [Open]
	05/31/2008 5:45:58 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 60 replies · 678+ views Telegraph | May 30, 2008 | Malcolm Moore The Turin Shroud is to go on public display for the first time in a decade, sources at the Vatican have indicated, coinciding with a new set of tests on its age. The linen has only been put on display five times in the last century The Vatican keeps the 14ft by 4ft piece of linen, believed by some to be the death shroud of Jesus, in an aluminium case built by an Italian aerospace company to shut out all light, air and humidity. The case is filled with Argon gas in order to prevent bacteria from eating the...
Longer Perspectives
First Americans, First Ecologists?
	06/18/2008 5:29:34 AM PDT · Posted by Maceman · 44 replies · 767+ views Townhall.com | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | Michael Medved Political correctness portrays untamed America before European invasion as a natural paradise, where Indians maintained an exquisite ecological balance, living in a harmonious, idyllic relationship to the natural world. According to conventional wisdom, this pre-Columbian Eden flourished for peaceful millenia until brutal disuprtion by thoughtless, menacing and mercenary white colonists. Stewart Udall, one-time Arizona Congressman and later Secretary of the Interior for President Kennedy, became an early advocate of this point of view in his influential 1973 article, "Indians: First Americans, First Ecologists," urging modern citizens to follow the native example of treating the landscape with love and respect. Udall's...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Native Sweden
	06/15/2008 8:34:34 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 44 replies · 682+ views Archaeology Magazine | July/August 2008 | Zach Zorich Indigenous Saami are rediscovering their long-lost heritage Smithsonian archaeologist Noel Broadbent and Tim Bayliss-Smith of Cambridge University walk past a line of 1,100-year-old hut foundations at Grundskatan. (Zach Zorich) Smithsonian archaeologist Noel Broadbent offers me a handful of blueberries he has picked from the shrubs that hug the forest floor. I pop them into my mouth. The pulp and seeds are sugary, rough, and slick at the same time. In early September the leaves change color and the berries ripen on Sweden's Hornsland peninsula. Broadbent crouches by the trail...
Panspermia
We may all be space aliens: study
	06/14/2008 12:22:54 AM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 117 replies · 1,877+ views Yahoo | AFP | 6/13/08 | Marlowe Hood Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday. European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead...
Health and Fitness
BBC: Cholesterol genes 'protect heart'
	06/18/2008 1:30:55 PM PDT · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 24 replies · 431+ views BBC | Wednesday, 18 June 2008 02:27 UK 01:27 GMT, | BBC Staff Cholesterol appears to play a key role in heart disease A third of the population have genes that could help them in the fight against heart disease, say scientists. A study of 147,000 patients suggests that certain types of the CETP gene might increase the levels of so-called "good" cholesterol. UK and Dutch research, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found a 5% cut in heart attacks for those with the key types. A UK geneticist said it could point to drugs which help many more people. What it does provide are...
Diet and Cuisine
Helpful Bacteria May Hide in Appendix
	06/18/2008 9:12:40 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 16 replies · 898+ views NY Times | June 17, 2008 | NICHOLAS BAKALAR Everyone is born with one, but no one knows what it's for. The human appendix is a small dead-end tube connected to the cecum, or ascending colon, one section of the large intestine. Everyone lives happily with it until it becomes painfully inflamed, when the only treatment is to remove it surgically. Then everyone lives happily without it. So why is it there in the first place? Some experts have guessed that it is a vestige of the evolutionary development of some other organ, but there is little evidence for an appendix in our evolutionary ancestors. Few mammals have any...
Paleontology
[deleted]
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Viking Farms Tell Cautionary Climate Tale
	06/17/2008 1:43:08 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 1,262+ views NPR | 6-16-2008 | Richard Harris Boundary walls built by Iceland's Viking farmers run through Unnsteinn Ingason's land. At some point, farmers stopped repairing the walls, and a climate change may help explain why. Ingason's land had been farmed for hundreds of years prior to his family's ownership. Here, ruins of a stone farm house with a turf roof on a hill behind Ingason's home. Archaeologist Adolf Fridriksson stands near the ruins of an early Viking farm. The farm was long ago abandoned, and its soil heavily eroded. Icelandic farmers bring their sheep down from the hills for the winter....
Scotland Yet
Stone Of Destiny Is Fake, Claims Alex Salmond
	06/17/2008 1:58:03 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 60 replies · 1,319+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 6-16-2008 | Auslan Cramb Alex Salmond dropped a cultural bombshell yesterday when he claimed that the Stone of Destiny, one of Scotland's most famous relics, was a medieval fake. Alex Salmond arriving at the Scottish Grand Committee in Dumfries carrying the Stone of Destiny Scottish, English and British monarchs have been crowned on the ancient coronation stone since the ninth century. It spent 700 years under the chair in Westminster Abbey after it was seized in 1296 by King Edward I, and was finally returned to...
Oh So Mysterioso
Adam's Calendar
	06/18/2008 10:33:02 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 401+ views YouTube | 2007/2008 | Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger [snip] Michael Tellinger, author of "Slave Species of god" talks about the discovery of the oldest man-made structure on Earth, around 75,000 years old. A new book by Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger outlines the events that led to this discovery in South Africa by explorer/pilot Johan Heine. [end]
Pages
Refuting God's Crucible
	06/19/2008 6:41:51 PM PDT · Posted by rmlew · 9 replies · 181+ views The Brussels Journal | June 18, 2008 | Fjordman This text is written in response to God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis, an American historian and two-time winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. In my opinion the book is largely a waste of money. This essay is not made to review the book as much as it is to refute it. It overlaps to some extent with the text The Truth About Islam in Europe, which I have published at the Brussels Journal before. Briefly summed up, God's Crucible laments the fact that Charles Martel, "the Hammer," halted the advancing Islamic Jihad...
Cracked 4 Pounders Made and Awful Din
Sunken British Warship From American Revolution Found in Lake Ontario
	06/13/2008 10:56:53 PM PDT · Posted by gop4lyf · 23 replies · 1,276+ views http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366927,00.html A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday.
American Revolution
Battle of Breed's Hill / Bunker Hill [17 June 1775]
	06/16/2008 6:59:53 PM PDT · Posted by NonValueAdded · 27 replies · 669+ views Worcester Polytechnical Institute - Dept. of Military Science | Oct 5, 2006 | WPI Dept. of Military Science After retreating from Lexington in April, 1775, the British Army occupied Boston for several months. Realizing the need to strengthen their position in the face of increasing anti-British sentiment in and around Boston, plans were developed to seize and fortify nearby Dorchester Heights and Charlestown peninsulas. The peninsulas offered a commanding view of the seaport and harbor, and were important to preserving the security of Boston. The Americans caught word of the British plan, and decided to get to the Charlestown peninsula first, fortify it, and present sufficient threat to...
Trading Ford area recognized in report to Congress as at-risk site
	06/18/2008 8:12:57 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 7 replies · 178+ views dispatchonline (NC) | June 17. 2008 | Anon The Trading Ford area along the Yadkin River has been identified by the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program as a site at risk from rapid urban and suburban development. The park service released its "Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States" last week. The Trading Ford was included in the survey along with other historic sites that comprise the "Race to the Dan River." A linear resource, the inclusive "Race to the Dan River," is listed in the "Roads, Trails, and Waterways Needing Further Study" section...
Early America
Kentucky Grand Jury Indicts Ohio Man In Rock Dispute (Archaeology)
	06/20/2008 2:58:11 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 597+ views IHT | 6-19-2008 An Ohio historian could face hard time, all because of a rock. A Kentucky grand jury indicted Steve Shaffer on Thursday for leading efforts to pull an 8-ton boulder known as Indian Head Rock from the Ohio River. The indictment accuses Shaffer of breaking Kentucky law by removing a protected archaeological object, a felony. He could face one to five years in prison if convicted. "I'm really surprised," Shaffer said. "It's not about historic preservation, we all know that. It's about revenge." The rock's removal triggered...
Civil War
Today is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's 'House Divided' Speech.
	06/16/2008 9:49:45 AM PDT · Posted by Borges · 8 replies · 177+ views "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it...
World War Eleven
What's the Frequency? - New Deal narcissism and what FDR wrought.
	06/20/2008 11:05:46 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 14 replies · 430+ views National Review Online | June 20, 2008 | An NRO Q&A with Amity Shlaes The New Deal celebrates its 75th anniversary this week. National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez checked in with New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Amity Shlaes, to mark the occasion. Kathryn Jean Lopez: How are you celebrating the New Deal's 75th? Amity Shlaes: I'm participating in the Roosevelt Reading Festival at Hyde Park Saturday! One of the people I will see there is Nick Taylor, author of his own book, American Made,...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
No, Lady Godiva wasn't & an apple didn't fall on Newton's head... some historical myths revealed
	05/30/2008 12:06:37 PM PDT · Posted by yankeedame · 58 replies · 1,274+ views DailyMail.uk | 30th May 2008 | Daily Mail Reporter For decades, visitors to HMS Victory have stood solemnly by a plaque in gold lettering announcing the exact spot on the orlop deck where Nelson met his end. But this week it was revealed he didn't actually die there after all - it was 25 feet to the fore that he passed away - and the ship's curator Peter Goodwin admitted: 'History is not always what it...
end of digest #205 20080621

