Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #195
Saturday, April 12, 2008
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Epigraphy and Language
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Lost in Translation (Chinese and English speaking dyslexics have differences in brain anatomy.)
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ScienceNOW Daily News | 8 April 2008 | Constance Holden
All dyslexics are not alike. According to new research, Chinese- and English-speaking people with the disorder have impairments in different regions of their brains. The findings shed light on the neurological basis of dyslexia and reveal fundamental differences in how brains process the two languages. Dyslexics, about 5% to 10% of the population in both the United States and China, have trouble making the connection between the sight and sound of a word. In English, this results in word distortions or transpositions of letters. "Dyslexia," for example, might be read as "Lysdexia." In Chinese, the problem can affect how a...
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Ancient Autopsies
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Skull Returns To Final Rest Place
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BBC | 4-11-2008
The skull is believed to be that of a woman in her 50s A rare 2,000-year-old Roman skull has been returned to the cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales where it was discovered by divers in 1996. Archaeologists were called in after cave divers unearthed human bones in what is believed to be one of the most important cave discoveries ever made. The skull dates to the 2nd Century and is that of a local woman in her 50s. It was stored at Sheffield University for carbon-dating and recently returned to the cave, which has...
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British Isles
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Bejeweled Anglo-Saxon Burial Suggests Cult
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Discovery News | 4-11-2--8 | Jennifer Viegas
In seventh century England, a woman's jewelry-draped body was laid out on a specially constructed bed and buried in a grave that formed the center of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, according to British archaeologists who recently excavated the site in Yorkshire. Her jewelry, which included a large shield-shaped pendant, the layout and location of the cemetery as well as excavated weaponry, such as knives and a fine langseax (a single-edged Anglo-Saxon sword), lead the scientists to believe she might have been a member of royalty who led a...
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Roman Britain
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Roman soldier's gift found[UK]
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Manchester Evening News | 10 Apr 2008 | David Ottewell
HE was many miles from home - a Roman soldier posted to Manchester, perhaps feeling cold and lonely, longing for loved ones left behind. He was called Aelius Victor. And now after 2,000 years an altar he built to keep a promise to the goddesses he prayed to has been unearthed in the middle of the city. The altar - described by experts as being in 'fantastic' condition - was discovered during an archaeological dig at a site on Greater Jackson Street earmarked for development. Aelius Victor had dedicated it to two minor goddesses. A Latin inscription on the altar...
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Middle Ages