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #205 20080621 · Saturday, June 21, 2008 · 35 topics · 2033667 to 2030966 · 693 members ·
	Saturday Jun 21 2008 v 4 n 47 view this issue	Welcome to the non-AP 205th issue, a.k.a. the soft rock issue. As noted above by our Admin Moderator, Associated Press is no longer welcome on Free Republic, whether attributed and linked directly to AP or sourced through another site. Please remove all AP articles from your long list and repost again. Thanks. The topics themselves are (as of this writing) still posted on Free Republic, but I expect that will change, soon, and permanently. Welcome, new members. For military topics, check out FReeper Foxhole, or join indcon's MilHist list. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #206 Saturday, June 28, 2008
Prehistory and Origins
Prehistoric Settlement Found In Qatar (700,000 YO)
	06/23/2008 1:38:41 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 599+ views The Peninsular | 6-23-2008 A prehistoric settlement in what is now Qatar may confirm alternative theories on how early humans emigrated from the African continent, a report in a Danish newspaper said. Danish archaeologists have uncovered a settlement they believe may be over 700,000 years old, making it the oldest organised human community ever found, reported Berlingske Tidende newspaper. Eight dwellings in the desert region of Qatar indicate that an early human species crossed what is now the Red Sea to leave their origins in Africa, according to the scientists. There is still uncertainty within...
Ancient Europe
Balkan Caves, Gorges Were Pre-Neanderthal Haven
	06/27/2008 2:45:44 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 24 replies · 420+ views Reuters | 6-27-2008 | Ljilja Cvekic A fragment of a human jaw found in Serbia and believed to be up to 250,000 years old is helping anthropologists piece together the story of prehistoric human migration from Africa to Europe. "This is the earliest evidence we have of humans in the area," Canada's Winnipeg University anthropology professor Mirjana Roksandic told Reuters. The fragment of a lower jaw, complete with three teeth, was discovered in a small cave in the Sicevo gorge in south Serbia. "It is a pre-Neanderthal...
Neandertal
Britain's last Neanderthals were more sophisticated than we thought
	06/23/2008 9:58:11 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 41 replies · 673+ views University College London | Jun 23, 2008 | Unknown An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe's last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population -- rather than communities on the verge of extinction. "The tools we've found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species, Homo sapiens," says Dr Matthew Pope of Archaeology South East based at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. "It's exciting to think that there's a real possibility these were left by some of the last...
Britain's Last Neanderthals Were More Sophisticated Than We Thought
	06/23/2008 1:49:37 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 523+ views Plosone.org | 6-23-2008 | University College London An archaeological excavation at a site near Pulborough, West Sussex, has thrown remarkable new light on the life of northern Europe's last Neanderthals. It provides a snapshot of a thriving, developing population -- rather than communities on the verge of extinction. "The tools we've found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species, Homo sapiens," says Dr Matthew Pope of Archaeology South East based at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. "It's exciting to think that there's a real possibility these were...
Africa
The Great Human Migration
	06/25/2008 5:04:06 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 434+ views Smithsonian Magazine | July 2008 | Guy Gugliotta Seventy-seven thousand years ago, a craftsman sat in a cave in a limestone cliff overlooking the rocky coast of what is now the Indian Ocean. It was a beautiful spot, a workshop with a glorious natural picture window, cooled by a sea breeze in summer, warmed by a small fire in winter. The sandy cliff top above was covered with a white-flowering shrub that one distant day would be known as blombos and give this...
Anatolia
Who Were the Hurrians?
	06/25/2008 6:28:07 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 770+ views Archaeology Magazine | July/August 2008 | Andrew Lawler New discoveries in Syria suggest a little-known people fueled the rise of civilization -- Excavations at the 3rd millennium city of Urkesh in Syria are revealing new information about the mysterious people who lived there, known as the Hurrians. This view of the city's royal palace shows the service area (left) and living quarters (right). (Ken Garrett) With its vast plaza and impressive stone stairway leading up to a temple complex, Urkesh was designed to last. And for well over a millennium, this city on the dusty plains of what is...
Trojan War
Ancient Eclipse Found in "The Odyssey," Scientists Say
	06/23/2008 5:36:32 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 26 replies · 798+ views National Geographic News | 6-23-2008 | Richard A. Lovett "The sun has perished out of heaven, and an evil mist has overspread the world." With those words in The Odyssey, Homer laid down not a prophecy of doom but a description of a real-world total solar eclipse, scientific sleuths announced today. It has been known for decades that there was only one such eclipse during the time period Homer wrote about in the ancient Greek poem -- on April 16, 1178 B.C. The blackout even occurred at noon, as described in the epic poem. But...
Scientists calculate the exact date of the Trojan horse using eclipse in Homer
	06/24/2008 11:49:01 AM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 37 replies · 947+ views Telegraph | 6/24/08 | Roger Highfield The exact date when the Greeks used the Trojan horse to raze the city of Troy has been pinpointed for the first time using an eclipse mentioned in the stories of Homer, it was claimed today. # The truth about an epic tale of love, war and greed Scientists have calculated that the horse was used in 1188 BC, ten years before Homer in his Odyssey describes the return of a warrior to his wife on the day the "sun is blotted out of the sky". The legend of the fall of Troy is mentioned in Virgil and Homer's poems...
Oh Pumice Me
Pumice As A Time Witness (Archaeology)
	06/23/2008 2:07:42 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 293+ views IDW Online | 6-23-3008 | Georg Steinhauser - Mag. Werner Sommer A chemist of Vienna University of Technology demonstrates how chemical fingerprints of volcanic eruptions and numerous pumice lump finds from archaeological excavations illustrate relations between individual advanced civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to his tests and to the provenancing of the respective pumice samples to partially far-reaching volcanic eruptions, it became possible to redefine a piece of cultural history from the second millenium B.C. Vienna (TU). During the Bronze Age, between the years 3000 and 1000 B.C., the Mediterranean was already intensely populated. Each individual culture,...
Diet and Cuisine
Shipwreck Yields World's Oldest Salad Dressing
	06/24/2008 7:28:42 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 35 replies · 775+ views Discovery News | Jennifer Viegas Olive oil infused with fragrant herbs has been identified in an ancient Greek ceramic transport jar known as an amphora, along with another container of what could be the world's oldest retsina-type wine, according to a recent Journal of Archaeological Science paper. It is the first time DNA has been extracted from shipwrecked artifacts -- the two large jars were recovered from a 2,400-year-old wrecked vessel off the Greek island of Chios. If the second jar indeed contained a retsina-like wine, which is preserved and flavored...
Greece
Bats about the Attic: Fewer Greek students, but still plenty of devoted ones
	06/26/2008 10:49:54 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 202+ views The Economist | Thursday, June 26th, 2008 | unattributed op-ed At first sight, the statistics are positively wine-dark. As part of school education, countries may maintain it in theory but rarely in practice. Portuguese pupils have it as an option in their final year; in Sweden fewer than 100 schoolchildren study it, in Belgium around 800. In Britain, of a mere 241 entrants for Greek A-level (typically taken at 18) in 2007, fully 226 were from independent (private) schools... Though some classics departments in the United States have had to close or merge, the number of students enrolled in Greek has been going up since the 1990s. In 2006 fully...
Mediterranean
Archaeologists Uncover 5,000-Year-Old Jewellery Workshop (Cyprus)
	06/26/2008 6:06:10 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 373+ views Cyprus Mail | 6-25-2008 | Jean Christou Archaeologists have uncovered was appears to have been a jewellery workshop during excavations at the 5,000-year old Souskiou-Laona settlement. According to the Antiquities Department, a dense concentration of the mineral picrolite in the west ridge of the cliff-top settlement indicates that the spot was a workshop for the production of the cruciform figurines and large pendants. "The assemblage mainly consists of the raw picrolite material, possibly quarried from the Troodos Mountains rather than imported in pebble form from the Kouris River valley, many waste chips flaked from that raw material in order...
Near East
Hidden City Provides Fascinating Insight Into The Structures Of Hellenistic Settlements
	06/23/2008 1:58:45 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 405+ views FWF | 6-23-2008 | Prof. Schmidt-Colinet Six centuries of Hellenistic culture lay hidden under the sand. The site has provided a unique insight into the structures of settlements at that time. The discovery of an ancient city buried beneath the sands of modern-day Syria has provided evidence for a Hellenistic settlement that existed for more than six centuries extending into the time of the Roman Empire. The site provides a unique insight into the structures of a pre-Roman Hellenistic settlement. The project, funded by the Austrian Science...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Greek Style Architecture Found In The Ancient Achaemenid City
	06/25/2008 5:43:33 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 285+ views Cultural Heritage News | 6-25-2008 Archaeologists have used geological surveys in the south of Iran to reveal rectangular formations inspired by Greek architecture dating to the Sassanid era. Archeologists have said that the structures located in Fars Province are part of the urban planning of the ancient Achaemenid city of Istakhr during the Sassanid period (226-651 CE). The design is loaned from Hippodamus style of urban planning during a series of armed conflicts with Persias great rival to the west, the Roman Empire, said...
Ancient Autopsies
Frozen Siberian Mummies Reveal A Lost Civilization
	06/25/2008 5:16:28 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 22 replies · 969+ views Discover Magazine | 6-25-2008 | Andrew Curry Global warming may finally do in the bodies of the ancient Scythians. by Andrew Curry That the warrior survived the arrow's strike for even a short time was remarkable. The triple-barbed arrowhead, probably launched by an opponent on horseback, shattered bone below his right eye and lodged firmly in his flesh. The injury wasn't the man's first brush with death. In his youth he had survived a glancing sword blow that fractured the back of his skull. This injury was different. The man was probably begging for death, says Michael Schultz, a paleopathologist at...
Rome and Italy
Redating Caesar's Invasion Of Britain
	06/25/2008 5:22:56 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 22 replies · 660+ views San Marcos record | 6-25-2008 TxSt astronomers come to bury long-accepted date, not to praise it -- Julius Caesar landed an invasion fleet on the shores of Britain in 55 B.C., expanding the boundaries of the so-called "Known World" and inadvertently sparking a dispute between historians and scientists for centuries to come. Now, astronomers from Texas State University have applied their unique brand of forensic astronomy to the enduring controversy surrounding the precise location of Caesar's landfall, concluding that the historically accepted date for the event -- Aug. 26-27, 55 B.C. -- is incorrect. The Texas State team's proposed new date of Aug....
The Vikings
Raiders Or Traders? (Vikings)
	06/25/2008 5:33:36 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 30 replies · 417+ views Smithsonian Magazine | July 2008 | Andrew Curry From his bench toward the stern of the Sea Stallion From Glendalough, Erik Nielsen could see his crewmates' stricken faces peeping out of bright-red survival suits. A few feet behind him, the leather straps holding the ship's rudder to its side had snapped. The 98-foot vessel, a nearly $2.5 million replica of a thousand-year-old...
Bayeux, Nowhere Near London
Campaign to bring the Bayeux Tapestry back to Britain
	06/24/2008 5:22:08 AM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 23 replies · 382+ views Daily Telegraph (U.K.) | 6/24/08 A campaign has been launched to bring the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the world's great works of art, back to Britain for the first time centuries, and put it on display in Canterbury Cathedral. The famous embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest is the subject of a major conference of world experts being held at the British Museum next month......
British Isles
Medieval Boat Found On Suffolk Coast
	06/25/2008 10:12:32 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 597+ views EADT24 | 6-25-2008 | Mark Lord The unearthing of a medieval boat on the north Suffolk coast is of "great national importance", the archaeological team behind the discovery said last night. As reported in yesterday's EADT the remains were found during excavations at Sizewell in advance of the onshore works for the Greater Gabbard Wind Farm. The vessel, which was probably a small inshore fishing boat, was broken up sometime between the 12th and 14th Centuries and parts of...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Museum of London's Skeleton Key to the Bodies Under City's Streets
	06/27/2008 4:02:52 PM PDT · Posted by Coffee200am · 31 replies · 877+ views Times Online | 06.28.2008 | Jack Malvern snip...Tens of thousands of skeletons that lie hidden beneath the streets, houses and offices of London have been revealed for the first time on a map, in a collaboration between the Museum of London and The Times. snip...Another skeleton was found with a metal spike lodged in its spine. Its owner, a man who was buried in Smithfield, East London, in about 1350, was probably hit with an arrow or spear, but the attack did not kill him. He survived only to catch bubonic plague in his late thirties or early forties. "Somehow the injury didn't cause an infection," Mr...
Navigation
Expert closing in on mystery shipwreck[Australia] {Possible Before Cpt. Cook}
	06/17/2007 5:26:33 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 11 replies · 878+ views News.Com | 17 June 2007 | Lucy Carne The mystery of a galleon believed to be buried in a North Stradbroke Island swamp could be solved within months. For a century, rumours have circulated that the remains of a 16th or 17th-century Spanish or Portuguese vessel lie in the snake-infested 18 Mile Swamp at the southern end of the Moreton Bay island. Tales persist of Aborigines finding gold coins and amateur explorers stripping the ship of its anchor, fastenings and planks. Brisbane archeologist Greg Jefferys has been searching for the wreck for nearly 20 years and is confident he is closing in. Last week he found three metal...
Australia and the Pacific
Ancient Australia Not Written In Stone
	06/25/2008 10:00:10 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 14 replies · 581+ views ABC Science | 6-25-2008 | Fran Molloy Has the life of Australia's Aborigines remained unchanged for 45,000 years? A new approach to archaeology challenges us to rethink prehistory. Some archaeologists argue that physical remnants such as this chert knife found in Djadjiling in WA give a more accurate view of life in ancient Australia than re-interpreting post-European contact history. Aboriginal people are thought to have inhabited the Australian continent for around 45,000 years before European contact, and are frequently cited as the oldest continuous living culture on Earth. However, written records of their lives exist...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Evidence Of Ancient Farming Found (Canada)
	06/23/2008 1:30:34 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 4 replies · 287+ views BC Local News | 6-20-2008 | Jeff Nagel A 3,600-year-old native village site uncovered during road work for the new Golden Ears Bridge is being hailed as a globally significant find that suggests aboriginal people here were Canada's first recorded farmers. The ancient discovery has electrified archaeologists who say it may help reverse long-held notions of pre-contact natives as hunter-gatherers who didn't actively garden or otherwise manage the landscape. It also shines a new spotlight on the accelerating loss of First Nations heritage sites in the Lower Mainland to make way for new highways,...
Discover Area's Primal Past at Indian Museum of Lake County
	06/23/2008 8:25:34 PM PDT · Posted by Pontiac · 10 replies · 143+ views Cleveland Plain Dealer | June 03, 2008 | Deanna R. Adams Did you know that if you live in Lake County, there is a chance you can still find an ancient Indian artifact in your own backyard? And if you lived in Eastlake in the 1970s, you most likely did. Thousands of artifacts including pipes, stones, shells, bone hair pins and beads, turned up in the area in 1973 when property on Reeves Road was sold to make way for condominiums. Pipes, in particular, were easy finds. "There were so many pipes in the area because there were a lot of tobacco patches there," says Ann Dewald, director of the Indian...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Follow the Silt
	06/24/2008 2:03:54 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 26 replies · 1,443+ views NY Times | June 24, 2008 | CORNELIA DEAN Dorothy J. Merritts, a geology professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., was not looking to turn hydrology on its ear when she started scouting possible research sites for her students a few years ago. But when she examined photographs of the steep, silty banks of the West Branch of Little Conestoga Creek, something did not look right. The silt was laminated, deposited in layers. She asked a colleague, Robert C. Walter, an expert on sediment, for his opinion. "Those are not stream sediments," he told her. "Those are pond sediments." In short, the streamscape...
Flood, Here Comes the Flood
UW Scientist: Sea Level Changes a Driving Force in Mass Extinctions (of Humans!)
	06/21/2008 4:40:14 PM PDT · Posted by Diana in Wisconsin · 15 replies · 229+ views Madistan.com | June 21, 2008 | Anita Weier Watch out for the oceans.That's the lesson of an extensive study by University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Shanan Peters published June 15 in the journal Nature. Peters looked at data gathered by scientists over many years and analyzed what they found at about 600 locations all over the continental United States and Alaska, going back more than 500 million years. Changes in ocean environments related to sea level exert a driving influence on rates of extinction, which animals and plants survive or vanish, and the composition of life in the ocean, he found. "This breakthrough speaks loudly to the future...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Life Survived Catastrophic Space Rock Impact [Chesapeake Bay area]
	06/26/2008 8:04:37 PM PDT · Posted by ETL · 41 replies · 661+ views Space.com | June 26, 2008 | Jeanna Bryner The true impact of an asteroid or comet crashing near the Chesapeake Bay 35 million years ago has been examined in detail for the first time. The analysis reveals the resilience of life in the aftermath of disaster. The impact crater, which is buried under 400 to 1,200 feet (120 to 365 meters) of sand, silt and clay, spans twice the length of Manhattan. The sprawling depression helped create what would eventually become Chesapeake Bay. About 10,000 years ago, ice sheets began to melt and once-dry river valleys filled with water. The rivers of the Chesapeake region converged directly over...
Panspermia
Is Ice a Catalyst for Life Throughout the Universe?
	06/23/2008 1:33:10 PM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 9 replies · 365+ views Daily Galaxy | 6/23/08 Ancient_antarctic_microbes_2_2 The unusual properties of frozen water may have been the ticket that made life possible. Over the decades, several notable scientists have began to suspect that life on Earth did not evolve in a warm primordial soup, but in ice -- at temperatures that few living things can now tolerate. The very laws of chemistry may have actually favored ice, says Jeffrey Bada, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "We've been arguing for a long time," he says, "that cold conditions make much more sense, chemically, than warm conditions." If Bada and others are correct, it would...
Lost Tribes
Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes firing bows and arrows
	05/29/2008 2:59:10 PM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 124 replies · 4,641+ views Daily Mail | 5/29/08 | Michael Hanlon Skin painted bright red, heads partially shaved, arrows drawn back in the longbows and aimed square at the aircraft buzzing overhead. The gesture is unmistakable: Stay Away. Behind the two men stands another figure, possibly a woman, her stance also seemingly defiant. Her skin painted dark, nearly black. The apparent aggression shown by these people is quite understandable. For they are members of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribes, who live in the Envira region in the thick rainforest along the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier. Thought never to have had any contact with the outside world, everything about these people is, and...
Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil
	05/30/2008 6:59:01 AM PDT · Posted by zeebee · 50 replies · 1,100+ views BBC News | 5/30/08 | BBC One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru. The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land. The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members brandishing bows and arrows. More than half the world's 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says. Stephen Corry, the director of the group - which supports tribal people around the world - said such tribes would "soon be made extinct" if their land was not protected. 'Monumental...
Amazon tribe sighting raises dilemma
	05/30/2008 3:55:58 PM PDT · Posted by marthemaria · 113 replies · 1,742+ views http://www.eleconomista.es Dramatic photographs ofpreviously unfound Amazon Indians have highlighted theprecariousness of the few remaining "lost" tribes and thedangers they face from contact with outsiders. The bow-and-arrow wielding Indians in the pictures releasedon Thursday are likely the remnants of a larger tribe who wereforced deeper into the forest by encroaching settlement,experts said. Rather than being "lost", they have likely had plenty ofcontact with other indigenous groups over the years, saidThomas Lovejoy, an Amazon expert who is president of The HeinzCenter in Washington. "I think there is an ethical question whether you can inthe end keep them from any contact and I think...
Uncontacted" Amazon Tribe Actually Known for Decades
	06/21/2008 1:17:49 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 43 replies · 1,127+ views National Geographic News | 6-19-2008 | Kelly Hearn Recent photos of an uncontacted tribe firing arrows at a plane briefly made these Amazon Indians the world's least understood media darlings. Contrary to many news stories, the isolated group has actually been monitored from a distance for decades, past and current Brazilian government officials say. No one, however, is known to have had a face-to-face meeting with the nomadic tribe, which lives along the Peru-Brazil border. And no one knows how much, if anything, these rain forest people know about the outside world. The tribe -- whose...
'Lost' Amazon tribe a publicity stunt
	06/23/2008 10:16:06 AM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 39 replies · 1,567+ views News.com | June 23, 2008 | staff reporter HE man behind photos of warriors from an "undiscovered" Amazon tribe that were beamed around the world has admitted it was a publicity stunt aimed at raising awareness of logging. Indigenous tribes expert, JosÈ Carlos Meirelles, said the tribe had been known of since 1910, and had been photographed to prove that they still existed in an area endangered by logging, The Guardian reported. Mr Meirelles, who was working for Funai, the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency dedicated to finding remote tribes and protecting them, said he spent three years gatheiring "evidence" about the tribe, and then planned the publicity to...
The Not-So-Lost Tribe
	06/23/2008 10:05:43 PM PDT · Posted by Lusis · 20 replies · 1,147+ views Yahoo Buzz | June 23, 2008 | Mike Krumboltz Even in an age when cynical sleuths can hyper-analyze stories for truth and accuracy, the occasional hoax still slips through the cracks. Such was the case with a so-called "lost Amazon tribe."
Photo of Amazon Tribe Not a Hoax
	06/24/2008 3:55:09 PM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 35 replies · 722+ views LiveScience | 24 June 2008 | Robin Lloyd Recent photos of an "uncontacted tribe" of Indians near the Brazil-Peru border have sparked media reports of a hoax, but the organization that released the images defends its claims and actions. The photographs, which showed men painted red and black and aiming arrows skyward, were released in late May by Survival International, a London-based organization that advocates for tribal people worldwide. The release stated that "members of one of the world's last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air," and quoted the Brazilian government photographer saying, "there are some who doubt [the tribe's] existence" as justification for...
Oh So Mysterioso
Michelangelo 'hid secret code in Sistine Chapel'
	06/21/2008 6:57:45 AM PDT · Posted by yankeedame · 46 replies · 1,681+ views Telegraph.uk | 20/06/2008 | Malcolm Moore Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols... according to a new book. The Sistine Chapel was intended to be decoded, the authors believe The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,...is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith", according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece. --snip-- Scanning...the arrangement of figures on the...14,000 square foot ceiling, the authors have found shapes that correspond to Hebrew letters. --snip-- For example, the...
Love Stinks
Primates Scent Speaks Volumes About Who he Is
	06/23/2008 4:56:17 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 324+ views Physorg | Duke University Perhaps judging a man by his cologne isn't as superficial as it seems.Duke University researchers, using sophisticated machinery to analyze hundreds of chemical components in a ringtailed lemur's distinctive scent, have found that individual males are not only advertising their fitness for fatherhood, but also a bit about their family tree as well. "We now know that there's information about genetic quality and relatedness in scent," said Christine Drea, a Duke associate professor of biological anthropology and biology. The male's scent can reflect his mixture of genes, and to which animals he's...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Sex, cleaner of genomes
	06/22/2008 2:11:51 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 20 replies · 590+ views Indiana University via biologynews.net | February 16, 2006 | NA The water flea Daphnia pulex is a commonly used model organism among ecologists and other environmental scientists. When sexual species reproduce asexually, they accumulate bad mutations at an increased rate, report two Indiana University Bloomington evolutionary biologists in this week's Science. The researchers used the model species Daphnia pulex, or water flea, for their studies. The finding supports a hypothesis that sex is an evolutionary housekeeper that adeptly reorders genes and efficiently removes deleterious gene mutations. The study also suggests sexual reproduction maintains its own existence by punishing, in a sense, individuals of...
Chromosome rearrangements not as random as believed
	06/22/2008 3:02:05 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 11 replies · 418+ views Children's Hospital of Philadelphia via biologynews.net | February 16, 2006 | NA As the human genome gradually yields up its secrets, scientists are finding some genetic events, such as rearrangements in chromosomes, are less random than they had previously thought. Originating as structural weaknesses in unstable stretches of DNA, abnormal chromosomes may, rarely, result in a disabling genetic disease one or two generations later. A report in the Feb. 17 issue of Science by genetics researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania analyzes genetic predisposition to the translocation t(11;22), a swapping of genetic material between chromosomes 11 and 22. They found an unexpectedly high frequency of new...
Paleontology
Fossil is one of earliest four-legged creatures
	06/26/2008 8:24:22 AM PDT · Posted by Fractal Trader · 17 replies · 523+ views Boston.com | 26 June 2008 | Seth Borenstein Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land. The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders, and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in today's issue of the journal Nature. Even though Ventastega is probably an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds, and mammals. While...
Dinosaurs
Myth of Dwarf Dinos in Dracula Country Confirmed
	06/24/2008 7:21:27 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 15 replies · 785+ views Discovery News | 6-13-2008 | Jennifer Viegas In 1900, the sister of an eccentric Austro-Hungarian aristocrat named Baron von Nopsca found a tiny bone on the baron's family estate in Transylvania, a historical region in present-day Romania. The baron, who was a dinosaur buff, identified the bone as belonging to a dwarf dino that likely once lived on an island in the region. The motorcycle-riding baron's outrageous theories were ridiculed and largely dismissed, but now new evidence suggests his proposed island of dwarf dinosaurs did indeed exist in the land of...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Biblical Text-Writing May Have Poisoned Monks
	06/27/2008 3:48:57 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 35 replies · 572+ views Discovery News | 6-27-2008 | Jennifer Viegas Medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries reveal that monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials may have been exposed to toxic mercury, which was used to formulate just one of their ink colors: red. The study, which will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also describes a previously undocumented disease, called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions. Additionally, the researchers found that mercury-containing medicine had been administered to 79 percent of the...
Cracked 4 Pounders Made an Awful Din
Pirate legend's £200m treasure trove to be recovered live on TV
	05/22/2007 12:04:55 PM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 25 replies · 1,218+ views Times (UK) Online | 5-19-07 | Helen Nugent A hoard of pirate's treasure worth £200 million at today's prices is to be raised from the seabed. The notorious pirate ship the Whydah, which was captained by Devon-born "Black Sam" Bellamy, sank in heavy storms in the Atlantic off the coast of Massachusetts in April 1717. When the ship went down she was laden heavily with ingots of gold, valuable gem-stones and dozens of tusks of precious ivory. The booty was so vast that each member of the 180-man crew was entitled to 50lb (23kg) of the haul by weight......
Underwater Archaeology
Three shipwrecks located in the Great Lakes including S.S. Michigan
	07/12/2005 10:32:15 AM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 40 replies · 2,150+ views Niles Daily Star | Monday, July 11, 2005 | Monday, July 11, 2005 HOLLAND - A recent expedition by Holland-based Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates has led to the discovery of the final location of the Great Lakes passenger steamer S.S. Michigan, the remains of the car ferry Ann Arbor 5 and an unnamed barge. The S.S. Michigan is one of MSRA's six most-sought-after shipwrecks and is the subject of a 2004 documentary called, "ICEBOUND! The Ordeal of the S.S. Michigan." The S.S. Michigan sank on March 19, 1885, just four years after her launch. The 30-man crew made it safely to shore after being stranded on the ice for 42 days. MSRA board...
American Revolution
Will the North Sea give up America's most prized naval treasure?[John Paul Jones]
	06/28/2007 8:59:42 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 28 replies · 1,523+ views Yorkshire Post | 28 June 2007 | Martin Hickes The Americans will be taking to the high seas off the Yorkshire coast this summer in search of their nautical "Holy Grail". Martin Hickes reports on an expensive obsession. THIS August, a flotilla of American scientists will mount a £175,000 expedition off Flamborough Head in search of a wreck, more than 200 years after it sank. Two US teams will plunge into the North Sea in search of the flagship of a Scottish captain, known to the Brits as little more than a pirate, but to the Americans as a hero of the American Revolution and the "Father of the...
Early America
Shots heard 'round the world fired near Charleston
	06/28/2008 4:40:54 AM PDT · Posted by PeaRidge · 34 replies · 700+ views The Post and Courier | Saturday, June 28, 2008 | By R.L. SCHREADLEY This is Carolina Day, the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sullivan. If you are not a native of South Carolinian (and possibly even if you are), you likely have never heard of Fort Sullivan and the significance of this day. Most American school children have heard stirring stories of the battles of Concord Bridge and Lexington Green, relatively minor skirmishes fought by the Minutemen of Revolutionary lore. These were fought in April 1775, and at Concord Bridge was fired the "shot heard 'round the world." But it was at an unfinished, palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island where the...
Civil War
Did John Wilkes Booth survive?
	02/19/2007 8:23:24 AM PST · Posted by Borges · 116 replies · 3,368+ views Chattanooga Free Press | 2/19/07 | Dick Cook A signature in the Franklin County Courthouse and a mummy last seen in 1975 convinced two Tennessee men that John Wilkes Booth, the killer of Abraham Lincoln, escaped capture, traveled South and lived into the 20th century. Now one of those men is hoping to use DNA evidence to prove it. The other man, Arthur Ben Chitty, a historiographer at the University of the South who died in 2002, spent 40 years amassing anecdotal evidence that Mr. Booth married a Sewanee woman and lived there for a time, said his daughter Em Turner Chitty. And there was...
Pages
Review: Strange Fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate by Kenan Malik
	06/27/2008 11:53:07 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 297+ views New Scientist | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | Ian Hacking Take, for instance, this one: "The human race is too young for it to have evolved into distinct species-like units." No, it isn't, and Malik provides good, if not overwhelming, reasons why not. Or this one: "Distinctions between races are arbitrary." No, they aren't. In a famous experiment in 2002, a computer program was able to "blindly" sort genetic data from individuals around the world into five populations that were nearly identical to the traditional races... The middle section of Malik's book recaps his cultural history of the European concept of race, covered in his book The Meaning of Race...
Let's Have Jerusalem
The Arab Slaver (Arab racism)
	06/10/2008 2:09:30 PM PDT · Posted by PRePublic · 32 replies · 965+ views Morton's two cents | June 08, 2008 My country is called the great Satan by many in the Islamic world. We were once called capitalist pigs or similar metaphors used by much of the communist world. It has been stated by a certain group of people living within America that we have white devils running the establishment. Far to many Black Americans have yet to move beyond the race issue while at the same time (unfortunately) racism is still practiced by just about every group within our borders. I have experienced racism in Asian restaurants. I have had...
Faith and Philosophy
The Myth of Mecca (oldie but goodie)
	01/04/2004 6:36:50 PM PST · Posted by dennisw · 40 replies · 4,537+ views pol usa | 9/27/2001 | By Jack Wheeler The most sacred spot on earth to all members of the Islamic religion is the Holy City of Mecca, revered as the birthplace of Mohammed. It is one of the five basic requirements incumbent upon all Moslems that they make (if their health will allow it) a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives (the other four: recognize that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is Allah's prophet, ritually pray five times a day, and give alms to the poor). The founding events of Islam are Mohammed's activities in Mecca and Medina,...
Longer Perspectives
Revising HIV's History
	06/28/2008 12:10:13 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 27 replies · 597+ views ScienceNOW Daily News | 25 June 2008 | Elizabeth Pennisi The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) responsible for most of the AIDS cases in the world infected people approximately 100 years ago, more than 20 years earlier than previously believed, according to findings presented here this week at the Evolution 2008 meeting. Its lesser known cousin, HIV-2, jumped into humans decades later, from a monkey species that carried the virus for just a couple of hundred years, not the millions of years researchers had assumed, according to other research presented at the meeting. Researchers are trying to pin down the origins of both HIVs to understand how often new human...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Inuit Oral Stories Could Solve Mystery Of Franklin Expedition
	06/26/2008 5:59:47 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 23 replies · 788+ views The Gazette | 6-25-2008 | Randy Boswell More than 150 years after the disappearance of the Erebus and Terror - the famously ill-fated ships of the lost Franklin Expedition - fresh clues have emerged that could help solve Canadian history's most enduring mystery. A Montreal writer set to publish a book on Inuit oral chronicles from the era of Arctic exploration says she's gathered a "hitherto unreported" account of a British ship wintering in 1850 in the Royal Geographical Society Islands - a significant distance west of the search...
end of digest #206 20080628

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #206 20080628 · Saturday, June 28, 2008 · 52 topics · 2037673 to 2034334 · 692 members ·
	Saturday Jun 28 2008 v 4 n 48 view this issue	Welcome to the 206th issue, which has an astounding 54 topics. A good many of those are new topics and were pinged, a few were new and not pinged, and the rest were not new and not pinged. Oops, make that 52, someone put the "godsgravesglyphs" keyword into a couple Obama/election topics. There were seven topics about the "unknown Amazon tribe" hoax/just a big misunderstanding, and (if one includes the tribe hoax topics) a raft of topics pertaining to the Americas. A number of topics pertain to Greece, some to food, a few to catastrophism, three or four (well, more) about prehistory, a bunch about various stuff in Britain, and quite a number tiptoe through a few different areas. This is another strong week for variety and significance, IMHO. Nice job, big kudos to Blam and all others who posted topics and/or called attention to them. In four weeks volume 4 concludes, and the week after the GGG Digest will begin its fifth year. For military topics, check out FReeper Foxhole, or join indcon's MilHist list. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #207 Saturday, July 5, 2008
Early America
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
	07/04/2008 1:51:11 AM PDT · Posted by Jim Robinson · 149 replies · 2,212+ views July 4, 1776 | Thomas Jefferson IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...
Diet and Cuisine
Outdoor BBQ: A 700,000-year-old Ritual
	07/04/2008 5:35:17 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 11 replies · 219+ views LiveScience | Jul 3, 2008 | Meredith F. Small July Fourth is a celebration of outdoor cooking, as well as our nation's birthday. It's time to brush off the barbecue and throw masses of processed meat on the grill. As we all stand around waiting for the fire to die down so that we can make s'mores, it's also a time to ponder the notion that the barbecue is a ritual 700,000 years old or more, and it might have something to do with our big brains.
Travel
Run-down heritage sites embarrass the Greeks
	06/29/2008 10:58:52 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 34 replies · 436+ views The Guardian | Monday June 23, 2008 | Helena Smith in Athens ...Amid unprecedented protests from tour guides, travel companies and tourists irritated by conditions at prime archaeological sites, the ruling conservatives last week rushed hundreds of additional personnel to staff museums and open-air antiquities... The move follows embarrassing revelations over the upkeep of Greece's ancient wonders and mounting public disquiet, voiced mostly by foreigners in the local press, over visitor access to them. Yesterday, the authoritative newspaper Sunday Vima disclosed that the Cycladic isle of Delos - the site of Apollo's mythological sanctuary and one of Greece's most important ancient venues - resembled an "archaeological rubbish dump". Recently, it emerged that...
Greece
Geology Pictures of the Week, June 29-July 5, 2008: Thera (Santorini) unusual view
	07/01/2008 7:01:42 AM PDT · Posted by cogitator · 35 replies · 794+ views NASA Earth Observatory | June 30, 2008 | NASA Learn something new every day entry: this image and accompanying article (click the source link above) told me about Nea Kameni, which is in the Santorini lagoon and which had volcanic activity in 1950. I never knew the name of the island and that it was recently active until yesterday. Click for full-size. Here's a view taken from Santorini. And this image is just to put everything into proper perspective.
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Exploding Asteroid Theory Strengthened By New Evidence Located In Ohio, Indiana
	07/02/2008 3:27:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 62 replies · 1,147+ views Physorg | 7-1-2008 | University of Cincinnati Ken Tankersley seen working in the field in a cave in this publicity photo from the National Geographic Channel. Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans -- to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada. A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist...
Astrology Presupposes Astronomy
Planetary line-up excites the sun (Sunspot source found?)
	07/03/2008 12:09:26 PM PDT · Posted by gobucks · 35 replies · 1,196+ views ABC Science | 2 July 2008 | Marilyn Head Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...
Climate
Geologists push back date basins formed, supporting frozen Earth theory (basins in India)
	07/03/2008 11:08:44 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 18 replies · 314+ views University of Florida | Jul 3, 2008 | Unknown Even in geology, it's not often a date gets revised by 500 million years. But University of Florida geologists say they have found strong evidence that a half-dozen major basins in India were formed a billion or more years ago, making them at least 500 million years older than commonly thought. The findings appear to remove one of the major obstacles to the Snowball Earth theory that a frozen Earth was once entirely covered in snow and ice -- and might even lend some weight to a controversial claim that complex life originated hundreds of million years...
Flood, Here Comes the Flood
Invisible waves shape continental slope (climate related)
	06/30/2008 11:51:20 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 20 replies · 286+ views University of Texas at Austin | Jun 30, 2008 | Unknown A class of powerful, invisible waves hidden beneath the surface of the ocean can shape the underwater edges of continents and contribute to ocean mixing and climate, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have found. The scientists simulated ocean conditions in a laboratory aquarium and found that "internal waves" generate intense currents when traveling at the same angle as that of the continental slope. The continental slope is the region where the relatively shallow continental shelf slants down to meet the deep ocean floor. They suspect that these intense currents, called boundary flows, lift sediments as the...
Pole vs the Volcano
Are Volcanoes Melting Arctic?
	06/30/2008 5:41:55 PM PDT · Posted by Kaslin · 61 replies · 1,418+ views IBD | June 30, 2008 Climate Change: While the media scream that man-made global warming is making the North Pole ice-free, another possible cause is as old as the Earth itself. They just have to look deeper.To the delight of Al Gore and the rest of the Gaia groupies, scientists at the National Snow & Ice Data Center in Colorado are predicting that the North Pole will be completely free of ice this summer. The apocalyptic headlines already are starting to appear. "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important," says the...
Prehistory and Origins
Newcomer in Early Eurafrican Population?
	06/30/2008 8:26:30 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 177+ views AlphaGalileo | Monday, June 30, 2008 | unattributed (?) A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal... This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa's possible role in first populating southern Europe. A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context... The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Early Arabs Followed the Rain, or Didn't
	07/01/2008 4:53:28 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 323+ views Discovery News | 6-25-2008 | Jennifer Viegas The phrase "blame it on the weather" takes new meaning in light of research suggesting that regional climate may very well have been responsible for the evolution of lifestyle, culture and even religion in the Middle East.
Near East
Archaeological Sites In South Iraq Have Not Been Looted
	07/01/2008 4:39:25 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 259+ views The Art Newspaper | 7-1-2008 | Martin Baily Despite widely publicised fears of damage to ancient sites, a team of specialists found that eight of the most important have not been touched after 2003. The team's Merlin helicopter flies over the stone temple at Warka An international team of archaeologists which made an unpublicised visit to southern Iraq last month found no evidence of recent looting -- contrary to long-expressed claims about sustained illegal digging at major sites. The visit required the assistance of the British Army, which provided armed protection and...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iranian, Foreign Experts To Excavate Salt Men's Necropolis
	06/30/2008 1:37:43 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 6 replies · 490+ views Mehr News | 6-30-2008 A joint team of Iranian and foreign experts will collaborate on a project planned to excavate the Chehrabad Salt Mine, where all six of the "salt men" were discovered. Archaeologists and experts on other related fields from Germany, England, and Austria will participated in the project, which is expected to begin in spring 2009 in the salt mine located in the Hamzehlu region near Zanjan, northern Iran, the Persian service of CHN reported on Monday. "The Chehrabad Salt Mine is one of important Iranian ancient sites, on...
Egypt
Egypt archaeologists find ancient painted coffins
	06/30/2008 8:16:01 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 17 replies · 232+ views Google/AFP | June 26, 2008 | AFP "These coffins were found in the tombs of senior officials of the 18th and 19th dynasties," near Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday. "Some coloured unopened coffins dating back to the sixth century BC were found as well as some coffins dating back to the time of Ramses II," who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC, he said... The Saqqara burial grounds which date back to 2,700 BC and are dominated by the massive bulk of King Zoser's step pyramid -- the first ever built -- were in continuous use until the...
Africa
Archaeologists find silos and administration center from early Egyptian city
	07/01/2008 10:46:57 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 18 replies · 333+ views University of Chicago | Jul 1, 2008 | Unknown A University of Chicago expedition at Tell Edfu in southern Egypt has unearthed a large administration building and silos that provide fresh clues about the emergence of urban life. The discovery provides new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt -- the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture. The archaeological work at Tell Edfu was initiated with the permission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, headed by Zahi Hawass, under the direction of Nadine Moeller, Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Work late last year revealed details of seven...
Let's Have Jerusalem
The Salome No One Knows
	06/29/2008 11:04:01 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 502+ views Biblical Archaeology Review | Jul/Aug 2008 | unattributed When people hear the name Salome, they immediately think of the infamous dancing girl of the Gospels... At her mother's urging, Salome asked for the head of Herod's most famous prisoner on a platter. Fearful of breaking his word before his guests, Herod granted Salome's request and ordered John the Baptist beheaded. In antiquity there was a considerably more famous Salome, however, who was revered for centuries. She was so admired that generations of mothers, Herodias apparently among them, named their daughters Salome in her honor. This Salome was the only woman ever to govern Judea as its sole ruler....
Pole FReep
Magnetic Fields Used To Date Indian Artifacts
	06/30/2008 1:26:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 286+ views The Wichita Eagle | 6-22-2008 You might be surprised what you can learn from a campfire. A campfire that has been cold for, say, 300 years. Stacey Lengyel hopes she can tell, within 30 years or so, when it was used. Lengyel, a research associate in anthropology at the Illinois State Museum, is the country's leading authority on archeomagnetic dating, a process built around two phenomena: when heated, magnetic particles reorient themselves to magnetic north; and over time, magnetic north is, literally, all over the map. "They call it a 'drunken wander,'...
Ancient Autopsies
4,500-Year-Old Mummies Discovered in Chile (Chinchorro)
	06/29/2008 2:11:47 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 436+ views Sify | 6-28-2008 Eight perfectly preserved mummies, believed to be some 4,500 year old, were found by workers engaged in a restoration project in Chile's far north, Spain's EFE news agency reported on Saturday quoting media report. "These mummies date back to between 2,000 BC and 5,000 BC." archaeologist Calogero Santoro told the daily El Mercurio. The mummies are remains of individuals belonging to the Chinchorro culture, which was one of the first to practice mummification and the perfect condition in which the mummies were found is indicative of their advanced...
Quintillions Ripen
Maize (Corn) May Have Been Domesticated In Mexico As Early As 10,000 Years Ago
	06/29/2008 2:03:58 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 459+ views Science Daily | 6-27-2008 | American Society of Plant Biologists Various unusually colored and shaped maize from Latin America. (Credit: Photo by Keith Weller / courtesy of USDA/Agricultural Research Service) ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) -- The ancestors of maize originally grew wild in Mexico and were radically different from the plant that is now one of the most important crops in the world. While the evidence is clear that maize was first domesticated in Mexico, the time and location of the earliest domestication and dispersal events are still in dispute. Now, in addition to more traditional macrobotanical...
Teotihuacan
Researchers open secret cave under Mexican pyramid
	07/04/2008 8:06:40 AM PDT · Posted by BenLurkin · 20 replies · 527+ views Reuters | Thu Jul 3, 12:22 PM ET | Miguel Angel Gutierrez Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities. The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico. But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD. Archeologists are...
Hohokam
Uncovering an ancient city: Archaeologists unearth houses, artifacts along Silverbell Project
	07/03/2008 8:36:52 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 248+ views The Explorer | Wednesday, July 2, 2008 | Nick Smith The white-colored outlines of rectangular shapes could very well be the markings of a construction site, albeit one that was undertaken more than 700 years ago... Those outlines mark the walls of a Hohokam pit house, part of an ancient city that was uncovered by archaeologists in mid-April at the site of a major road and park project in Marana... A large, 18-inch thick adobe wall was discovered in the area, along with a host of pit houses and ancient Hohokam artifacts. Several pit houses were also uncovered at the southeast corner of Ina and Silverbell roads... "One of the...
Caribbean
Puerto Rico Archaeological Find Mired In Politics
	07/01/2008 8:34:31 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 21 replies · 455+ views Miami Herald | 7-1-2008 | FRANCES ROBLES U.S. archaeologist Nathan Mountjoy sits next to stones etched with ancient petroglyphs and graves that reveal unusual burial methods in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The archaeological find, one of the best-preserved pre-Columbian sites found in the Caribbean, form a large plaza measuring some 130 feet by 160 feet that could have been used for ball games or ceremonial rites, officials said. SAN JUAN -- The lady carved on the ancient rock is squatting, with frog-like legs sticking out to each side. Her decapitated head is dangling...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Research Casts New Light On History Of North America
	07/01/2008 10:26:26 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 14 replies · 653+ views Newswise | 7-1-2008 | Valparaiso University Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso's research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands -- a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois -- were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought. Newswise -- Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his...
Oregon Discovery Challenges Beliefs About First Humans
	07/01/2008 8:20:04 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 19 replies · 1,168+ views PBS | 7-1-2008 | Lee Hochberg Until recently, most scientists believed that the first humans came to the Americas 13,000 years ago. But new archaeological findings from a cave in Oregon are challenging that assumption. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports on the controversial discovery. LEE HOCHBERG, NewsHour correspondent: What archaeologist Dennis Jenkins found in the Paisley Caves in south central Oregon may turn on its head the theory of how and when the first people came to North America. Many scientists believe humans first came to this continent 13,000 years ago across a land bridge from Asia...
First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia....
	07/03/2008 4:55:14 AM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 30 replies · 596+ views Science Daily | 7-1-08 Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.....
Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions About First Americans
	07/03/2008 4:12:23 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 323+ views Scientific American | 7-3-2008 | Elizabeth Lunday Excavations at the Gault site in central Texas. -- "Look at that -- isn't it gorgeous?" Sandy Peck asks as she rinses dirt from a flaked stone about the length and width of a pinky finger. Peck runs a hose over soil on a fine-mesh screen, prodding at stubborn clods of clay with a muddy glove. "Look, there's another one." Peck, sorting soil that had been disturbed by a recent thunderstorm, is...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Digging Up The Past At Ancient Stone Circle (Ring Of Bodgar - Orkney)
	07/01/2008 8:41:02 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 360+ views The Scotsman | John Ross Work will start next week to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands. It is believed it was part of a massive ritual complex but little is known about the monument, including its exact age or purpose. It is...
Toward a Prehistory of Fashion
Humans Wore Shoes 40,000 Years Ago, Fossil Suggests
	07/01/2008 8:09:54 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 28 replies · 595+ views National Geographic News | 7-1-2008 | Scott Norris Humans were wearing shoes at least 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study. The evidence comes from a 40,000-year-old human fossil with delicate toe bones indicative of habitual shoe-wearing, experts say. A previous study of anatomical changes in toe bone structure had dated the use of shoes to about 30,000 years ago. Now the dainty-toed fossil from China suggests that at least some humans were sporting protective footwear 10,000 years further back, during a time when both modern humans and Neandertals...
Underwater Archaeology
Fire under the ice
	06/25/2008 11:32:36 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 21 replies · 573+ views Fire under the ice | Jun 25, 2008 | Unknown An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. "Explosive volcanic eruptions on land are nothing unusual and pose a great threat for whole areas," explains Dr...
Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study
	06/25/2008 10:05:57 PM PDT · Posted by leakinInTheBlueSea · 9 replies · 372+ views AFP | 6/25/2008 | AFP PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday....
Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study
	06/29/2008 12:05:18 PM PDT · Posted by Cringing Negativism Network · 22 replies · 415+ views AFP | 3 Days Ago PARIS (AFP) -- Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday...
Near East
Grisly Human Sacrifice Revealed at Syria Dig
	07/02/2008 5:59:58 PM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket · 29 replies · 1,133+ views Discovery News | July 2, 2008 | Jennifer Viegas Around 2300 B.C., an acrobat was killed during a bizarre sacrificial ceremony in what is now northeastern Syria, according to a new study published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity. Gory evidence of the entertainer's death -- along with the remains of several rare horse-like animals which appear to have been sacrificed as well -- was found in the remains of a building at a site called Tell Brak, which was once the ancient city of Nagar. The findings suggest some ancient cultures may have sacrificed well-known public figures, as well as animals of great personal and monetary...
Longer Perspectives
Cave Men Loved To Sing
	07/03/2008 3:58:32 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 26 replies · 334+ views Yahoo News/Live Science | 7-3-2008 | Heather Whipps Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests. Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there. The Upper Paleolithic people responsible for the paintings had likely fine-tuned their hearing to recognize the sound qualities in certain parts of the cave and...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
German experts crack Mona Lisa smile (discovers model's identity)
	01/14/2008 6:13:34 PM PST · Posted by Clintonfatigued · 29 replies · 450+ views Yahoo News | January 14, 2007 | Sylvia Westall German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait. ADVERTISEMENT Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the sixteenth-century painting. But art historians have often wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been da Vinci's lover, his mother or the artist himself. Now experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Washington's Boyhood Home Is Found
	07/03/2008 5:09:59 AM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 34 replies · 446+ views New York Times | July 3, 2008 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Researchers announced Wednesday that remains excavated in the last three years were those of the long-sought dwelling, on the old family farm in Virginia 50 miles south of Washington. The house stood on a terrace overlooking the Rappahannock River, where legend has it the boy threw a stone or a coin across to Fredericksburg.
Civil War
The Battle of Gettysburg (2nd Day) The Battle of Gettysburg - 2nd Day
	07/02/2008 6:08:10 AM PDT · Posted by mware · 138 replies · 1,097+ views virginiafamilyresearch,com | James E. Ward, Sr., CG & Karen B.Ward, M.A. July 2, 1863 The morning of July 2 found the two armies facing each other from two nearly parallel ridges separated by a plain of open farmland. Overnight, Longstreet had arrived with the divisions of McLaws and Hood, bringing the strength of the Confederate Army to 50,000. As of this morning, Pickett's division had not arrived. The Union Army had also received reinforcements during the night, bringing their numbers to over 60,000. While Meade's attention was directed towards Ewell's corps on Culp's Hill to the north, Lee decided to attack from the south. In the afternoon, Hood's division encountered Federal...
The Battle of Gettysburg (3rd Day)
	07/03/2008 6:28:24 AM PDT · Posted by mware · 67 replies · 730+ views pekin.net | Jon Meinen, Renee Bussone, and Rachel Smith 3rd Day- Pickett's Charge On the outskirts of Gettysburg, at 1 p.m., 170 Confederate cannons open fired. The Union was positioned in Cemetery Ridge with only a stonewall for protection. The Union returned fire. About 2:30 p.m. the Federally slowed there rate of fire and fooled the rebels, to believing they were out of ammunition. Gen. Picket went to see Gen. Longstreet and asked, " General shall I advance"? Longstreet responded with his head bowed and raised his hand. The command was given. " Charge the enemy and remember Old Virginia" Picket said as he lead 12,000 rebels toward the...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Russian Scientists In Bid To Solve Tunguska Event
	07/01/2008 8:55:14 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 25 replies · 943+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 7-2-2008 | Adrian Blomfield Russian scientists in bid to solve Tunguska Event Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 02/07/2008 Russian scientists will this week attempt to solve the mystery of a giant explosion 100 years ago that turned night to day across western Europe and flattened a large swathe of Siberia. Trees lay strewn across the Siberian countryside, in 1953, 45 years after an 'unexplained explosion' near Tunguska, Russia A century after reindeer herdsmen saw a column of light that shone with the intensity of the Sun moving across the Siberian dawn sky, the Tunguska Event remains one of the modern era's most abiding scientific riddles....
end of digest #207 20080705

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #207 20080705 · Saturday, July 5, 2008 · 38 topics · 2040911 to 2038207 · 696 members ·
	Saturday Jul 05 2008 v 4 n 49 view this issue	Welcome to the 207th issue, and welcome to the four (or is it five?) new members who've joined this week. GGG is having what could be an existential crisis. Similar problems have emerged before, but this most recent such began here. We had a more normal number of topics, and the selection was decent. As I edit the issue, I'm sure I'll know more, and maybe I'll even include it here. If not, a break for you. Big kudos to Blam and all others who posted topics and/or called attention to them. In Memoriam: FReeper SheLion has passed away. She wasn't a member of any of the lists I keep, but she's familiar to many who are. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #208 Saturday, July 12, 2008
Rome and Italy
Famed Roman statue 'not ancient' [ Romulus and Remus and she-wolf ]
	07/11/2008 6:29:54 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 21 replies · 309+ views BBC News | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | unattributed A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1200s... The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public. The figures of Romulus and Remus have already been shown to be 15th Century additions to the statue... Rome's former top heritage official, Professor Adriano La Regina, said about 20 tests were carried out on the she-wolf at the University of Salerno... said the results of the tests gave a very precise indication that the...
A Worldwide Push To Bring Back Chariot Racing
	05/24/2007 9:17:51 AM PDT · Posted by DogByte6RER · 29 replies · 831+ views SignOnSanDiego.com | May 24, 2007 | The Wall Street Journal On a drowsy May day in the country, tractors and combines were lumbering down dirt roads when, suddenly, a cloud of dust rose up on the horizon. Birds scattered. Rumbling across the green landscape came seven racing chariots, each pulled by four horses. Riding in the chariot decorated with an engraving of Alexander the Great was Luiz Augusto Alves de Oliveira, a 50-year-old sugar-cane farmer who has an epic plan: returning chariot racing to its ancient glory. In this May Day...
Epigraphy and Language
Scientists use MRI at Kadlec to look at ancient Roman scrolls
	07/11/2008 9:39:52 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 1+ views Tri-City Herald | Thursday, Jul. 10, 2008 | Sara Schilling The director of MRI and radiology at Kadlec Medical Center watched a TV documentary years ago about efforts to read the ancient scrolls and the story stuck with him. This week, Iuliano is using his expertise to scan fragments of the charred scrolls in hopes of discovering what they say... The papyrus scrolls were discovered more than 200 years ago in a villa in what was the Roman town of Herculaneum. The town was buried along with the more famous city of Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted. The scrolls make up the only surviving library from antiquity, Iuliano said. Scholars have...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Diamond Synchatron To Use X-Rays To Examine Dead Sea Scrolls
	09/12/2007 7:49:31 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 527+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 9-12-2007 | Nic Fleming and Roger Highfield Secrets contained in fragile documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls are to be revealed using one of the most powerful light sources in the Universe. British Association Festival of Science: Full coverage British scientists are using a giant instrument - in essence an extremely powerful torch and microscope combined - to read parchments that are too brittle to unroll or unfold. Part of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their discovery enhanced knowledge of Christianity and Judaism The Diamond synchatron...
Archaeologists Claim Essenes Never wrote Dead Sea Scrolls
	07/30/2004 8:49:22 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 41 replies · 1,558+ views Haaretz Daily | 7-30-2004 | Amiram Barkat Located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran is famous throughout the world as the place where the Essenes, who have been widely described in studies, conferences and exhibitions as a type of Jewish "monk," are said to have lived and written the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, based on findings soon to be published, Israeli archaeologists now argue that Qumran "lacks any uniqueness." The latest research joins a growing school of thought attempting to explode the "Qumran myth" by stating that not...
Faith and Philosophy
Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Christianity (feed your faith not your doubts)
	07/05/2008 2:19:29 PM PDT · Posted by theoldmarine · 114 replies · 3,421+ views NY Times | 5 July 2008 | Ethan Bronner A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus..."This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This...
Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection
	07/05/2008 5:46:11 PM PDT · Posted by P8riot · 7 replies · 639+ views International Heral Tribune | 7/5/2008 | by Ethan Bronner A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.
Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
	07/05/2008 6:47:10 PM PDT · Posted by Salvavida · 24 replies · 905+ views New York Times | July 6, 2008 | ETHAN BRONNER A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
Dead Sea tablet 'casts doubt' on death and resurrection of Jesus
	07/09/2008 1:56:21 PM PDT · Posted by americanophile · 71 replies · 2,179+ views The Times of London | July 9, 2008 | Sheera Frenkel The death and resurrection of Christ has been called into question by a radical new interpretation of a tablet found on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea. The three-foot stone tablet appears to refer to a Messiah who rises from the grave three days after his death - even though it was written decades before the birth of Jesus. The ink is badly faded on much of the tablet, known as Gabriel's Vision of Revelation, which was written rather than engraved in the 1st century BC. This has led some experts to claim that the inscription has been overinterpreted....
Judas 'gospel' is pure fiction
	04/15/2006 6:52:25 AM PDT · Posted by truthfinder9 · 8 replies · 383+ views Today, we remember the arrest, trial and crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. While Christ went willingly to the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, his arrest came as a result of one of the greatest betrayals in history. One of Jesus' disciples, a member of his inner circle, betrayed him with a kiss. For this action, Judas Iscariot was forever condemned as a traitor. For centuries, that has been the story that we have all known and accepted -- until a few...
Central Asia
Buddha's caves
	07/11/2008 7:01:15 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 174+ views IHT | July 7, 2008 | Holland Cotter Of the 800 or so caves created here from the 5th to 14th centuries, nearly half had some form of decoration. What survives adds up to a developmental timeline of Buddhist art in China... But of course much of it has not survived. By the 11th century Dunhuang's fortunes were in decline. Sea trade had cut into Silk Road traffic. Regional wars left the town isolated. Monks, possibly panicked by rumors of an Islamic invasion, sealed up tens of thousands of manuscript scrolls in a small cave. The invasion didn't happen, but the books, many of them already ancient, stayed...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Archaeologists to refuse help over possible Iran strike
	07/11/2008 2:33:17 PM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket · 22 replies · 386+ views NewScientist | 10 July 2008 | Staff Persepolis, once the capital of the Persian empire, and the massive mud-brick Bam citadel are among the nine listed World Heritage Sites in Iran. Yet leading archaeologists are urging colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian sites that should be exempted from air strikes. "Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action," said a resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, last week. Instead, delegates were advised to emphasise the harm that any military action would do to Iran's people and heritage.
Egypt
Ancient royal burial ground found in Egypt: report
	07/09/2008 10:01:04 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 229+ views Ya-hoo! | Saturday, July 5, 2008 | AFP Archaeologists have uncovered ancient wooden coffins in what appears to be a royal burial ground near the necropolis of Abydos in southern Egypt, the state-run MENA news agency reported on Saturday. The agency said that the discovery, made by a team from the Supreme Council of Egyptian Antiquities, could be dated back to the Old Kingdom (3,000 B.C.) -- the golden age of pyramid building in ancient times. The team "has found what could be a royal complex of 13 tombs of different shapes and sizes that could have belonged to high officials from that period or people who contributed...
Etruscans
Etruscan tomb unearthed in Perugia
	07/09/2008 9:46:57 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 22 replies · 276+ views ANSA.it | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | unattributed An ancient Etruscan tomb has resurfaced after centuries underground during the course of building work in the central Italian city of Perugia. The tomb, which has been preserved in excellent condition, contains seven funerary urns, the municipal archaeology department said. It is in the shape of a square and was covered by a sheet of travertine marble, which had apparently remained untouched since being laid centuries ago. The tomb is split into two halves by a pillar and there are two benches running along each side. The funerary urns, which were placed on the benches, were marked with brightly coloured...
Malta
Important archaeological find in Tarxien [Malta]
	07/09/2008 9:56:56 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 210+ views Times of Malta | Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | Waylon Johnston An archaeological discovery described as the most important in 18 years has been made at the site of the Tarxien temples. Malta Environment Planning Authority (Mepa) officials discovered megaliths and other remains, which are most probably prehistoric, during development works within the buffer zone of the Neolithic temples. ...It lies within a plot of land measuring 25 by eight metres towards the back of the plot. The megaliths and boulders were found together with pottery shards made up of rims, handles and bases in an area measuring roughly four by four metres. The shards have scratched and incised motifs which...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Archaeology bill may cost farmer £1,000s
	07/11/2008 6:14:38 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 124+ views Whitehaven News | Archaeology bill may cost farmer £1,000s | unattributed A Cumbrian hill farmer who planned to build a sheep shelter in the fells, near Buttermere, may have to pay thousands of pounds for an archaeological dig after evidence of an 800-year-old dairy farm was discovered on the land... Buttermere hill farmer, Willie Richardson, who owns his own farm, Gatesgarth, one of the biggest in the Lake District... has been waiting eight months for a decision from the Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) on his plans for the 1,235 square metre shelter at Gatesgarth Farm, Buttermere. Now the work has been delayed indefinitely after an archaeological officer visited the...
Pole vs the Volcano
Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says
	07/10/2008 1:53:24 PM PDT · Posted by hripka · 126 replies · 2,641+ views National Geographic Society | June 30, 2008 | Kimberly Johnson Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says. "What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said. The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the...
Climate
Appalachians Triggered Ancient Ice Age (Smoky Mountains)
	10/28/2006 11:42:19 PM PDT · Posted by Dallas59 · 28 replies · 1,763+ views Scientific American | 10/25/2006 | JR Minkel The rise of the Appalachian Mountains seems to have triggered an ice age 450 million years ago by sucking CO2 from the atmosphere. Researchers report evidence that minerals from the mountain range washed into the oceans just before the cold snap, carrying atmospheric carbon dioxide with them. The result clarifies a long standing paradox in the historical relationship between CO2 and climate, experts say. At the start of the so-called Ordovician ice age, about 450 million years ago, the planet went from a state of greenhouse warmth to one of glacial cold, culminating in mass extinctions of ocean life. This...
Sunspots and the Maunder Minimums
Sun's Not Screwy, Scientist Says
	07/11/2008 11:13:33 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 53 replies · 1,007+ views SPACE.com | Jul 11, 2008 | Unknown Nothing is out of whack with the sun, a NASA researcher said this week, despite some scientists' suggestions that a lull in the weather there lately is unusually long, a phenomenon linked to at least one small ice age. < > "There have been some reports lately that solar minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true," said NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. The ongoing lull in sunspot numbers "is well within historic norms for the solar cycle." < >
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age
	07/07/2008 2:05:25 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 42 replies · 710+ views Live Science | JUL 7, 2008 | Ker Than Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how?
Diamonds Rained Down During Ice Age ($$$)
	07/08/2008 9:50:22 PM PDT · Posted by max americana · 11 replies · 325+ views LiveScience.com | July 7, 2008 | Ker Than Diamonds and precious metals found in the eastern United States might have rained down during the last Ice Age after a comet shattered over Canada and set North America ablaze, all leading to a mass die-off of animals and humans. New chemical analyses of diamond, gold and silver found in Ohio and Indiana reveal the minerals were transported there from Canada several thousand years ago. The question is, how? "There are no gold mines or silver mines in Ohio that anyone knows of, but there are plenty of them in Canada," said retired geophysicist Allen West, who was involved in...
Australia...
Early Aussie Tattoos Match Rock Art
	07/11/2008 6:22:50 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 147+ views Discovery News | Thursday, July 3, 2008 | Jennifer Viegas The study not only illustrates the link between body art, such as tattoos and intentional scarring, with cultural identity, but it also suggests that study of this imagery may help to unravel mysteries about where certain groups traveled in the past, what their values and rituals were, and how they related to other cultures... For the study, published in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity, Brady documented rock art drawings; images found on early turtle shell, stone and wood objects, such as bamboo tobacco pipes and drums; and images that were etched onto the human body through a process...
...and the Pacific
Site of Pacific ruler, mass burial, gets World Heritage splash
	07/09/2008 9:40:21 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 204+ views EarthTimes | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | DPA Vanuatu, the archipelago country in the South Pacific once known as the New Hebrides made its first splash on the world's map of cultural landmarks Monday when a UN committee put the spotlight on its famous 13th-century ruler and a gruesome burial practice of the times. UNESCO's World Heritage Site committee designated places on three islands - Efate, Lelepa and Artok - associated with the life and death of Chief Roi Mata, the islands' last paramount chief in the 1200s. His "mass burial site" that included 25 other bodies was "closely associated with the oral traditions surrounding the chief and...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Ancient ruins found in Bolivia
	07/11/2008 6:38:54 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 207+ views Vancouver Sun (Canada.com) | Thursday, July 10, 2008 | David Mercado, Reuters Locals stumbled upon the remains while clearing the ground to build a new market in the picturesque town of Copacabana, a tourist hotspot on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Many of the unearthed tombs, textiles, clay pots and jewelry belonged to the well-documented Tiwanaku and Inca cultures that populated the area hundreds of years ago. But some relics go back as far as 3,000 years, when a little-known religious tradition called Yayamama is thought to have flourished in the Andes... The sculptures, which also feature two-headed snakes and geometric shapes, are still revered by local indigenous groups. The Yayamama built...
The Vikings
Histories: Viking longships brought rape, pillage and cod
	07/09/2008 9:54:28 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 23 replies · 834+ views New Scientist | June 29, 2008 | Gail Vines When Ohthere the Viking arrived at King Alfred's court sometime around 880 he presented the king with a gift of walrus ivory. The gift was carefully chosen. Walrus ivory was then a rare commodity obtained only from northern Scandinavia and Russia, and was highly prized by the English. Having established his credentials as a prosperous and high-ranking man from the far north, Ohthere told Alfred that although he owned reindeer as well as cattle, sheep, pigs and horses, his greatest wealth came from the tax paid by the Finnas, or Sami people. This came in the form of seal skins...
Unravelling The North West's (UK) Viking Past
	02/08/2008 2:52:36 PM PST · Posted by blam · 15 replies · 150+ views Alpha Galileo | 2-8-2008 | Molecular Biology and Evolution The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England -- according to a new study which has been just published. Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry. The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in...
Scotland Yet
Antonine Wall set to take centre stage
	07/09/2008 9:42:59 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 134+ views Sunday Times | July 6, 2008 | Richard Wilson It begins in Old Kilpatrick, on the River Clyde, and ends in Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth. It runs inconspicuously by cemeteries, schools and rows of shops, along streets where pedestrians walk, probably unknowingly, along its spine. In some places railway tracks and roads cross it, in others the trains and traffic race alongside. The Antonine Wall is Scottish history's forgotten legacy. Yet when members of Unesco's World Heritage Committee meet in Quebec tomorrow, the wall -- built by the Romans in AD142 -- will be on their agenda. Having applied for World Heritage Site status, it is on...
Underwater Archaeology
Archaeology: The lost world -- Death in the Mesolithic
	07/11/2008 5:09:19 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 155+ views Nature | July 9, 2008 | Laura Spinney Mesolithic burials in northern Europe could be elaborate. People were buried lying, sitting cross-legged or on their bellies. They were buried with goods that included dogs, red deer antlers, food and amber beads. At Vedbaek Bogebakken, north of Copenhagen, a newborn baby was buried on a swan's wing, next to a woman who is presumed to have died in childbirth. But quite possibly, Mesolithic people in Britain didn't practise the same traditions. The only known Mesolithic burial site in Britain is Aveline's Hole, a cave in Somerset where the remains of around 50 individuals dating from approximately 10,000 years ago...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
UK: 30,000 gather at Stonehenge to celebrate Summer Solstice [Fair warning: Photos]
	06/21/2008 7:29:26 AM PDT · Posted by yankeedame · 85 replies · 2,506+ views DailyMail | 21st June 2008 | Chris Laker As the sun rose at 0458, a cheer went up from the brave crowds who had taken up their positions overnight at the stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Clad in ponchos, black cloaks and makeshift waterproof jackets made from bin-bags, revellers gathered at the Heel stone....
Ancient Autopsies
Stonehenge, Ohio Hopewell sites might have focused on burials
	07/11/2008 6:04:17 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 85+ views Columbus Dispatch | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | Bradley T. Lepper Pearson said, "I think the key thing is that from the moment that Stonehenge is built -- this is very shortly after 3,000 B.C. -- they're putting in burials as well as the parts of the monument itself. And I think it's something that is going hand in hand with it." He referred to alternative theories, including Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill's idea that Stonehenge was a place of healing, as in no way inconsistent with the site also serving as a cemetery. A place devoted to the ancestors naturally could have a variety of secondary uses, such as invoking...
Biology and Cryptobiology
It's a 26ft Jaws and it sucks... (Mysterious arctic shark slurps up seals whole)
	07/11/2008 7:49:27 AM PDT · Posted by Stoat · 69 replies · 2,043+ views The Sun (U.K.) / Florida Museum of Natural History | July 12, 2008 | Boffin-lover Virginia Wheeler It's a 26ft Jaws and it sucks... Big sucker ... the shark -- Massive Arctic shark that sucks up seals whole and may live for 200 years is being studied by boffins for the first time. The mysterious Greenland shark's mouth with hundreds of teeth is UNDER its body -- so it cruises along the ocean bed scooping up prey. Baffled boffins say whole reindeer and polar bear heads have also been found in stomachs of the deep-sea monsters, which can be 26ft long. They are cannibalistic but their flesh...
Paleontology
Simple Life Form May Have Existed 700 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought
	07/11/2008 5:26:55 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 219+ views Science Daily | July 8, 2008 | Curtin University The accepted timeframe for the beginnings of life on Earth is now being questioned by a Curtin University of Technology led team of scientists, after finding a key indicator to the earliest life forms in diamonds from Jack Hills in Western Australia... The Curtin led team's discovery of very high concentrations of carbon 12, or "light carbon" within these crystals is remarkable as it is a feature usually associated with organic life... Evidence for ancient life stretches back in time to at least 3.5 billion years ago, in the form of single-celled organisms that did not require oxygen. The discovery...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Mystery of the meat-eaters' molecule [inability to produce a chemical linked to chronic disease]
	07/08/2008 6:58:14 PM PDT · Posted by GraniteStateConservative · 61 replies · 1,226+ views The Telegraph (London, UK) | 8-7-08 | Roger Highfield Our inability to produce a chemical present in every other primate may be linked to a series of chronic diseases. Roger Highfield explains more What does it mean to be human? For most people, it all comes down to that extraordinary object between our ears, and how it blesses us with language, laughter and logic. But not for Ajit Varki, a doctor-cum-scientist who works in California. Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and auto-immune illnesses Not so rare: a molecule absorbed by eating red meat has been linked to inflammation and...
Prehistory and Origins
Big brains arose twice in higher primates
	07/09/2008 9:12:45 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 13 replies · 322+ views American Museum of Natural History | Jul 9, 2008 | Unknown After taking a fresh look at an old fossil, John Flynn, Frick Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues determined that the brains of the ancestors of modern Neotropical primates were as small as those of their early fossil simian counterparts in the Old World. This means one of the hallmarks of primate biology, increased brain size, arose independently in isolated groups -- the platyrrhines of the Americas and the catarrhines of Africa and Eurasia. "Primatologists have long suspected that increased encephalization may have arisen...
Pages
English to Pass one Million Word Mark on 29 April, 2009
	07/08/2008 5:01:38 AM PDT · Posted by Coffee200am · 41 replies · 591+ views Sify News | 07.07.2008 | Sify News The English language is set to reach a very important landmark within the next year ñ its one millionth word. A new English word is created every 98 minutes, and the current number of official words stands at 995,844. With the way things are going, experts believe that the language will cross its one millionth word mark within the year, more specifically 29 April, 2009. More news, analysis | More Science and Medicine news "English is different to most other languages in that it absorbs words like no other language in history. Language boils up from the people and...
Early America
Philadelphia's Forgotten Founders
	07/09/2008 7:59:07 AM PDT · Posted by William Tell 2 · 22 replies · 335+ views The Bulletin | 07/09/2008 | Michael P. Tremoglie One signed all three bulwarks of the Republic. The other was second only to James Madison as the architect of the Constitution. Robert Morris and James Wilson were two of the most important, yet least publicized, of the Founding Fathers. Why has Philadelphia not commemorated some of its most important citizens? Wilson was according to American Heritage magazine, one of the most underrated Americans in history. Historian Gary Wills wrote, "A signer of the Declaration, a principal drafter of the Federal Constitution, the principal ratifier, and the profoundest theorist of it, Wilson is the least known of the Founding Fathers."...
American Revolution
Alexander Hamilton's Capital Compromise
	07/05/2008 5:53:00 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 18 replies · 398+ views The Wall Street Journal | July 5, 2008 | FERGUS M. BORDEWICH Last month, workmen jacked up a 206-year-old yellow clapboard house, levered it onto a set of remote-controlled dollies, and trundled it two blocks to a new site in St. Nicholas Park, overlooking East Harlem in New York City. The Grange, as it is called, was the home of Alexander Hamilton, best known as co-author of the Federalist papers and America's first secretary of the Treasury. But this founding father also had an extraordinary role in the infant nation's attempt to come to grips with the curse of slavery. Born in the West Indies, Hamilton was one of the most ardent...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Indian groups focus on saving languages
	07/09/2008 10:11:17 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 287+ views Indian Country Today | Faye Flam, Philadelphia Inquirer "We're talking about an emergency situation," said Richard Grounds, a speaker of the Euchee language and co-organizer of the meeting, held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. The youngest person to grow up speaking Euchee as a first language is now 78, said Grounds, a professor at the University of Tulsa. The rest are in their 80s... Languages seem to be going extinct like species of plants and animals. That comparison holds up pretty well, except that languages can occasionally be brought back to life. Growing up in Ohio, Daryl Baldwin said he was told that...
end of digest #208 20080712

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #208 20080712 · Saturday, July 12, 2008 · 38 topics · 2044301 to 2041226 · 696 members ·
	Saturday Jul 12 2008 v 4 n 50 view this issue	Welcome to the 208th issue. 38 topics this week, 38 last week. Membership steady. Many thanks to blam. He's still around, but not posting much on FR. He has been shooting me links by various means, so great topics are still getting posted. There are a bunch of old 'n' moldies added to the catalog (or restored to it) and not pinged to the list due to age. Some of you managed to find 'em anyway and reply to me regarding their great age. Just cut it out. ;') Here's a new (to me) source. I was going to add it to the standard footer, but started too notice lots of speling errows and stuf. Tim's Archaeological Review The latest topic (about the MRI done to a couple of scrolls from Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri) came from TAR. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #209 Saturday, July 19, 2008
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3,000 years
	07/16/2008 7:59:20 AM PDT · Posted by martin_fierro · 39 replies · 683+ views timesonline.co.uk | 7/15/08 Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3,000 years Uwe Lange meets a recreation of one of his Bronze Age ancestors Roger Boyes in Berlin The good news for two villagers in the Sˆse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents -- give or take a generation or two. The bad news is that their long-lost ancestors may have grilled and eaten other members of their clan. Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood. Thanks to...
Prehistory and Origins
Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans
	07/16/2008 1:27:14 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 79 replies · 988+ views Science Daily | July 16, 2008 Some 40,000 years ago, Cro-Magnons -- the first people who had a skeleton that looked anatomically modern -- entered Europe, coming from Africa. A group of geneticists, coordinated by Guido Barbujani and David Caramelli of the Universities of Ferrara and Florence, shows that a Cro-Magnoid individual who lived in Southern Italy 28,000 years ago was a modern European, genetically as well as anatomically.
Southeast Asia
Cambodian Official: Thai Troops Cross Border in Temple Dispute
	07/15/2008 8:35:21 PM PDT · Posted by skully · 6 replies · 282+ views VOICE OF AMERICA | 15 July 2008 | VOA News A Cambodian official says 40 troops from Thailand entered Cambodia Tuesday in the latest flare-up of a territorial dispute over an 11th century Hindu temple. Hang Soth, the Cambodian official who manages the Preah Vihear temple, said the troops crossed the border hours after three Thai activists were arrested for illegally entering Cambodia to reach the ruins. The activists have since been released to Thai authorities. Thai military officials deny their troops crossed the border into Cambodia. They say their troops have been deployed to the nearby area.
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Canal fossils give clue to formation of Americas
	07/18/2008 10:57:47 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 207+ views Reuters | Thursday, July 17, 2008 | Andrew Beatty, ed by John O'Callaghan Geologists from the U.S. Smithsonian Institution, which has a permanent base in Panama, say engineers digging to widen the Panama Canal have uncovered more than 500 fossils including teeth and bones of rodents, horses, crocodiles and turtles that lived before a land bridge linked North and South America... Scientists believe the South American and Caribbean tectonic plates collided around 15 million years ago, causing volcanic activity that eventually formed a thin strip of land linking the Americas and separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The bridge was probably fully formed, in a way that mammals could walk over it, some...
Scotland Yet
Exploration of underwater forest [Loch Tay]
	07/16/2008 10:42:43 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 314+ views BBC | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 | unattributed Underwater archaeologists are taking to Loch Tay to try to uncover more about a submerged prehistoric woodland. The stumps of about 50 trees were discovered in 2005 - some of them are thought to be about 6,000 years old. The experts are now aiming to find their root system and establish the depth to which the trees are buried. Meanwhile, a campaign has been launched to help restore the reconstructed crannog, an ancient loch dwelling, which attracts thousands of visitors. The Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology will spend the next two weeks inspecting the drowned forest. They will be focusing...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Cyrus cylinder's ancient bill of rights 'is just propaganda'
	07/16/2008 9:48:25 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 12 replies · 656+ views The Telegraph | 7/16/2008 | Harry de Quetteville A 2500 year old Persian treasure dubbed the world's 'first bill of human rights' has been branded a piece of shameless 'propaganda' by German historians. The Cyrus cylinder, which is held by the British Museum, is a legacy of Cyrus the Great - the Persian emperor famed for freeing the Jews of ancient Babylon after conquering the city in 539 BC. A copy of the cylinder, which is covered in cuneiform script supposed to detail the ancient charter of rights, also hangs next to the Security Council Chamber in the United Nations headquarters in New York, where it is held...
Greece
Man arrested for tunnelling [Megara, west of Athens]
	07/16/2008 11:45:01 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 198+ views iAfrica | Monday, July 14, 2008 | unattributed A Greek man was arrested for digging tunnels from his home to protected archaeology sites in Megara, west of Athens, in a suspected case of antiquities trafficking, officials said on Saturday. The 44-year-old man allegedly dug a well nearly four metres deep, as well as a tunnel seven metres long leading to three smaller tunnels in an archaeological zone, Athens police said in a statement. The suspect was arrested on Friday and was to stand before an Athens court on Saturday for infringing laws protecting antiquities and national heritage. The man is said to have destroyed some antiquities during his...
The Olympics
Horse racecourse in ancient Olympia discovered after 1600 years
	07/16/2008 11:07:22 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 201+ views AlphaGalileo | July 14, 2008 | Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz Pausanias, a travel writer of the ancient world, described this course for horse races, its starting mechanisms, turning points and altars in much detail in the 2nd century AD... Another - previously unheeded - written source from the 11th century AD goes so far as to state the size and dimensions of the enclosure: "The olympiad has a course for horse races that [has a length of] 8 stadia. Each of the long sides is 3 stadia and 1 plethron long, while the width to the starting gates measures 1 stadion and 4 plethra, [a total of] 4800 feet. Near...
Faith and Philosophy
Sex curse found at ancient Cyprus site: report
	07/16/2008 10:50:34 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 24 replies · 496+ views Google News | July 12, 2008 | AFP An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archaeologists at Cyprus's old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island's south coast near Limassol, according to a newspaper on Friday. "A curse is inscribed in Greek on a lead tablet and part of it reads: 'May your penis hurt when you make love'," Pierre Aubert, head of Athens Archaeological School in Greece told the English language Cyprus Weekly. He said the tablet showed a man standing holding something in his right hand that looks like an hour glass. The inscription dates back to the 7th century AD when Christianity was well...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Israeli Diver Discovers Ancient Amulet at Yavne
	07/14/2008 3:46:24 PM PDT · Posted by Nachum · 9 replies · 506+ views Arutz 7 | 7-14-08 | Hana Levi Julian (IsraelNN.com) A lifeguard diving at the Yavne-Yam antiquities site next to Palmachim beach, south of Tel-Aviv, unearthed a rare marble discus that was used 2,500 years ago to protect sea-going vessels from the evil eye. To date, only four such items have been found in the world -- two of them here in Israel, one recovered from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast at Carmel in addition to the one at Yavne-Yam. The ancient white marble discus, which dates back to 400-500 BCE, was discovered by David Shalom, who handed it over to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Dror Planer, of...
Ancient Cave Linked to Early Christians
	07/16/2008 2:36:32 PM PDT · Posted by Beowulf9 · 30 replies · 370+ views The Nation | July 17 2008 | unknown Rihab, Jordan - Excavations are continuing on a hilltop in the rural Jordanian town of Rihab to find additional evidence that supports a recent history-making discovery of what renowned archaeologists believe could be the first church on earth. We believe this is the world's first church, where early Christians took refuge after they escaped Roman persecution in Jerusalem and came here to perform their rituals in secrecy," archaeologist Abdul Qader al-Hosan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Al-Hosan is head of the state-run Rihab Centre for Archaeological Studies and doubles as a professor of archaeology at Hashemiyah University. "The evidence we have...
Navigation
Seas Striped With Newfound Currents
	07/14/2008 2:20:53 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 23 replies · 550+ views Natural History Magazine | Jul 14, 2008 | Brendan Borrell Sailors and scientists have been mapping ocean currents for centuries, but it turns out they've missed something big. How big? The entire ocean is striped with 100-mile-wide bands of slow-moving water that extend right down to the seafloor, according to a recent study.
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Y chromosome study sheds light on Athapaskan migration to southwest US
	07/16/2008 7:53:54 AM PDT · Posted by martin_fierro · 13 replies · 255+ views eurekalert.org | 7/15/08 Y chromosome study sheds light on Athapaskan migration to southwest US A large-scale genetic study of native North Americans offers new insights into the migration of a small group of Athapaskan natives from their subarctic home in northwest North America to the southwestern United States. The migration, which left no known archaeological trace, is believed to have occurred about 500 years ago. The study, led by researchers at the University of Illinois, is detailed this month in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. It relied on a genetic analysis of the Y chromosome and so offers a window on the...
Underwater Archaeology
Search for first Americans to plunge underwater
	07/15/2008 10:17:38 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 253+ views Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 | Allison M. Heinrichs Before heading inland, paleo-Indians probably hugged the American coastline, congregating around freshwater rivers, Adovasio said. At the time, much of the world's water was locked up in glaciers, causing ocean levels to be lower and exposing more of the continental shelf. As the earth warmed and water levels rose, evidence of such settlements fell deeper and deeper below water... Dredging and storms have turned up tantalizing clues -- spearheads, bone tools -- that such sites are just waiting to be found in the Gulf of Mexico, said C. Andrew Hemmings, a University of Texas at Austin archaeologist who is leading...
Climate
First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait -
	07/16/2008 8:02:06 PM PDT · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 32 replies · 762+ views ScienceDaily | July 17, 2008 Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests -- Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research. Dr. Ron Janke began studying the origins of the Kankakee Sand Islands -- a series of hundreds of small, moon-shaped dunes that stretch from the southern tips of Lake...
Ancient Autopsies
Ulcers Discovered in Mummies
	07/16/2008 11:01:45 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 151+ views LiveScience | July 14, 2008 | Staff Two Mexican mummies had ulcers when they were alive. Remnants of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori were discovered in gastric tissue from the mummies, human remains believed to predate Columbus' discovery of the New World... "Our results show that H. pylori infections occurred around 1350 A.D. in the area we now know as Mexico," Lopez-Vidal said. Her research team included colleagues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico... The mummies for this research were recovered in a funeral cave of La Ventana, in the Chihuahua State desert, and in a cave in the state of Durango.
Oh So Mysteriouso
English Civil War 'ghost' captured on film by paranormal enthusiasts
	07/14/2008 8:07:22 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 28 replies · 1,378+ views The Telegraph | 7/13/2008 A ghostly figure, supposedly the spirit of a dead soldier from a key battle in the English Civil War, has been captured on film by a group of paranormal enthusiasts. The spirit of a dead soldier from the Battle of Naseby has supposedly been captured on film by a group of paranormal enthusiasts The Northampton Paranormal Group caught the figure on camera during a visit to the site of the Battle of Naseby, a field between the villages of Clipston and Naseby in Northamptonshire, last month. The visit coincided with the 363rd Anniversary of the Battle of Naseby. Members said...
Anastasia Screamed In Vain
DoD Lab Helps to Resolve Century-Old Russian Mystery [Tsar Survivors]
	07/15/2008 12:59:18 PM PDT · Posted by PurpleMan · 44 replies · 990+ views DefenseLink (DoD News) | July 15, 2008 | Fred Baker "A Defense Department DNA identification lab has helped bring to a close a near-century-old mystery, laying to rest a search for the remains of two children executed alongside the rest of the family of Russia's last czar." "Now, the lab has again helped the Russian government by identifying the remains of those two children, found last year in a shallow grave about 70 feet from the larger gravesite."
Massacre of the Russian royals: Horrific last hours of a dynasty
	07/18/2008 6:29:16 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 64 replies · 1,593+ views Daily Mail (UK) | 19th July 2008 | Zoe Brennan Bayonetted and shot by drunken assassins, the slaughter of the Russian royal family shook the world. Now a new book reveals in compelling detail the horrifying final days of the Romanovs. As the light faded, a train halted in the siding near the remote railway station of Lyubinskaya on the Trans-Siberian railway line.
Early America
New York's Birth Date: Don't Go by City's Seal
	07/14/2008 3:49:35 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 20 replies · 377+ views NY Times | July 14, 2008 | SAM ROBERTS For decades, the proud seal of New York City, with its depiction of a sailor and a Manhattan Indian, of beavers and flour barrels and the sails of a windmill, has celebrated 1625 as the year the city was founded. There's just one problem: Most historians say the year has hardly any historical significance. The first settlers arrived in what would become part of New York City on a Dutch ship as early as 1623; some say 1624. The Dutch "purchased" Manhattan in 1626. The first charter was granted in 1653. And the most notable event of 1625? Dutch settlers...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Archeologists [sic] Frustrated Over FBI Investigation [Escalante Man]
	07/16/2008 11:04:12 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 433+ views KUTV | July 13, 2008 | Dan Rascon The skeleton, dubbed "Escalante Man" in Bureau of Land Management documents, was found last winter off Highway 12 near Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The bones were likely from an American Indian man in his 50s or 60s. The bones were found with a musket, ammunition and a bucket. Researchers said evidence indicates the man died during the mid- to late-19th century... FBI spokesman Juan Becerra said he couldn't comment on the case because it's part of an ongoing investigation... The BLM's Jeanette Matovich, who is trained in bioanthropology, participated in the dig. "The skeleton was completely collapsed in on itself,...
end of digest #209 20080719

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #209, v 4 n 51

- Saturday, July 19, 2008 - 38 topics - 2047823 to 2045087 - 696 members -

Welcome to the 209th issue. 21 topics this week, 38 last week. Membership steady.

I’m not seeing the headers in the digest posting. Let me know if that’s also a problem for you. I have no idea why this should suddenly be the case, but if it continues, the digest will not be particularly difficult to do — I’ll just post it out of the page source and be done with it.

Oh, okay, now I’m not seeing the standard coloring and stuff in the digest ping message. Obviously, something in the server code has changed, because my browser hasn’t. Seems to have started in the past half hour or so. So, it’s not pretty, but this is the best I can do.

Here’s the link to the factory-second digest posting. I won’t be including any other links in the digest until this gets fixed (if ever).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1173106/posts?page=771#771

I need a new job.

[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #210 Saturday, July 26, 2008
Campfire Song and Dance
Meditate on It: Could ancient campfire rituals have separated us from Neanderthals?
	07/25/2008 7:52:16 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 128+ views Smithsonian.com | February 01, 2007 | Eric Jaffe A couple hundred-thousand years ago -- sometime after our hominid ancestors had controlled fire, but long before they were telling ghost stories -- early humans huddled around campfires to meditate and partake in shamanistic rituals. Today, when we slow down for a yellow light, recognize a dollar sign or do anything, really, that involves working memory, we have these ancient brainstorming sessions to thank. That's the somewhat controversial connection psychologist Matt J. Rossano is making. Ritualistic gatherings sharpened mental focus, he argues. Over time, this focus strengthened the mind's ability to connect symbols and meanings, eventually causing gene mutations that...
'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say
	11/15/2005 8:25:44 AM PST · Posted by balrog666 · 143 replies · 1,886+ views Eurekalert | 14-Nov-2005 | David Bricker A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates, and this difference coincides with the evolution of our species, say scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and three other academic institutions. Their report appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology. The gene encodes prodynorphin, an opium-like protein implicated in the anticipation and experience of pain, social attachment and bonding, as well as learning and memory. "Humans have the ability to turn on this gene more easily and...
'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say
	11/15/2005 8:35:27 AM PST · Posted by PatrickHenry · 16 replies · 702+ views EurekAlert (AAAS) | 14 November 2005 | David Bricker and Matthew Hahn A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates, and this difference coincides with the evolution of our species, say scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and three other academic institutions. Their report appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology. The gene encodes prodynorphin, an opium-like protein implicated in the anticipation and experience of pain, social attachment and bonding, as well as learning and memory. "Humans have the ability to turn on this gene more easily and more intensely than other primates," said IU...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Why Men Can't Remember Anniversaries?
	07/20/2008 9:30:34 AM PDT · Posted by Coffee200am · 48 replies · 797+ views Web India 123 | 07.20.2008 | UNI Oops ! He forgot your birthday again. Well do not blame his memory for this innocent forgetfulness as the the reason behind it is down in the genes. While men may fail to match a woman's ability to remember the date of an anniversary, they are better at storing a seemingly endless cache of facts and figures and all this is because of genetic differences. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, have found that males use different genes from females when making the new connections in the brain that are needed to create long-term memories. They believe...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Archaeologists Trace Early Irrigation Farming In Ancient Yemen
	07/22/2008 11:10:49 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 118+ views Science Daily | Wednesday, July 16, 2008 | adapted from materials by University of Toronto In the remote desert highlands of southern Yemen, a team of archaeologists have discovered new evidence of ancient transitions from hunting and herding to irrigation agriculture 5,200 years ago. As part of a larger program of archaeological research, Michael Harrower from the University of Toronto and The Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) team explored the Wadi Sana watershed documenting 174 ancient irrigation structures, modeled topography and hydrology, and interviewed contemporary camel and goat herders and irrigation farmers. "Agriculture in Yemen appeared relatively late in comparison with other areas of the Middle East, where farming first developed near the...
Diet and Cuisine
Study explores plausibility of bulbs and tubers in the diet of early human ancestors
	07/25/2008 8:15:37 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 70+ views PhysOrg | Friday, July 25, 2008 | UC Santa Cruz Anthropologist Nathaniel J. Dominy of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has advanced the investigation of the diet of early human ancestors by painstakingly measuring the mechanical properties of the underground parts of nearly 100 plant species across sub-Saharan Africa... in Dominy's exploration of the hypothesis that our earliest ancestors may have eaten a diet rich in plants, specifically their carbohydrate-rich underground storage organs... Dominy's new study, published in the journal Evolutionary Biology, also adds unexpected insights, because his analysis suggests that different hominin species relied to varying degrees on USOs... humans are uniquely adapted to digest starch... USOs leave...
Food for Thought Dietary change was a driving force in human evolution
	11/19/2002 12:54:45 PM PST · Posted by PatrickHenry · 38 replies · 780+ views Scientific American | December 2002 | William R. Leonard We humans are strange primates. We walk on two legs, carry around enormous brains and have colonized every corner of the globe. Anthropologists and biologists have long sought to understand how our lineage came to differ so profoundly from the primate norm in these ways, and over the years all manner of hypotheses aimed at explaining each of these oddities have been put forth. But a growing body of evidence indicates that these miscellaneous quirks of humanity in fact have a common thread: they are largely the result of natural selection acting to maximize dietary quality and foraging efficiency. Changes...
Asia
Poles point to Yunnan Neolithic age site
	07/24/2008 12:23:55 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 176+ views China Daily | July 22, 2008 | unattributed More than 2,000 wooden poles recently unearthed at a site in Jianchuan county, have been found to be more than 3,000 years old. The poles, still standing, were dug 4.5 m into the ground. Archaeologists said carbon tests showed the poles were from the Neolithic age, and were probably the foundations for a structure built by a community that existed at the time in southwest China... Excavation of the site is still going on. A total of 28 excavations have been made so far of an area that covers 1,350 sq m. Min Rui, a researcher at the Yunnan Archaeological...
Ancient Autopsies
Unique Archeological Find Unearthed in Suzdal
	07/23/2008 11:39:46 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 157+ views Russia-IC | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | Source: tatar-inform.ru Archeologists have uncovered a unique funerary monument of the first millennium AD on the territory of Opolye, Suzdal. The discovery of this Finno-Ugric burial ground is a real event for archeologists. In the excavation around 300 square meters large there have been unearthed 11 tombs that make it possible to reveal the earlier unknown facts of ancient history. The monument dating back to the 3rd-4th centuries has kept Finnish jewelry and is evidence of a rich militarized society, where cattle breeding played an important role. All entombments are located in a row. Judging by their size at least four of...
Epigraphy and Language
New life given to ancient Egyptian texts stored at Stanford for decades
	07/24/2008 8:09:38 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 230+ views Stanford University | July 23, 2008 | Adam Gorlick At first glance, the ancient Egyptian texts look like scraps of garbage. And more than 2,000 years ago, that's exactly what they were -- discarded documents, useless contracts and unwanted letters that were recycled into material needed to plaster over mummies, like some precursor to papier-mache... The texts, collectively called papyri, were donated to Stanford in the 1920s by an alumnus who bought them from an antiquities dealer in London. They've been overlooked by generations of faculty who haven't focused on papyrology, said Joe Manning, an associate professor of classics... About 70 texts in Stanford's collection of several hundred papyri...
Anatolia
Excavations lead to new discoveries in Sardis
	07/24/2008 8:32:46 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 163+ views Today's Zaman | Saturday, July 19, 2008 | Turkish Press Review Excavation first began here in 1854 and was conducted by Spiegelthal. Operations continued systematically until the breakout of World War I and resumed after 1958. Studies carried out between 1910 and 1914 by Harold Butler of Princeton University produced more than 1,230 tombs in the Artemis Temple. Upon Butler's death in 1921, a joint initiative by Harvard University and Cornell University, headed by Professor George M. A. Hanfman and subsequently by Professor Crawford H. Greenewalt, Jr., continued his work. The excavations have also led to the discovery of the Artemis Temple, the biggest known ancient synagogue of the world, one...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Deniers of Ancient Israelite History Exposed
	07/19/2008 12:38:15 AM PDT · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · 36 replies · 788+ views American Chronicle | July 11, 2008 | Rachel Neuwirth I was privileged this week to preview, before its release to the public, what may well prove to be a masterpiece of the documentary film-making art -- a new look at the Biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt in the light of contemporary archeology and politics in the Middle East. Filmmaker Tim Mahoney's "The Exodus Conspiracy",[1] due to be released within a few months, seeks to demonstrate the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative of the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt on the basis of recent archaeological discoveries and geographic explorations. A secondary thesis of the film is...
Archaeology and the Book of Exodus: Exit From Egypt
	07/19/2008 4:45:07 PM PDT · Posted by DouglasKC · 26 replies · 505+ views Good News Magazine | Spring 1998 | Mario Seigle Archaeologists have made many significant discoveries that make the book of Exodus and the Israelistes' time in Egypt come alive. by Mario Seiglie In earlier issues, The Good News examined several archaeological finds that illuminate portions of the book of Genesis. In this issue we continue our exploration of discoveries that illuminate the biblical accounts, focusing on Exodus, the second book of the Bible.Exodus in English derives from the Latin and means simply "to exit." The book of Exodus describes the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, an event distinguished by...
Holy Moses! PBS documentary suggests Exodus not real
	07/22/2008 2:37:05 AM PDT · Posted by Man50D · 117 replies · 2,013+ views OrlandoSentinel.com | July 21, 2008 | Hal Boedeker Abraham didn't exist? The Exodus didn't happen? The Bible's Buried Secrets, a new PBS documentary, is likely to cause a furor. "It challenges the Bible's stories if you want to read them literally, and that will disturb many people," says archaeologist William Dever, who specializes in Israel's history. "But it explains how and why these stories ever came to be told in the first place, and how and why they were written down." The Nova program will premiere Nov. 18. PBS presented a clip and a panel discussion at the summer tour of the Television Critics Association. The program says...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
800-year-old footprint unearthed in Canada
	07/24/2008 8:53:22 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 288+ views Xinhua | July 23, 2008 | Mu Xuequan (editor) A footprint of 800 years old has been unearthed at one of Canada's top archaeological sites in the western Manitoba Province, scientists announced Tuesday. The footprint was discovered when archaeologists dug at the site located in the central area of provincial capital Winnipeg. The area has a rich history that includes aboriginal camping, the fur trade, the construction of the railway, waves of immigration and the Industrial Age. The place has been determined as the future site of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and archaeologists have been scraping away at the site for the basement of the building. Thousands...
Biology and Cryptobiology
'Yeti hair' to get DNA analysis
	07/25/2008 6:22:30 AM PDT · Posted by Perdogg · 7 replies · 238+ views BBC | Page last updated at 11:19 GMT, Friday, 25 July 2008 12:19 UK | By Alastair Lawson Scientists in the UK who have examined hairs claimed to belong to a yeti in India say that an initial series of tests have proved inconclusive. Ape expert Ian Redmond says the hairs bear a "startling resemblance" to similar hairs collected by Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary. He told the BBC the Indian hairs are "potentially very exciting". After extensive microscope examinations, the hairs will now be sent to separate labs for DNA analysis.
Oh So Mysteriouso
Archaeologists find grave of suspected vampire
	07/14/2008 11:20:59 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 71 replies · 2,082+ views Czech News Agency (ČTK) | 14 July 2008 | Czech News Agency (ČTK) Archaeologists have uncovered a 4000-year-old grave in Mikulovice, east Bohemia, with remains of what might have been considered a vampire at the time, Nova TV has reported. The experts made the terrifying find within their research of a burial site from the Early Bronze Age. One of the graves was situated somewhat aside. The skeleton in it bears traces of unusual treatment. When buried, the dead man was weighed down with two big stones, one on his chest and the other on his head. "Remains treated in this way are now considered as...
Rome and Italy
Are you Roman tonight? Statue of 'Elvis' chiselled 1800 years before his birth.
	07/22/2008 7:11:53 PM PDT · Posted by PotatoHeadMick · 69 replies · 2,360+ views Daily Mail (UK) | 22nd July 2008 | Niall Firth With his dashing chiselled features, swept back hair and perky bouffant the resemblance is unmistakable. But incredibly this carving of Elvis Presley was created around 1800 years before the King of Rock and Roll first warbled his first note. The amazing likeness has come to light as part of a sale of ancient antiques by the auction house Bonhams.
'Hunka' Stone; Roman Artifact An Elvis-alike
	07/25/2008 7:09:35 AM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 11 replies · 589+ views NYP | July 25, 2008 | Hasani Gittens It appears Elvis was always the King of Rock. A 1,800-year old Roman bust that looks strikingly like Elvis Presley is set to go on the auction block in London. The hunka hunka chiseled stone is a marble acroterion - a carved head from a sarcophagus corner - and will be part of a $2 million collection of more than 150 ancient works up for grabs Oct. 15. Australian art collector Graham Geddes, who owns the lot, even calls the carving "Elvis." The resemblance is so uncanny that one can almost see the country crooner's famous lip snarl and hear...
Greece
Obama at Temple of Hercules, McCain team slams media 'love affair'
	07/22/2008 3:58:00 PM PDT · Posted by Shermy · 20 replies · 642+ views Agence France Press | July 22, 2008 Barack Obama strode onto the world stage on Tuesday with trademark audacity, or as his political enemies would have it, a dearth of humility, in the symbolic shadow of Jordan's Temple of Hercules. As he tries to convince Americans he will keep them safe, the White House hopeful held his first major press conference abroad as presumptive Democratic nominee near ancient Roman ruins and a shrine to the mighty Greek mythic hero. Overlooking sun-bleached homes and minarets of the Jordanian capital, Obama spoke about his stealth mission to Iraq, against a backdrop seemingly chosen to suggest a...
Longer Perspectives
Google Earth and the Campaign to Wipe Israel off the Map
	06/26/2008 2:36:11 AM PDT · Posted by jerusalemjudy · 22 replies · 1,102+ views Jerusalem Center | June 25, 2008 | Andre Oboler The influence of the Internet on our lives is increasing. Israel's security is especially vulnerable to the manipulation of geography. The online world allows the creation of a virtual reality that at times bears only passing resemblance to facts on the ground. The gap between reality and virtual reality is further exploited by political activists promoting what we term "replacement geography," a means of controlling the virtual representation of land in place of controlling the land itself. In an information age, control on the common map may be worth more in negotiations than control on the ground.
Near East
So Much for the 'Looted Sites' [Iraq]
	07/14/2008 9:52:55 PM PDT · Posted by Uncle Ralph · 22 replies · 1,264+ views WSJ.com | July 15, 2008 | Melik Kaylan A recent mission to Iraq headed by top archaeologists ... found that, contrary to received wisdom, southern Iraq's most important historic sites ... had neither been seriously damaged nor looted after the American invasion. This, according to a report by staff writer Martin Bailey in the July issue of the Art Newspaper. The article has caused confusion, not to say consternation, among archaeologists and has been largely ignored by the mainstream press. Not surprising perhaps, since reports by experts blaming the U.S. for the postinvasion destruction of Iraq's heritage have been regular fixtures of the news. Up to now ......
Britain
Treasure hunter finds Roman ring [UK]
	07/24/2008 8:18:06 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 13 replies · 745+ views The Press | 24 July 2008 | Jeremy Small A Roman ring that was discovered in a field near York has been classified as an item of treasure, an inquest heard. The silver ring which could date as far back as first century AD, was discovered by Peter Spencer, while he was searching a field in Dunnington using a metal detector. The jewel, whose value will be determined by the treasure valuation committee, was despatched to the British Museum, where it was examined, and a report on it completed. The report, by Ralph Jackson, at the museum's department of pre-history and Europe, described the find as a small, Roman...
Climate
Gold Ring from Middle Ages Found in East Iceland
	07/23/2008 11:46:26 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 346+ views Iceland Review | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | unattributed Archeologists discovered a gold ring in a grave in Skriduklaustur in east Iceland where there used to be a monastery. The discovery is considered significant because very few gold rings have been found in archeological excavations in Iceland. "It looks like a normal wedding ring, but it has been decorated a little," archeologist Steinunn Kristjansdottir, who is responsible for the current excavation project in Skriduklaustur, told Morgunbladid. The ring is engraved with a leafy pattern and Kristjansdottir believes that indicates that the ring was made in the 16th or 17th century. The monastery church in Skriduklaustur was used after Iceland...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Academics ponder riddle of church's ancient stone [ Vikings ]
	07/25/2008 9:22:22 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 5+ views Liverpool Daily Post | July 19 2008 | Liam Murphy An ancient Viking burial stone kept in a south Wirral church... the Church of St Mary and St Helen, in Neston town centre... has been broken over time prior to its discovery, clearly depicts a man and a woman with an angel flying overhead... The stone depicts a warrior and a woman who -- say orthodox archaeological interpretations -- are a couple, with the stone possibly marking their joint burial site. But Mr Olly insists the woman depicted on the ornately carved stone is actually a Valkyrie, which would make this already unique artefact even more intriguing... Wirral Viking specialist...
Ireland
Conference celebrates the 800th anniversary of Kilkenny's charter
	07/24/2008 8:14:05 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies · 105+ views Kilkenny People | Friday, July 25, 2008 (last updated on the 22nd) | Staff Reporter A major conference is being held in Kilkenny this weekend to celebrate the 800th anniversary of William Marshal's charter to the city. William Marshal's (c.1146-1219) deeds in medieval war, jousting, politics, kingship and commerce are legendary. He rose from relative obscurity to become one of the most powerful and famous men in Europe and from 1207-1213 Kilkenny was at the centre of his extensive Irish lordship. From the city he embarked on a massive campaign of town development and administrative re-organisation which transformed the south-east of Ireland. This conference celebrates Marshal's life and achievements and marks the 800th anniversary of...
Early America
Mexico remains 'are US soldiers'
	07/22/2008 10:45:40 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 471+ views BBC | Friday, July 18, 2008 | unattributed The remains of what appear to be four US soldiers who died in 1846 during the Mexican-American war have been found, Mexican officials have said. The skeletons were found at the site of the Battle of Monterrey in northern Mexico alongside relics indicating the bodies were US soldiers... Mexico's state archaeological agency said the bodies were found in several digs between 1996 and 2008 but it took a long time to identify the remains because it was believed only Mexicans were buried at the battle site.
Africa
King Dingane artefacts discovered
	07/24/2008 12:01:38 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 150+ views Sowetan | July 16, 2008 | unattributed Historical artefacts dating back to the mid-19th century during King Dingane's reign have been unearthed at his former uMgungundlovu home in KwaZulu-Natal. The archeological find includes an iron spearhead and coloured glass beads. The dig was undertaken in an area where Dingane inspected his army and cattle. "It was here on February 4,1838 that King Dingane ordered the slaying of trekker leader Piet Retief and his party," read a statement from Amafa Heritage KZN chief executive Barry Marshall. The find will be displayed once the construction of Amafa's R25 million multi-media centre has been completed. Dingane (also spelt as Dingaan)...
Underwater Archaeology
Riddle of Lusitania sinking may finally be solved
	07/23/2008 1:00:22 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 210 replies · 3,261+ views The Times (London) American entrepreneur Gregg Bemis finally gets courts go-ahead to explore the wreck off IrelandIt is the best known shipwreck lying on the Irish seabed, but it is only today that the owner of the Lusitania will finally begin the first extensive visual documentation of the luxury liner that sank 93 years ago. Gregg Bemis, who bought the remains of the vessel for £1,000 from former partners in a diving business in 1968, has been granted an imaging licence by the Department of the Environment. This allows him to photograph and film the entire structure, and should allow him to produce...
World War Eleven
Bringing music from WWII Nazi death camps to life (Music by Captives)
	07/23/2008 12:08:14 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 10 replies · 218+ views China Post | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | Francoise Michel Collecting music written in internment camps before and during World War II may n ot occur to everyone but that has been Francesco Lotoro's quest since 1991. "To allow the musicians to continue to work was also a way to control them better," said the 44-year-old Italian Jew. "At Auschwitz, there were seven orchestras." Lotoro has amassed some 4,000 pieces, all composed between March 1933, when the Nazis' Dachau death camp was opened soon after Hitler won absolute power, and the end of World War II in 1945. But while much is from Nazi camps, Lotoro's collection...
Hitler the Comedian: The Nazi Leader's Bodyguard Reveals a Different Side to the Dictator
	06/24/2008 5:19:53 AM PDT · Posted by Coffee200am · 58 replies · 1,645+ views Mail Online | 06.23.2008 | Allan Hall Adolf Hitler found time amid the bloodiest war in history to crack jokes with his cronies. Hitler the comedian is one side of the Fuhrer painted in a new memoir called "The Last Witness" by one of the Nazi leader's bodyguards. Comedian: Hitler often cracked jokes according to his bodyguard Hitler, the mass killer, "had a small fund of jokes," recalled Misch, who is now 90. "The boss was said to be particularly fond of a couple jokes and told the best ones over and over," he said. While Misch did not divulge Hitler's favourite jokes ahead of the book's...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
58 years later, records unsealed in Rosenberg spy case
	07/23/2008 12:52:25 PM PDT · Posted by K-oneTexas · 32 replies · 1,411+ views CNN | July 22, 2008 | Ronni Berke 58 years later, records unsealed in Rosenberg spy case After 58 years, historians and journalists will have a chance to examine the secret grand jury testimony of witnesses in the espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The couple was investigated in 1950, tried in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage and convicted and sentenced to death in 1953. Cold War scholars are hoping the grand jury transcripts will shed light on some nagging questions about the case -- primarily, just how strong the case was against Ethel Rosenberg. The National Security Archive, the American Historical Association, the Georgetown University...
end of digest #210 20080726

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #210 20080726 · Saturday, July 26, 2008 · 32 topics · 2051572 to 2047921 · 696 members ·
	Saturday Jul 26 2008 v 4 n 52 view this issue	Welcome to the 210th issue and the last of volume 4. 32 topics this week, 38 last week. Membership steady. This concludes the fourth year of the GGG Digest, and next week begins the fifth year. I'm at least as amazed as anyone. I had to go to a staff meeting and in-service training today. On the way out, three of us were discussing job openings elsewhere. IOW, I'm not the only one who needs a new job. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #211 Saturday, August 2, 2008
Let's Have Jerusalem
Seal of King Zedekiah's minister found in J'lem dig
	08/01/2008 1:50:13 PM PDT · Posted by Alouette · 26 replies · 387+ views Jerusalem Post | Aug. 1, 2008 | Etgar Lefkowitz A seal impression belonging to a minister of the Biblical King Zedekiah which dates back 2,600 years has been uncovered completely intact during an archeological dig in Jerusalem's ancient City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said on Thursday. The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia's ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was uncovered three years ago, said Prof. Eilat Mazar who is leading the dig at the...
Epigraphy and Language
Phaistos Disc declared as fake by scholar
	07/30/2008 10:56:36 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 30 replies · 597+ views The Times of London | July 12, 2008 | Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent Jerome Eisenberg, a specialist in faked ancient art, is claiming that the disc and its indecipherable text is not a relic dating from 1,700BC, but a forgery that has duped scholars since Luigi Pernier, an Italian archaeologist, "discovered" it in 1908 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete. Pernier was desperate to impress his colleagues with a find of his own, according to Dr Eisenberg, and needed to unearth something that could outdo the discoveries made by Sir Arthur Evans, the renowned English archaeologist, and Federico Halbherr, a fellow Italian... Dr Eisenberg, who has conducted appraisals for the US...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Flint hints at existence of Palaeolithic man in Ireland
	07/28/2008 7:24:09 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 204+ views Times Online | Sunday, July 27, 2008 | Norman Hammond The possibility of a Palaeolithic human presence in Ireland has once again presented itself. A flaked flint dating to about 200,000 years ago found in Co Down is certainly of human workmanship, but its ultimate origin remains uncertain. Discovered at Ballycullen, ten miles east of Belfast, the flake is 68mm long and wide and 31mm thick. Its originally dark surface is heavily patinated to a yellowish shade, and the lack of sharpness in its edges suggests that it has been rolled around by water or ice, Jon Stirland reports in Archaeology Ireland. Dr Farina Sternke has identified it as a...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
The Surprising History of America's Wild Horses
	07/26/2008 5:19:59 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 40 replies · 618+ views Natural History Magazine | 7/26/2008 | Jay F. Kirkpatrick and Patricia M. Fazio Modern horses, zebras, and asses belong to the genus Equus, the only surviving genus in a once diverse family, the Equidae. Based on fossil records, the genus appears to have originated in North America about 4 million years ago and spread to Eurasia (presumably by crossing the Bering land bridge) 2 to 3 million years ago. Following that original emigration, there were additional westward migrations to Asia and return migrations back to North America, as well as several extinctions of Equus species in North America.
Paleontology
Soft tissue in fossils still mysterious: Purported dinosaur soft tissue may be modern biofilms
	08/01/2008 9:48:00 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 332+ views Science News | July 29th, 2008 | Sid Perkins Three years ago, a team of scientists rocked the paleontology world by reporting that they'd recovered flexible tissue resembling blood vessels from a 68-million-year-old dinosaur fossil... Subsequent analyses by many of the same scientists -- including Mary H. Schweitzer, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh -- indicated that the fossil contained small bits of collagen, a fiber-forming protein that's the largest non-mineral component of bone... Schweitzer and her colleagues, of course, take issue with the new findings. "There really isn't a lot new here, although I really welcome that someone is attempting to look at and repeat...
Ancient Autopsies
First indication for embalming in Roman Greece
	07/31/2008 8:42:55 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 120+ views AlphaGalileo | Wednesday, July 30, 2008 | unattributed A Swiss-Greek research team co-lead by Dr. Frank Rahli from the Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, found indication for embalming in Roman Greek times. By means of physico-chemical and histological methods, it was possible to show that various resins, oils and spices were used during embalming of a ca. 55 year old female in Northern Greece. This is the first ever multidisciplinary-based indication for artificial mummification in Greece at 300 AD. The remains of a ca. 55-year old female (ca. 300 AD, most likely of high-social status; actual location: Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Greece) shows the preservation of various...
Climate
Archaeologists find 9,000-year-old rhino remains in Urals
	07/28/2008 8:08:14 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 28 replies · 381+ views RIA Novosti | Monday, July 28, 2008 | unattributed Archaeologists in the Sverdlovsk Region in Russia's Urals have discovered the 9,000-year-old bones of a rhinoceros, a local museum worker said on Monday. The excavations during which the bones were discovered were carried out at a site on the bank of the Lobva River, said Nikolai Yerokhin from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Plant And Animal Ecology department. It was generally assumed that rhinoceros last wandered the Urals some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. However, the latest findings seem to prove that they existed in the area a lot more recently.
Vikings
Ruins may be Viking hunting outpost in Greenland
	07/31/2008 8:48:40 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 25 replies · 471+ views Reuters | July 28, 2008 | Alister Doyle Knut Espen Solberg, leader of 'The Melting Arctic' project mapping changes in the north, said the remains uncovered in past weeks in west Greenland may also be new evidence that the climate was less chilly about 1,000 years ago than it is today. 'We found something that most likely was a dock, made of rocks, for big ships up to 20-30 metres (60-90 ft) long,' he told Reuters by satellite phone from a yacht off Greenland. He said further study and carbon dating were needed to pinpoint the site's age... Viking accounts speak of hunting stations for walrus, seals and...
Britain
VIDEO: 2,000-year-old Roman body found in West Sussex
	07/27/2008 10:45:30 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 509+ views LittleHampton Gazette | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | unattributed The skeleton is believed to have been a warrior who died around the time of the Roman invasion of England in AD43. He is likely to have been a prince or rich person of some status because of the quantity and quality of goods found with his remains... "There is no comparision for this metalwork that we know of," said Dr Fox. "It might well be unique. It's a very intricate piece of work for its time. "Professor Barry Cunliffe, the professor of European archaelogy at Oxford University, visited the site when he was in Chichester and said he knew...
Ancient grave found on Bognor new homes site[UK]
	07/28/2008 9:00:54 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 9 replies · 518+ views The Argos | 28 July 2008 | Sam Underwood Land soon to become a new housing estate has yielded an unexpected treasure -- a 2,000- year-old skeleton, believed to be that of a prince, a warrior or a priest. Planning permission has been granted for more than 600 houses in open fields at North Bersted near Bognor. But before the work could go ahead, an archaeological survey had to be carried out on the site to check if there was anything of historical interest under the topsoil. What the team from the Thames Valley Archaeological Services found was beyond their wildest dreams. After digging tirelessly for several months they...
Neolithic Art
Over 100 Neolithic Stone Carvings Found In Northumberland[UK]
	07/31/2008 10:46:50 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 35 replies · 661+ views 24 Hour Museum | 31 July 2008 | 24 Hour Museum Staff Volunteers working in Northumberland and Durham have unearthed a remarkable collection of intricate rock art formations dating back 5,000 years. Over 100 of the extraordinary Neolithic carvings of concentric circles, interlocking rings and hollowed cups were uncovered in the region by a team of specially trained volunteers working on a four-year English Heritage backed project called the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Project (NADRAP). Their findings have now been recorded and published online via a website called England's Rock Art (ERA), which was launched today, Thursday July 3 2008, athttp://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era. © English Heritage (Above) Barningham Moor County Durham: Photographer R....
Older Than The Pyramids, Buried For Centuries - Found By An Orkney Plumber
	03/17/2008 8:45:12 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 20 replies · 1,644+ views The Scotsman | 3-14-2008 | Tristan Stewart-Robinson A rare piece of Neolithic art has been discovered on a beach in Orkney. The 6,000-year-old relic, thought to be a fragment from a larger piece, was left exposed by storms which swept across the country last week. Local plumber David Barnes, who found the stone on the beach in Sandwick Bay, South Ronaldsay, said circular markings had shown up in the late-afternoon winter sun, drawing his attention to the piece. Archeologists last night heralded the discovery as a "once-in- 50-years event". But they warned...
Rock 'Face' Mystery Baffles Experts
	06/17/2004 4:00:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 29 replies · 224+ views Innovations Report | 6-17-2004 Archaeologists have found a trio of extraordinary stone carvings while charting the phenomenon of prehistoric rock markings in Northumberland, close to the Scottish border in the United Kingdom. Records and examples of over 950 prehistoric rock art panels exist in Northumberland, which are of the traditional 'cup and ring' variety, with a typical specimen featuring a series of cups and concentric circles pecked into sandstone outcrops and boulders. However, archaeologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who are studying prehistoric rock carvings,...
Asia
Eclipses in Ancient China Spurred Science, Beheadings?
	07/31/2008 8:51:11 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 229+ views National Geographic News | July 29, 2008 | Brian Handwerk Ciyuan Liu and Liping Ma, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Xueshun Liu, of the University of British Columbia, studied early eclipse records and wrote of the total eclipse's special political position in ancient Chinese culture. "It was a warning to the Emperor -- for the Sun was the symbol of the Emperor according to traditional astrological theories," Liu said in email, quoting his 2003 paper published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage "When an eclipse occurred, the Emperor would normally eat vegetarian meals, avoid the main palace, perform rituals to rescue the Sun and, sometimes, issue...
Open Wide for Chungke
Ancient Ohioans' ball game mix of sport, religious ritual [ chungke or chunkey ]
	07/28/2008 8:44:25 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 195+ views Columbus Dispatch | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | Bradley T. Lepper As I've watched the Olympic trials on television, I've thought about the role athletic competitions might have played in ancient Ohio... In 1775, English trader James Adair described a game called chungke or chunkey that he saw being played in the South. Warriors took turns hurling a wheel-shape stone across a square plaza while others threw spears at the place where they anticipated the stone would come to rest. Adair writes that the chunkey stones were "kept with the strictest religious care" and belonged to the "town where they are used." Chunkey stones are a hallmark of the Mississippian period,...
Navigation
How Did People Reach the Americas?
	07/27/2008 10:12:03 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 33 replies · 429+ views US News | July 24, 2008 | Andrew Curry [isn't this Gannett?]
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Unknown Writing System Uncovered On Ancient Olmec Tablet
	07/30/2008 6:58:45 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 48 replies · 650+ views scienceagogo | 15 September 2006 | by Kate Melville Science magazine this week details the discovery of a stone block in Veracruz, Mexico, that contains a previously unknown system of writing; believed by archeologists to be the earliest in the Americas. The slab - named the Cascajal block - dates to the early first millennium BCE and has features that indicate it comes from the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica. One of the archaeologists behind the discovery, Brown University's Stephen D. Houston, said that the block and its ancient script "link the Olmec civilization to literacy, document an unsuspected writing system, and reveal a new complexity to this civilization." "It's...
Cave Art
Many hands painted Lascaux caves
	07/31/2008 8:26:14 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 310+ views Times of London | July 29, 2008 | Norman Hammond The painted caves of Lascaux in the Dordogne region of France are one of the most famed monuments of Ice Age art. Dating back about 17,000 years, the great Hall of the Bulls and its adjacent chambers proved so popular with visitors that a generation ago the cave had to be closed to save the paintings from encroaching mould. A replica, Lascaux II, was built nearby and has proved equally popular. One thing that strikes the visitor is the exuberance of the compositions, with hundreds of animals, including bison, horses and deer, parading along the walls and ceilings, often overlapping....
Australia and the Pacific
'Chicken and Chips' Theory of Pacific Migration
	07/31/2008 12:33:31 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 200+ views Newswise | Tuesday, July 29, 2008 | University of Adelaide The study questions recent claims that chickens were first introduced into South America by Polynesians, before the arrival of Spanish chickens in the 15th century following Christopher Columbus. ...the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) Director Professor Alan Cooper says there has been considerable debate about the existence and degree of contact between Polynesians and South Americans, with the presence of the sweet potato throughout the Pacific often used as evidence of early trading contacts... A recent study claimed to have found the first direct evidence of a genetic link between ancient Polynesian and apparently pre-Columbian chickens...
Greece
Ancient Greek ship fished from sea
	07/28/2008 7:14:39 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 470+ views ANSA.it | Monday, July 28, 2008 | unattributed An ancient Greek trading ship that had lain on the seabed off the coast of Gela in southern Sicily for 2,500 years was brought to the surface for the first time on Monday. The ancient Greek vessel is 21 metres long and 6.5 metres wide, making it by far the biggest of its kind ever discovered. Four Greek vessels found off the coasts of Israel, Cyprus and France are at most 15 metres long. The one in Gela is also of particular value for scholars who will be able to delve into Greek naval construction techniques thanks to the amazing...
Egypt
Ancient Egyptian boat to be excavated, reassembled
	07/28/2008 10:43:47 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 269+ views Middle East Online | July 19, 2008 | Jason Keyser The 4,500-year-old vessel is the sister ship of a similar boat removed in pieces from another pit in 1954 and painstakingly reconstructed. Experts believe the boats were meant to ferry the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid in the afterlife. Starting Saturday, tourists were allowed to view images of the inside of the second boat pit from a camera inserted through a hole in the chamber's limestone ceiling. The video image, transmitted onto a small TV monitor at the site, showed layers of crisscrossing beams and planks on the floor of the dark pit... Experts will begin removing around 600...
Africa
Two Egyptians rewarded for turning in antiquities [ Ahmose ]
	07/31/2008 12:29:13 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 182+ views EarthTimes | Tuesday, July 29, 2008 | DPA Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday that two Egyptian citizens were rewarded for turning in two pieces of antiquities they found while each was redecorating his house in the northern Menoufiya governorate. "The Egyptian Ministry of Culture decided to give each citizen five thousand Egyptian pounds (970 US dollars)," said Zahi Hawass, Head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Hawass stated that the two pieces belong to Ancient Egyptian King Ahmose of the 26th dynasty. After asserting the authenticity of the pieces, the SCA took the pieces to start their restoration process. Hawass added that both pieces are made of...
Strings Attached
Harrari Harps Recreates Biblical Instruments
	07/28/2008 8:51:11 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 242+ views IsraelNN.com | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | interview by Ben Bresky The harp of Israel goes back to the Tanach. It is written that the first person to play was a man called Yuval who played on a kinor. The next person was King David, who was the one who brought it to a very high level of awareness. He used it as a spiritual instrument to connect to Hashem. Then it went right into the Beit Hamikdash where there were 4,000 Leviim who played the harp. The tribe of Levi taught their children at age three to play on the nevel, the kinor, the shofar, and the silver trumpet. They...
Sex in the City
FOXSexpert: Kiss and Mind-Blowing Make-Up Sex
	07/25/2008 5:33:33 AM PDT · Posted by Pistolshot · 33 replies · 1,051+ views Fox News | Thursday, July 24, 2008 | Fox News It's a common way for couples to reconcile. Animalistic, uninhibited and aggressive, many couples are enthralled by make-up sex. Some couples actually thrive on it. So why is anger such a powerful stimulant? And what are the rules of engagement for resolving conflict in this way? While fighting as a form of foreplay doesn't make much sense, on second thought, it's not such an inconceivable aphrodisiac. Physiologically speaking, anger and arousal have quite a bit in common in revving up the body. When angry or sexually aroused, a person's body reacts in much the same way -- to the point...
Why Women Have Sex On The Brain
	09/09/2001 7:56:10 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 170 replies · 1,780+ views TheTimes.com.uk | 9-8-2001 | Nigel Hawkes Scientific study has answered the question of why we fall in love in the most unromantic way possible THE question that has perhaps most obsessed and mystified the poets, philosophers and thinkers -- why do we fall in love? -- has been answered in the most unromantic way possible: by the scientific study of the humble prairie vole. Music was the food of love in Shakespeare's book, but the truth, according to Professor Gareth Leng of the University of Edinburgh, lies in a "love potion" ...
600 Year Old Easy Pieces
Archaeologists find 600-year-old chess piece in northwest Russia
	07/28/2008 9:31:27 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 22 replies · 436+ views RIA Novosti | July 18, 2008 | unattributed Archaeologists in northwest Russia have discovered a chess piece dating back to the late 14th century, a spokesman for local archaeologists said on Friday. "The king, around several centimeters tall, is made of solid wood, possibly of juniper," the spokesman said. The excavations are being carried out at the site of the Palace of Facets, in the Novgorod Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod. The palace is believed to be the oldest in Russia. According to the city chronicles, chess as a competitive game emerged in Veliky Novgorod, the foremost historic city in northwest Russia, in the 13th century, but was banned...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Roman dog skeleton is 'donated'
	07/28/2008 12:17:31 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 23 replies · 357+ views BBC | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | "posted" by "unattributed" A Lincolnshire charity has had what could be a 2,000-year-old dog skeleton donated to one of its stores. A note with the bones said they were Roman, excavated from a 1st Century AD pit at the Lawn in Lincoln in 1986... Nicknamed Caesar, the dog bones will be handed over to The Collection museum in Lincoln, she said... "It's not a big dog, probably like a small whippet or greyhound. There are lots of bones, though perhaps not all, but its like a big jigsaw puzzle," she added. A note from the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology which was...
Rome and Italy
Water To Run Down From Antonine Nymphaeum After 1300 Years
	07/28/2008 6:36:52 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 382+ views Turkish Press | Monday, July 28, 2008 | unattributed Water will run down from the Antonine Nymphaeum, a monumental fountain located on the north of the ancient city of Sagalassos near Aglasun town of the southwestern Turkish province of Burdur, after some 1300 years. In an exclusive interview with the A.A, Semih Ercan said on Friday that restoration works on the fountain dated to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180) were expected to finish in 2010. Ercan, who heads the restoration works, said, "the fountain with a height of 10 meters and width of 30 meters, is one of the most splendid structures in the ancient city. It...
Underwater Archaeology
Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.
	07/31/2008 8:35:20 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 29 replies · 707+ views New York Times | Thursday, July 31, 2008 | John Noble Wilford The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was recovered more than a century ago in the wreckage of a ship that sank off the tiny island of Antikythera, north of Crete. Earlier research showed that the device was probably built between 140 and 100 B.C. Only now, applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, have experts been able to decipher inscriptions and reconstruct functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The latest research has revealed details of dials on the instrument's back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar. In the...
Secrets of Antikythera Mechanism, world's oldest calculating machine, revealed
	07/31/2008 8:14:49 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 9 replies · 831+ views The Times | 7/30/2008 The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today, showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic games. Ever since the spectacular bronze device was salvaged from a shipwreck after its discovery in 1900 many have speculated about the uses of the mechanical calculator which was constructed long before the birth of Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world. The dictionary sized crumbly lump containing corroded fragments of what is now known to be a marvellous hand cranked machine is known as the 'Antikythera Mechanism' because it was...
Under the Boardwalk
Past Climate Change: Continental Stretching Preceding Opening Of The Drake Passage
	07/27/2008 10:18:40 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 298+ views ScienceDaily | Friday, July 25, 2008 | (Geological Society of America) ...age estimates for the onset of a seaway through the Drake Passage range from middle Eocene to early Miocene, complicating interpretations of the relationship between ocean circulation and global cooling. Studying the southeast tip of Tierra del Fuego, a region that was once attached to the Antarctic Peninsula, Ghiglione et al. discovered evidence for the opening of widespread early Eocene extensional depocenters. The succession of events described in their study show that the opening of a seaway through the Drake Passage was early enough to contribute to global cooling through lowering levels of atmospheric CO2. Their data bolster interpretations of...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Volunteers uncovers 58th Mammoth at the Mammoth Site (Hot Springs, SD)
	07/29/2008 1:28:53 AM PDT · Posted by ApplegateRanch · 16 replies · 387+ views RapidCityJournal | Friday, July 25, 2008 | Mary Garrigan Joanne Bugel is happy to be the Earthwatch volunteer who uncovered the 115th tusk at the Mammoth Site and moved the popular Hot Springs tourist site's mammoth tally to 58. [snip] This group has been a particularly productive bunch, said crew chief Don Morris. [snip] Bones unearthed by 2008 Earthwatch volunteers include: three tusks, a tooth, a patella, six ribs, a fibula, four vertebra and assorted other bones. Neteal Graves, 18, of Kaycee, Wyo., also unearthed some coprolite -- [snip] Graves has the Mammoth Site in her bloodline. In 1974, her mother, Cheri Graves, was a college...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Mystery hairs 'may have come from a Yeti'
	07/28/2008 6:56:50 AM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 17 replies · 522+ views The Daily Telegraph | 28 Jul 2008 | staff reporter The hunt for the elusive creature - said to be 10ft tall, part man, part ape and otherwise known as the Abominable Snowman - has frustrated scientists for decades. Now tests at Oxford Brookes University on hairs said to be from a Yeti in India have failed to link the strands with any known species. Ape expert Ian Redmond, who is leading the research, said: "The hairs are the most positive evidence yet that a Yeti might possibly exist. "It may be that the region this animal is inhabiting is remote enough for it to remain undiscovered so far." The...
Meet the Flintstones
Rock solid proof?
	07/28/2008 2:17:21 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 148 replies · 2,095+ views The Weatherford Democrat | David May The limestone contains two distinct prints -- one of a human footprint and one belonging to a dinosaur. The significance of the cement-hard fossil is it shows the dinosaur print partially over and intersecting the human print. In other words, the stone's impressions indicate the human stepped first, the dinosaur second.
Campfire Song and Dance
Tanzania: Prehistoric Footprints Stir Fresh Controversy
	07/27/2008 10:38:06 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 278+ views The Citizen (Dar es Salaam) | Monday, July 21, 2008 | Zephania Ubwani Archaeological experts are divided on a plan to exhume the hominid footprints at Laetoli for public display, some arguing that this could lead to erosion of the rare imprints. The 3.6 million- year old footprints, discovered in 1978, have since the 1990s been reburied for protection while a replica of the original cast is on display at the site. Government authorities recently intended to exhume the oldest known footprints of human ancestors for public view in order to attract more tourists and researchers... With the assistance of scientists from Getty Conservation Institute of Los Angeles in the US, the track-way...
Swans in the Evening
Voyage to the bottom of the world's deepest lake
	07/28/2008 6:47:03 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 47 replies · 966+ views Russia Today | July 27, 2008 | unattributed The two Russian submersibles which dived to the sea-bed beneath the North Pole last year are now attempting to reach the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia. Mir One and Mir Two will try to measure the maximum depth of the world's deepest lake. A preliminary dive to test the equipment under water was postponed on Saturday because of bad weather. Research work on the bottom of the lake is scheduled to begin on July 29. Scientists intend to go as deep as 1,700 metres to study the tectonics of Lake Baikal and to inspect archaeological artefacts. The operation, which...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Woodwork discovery means summertime dig ends on a high: Peat-rich soil has preserved carpenter's...
	07/28/2008 9:51:09 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies · 291+ views Aberdeen Press and Journal | July 2008 | Alistair Beaton The latest summer season at one of the longest-running and most important archaeological excavations in the north-east has ended on a high note, with the uncovering of mediaeval woodwork. Peat-rich soil around the site of a lost bishop's palace, just outside Kemnay, has preserved sections of centuries-old carpentry in remarkable condition. Saw marks are visible on one piece and another has been turned and decorated on a primitive lathe by a skilled craftsman... The finds have been preserved in water and will go for microcarbon dating that could pinpoint when the timber was felled... Also found over recent weeks was...
Early America
Cathedral yields more surprises: Crews unearth Presidio chapel remnants
	07/30/2008 6:51:18 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 8 replies · 242+ views Monterey Herald | July 30, 2008 The wall footings, foundation and floor of the oldest Christian house of worship in California were found during grading work on Monterey's San Carlos Cathedral on Monday. The "third chapel" of the Royal Presidio of Monterey was a rectangular adobe building located directly in front of the present stone church, according to archaeologist Ruben Mendoza of CSU-Monterey Bay. The chapel was built in 1772 after the first two chapels -- a lean-to made of brush and a later log pole structure with a thatched roof -- burned down. Historian Gary Breschini, writing on the Monterey County Historical Society Web site,...
Longer Perspectives
The world's oldest jokes revealed by university research
	07/31/2008 7:55:23 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 74 replies · 1,569+ views The Telegraph | 8/1/2008 | Stephen Adams Academics have unearthed what they believe to be Britain's oldest joke, a 1,000-year-old double-entendre about men's sexual desire. They found the wry observation in the Codex Exoniensis, a 10th century book of Anglo-Saxon poetry held at Exeter Cathedral. It reads: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before?' Answer: A key." Scouring ancient texts, researchers from found the jokes laid down in delicate manuscripts and carved into stone tablets up to three thousand years old. Dr Paul MacDonald said ancient civilizations laughed about much the same things as we do today....
Oh So Mysteriouso
Columbus debunker sets sights on Leonardo da Vinci
	07/28/2008 6:04:40 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 33 replies · 702+ views Reuters | Jul 28, 2008 | Tim Castle Leonardo da Vinci's drawings of machines are uncannily similar to Chinese originals and were undoubtedly derived from them, a British amateur historian says in a newly-published book. Gavin Menzies sparked headlines across the globe in 2002 with the claim that Chinese sailors reached America 70 years before Christopher Columbus. Now he says a Chinese fleet brought encyclopedias of technology undiscovered by the West to Italy in 1434, laying the foundation for the engineering marvels such as flying machines later drawn by Italian polymath Leonardo.
Bobbleheads Up Their...
Historical Society Bobbleheads Criticized As Offensive
	07/28/2008 8:44:40 PM PDT · Posted by LibFreeOrDie · 20 replies · 476+ views WMUR.com | POSTED: 10:39 am EDT July 28, 2008 | WMUR.com AP story. Headline and link only. Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Anatolia
Turks Revere an Ancestor: Ol' St. Nick
	12/20/2001 4:04:25 PM PST · Posted by a_Turk · 38 replies · 1,193+ views International Herald Tribune | 12/20/2001 | John Ward Anderson For those who think Santa Claus is just a fantasy - brace yourselves. If the legends of that jolly old elf are traced back far enough, many lead to this down-on-its-luck farming community on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, where in the 4th century a kindly bishop named Nicholas performed so many good deeds that he later was named a saint and eventually earned worldwide renown as Father Christmas, or Noel Baba, as his predominantly Muslim countrymen call him. The North Pole it's not. In fact, to the Western eye, ...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Spanish Moor-killing saint is given the chop (Might offend muslims)
	05/02/2004 3:35:38 PM PDT · Posted by Eurotwit · 115 replies · 813+ views The Times | 3 May, 2004 | From David Sharrock in Madrid Santiago cathedral is to lose its politically incorrect sculpture -- A statue of Spain's patron saint, Saint James "the Moorslayer", is to be removed from one of the country's most famous cathedrals and pilgrimage centres in case it offends Muslims. The decision, announced by Santiago Cathedral's church authorities, has outraged traditional Catholics, many of whom still light candles and pray to the 18th-century statue in the tiny chapel inside one of Christendom's three greatest pilgrim places of worship. Although the cathedral's spokesman insisted the decision was taken four months ago to remove the Moorslayer sculpture -- which depicts the sword-wielding apostle...
Church to remove Moor-slayer saint
	05/03/2004 2:52:51 PM PDT · Posted by swilhelm73 · 29 replies · 541+ views BBC | 3 May, 2004, | N/A A statue in a Spanish cathedral showing St James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed to avoid causing offence to Muslims. Cathedral authorities in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela, on Spain's north west coast, plan to move the statue to the museum. Among the reasons for the move is to avoid upsetting the "sensitivities of other ethnic groups". The statue of St James "the Moor-slayer" is expected to be replaced by one depicting the calmer image of St James "the Pilgrim", by the same 18th century artist, Jose Gambino. The Saracen-slaying image of St...
Spain Former PM: "The West did not attack Islam, it was they who attacked us"
	09/26/2006 4:13:39 PM PDT · Posted by excludethis · 29 replies · 1,006+ views gulfnews.com | Published: 09/25/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) Madrid: Jose Maria Aznar, former Spanish prime minister, defended Pope Benedict XVI's comments about Islam, saying on Friday the pontiff had no need to apologise and asking why Muslims never did. the Spanish media said yesterday. "Why do we always have to say sorry and they never do?" Aznar told a conference in Washington on "global threats" on Friday. On Saturday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam. "I was disappointed there were not more European...
Moderate Islam
Islamists Damage Giant Rock Buddha
	10/10/2007 6:30:46 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 27 replies · 749+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 10-11-2007 | Ben Quinn Islamist radicals in Pakistan have attempted to destroy an ancient carving of Buddha by drilling holes in the rock and filling them with dynamite.The Buddha is thought to date from the seventh century AD The 23ft high image was damaged during the attack, which brought back memories of the Taliban's destruction six years ago of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan, in neighbouring Afghanistan. The Buddha, in the Swat district of north-west Pakistan, is thought to date from the seventh century AD and was considered the largest in...
Another Attack On The Giant Buddha Of Swat (Islamofascists Compelled By "The Religion Of Peace")
	11/10/2007 11:14:14 AM PST · Posted by DogByte6RER · 35 replies · 137+ views AsiaNews.it | 11/09/2007 | AsiaNews.it Another attack on the giant Buddha of Swat In the valley of Swat, north western Pakistan, Islamic militants have launched a second attack in less than a month on the gigantic sacred statue. The head, shoulders and feet have been destroyed while the militants threaten a third and final attack. Islamabad (AsiaNews) -- A group of Islamic militants have attacked for the second time in less than a month the giant Buddha carved in the rocks of Swat Valley, in north western Pakistan. Despite the many requests for greater protection, the government has failed to intervene in any...
There as a Czar, he could only receive
Peter the not so Great, Tsar of Russia
	07/26/2008 8:33:55 PM PDT · Posted by WesternCulture · 39 replies · 824+ views 07/26/2008 | WesternCulture There are, indeed, many reasons why people of Russian ancestry ought to keep their heads high. But just perhaps, the nation which my country - Sweden -nowaday manages to outdo in hockey rinks, although not in football/soccer fields (it was the other way around some decades ago) needs to rethink its self image. Russia of today is a giant, but sadly backward nation, presently going through a phase reminiscent of what took place in Italy during the 1920s and 1930s; she firmly believes in proudly waving a national banner and claiming territory, but her understanding of the very concept of...
Pages
Any Great Books?
	07/25/2008 3:01:11 PM PDT · Posted by Stephanie32 · 382 replies · 2,316+ views July 25, 2008 | Stephanie32 (My first thread, hope I'm doing this right!)
end of digest #211 20080802

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #211 20080802 · Saturday, August 2, 2008 · 49 topics · 2055066 to 2051940 · 675 members ·
	Saturday Aug 02 2008 v 5 n 1 view this issue	Welcome to the 211th issue and the first of volume 5. A whopping 49 topics this week, 32 last week. The main reason for the huge selection of topics was finding and adding archival topics which had somehow escaped former dragnets. Membership apparently declined, but that was due to the deletion of suspended/banned members. Three new members joined. Two folks got fired this week. I really need a new job. I know what you're thinking -- I should be out looking instead of doing this, eh? Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #212 Saturday, August 9, 2008
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
A Potted History of Milk
	08/08/2008 11:30:55 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 43+ views PhysOrg.com | August 2008 | University of Bristol Humans were processing cattle milk in pottery vessels more than two thousand years earlier than previously thought... In work published online in Nature this week, Professor Richard Evershed and colleagues describe how the analysis of more than 2,200 pottery vessels from southeastern Europe, Anatolia and the Levant extends the early history of milk by two millennia to the seventh millennium BC... Organic residues preserved in the pottery suggest that even before 6,500 BC milk was processed and stored, although this varied regionally depending on the farming techniques used. Cattle, sheep and goats were familiar domesticated animals by the eighth millennium...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Study uses genetic evidence to trace ancient African migration
	08/05/2008 10:34:02 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 251+ views PhysOrg | Monday, August 4, 2008 | Stanford University Medical Center Using a genetic technique pioneered at Stanford, the team found that animal-herding methods arrived in southern Africa 2,000 years ago on a wave of human migration, rather than by movement of ideas between neighbors. The findings shed light on how early cultures interacted with each other and how societies learned to adopt advances. "There's a tradition in archaeology of saying people don't move very much; they just transfer ideas through space," said Joanna Mountain, PhD, consulting assistant professor of anthropology. Mountain and Peter Underhill, PhD, senior research scientist in genetics at Stanford's School of Medicine, were the study's senior authors....
Ancient Autopsies
Tutankhamun Fetuses To Get Paternity Test
	08/07/2008 10:43:00 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 23 replies · 317+ views New Scientist | Wednesday, August 6, 2008 | staff and Reuters Egyptian scientists are doing DNA tests on stillborn children found in Tutankhamun's tomb in the hope of confirming if they are the pharoah's offspring and confirming his family tree. British archaeologist Howard Carter found the mummified fetuses when he discovered the tomb in 1922. Archaeologists assume they are the children of the teenage pharaoh, but this has not been confirmed. The identity of their mother is also still unknown. Many scholars believe their mother to be Ankhesenamun, the boy king's only known wife. Ankhesenamun is the daughter of the queen Nefertiti, who was renowned for her beauty. "For the first...
Prehistory and Origins
Little teeth suggest big jump in primate timeline
	08/07/2008 10:27:32 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 188+ views PhysOrg | Monday, August 4, 2008 | Duke University Just 9-thousandths of a square inch in size, the teeth are about 54.5 million years old and suggest these early primates were no larger than modern dwarf lemurs weighing about 2 to 3 ounces... Previous fossil evidence shows primates were living in North America, Europe and Asia at least 55 million years ago. But, until now, the fossil record of anthropoid primates has extended back only 45 million years... In addition to stretching the primate timeline, the specimens represent a new genus as well as a new species of anthropoid, which the researchers have named Anthrasimias gujaratensis by drawing from...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Scientists map mitochondrial DNA of prehistoric Neanderthal
	08/07/2008 12:37:19 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 29 replies · 446+ views AFP | Aug 7, 2008 | Unknown The bones of a Neanderthal man's skeleton, found during several excavations undertaken in 1856, 1997 and 2000. Researchers announced Thursday that they have sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of a Neanderthal, using genetic material recovered from a 38,000-year-old bone. (AFP/DDP/File/Michael Latz) WASHINGTON (AFP) - Researchers announced Thursday that they have sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of a Neanderthal, using genetic material recovered from a 38,000-year-old bone. Scientists said the breakthrough, published in the August 8th issue of the scientific journal Cell, will help resolve lingering questions about the genealogical relationship between the prehistoric hominids and modern man.
Epigraphy and Language
Nigerian Monkeys Drop Hints on Language Origin
	05/23/2006 4:32:06 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 29 replies · 574+ views NY Times | May 23, 2006 | NICHOLAS WADE Researchers taping calls of the putty-nosed monkey in the forests of Nigeria may have come a small step closer to understanding the origins of human language. The researchers have heard the monkeys string two alarm calls into a combined sound with a different meaning, as if forming a word, Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberb¸hler report in the current issue of Nature. Monkeys are known to have specific alarm calls for different predators. Vervet monkeys have one call for eagles, another for snakes and a third for leopards. But this seems a far cry from language because the vervets do not...
Deep Life, Panspermia, Archaea
"Slow Life' and its Implications
	08/07/2008 8:52:36 AM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 12 replies · 252+ views Centauri Dreams | 8/6/08 Imagine a form of life so unusual that we cannot figure out how it dies. That's exactly what researchers are finding beneath the floor of the sea off Peru. The microbes being studied there -- single-celled organisms called Archaea -- live in time frames that can perhaps best be described as geological. Consider: A bacteria like Escherichia Coli divides and reproduces every twenty minutes or so. But the microbes in the so-called Peruvian Margin take hundreds or thousands of years to divide. "In essence, these microbes are almost, practically dead by our normal standards," says Christopher H. House (Penn State)....
Oh So Mysteriouso
Biology and Cryptobiology
What was the Montauk monster?
	08/07/2008 11:51:26 AM PDT · Posted by ari-freedom · 59 replies · 2,233+ views Tetrapod Zoology | August 4, 2008 | Darren Naish Unless you've been hiding under a rock, or spending all your time on Tet Zoo, you will almost certainly have heard about the 'Montauk monster', a mysterious carcass that (apparently) washed up on July 13th at Montauk, Long Island, New York. A good photo of the carcass, showing it in right lateral view and without any reference for scale, surfaced on July 30th and has been all over the internet. Given that I only recently devoted a week of posts to sea monsters, it's only fitting that I cover this too. I'm pretty sure that I know what it is,...
Asia
Mysterious ancient Buddhist box opened
	08/07/2008 10:41:16 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 37 replies · 1,095+ views China.org | 07 Aug 2008 | China.org Chinese archaeologists on Wednesday opened a 1,000-year-old steel case that was believed to contain Buddhist relics. A pagoda top wrapped in silk emerged after archaeologists removed two steel panels of the cube-shaped case, which is 0.5 meter long, 0.5 meter wide and 1.34 meters high. Hua Guorong, vice curator of the Nanjing City Museum where the case was opened, said an initial analysis showed the object was a pagoda about 1 meter high. He said Buddhist relics, which were formed from the ashes of cremated Buddhist masters and were an important aspect of the religion, were likely to be under...
Greece
Greek archaeological site reburied [ Akrotiri Santorini ]
	08/04/2008 10:55:31 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 155+ views Spero Forum | Friday, August 1, 2008 | Stephen Brothwell (Athens News) Three year after part of a protective roof collapsed killing a British tourist, the ancient Minoan site of Akrotiri on Santorini remains closed. Excavations have halted and the reconstruction of its roof is stuck in the wheels of bureaucracy. Tourism businesses on the island say they are losing money and prestige as a result. In September 2005, part of a new 1,000m2 roof designed to cover and protect the excavations collapsed without warning, killing Richard Bennion and injuring many others. The site was immediately closed for investigation but inexplicably has remained so for the last 34 months. "I can't say...
What a Pane
The Nature of Glass Remains Anything but Clear
	08/03/2008 6:56:52 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 40 replies · 1,634+ views NY Times | July 29, 2008 | KENNETH CHANG It is well known that panes of stained glass in old European churches are thicker at the bottom because glass is a slow-moving liquid that flows downward over centuries. Well known, but wrong. Medieval stained glass makers were simply unable to make perfectly flat panes, and the windows were just as unevenly thick when new. The tale contains a grain of truth about glass resembling a liquid, however. The arrangement of atoms and molecules in glass is indistinguishable from that of a liquid. But how can a liquid be as strikingly hard as glass? "They're the thickest and gooiest of...
Rain of Frogs
Incredible Discoveries Made in Remote Caves
	08/02/2008 3:03:00 AM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 35 replies · 1,227+ views LiveScience | 31 July 2008 | Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor Scientists exploring caves in the bone-dry and mostly barren Atacama Desert in Chile stumbled upon a totally unexpected discovery this week: water. They also found hundreds of thousands of animal bones in a cave, possibly evidence of some prehistoric human activity. The findings are preliminary and have not been analyzed. The expedition is designed to learn how to spot caves on Mars by studying the thermal signatures of caves and non-cave features in hot, dry places here on Earth. Scientists think Martian caves, some of which may already have been spotted from space, could be good places to look for...
Swastika a Butt Pucker?
Scent of a Fuehrer
	08/02/2008 12:31:38 AM PDT · Posted by uglybiker · 47 replies · 845+ views The Smart Set | Tony Perrottet Hitler wanted to control the world. But he couldn't even control his flatulence. Guests at the Berghof, Hitler's private chalet in the Bavarian Alps, must have endured some unpleasant odors in the otherwise healthful mountain air. It may sound like a Woody Allen scenario, but medical historians are unanimous that Adolf was the victim of uncontrollable flatulence. Spasmodic stomach cramps, constipation and diarrhea, possibly the result of nervous tension, had been Hitler's curse since childhood and only grew more severe as he aged. As a stressed-out dictator, the agonizing digestive attacks would occur after...
Vikings
Viking ring is "treasure" and will be valued at British Museum[UK]
	08/04/2008 9:54:08 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 8 replies · 758+ views Bridlington Free Press | 31 July 2008 | Alexa Copeland TREASURE dating back to the time of the Vikings has been found in a Bridlington field. The Viking finger ring has a silver content of 98% which, combined with its age, meets the criteria for it to be officially classed as treasure. The ring, found by Paul Rennoldson, has been sent to the British Museum in London where it will be valued. Alan Worth, chairman of the Bridlington Metal Detecting Society, said finding any items dating back to the Viking age was very rare. "The Vikings were around in about 700AD which is an incredibly long time ago," said Mr...
Underwater Archaeology
Exploring the blue depths of the Aegean and Mediterranean
	08/04/2008 4:27:23 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 10 replies · 260+ views TurkishPress.com | Monday, Aust 4, 2008 | By Levent Konuk The coasts of Anatolia are sprinkled with ancient cities whose harbours bustled with ships engaged in the thriving sea trade of the Aegean and Mediterranean. But not every ship made it safely to harbour. Many were wrecked in storms and sank with their cargoes to the seabed, and the remains of these have lain hidden on the seabed for long centuries. Wrecks of both merchant and warships each have their historical tale to relate, and are among the underwater sights that fascinate divers today. No other region of the world is so rich in sunken history as the seas around...
Anatolia
Zeugma Ancient City To Be Covered With Glass Bell Jar
	08/04/2008 4:34:39 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 10 replies · 230+ views TurkishPress.com | Monday, August 4, 2008 | U/A GAZIANTEP - Governor Suleyman Kamci of southeastern province of Gaziantep said Friday ancient city of Zeugma would be covered with a structure resembling a "glass bell jar" in an effort to make the historical site a more attractive place for tourists. Kamci said the historical artifacts unearthed in Zeugma were currently being displayed at Gaziantep Museum in order to protect the pieces from harsh weather conditions. "However, these artifacts would be more attractive for tourists if they could be preserved and exhibited in their original location," Kamci said. He said some of the artifacts that are on display at the...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Biblical Proof of Jeremiah Unearthed at Ancient City of David
	08/03/2008 11:10:36 AM PDT · Posted by ScaniaBoy · 26 replies · 694+ views ArutzSheva | August 3, 2008 | Hana Levi Julian (IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists have unearthed proof of another Biblical story at Jerusalem's ancient City of David, this time corroborating the Book of Jeremiah. A completely intact seal impression, or "bula", bearing the name Gedaliahu ben Pashur was uncovered. The bula is actually a stamped engraving made of mortar. Gedaliahu ben Pashur's bula was found a bare few meters away from the site where a second such seal, this one belonging to Yuchal ben Shlemiyahu, an elder in the court of King Tzidkiyahu, was found three years ago, at the entrance to the City of David. According to Professor Eilat Mazar of...
Old Testament 'proof': Royal seal discovered
	08/05/2008 3:59:43 AM PDT · Posted by Convert from ECUSA · 22 replies · 393+ views World Net Daily | 8/3/08 | Joe Kovacs A team of archaeologists in Israel has unearthed what's believed to be the royal seal of an Old Testament prince who is said to have tossed the prophet Jeremiah down a well. Royal seal bears name of Gedaliah, a prince to Judah's King Zedekiah, mentioned in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah. (courtesy Dr. Eilat Mazar) The stamped engraving, known as a "bulla," was discovered earlier this year about 600 feet south of the Temple Mount, but is just now making headlines. Team leader Dr. Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University says the imprint was found in clay, astonishingly well-preserved,...
Phoenicians
4,000-year-old Canaanite warrior found in Sidon dig[Lebanon]
	08/07/2008 9:48:09 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 12 replies · 764+ views The Daily Star | 05 Aug 2008 | Mohammed Zaatari The British Museum's excavation team in Sidon have recently unearthed a new grave containing human skeletal remains belonging to a Canaanite warrior, archeology expert and field supervisor Claude Doumet Serhal told The Daily Star on Monday. According to Serhal, the delegation made the discovery at the "Freres" excavation site near Sidon's crusader castle. "This is the 77th grave that we have discovered at this site since our digging activities has started ten years ago with Lebanese-British financing," she said. According to Serhal, the remains go back to 2000 B.C., with a British archeologist saying the warrior had been buried...
Thrace
Bulgarian archaeologists discover ancient chariot
	08/07/2008 8:52:37 AM PDT · Posted by bamahead · 10 replies · 666+ views Yahoo / AP | August 7, 2008 | VESELIN TOSHKOV Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,900-year-old well-preserved chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Thursday.
Neolithic Art
Ancient Burial Site Discovered In Batu Niah [ Malaysia ]
	08/04/2008 11:04:56 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 113+ views Yahoo! | Saturday, August 2, 2008 | Bernama A research team from the Centre For Archaeological Research Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and the Sarawak Museum Department has discovered an ancient burial site, believed to be from the Neolithic period, at Gua Kain Hitam in the Niah-Subis limestone hills in Batu Niah, Miri division. Sarawak Museum Department deputy director Ipoi Datan said today the excavations at the site, funded by the National Heritage Department in 2007 and the USM Research University Grant last year, has so far uncovered more than eight human skeletons, dating back 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. "The human skeletons as well as the associated...
Australia and the Pacific
European woman 'arrived in New Zealand before Captain Cook'
	08/05/2008 10:22:17 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 26 replies · 603+ views The Telegraph | Paul Chapman The discovery of a European skull dating back more than 260 years has cast doubt that Captain James Cook was the first Westerner to step foot on the shores of New Zealand. Captain Cook recorded in his log, a tale told to him by a Maori chief, of a ship having been shipwrecked many years earlier Scientists are baffled after carbon dating showed the skull, a woman's which was found near the country's capital, Wellington, dates back from 1742 -- decades before Cook's Pacific expedition arrived in 1769. The discovery was made by a boy walking his dog on the...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Energy Boom in West Threatens Indian Artifacts
	08/04/2008 10:38:49 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 26 replies · 311+ views The New York Slimes | August 2, 2008 | Kirk Johnson Less than a fifth of the park has been surveyed for artifacts because of limited federal money. Much more definite is that a giant new project to drill for carbon dioxide is gathering steam on the park's eastern flank. Miles of green pipe snake along the roadways, as trucks ply the dirt roads from a big gas compressor station. About 80 percent of the monument's 164,000 acres is leased for energy development. The consequences of energy exploration for wildlife and air quality have long been contentious in unspoiled corners of the West. But now with the urgent push for even...
Longer Perspectives
Military Advantage in History
	08/06/2008 4:16:07 PM PDT · Posted by gandalftb · 17 replies · 507+ views Mother Jones | July, 2002, Declassified August, 2008 | Office/Sec./Defense/Net Assessment This paper examines the nature of military advantage by exploring the character of major hegemonic powers in history and seeks to gain a better understanding of what drives US military advantage; where US vulnerabilities may lie; and how the US should think about maintaining its military advantage in the future.Case studies of Macedonia under Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, the Mongols, and Napoleonic France compose the core of the analysis as they illustrate important themes that remain relevant to the US' position today.The case studies focus on two key questions:What were the sources of military advantage in history?What made military...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Top secret E German bunker open for short time (Huge underground facility; photos and video avail.)
	08/04/2008 1:21:27 PM PDT · Posted by Stoat · 35 replies · 1,083+ views Euronews / various others | August 1, 2008 Holidaymakers feeling nostalgic for the Cold War can now tour what was once a top secret bunker in the former East Germany. Opened to the public for the first time on Friday, it was meant to house the ruling Communist elite in the event of a nuclear attack.Something some visitors said they were relieved was no longer a concern:"What goes through my mind is that it is quite nice to stand around here, look at the bunker and talk to each other peacefully," one man said.Close to the size of a football field, the bunker was designed to function...
World War Eleven
Sea unearths secret Nazi bunkers that lay hidden for more than 50 years
	08/04/2008 4:48:22 AM PDT · Posted by Stoat · 40 replies · 1,930+ views The Daily Mail (U.K.) | August 3, 2008 Three Nazi bunkers on a beach have been uncovered by violent storms off the Danish coast, providing a store of material for history buffs and military archaeologists. The bunkers were found in practically the same condition as they were on the day the last Nazi soldiers left them, down to the tobacco in one trooper"s pipe and a half-finished bottle of schnapps. (edit) They were located by two nine-year-old boys on holiday with their parents, who then informed the authorities. Archaeologists were able to carefully force a way, and were astounded at what they found.'What's so fantastic is...
Revealed: The astonishing D-Day tanks found at the bottom of the English Channel
	08/06/2008 6:36:41 AM PDT · Posted by DemonDeac · 71 replies · 2,644+ views Daily Mail | 05th August 2008 | DEBRA KILLALEA "Scuba divers searching for hidden treasures at the bottom of the English Channel got more than they bargained for when they stumbled across two massive army tanks on the ocean floor." "Divers found the massive vehicles were relatively well preserved with guns still intact even after more than 64 years under sea. And by painstakingly checking minute details on the sunken vehicles against historical records, investigators managed to identify them as rare British Centaur CS IV tanks. The historic weapons were destined for battle during the D-Day landings but never arrived. Historians discovered the tanks fell overboard when a landing...
Sunken D-Day tanks found
	08/06/2008 8:14:43 AM PDT · Posted by cups · 7 replies · 1,085+ views Revealed | Debra Killalea Scuba divers searching for hidden treasures at the bottom of the English Channel got more than they bargained for when they stumbled across two massive army tanks on the ocean floor. The divers, who were eight miles of the West Sussex Coast, were left baffled as to how the Second World War tanks came to be at the bottom of the Channel. But the mystery was soon solved after a lengthy investigation involving more than 80 dives at the site which is 65ft under water. (has pictures)
Climate
Climate Cycles in China as Revealed by a Stalagmite from Buddha Cave(Journal Review)
	07/08/2003 3:48:19 PM PDT · Posted by PeaceBeWithYou · 58 replies · 971+ views CO2 Science Magazine | July 08, 2003 | Staff Reference Paulsen, D.E., Li, H.-C. and Ku, T.-L. 2003. Climate variability in central China over the last 1270 years revealed by high-resolution stalagmite records. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 691-701. What was done In the words of the authors, "high-resolution records of 13C and 18O in stalagmite SF-1 from Buddha Cave [33°40'N, 109°05'E] are used to infer changes in climate in central China for the last 1270 years in terms of warmer, colder, wetter and drier conditions." What was learned Among the climatic episodes evident in the authors' data were "those corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and...
Age of Sail
Lord Nelson and Captain Cook's shiplogs question climate change theories
	08/04/2008 3:18:54 AM PDT · Posted by Cincinatus · 47 replies · 2,094+ views Daily Telegraph (UK) | August 4, 2008 | Tom Peterkin The ships' logs of great maritime figures such as Lord Nelson and Captain Cook have cast new light on climate change by suggesting that global warming may not be an entirely man-made phenomenon. Scientists have uncovered a treasure trove of meteorological information contained in the detailed logs kept by those on board the vessels that established Britain's great seafaring traditition including those on Nelsons' Victory and Cook's Endeavour.
Ice Age
Last Ice Age happened in less than year say scientists
	08/02/2008 2:28:28 PM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 74 replies · 1,305+ views The Scotsman | 8-02-08 | angus howarth THE last ice age 13,000 years ago took hold in just one year, more than ten times quicker than previously believed, scientists have warned. Rather than a gradual cooling over a decade, the ice age plunged Europe into the deep freeze, German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam said. Cold, stormy conditions caused by an abrupt shift in atmospheric circulation froze the continent almost instantly during the Younger Dryas less than 13,000 years ago -- a very recent period on a geological scale. The new findings will add to fears of a serious risk of this happening again in the...
Arctic
Undersea 'Black Smokers' Found Off Arctic
	08/04/2008 5:58:31 PM PDT · Posted by krb · 32 replies · 960+ views Discovery | August 4, 2008 | AFP Jets of searingly hot water spewing up from the ocean floor have been discovered in a far-northern zone of the Arctic Ocean, Swiss-based scientists announced Monday. The so-called "black smokers" were found 73 degrees north, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway, in the coldest waters yet for a phenomenon first observed around the Galagapos islands in 1977.The earth's plumbing system of hydrothermal vents contain their own, unique ecosystems given the absence of sunlight at depths, in this case, of 7,874 feet, with vinegar-like water attaining temperatures of up to 752 degrees Fahrenheit. A team from...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Ancient Vegetation, Insect Fossils Found in Antarctica
	08/05/2008 9:56:54 AM PDT · Posted by Scythian · 45 replies · 939+ views Fox News Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia -- cold but able to support life, researchers report. The moss was essentially freeze dried, he said. Unlike fossils, where minerals replace soft materials, the moss tissues were still there, he said. "The really cool thing is that all the details are still there," even though the plant has been dead for 14 million years. "These are actually the plant tissues themselves." ==================================================== And they redicule me for believing in the bible ... 14 million years, ya right
Moderate Islam
The Rush to Save Timbuktu's Crumbling Manuscripts
	08/03/2008 11:38:38 PM PDT · Posted by FreedomCalls · 28 replies · 643+ views Der Spiegel | 08/01/2008 | Matthias Schulz and Anwen Roberts Fabled Timbuktu, once the site of the world's southernmost Islamic university, harbors thousands upon thousands of long-forgotten manuscripts. A dozen academic instutions from around the world are now working frantically to save and evaluate the crumbling documents. Bundles of paper covered with ancient Arabic letters lie on tables and dusty leather stools. In the sweltering heat, a man wearing blue Muslim robes flips through a worn folio, while others are busy repairing yellowed pages. An astonishing project is underway in Timbuktu, Mali, one of the world's poorest countries. On the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, experts are opening an...
Libraries in the sand reveal Africa's academic past
	11/12/2006 7:03:58 AM PST · Posted by Valin · 29 replies · 867+ views Reuters | 11/10/06 | Nick Tattersall Researchers in Timbuktu are fighting to preserve tens of thousands of ancient texts which they say prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance. Private and public libraries in the fabled Saharan town in Mali have already collected 150,000 brittle manuscripts, some of them from the 13th century, and local historians believe many more lie buried under the sand. The texts were stashed under mud homes and in desert caves by proud Malian families whose successive generations feared they would be stolen by Moroccan invaders, European explorers and then French...
Faith and Philosophy
322nd Anniversary of "The Battle of Vienna" (Polish king saves Europe from Islam)
	09/12/2005 5:06:39 PM PDT · Posted by bummerdude · 180 replies · 6,029+ views http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/EastEurope/ViennaSiege.html One of the most important battles of the 17th century was the Battle of Vienna, which was fought on September 12, 1683... This victory freed Europe from the Ottoman Turks and their invasions and secured Christianity as the main religion in all of Europe.
The Real History of the Crusades
	05/10/2005 7:20:05 AM PDT · Posted by robowombat · 59 replies · 4,639+ views Christianity Today | Week of May 2, 2005 | Thomas F. Madden Christianity Today, Week of May 2 The Real History of the Crusades A series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics? Think again. by Thomas F. Madden | posted 05/06/2005 09:00 a.m. With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will read. Imagine, then, my surprise...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Bones mystery [ near Lough Fea in Ireland ]
	08/04/2008 11:22:30 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 286+ views Mid Ulster Mail | Thursday, July 31, 2008 | Staff reporter Cremated bones thought to date from around 3,500BC to 2,000BC have been unearthed by archaeologists during a dig near Lough Fea. A team of four archaeologists came across a mound of stones, known as a cairn which often points to a burial site, at the Creagh Concrete plant near Blackwater Bridge. The find was unearthed when workers from Creagh Concrete were extracting gravel earlier this week. An archaeologist is always present on site when work of this nature is being carried out. Following excavation of the site, the archaeologists discovered two small cist burials, one octagonal in shape, around 45...
Scotland Yet
Ancient palace found in dig on hill[UK]
	08/02/2008 7:28:38 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 6 replies · 576+ views The Press and Journal | 02 Aug 2008 | Alistair Beaton Archaeologists uncover Aberdeenshire's hidden history on slopes of Bennachie Archaeologists have uncovered ancient traces, from tiny bead ornaments to massive walls, of a forgotten prince's palace on the slopes of Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. Only yards from a busy car park used by walkers visiting the landmark hill, a 15-strong team rediscovered remains of Maiden Castle just below the surface of a wooded hillside mound. A stone's throw from the Rowantree car park, near Pitcaple, and also close to one of the most important Pictish carved monuments in the country, the two-week dig confirmed the importance of the 2,000-year-old fort area....
Britain
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Dig reveals The Theatre - Shakespeare's first playhouse
	08/05/2008 10:16:09 PM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 5 replies · 436+ views The Times | 8/6/2008 | Fiona Hamilton Every year hundreds of thousands of visitors make their way to Stratford-upon-Avon and the Globe Theatre, on the Thames, to explore Shakespeare's intriguing past. Not surprisingly, an unremarkable plot of land on New Inn Broadway, just north of London's medieval City wall, does not rate a mention on the Shakespeare tourist trail, since before now only the most fervent history buffs were aware of the site's significance in the playwright's life. However, that history can be laid bare after an archaeological dig at the Shoreditch site uncovered the remains of The Theatre - one of the capital's first playhouses -- ...
Sex in the City
Are Couch Potatoes More Creative?
	05/10/2005 6:18:02 PM PDT · Posted by kingattax · 16 replies · 1,217+ views ABC Science Online | May 10, 2005 | Judy Skatssoon We're smarter and more creative lying down than standing up, says a researcher who believes this helps to explain Archimedes' eureka moment. Darren Lipnicki from the school of psychology at the Australian National University (ANU) found that people solve anagrams more quickly when they are on their backs than on their feet. He said his research, which will be published in the journal Cognitive Brain Research, relates to how neurotransmitters are released. Lipnicki tested 20 people, who were asked to solve 32 five-letter anagrams, such as 'osien' and 'nodru' while standing and lying down. "I found anagrams were solved more...
end of digest #212 20080809

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #212 20080809 · Saturday, August 9, 2008 · 41 topics · 2058700 to 2055288 · 675 members ·
	Saturday Aug 09 2008 v 5 n 2 view this issue	Welcome to the 212th issue. I'm pretty sure I don't know how to count anymore, as 208 should have been the last of volume 4, and 209 the first of volume 5. I'd often wondered what a handbasket looks like, and I just found a YouTube video of my brain in one. And it was going places. I guess my brain is again one step ahead of me. Apparently, at some point(s) or other(s) in the history of the GGG ('the history of the GGG', interesting idea) I forgot to advance the issue number. Or somethin'. Or perhaps there's really nothing wrong. The super humungous plan was to alter the layout a bit in year five, but I've not done it yet. The FR software is in a never-ending evolution to cooler / faster / more and better / etc, and that should be enough for me and anyone else. What I plan to do is make the big digest message look like this ping message (and of course, both to look suspiciously like the faux-blog on my profile page). Due to the suspensions / firings that happened last week, I'll have to work seven straight days. And that assumes I don't have to wind up working on Monday, my next day off. I appreciate the overtime, but I really need a new job. I could find a part time job that pays twice as much (uh, I'm pretty sure, trust me) and work 3/4 as much, using the extra to pay for my own health insurance. Now there's a product I should be selling... Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #213 Saturday, August 16, 2008
Navigation
Ancient Mediterranean craft traditions to lead to new computing paradigm
	08/09/2008 7:10:35 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 296+ views AlphaGalileo | Monday, August 4, 2008 | University of Leicester 'Tracing Networks' combines archaeology, archaeological science and computer science to investigate networks across and beyond the Mediterranean region, encompassing Greek, Punic and other peoples, from the late bronze age through classical times (c.1500-c.200 BCE). The research focuses on crafts-people, asking how and why traditions, techniques and technologies changed and crossed cultural boundaries. The period under investigation saw major developments, including the emergence of states, involving new ways of organising production and consumption. Professor Foxhall commented: "We look at objects ranging from cooking wares and coins to wall paintings and loom weights. We trace the links between the people who made,...
Anatolia
Stone Age skeletons uncovered during tube tunnel excavations
	08/11/2008 3:04:01 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 16 replies · 340+ views Turkish Daily News | August 11, 2008 | Mustafa Kınalı Human skeletons, which experts say could be more than 8,000 years old, were found in four prehistoric graves recently unearthed at the Marmaray tunnel excavation site in the Yenikapi district of Istanbul. These graves reveal Istanbul used to be home to some of the earliest types of settlements during the Stone Age when people migrated from Anatolia to the European continent", said Mehmet Ozdocan, professor of prehistory at Istanbul University. "They also show that the Marmara Sea used to be a small and shallow water in ancient times. Ozdocan said the graves, two of which were smaller than the others,...
Paleontology
Reading Archaean Biosignatures
	08/11/2008 1:23:03 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 139+ views SpaceDaily | July 29, 2008 | Astrobiology Using a new instrument that can locate elements on the nanometer scale, NASA scientists are exploring tiny bits of organic matter that could be the oldest traces of terrestrial life. Possible "biosignatures" have been found in rocks dating back 3.3 to 3.5 billion years, long after deformation by heat and pressure would have obliterated any whole-cell fossils these rocks may once have contained. These biosignatures would be embodied in suggestive concentrations of elements, like carbon and nitrogen, that are associated with life, and in the ratios of specific isotopes... NanoSIMS is a fine-scale elaboration on SIMS, also called an "ion...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Human Evolution: Tale of the Y
	08/10/2008 4:21:37 AM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 58 replies · 698+ views newsweek | 8/8/08 | Sharon Begley Nothing against fossils, but when it comes to tracing the story of human evolution they're taking a back seat lately to everything from DNA to lice, and even the DNA of lice. A few years ago scientists compared the DNA of body lice (which are misnamed: they live in clothing, not the human body) to that of head lice, from which they evolved, and concluded that the younger lineage split off from the older no more than 114,000 years ago, as I described in a cover story last year. Since body lice probably arose when a new habitat did, and...
Prehistory and Origins
Long-lost cousins
	08/12/2008 6:19:02 AM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 14 replies · 323+ views The Guardian | Adam Rutherford At Nature, we often find that our most read, downloaded or listened to studies are those about our more ancient relatives, whether it's the hobbit of Flores or the oldest human ancestor, Toumai. Last week, a paper in the journal Cell uncovered the first completed sequence of the Neanderthal genome, and some fascinating insights into our evolutionary cousins. Expect more revelations from this project very soon. The demise of the Neanderthals is one of the great mysteries about the origin of our species. They were on a side branch in the human tree, co-existing with our direct ancestors for maybe...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
How the First Farmers Colonized the Mediterranean
	08/15/2008 11:05:45 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies · 261+ views New York Times | August 11, 2008 | Nicholas Wade The invention of agriculture was a pivotal event in human history, but archaeologists studying its origins may have made a simple error in dating the domestication of animals like sheep and goats. The signal of the process, they believed, was the first appearance in the archaeological record of smaller boned animals. But in fact this reflects just a switch to culling females, which are smaller than males, concludes Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution. Using a different criterion, that of when herds first show signs of human management, Dr. Zeder finds that goats and sheep were first domesticated...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Cooking Stimulated Big Leap In Human Cognition
	08/12/2008 4:23:21 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 56 replies · 605+ views Slashdot | August 12, @06:09PM | Hugh Pickens "For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make 'the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,' says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years.
Doomed to Repeat
Gene Variant May Be Responsible For Human Learning
	05/12/2007 4:36:10 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 438+ views New Scientist | 5-12-2007 Humans have a unique variant of a gene linked with learning and memory. This may help explain how we rapidly cut loose in intellect and language from our closest relatives. The gene, KLK8, makes the protein neuropsin II, which in mice is vital for memory and learning. Bing Su and his colleagues at the Kunming Institute of Zoology in China had earlier demonstrated that neuropsin II is made by humans but not by lesser apes and old-world monkeys. Now they have shown that orang-utans and...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Yellowstone supervolcano is only lukewarm
	08/11/2008 9:30:34 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 44 replies · 785+ views New Scientist | August 8, 2008 | Catherine Brahic How hot is the Yellowstone hotspot? At 80 kilometres beneath the Earth's surface it's about 1450°C, say researchers -- which, for a supervolcano, is only lukewarm. That doesn't mean we won't get another eruption. The last explosion, some 642,000 years ago, created the Yellowstone caldera and blanketed half of the present day US in ash. But Derek Schutt of Colorado State University believes the relatively tepid temperature means the supervolcano could be on its last legs... The team determined that the temperature at [80 km depth] was likely to be between 50°C and 200°C hotter than the...
Australia and the Pacific
Prehistoric giant animals killed by man, not climate: study (Tasmania)
	08/12/2008 4:53:23 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 36 replies · 614+ views AFP | Aug 12, 2008 | Madeleine Coorey The chance discovery of the remains of a prehistoric giant kangaroo has cast doubts on the long-held view that climate change drove it and other mega-fauna to extinction, a new study reveals. He said that it was likely that hunting killed off Tasmania's mega-fauna -- including the long-muzzled, 120 kilogram (264 pound) giant kangaroo, a rhinoceros-sized wombat and marsupial 'lions' which resembled leopards. The finding of the latest study has already been contested, with Judith Field of the University of Sydney saying the idea that humans killed the giant creatures was "in the...
Africa
Prehistoric mom and dad (Iberomaurusian child care)
	08/11/2008 3:29:12 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 15 replies · 363+ views iafrica.com | Aug 6, 2008 | Unknown Contrary to popular belief, the people who roamed north Africa in prehistoric times cared deeply for their children, recent discoveries by a team of Moroccan and British archaeologists show. "For years these people have wrongly been thought of as individuals whose only wish was to eat, reproduce, and protect themselves from the elements and predators," said Abdeljalil Bouzouggar of Morocco's Institute of Archaeology and Heritage. "Now we discover that 12000 years ago they granted their babies the same rights as adults." Bouzouggar jointly led a team that excavated a cave at Taforalt in eastern Morocco earlier this year along with...
Climate
US scientists find stone age burial ground in Sahara
	08/14/2008 12:40:47 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 20 replies · 430+ views AFP | Aug 14, 2008 | Jean-Louis Santini A US-led team of archaeologists said Thursday they had discovered by chance what is believed to be the largest find of Stone Age-era remains ever uncovered in the Sahara Desert. Named Gobero, the site includes remarkably intact human remains as well as the skeletons of fish and crocodiles dating back some 10,000 years to a time when what is now the world's largest desert was a swampy wetland.
Graves Found From Sahara's Green Period
	08/15/2008 1:06:10 AM PDT · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · 20 replies · 779+ views NYT | 08/15/08 | John Noble Wilford When Paul C. Sereno went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green. The first traces of pottery, stone tools and human skeletons were discovered eight years ago at a site in the southern Sahara, in Niger. After preliminary research, Dr. Sereno, a University of Chicago scientist who had previously uncovered remains of the dinosaur Nigersaurus there,...
Greece
'Virtual archaeologist' reconnects fragments of an ancient civilization [ Thera ]
	08/15/2008 10:39:26 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 213+ views Eurekalert | Friday, August 15, 2008 | Chandra Shekhar Laser Rangefinder: A team of Princeton computer scientists has developed an automated system for reconstructing an excavated fresco, mosaic or similar archaeological object. Collaborating closely with archaeologists in Greece, the team has created a system that employs a combination of powerful computer algorithms and a processing system mirroring the procedures traditionally followed at excavation sites. Here, a fragment is placed on a turntable and a laser rangefinder measures its visible surface from various viewpoints. Credit: Frank WojciechowskiExamining Fresco Fragments In Santorini: Tim Weyrich, a postdoctoral teaching fellow in computer science at Princeton, examines fresco fragments in Santorini. Weyrich is...
Epigraphy and Language
In search of Western civilisation's lost classics
	08/11/2008 1:45:29 PM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 31 replies · 598+ views The Australian | 8/6/08 | Luke Slattery The unique library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, buried beneath lava by Vesuvius's eruption in AD79, is slowly revealing its long-held secrets -- Stored in a sky-lit reading room on the top floor of the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples are the charred remains of the only library to survive from classical antiquity. The ancient world's other great book collections -- at Athens, Alexandria and Rome -- all perished in the chaos of the centuries. But the library of the Villa of the Papyri was conserved, paradoxically, by an act of destruction. Lying to the northwest of ancient Herculaneum, this...
Ancient Autopsies
Three 9,000-Year-Old Skulls Found in Galilee
	08/15/2008 11:10:38 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 348+ views Israel National News | Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu Archaeologists have discovered three 9,000-year-old skulls at the Yiftah'el dig in the Lower Galilee, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday. Experts said the placement of the skulls confirms the worship of ancestors from during that time, practiced by displaying skulls inside houses. The skulls were apparently placed on benches in a house where they would inspire the younger generation to continue in the ways of their forefathers. A similar custom was also identified in Syria, Turkey and Jordan. The skulls are 8,000-9,000 years old and were buried in a pit adjacent to an excavated large public building. They were discovered...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Hebrew U. archaeological excavations uncover Roman temple in Zippori (Sepphoris)
	08/11/2008 11:11:31 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 5 replies · 207+ views The Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Aug 11, 2008 | Unknown Findings show signs of mixed city of Jews, pagans and ChristiansRuins of a Roman temple from the second century CE have recently been unearthed in the Zippori National Park in Israel. Above the temple are foundations of a church from the Byzantine period. The excavations, which were undertaken by the Noam Shudofsky Zippori Expedition led by of Prof. Zeev Weiss of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shed light on the multi-cultural society of ancient Zippori. The discovery indicated that Zippori, the Jewish capital of the Galilee during the Roman period, had a significant pagan population...
Moderate Islam
Egyptian Gov. Publication: Questioning the Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam (MEMRI)
	10/03/2003 11:56:15 PM PDT · Posted by AdmSmith · 6 replies · 350+ views MEMRI Special Dispatch - Egypt No. 583 | October 3, 2003 | Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa Egyptian Ministry of Culture Publication: The Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock were Built to Divert the Pilgrimage from Mecca; Jerusalem was Not the Center of Worship for the Followers of the Prophet Muhammad -- On August 5, 2003 Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al- Qahira, which is published by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, wrote an article rejecting the established Islamic doctrine that the Prophet Muhammad's celebrated "Night Journey" (Koran 17:1) took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. 'Arafa, presenting a new analysis of the Koranic text, asserts that the Night Journey in Surat Al-Isra' (that...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
The Secret Of Maya Green
	08/10/2008 11:41:54 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 335+ views Times Online | Norman Hammond A pigment unknown to art historians has been identified on ancient Maya artefacts from Mexico. The blue-green colour of veszelyite seems to have been chosen to blend in with and even imitate jade, the most precious substance used by the Maya... Tomb 4 was identified as that of the ruler Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ak', "Smoking Jaguar Paw", who was born in AD649 and reigned from 686 to 695, when he was apparently defeated by Jasaw Chan K'awiil I of Tikal, Calakmul's rival to the south. Whether Yuknoom was killed in this battle or died sublater is not known but he was...
Cave Art
Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found
	08/15/2008 5:57:23 AM PDT · Posted by stockpirate · 19 replies · 949+ views MSNBC via Reuters | Aug. 14, 2008 | Miguel Angel Gutierrez Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
German scientists dig for their own Stonehenge
	08/10/2008 9:27:01 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 217+ views Reuters | Wednesday, August 6, 2008 | Madeline Chambers Archaeologists have discovered traces of a Bronze Age place of worship in Germany in what they say might be the country's answer to Stonehenge. Scientists from a university in Halle are excavating a roughly 4,000 year-old circular site in eastern Germany which contains graves that bear a strong resemblance to Stonehenge, a prehistoric stone circle of towering megaliths in southern Britain. "It is the first finding of this kind on the European mainland which we have been able to fully excavate and which shows a structure we have until now only seen in Britain," Andre Spatzier, head of the excavation...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Treasure hunter finds £25,000 gold cross with metal detector
	08/09/2008 10:42:09 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 16 replies · 606+ views Telegraph | Wednesday, August 6, 2008 | unattributed A treasure hunter using a metal detector has discovered a pure gold cross dating from the 7th century - and worth at least £25,000. The Anglo Saxon artefact is set with red gemstones and might have originally held a relic such as bone from a Disciple or fragment of the Cross. Measuring just over an inch long, the 18 carat gold cross has been decorated with fine detail and is thought to have been worn as a pendant. It is English made with gold that was probably melted down from Merovingian French coins. Two of the red cabochon gemstones are...
Longer Perspectives
The Upright Ape
	05/02/2008 2:53:53 AM PDT · Posted by Ethan Clive Osgoode · 15 replies · 700+ views Amazon | July, 2007 | Aaron Filler The Upright Ape: A New Origin of the Species, Aaron Filler, 2007.Editorial review:Did apes evolve from humans? Sudden abrupt changes in which entirely new types of organisms come into existence almost instantaneously do not fit the model of Modern Evolutionary Theory and the Darwinian model. In this remarkable 288 page book written by Harvard trained evolutionary biologist Aaron Filler, MD, Ph.D.--a student of Stephen Jay Gould and Ernst Mayr--we learn how modern biological evidence finally proves that sudden non-Darwinian evolution has played a major role in a number of major events in the history of life including the origin of...
Theorist: Darwin Had it Wrong
	04/22/2004 8:46:34 AM PDT · Posted by Michael_Michaelangelo · 194 replies · 428+ views Star News Online | 4-17-04 | Daniel Conover S.C. professor says life forms arose without common origin -- In the beginning, it was just the proteins. The way biochemist Christian Schwabe saw it, Darwinian evolution should have given closely related animals similar sets of proteins. It was a simple idea, just a way to prove the cellular legacy of millions of years of common ancestry. Only it didn't work. The mismatched proteins were just a stray thread in the grand tapestry of life, yet the flaw gnawed at the back of the professor's...
Faith and Philosophy
Syrian monastery gives visitors taste of ancient spiritual life [Ecumenical]
	08/14/2008 1:42:51 PM PDT · Posted by NYer · 7 replies · 179+ views CNS | August 14, 2008 | Brooke Anderson A sixth-century monastery in the desert of western Syria is giving today's visitors the experience of ancient spiritual life. Named after St. Moses, an Ethiopian monk, the Mar Musa monastery is about 20 miles from the nearest town, Al-Nebek. The monastery and its church are staffed with Catholic and Orthodox nuns and priests, and the compound has become a center for Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue. With its vegetable garden and goat herd, the desert monastery is a model of sustainability. "I felt like I had a calling to come here, and I felt at home in Mar...
Oh So Mysteriouso
An Open Letter to Journalists (About the Shroud of Turin and the failures in reporting facts)
	08/09/2008 1:52:58 AM PDT · Posted by Swordmaker · 118 replies · 1,060+ views Shroud Story | Daniel R. Porter (Freeper Shroudie) A few weeks before he died in 1963, Washington Post publisher Philip Leslie Graham described journalism as the "first rough draft of history." Here is what he said: So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never really be completed about a world we can never really understand. It is a wonderful quote. Journalists love it for it justifiably elevates the significance of what they do. But there is an admonition in the last dozen words that should not be overlooked. All of us can...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Bigfoot Body: "Georgia Gorilla" Will Shock The World
	08/12/2008 5:26:11 PM PDT · Posted by Perdogg · 105 replies · 6,260+ views Cryptomundo | 08.12.08 I have just talked with Robert Barrows, R.M. Barrows, Inc., Advertising & Public Relations, Burlingame, California, who informed me the following release has been distributed to news agencies worldwide. It is now in the hands of the media at large, and they will be going with this story. The embargo on the news is lifted. Therefore, here it is for Cryptomundo readers.
Underwater Archaeology
Devastation of Pearl Harbour revenge attacks revealed in BBC project 2,000 feet below Pacific
	08/10/2008 5:54:54 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 51 replies · 1,555+ views Mail Online | Aug 10, 2008 | Daily Mail Reporter Hollywood duo Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck portrayed the American desire to avenge the infamous Pearl Harbour bombings playing two US pilots in Michael Bay's hit 2001 epic. But, the true devastation of the revenge attacks on Japanese forces in 1944 has been captured in one of the most ambitious underwater projects ever undertaken. Operation Hailstorm was two years in the making - but on February 17, 1944, American forces blitzed the Chuuk Islands, in the south western region of the Pacific Ocean, sinking 70 Japanese ships, 270 aircraft and killing close to 3,000 people - though the official death...
World War Eleven
This day in History: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki (Happy Nagasaki Day!)
	08/09/2008 3:50:28 AM PDT · Posted by abb · 120 replies · 1,571+ views History Channel | August 9, 2008 | Staff On this day in 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender. The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called "Bock's Car," after its...
Toejam and his Treason
Diary shows Tojo resisted surrender till end
	08/12/2008 4:42:04 PM PDT · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 81 replies · 1,459+ views Associated Press | August 12, 2008 | MARI YAMAGUCHI Japanese World War II leader Hideki Tojo wanted to keep fighting even after U.S. atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accusing surrender proponents of being "frightened," a newly released diary reveals. Excerpts from the approximately 20 pages written by Tojo in the final days of the war and held by the National Archives of Japan were published for the first time in several newspapers Tuesday. "The notes show Tojo kept his died-in-the-wool militarist mentality until the very end," said Kazufumi Takayama, the archives curator, who confirmed the accuracy of the published excerpts. "They are extremely valuable."
Swastika a Butt Pucker?
Nazi Archives Finally Made Public
	12/08/2007 8:52:02 AM PST · Posted by america4vr · 69 replies · 343+ views CNN | November 28, 2007 | Associated Press After more than 60 years, Nazi documents stored in a vast warehouse in Germany were unsealed Wednesday, opening a rich resource for Holocaust historians and for survivors to delve into their own tormented past. The archive's index refers to 17.5 million people in its 16 linear miles of files. The treasure of documents could open new avenues of study into the inner workings of Nazi persecution from the exploitation of slave labor to the conduct of medical experiments. The archive's managers planned a conference of scholars next year to map out its unexplored contents. The files entrusted to the International...
Pages
Russian revisionism: Holocaust denial and the new nationalist historiography (book review)
	08/15/2008 4:18:51 PM PDT · Posted by mnehrling · 7 replies · 116+ views Intenta Connect Abstract: Holocaust denial has appeared in Russia only recently and has attracted almost no attention in the academic sphere, and relatively little from monitoring organizations. The research for this article - examining the place of Holocaust denial in contemporary Russia - was conducted over three months in Russia and on the Internet. The results indicate that the phenomenon remains of marginal significance and that the majority of material is of western origin. While there are several factors that make the development of Holocaust denial probable - the comparatively high level of antisemitism in Russia, post-Soviet suspicion of historiography and lack...
Early America
Legendary gold stays shrouded in mystery(Lost Dutchman Treasure)
	07/27/2006 8:27:56 PM PDT · Posted by Marius3188 · 17 replies · 1,242+ views East Valley Tribune | 27 July 2006 | Art Martori Mike Johnson slumped his big frame onto a rock formation in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains, pulled off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his long, sweaty hair. "Wicked," he said in a thick New England accent. Johnson and his companions took a breather Monday morning, exhausted from the 95-degree heat and the hike up the looming fortress of stone. After a few minutes, he dug a battered walking stick into the dirt and continued the ascent. The hikers intended to press deep into the mountains in search of a fortune some say is only legend: The...
Civil War
Last widow of Civil War Vet dies
	05/31/2004 1:03:21 PM PDT · Posted by WinOne4TheGipper · 96 replies · 1,806+ views AP via Guardian (UK) | 5/31/04 | Philip Rawls Alberta Martin, the last widow of a Civil War veteran, died on Memorial Day, ending an unlikely ascent from sharecropper's daughter to the belle of 21st century Confederate history buffs who paraded her across the South. She was 97. Martin died at a nursing home in Enterprise of complications from a heart attack she suffered May 7, said her caretaker, Dr. Kenneth Chancey. She died nearly 140 years after the Civil War ended. Her May-December marriage in the 1920s to Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
100 Years Ago Today - December 17, 1903 - The Day Man First Flew
	12/16/2003 9:05:45 PM PST · Posted by SamAdams76 · 6 replies · 213+ views State Library of North Carolina Thursday, December 17 dawned, and was to go down in history as a day when a great engineering feat was accomplished. It was a cold day with winds of 22 to 27 miles an hour blowing from the north. Puddles of water near the camp were covered with ice. The Wrights waited indoors, hoping the winds would diminish. But they continued brisk, and at 10 in the morning the brothers decided to attempt a flight, fully realizing the difficulties and dangers of flying a relatively untried machine in so high a...
end of digest #213 20080816

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #213 20080816 · Saturday, August 16, 2008 · 35 topics · 2010127 to 1832642 · 676 members ·
	Saturday Aug 16 2008 v 5 n 3 view this issue	Welcome to the 213th issue. I'm going to adjust the v/n count of issues to get it aligned to what it should be. Or then again, maybe not, I'm fickle. Check out this quote from Rurudyne: 'Those who have rewritten the past are doomed to actually forget it.' I need a new job. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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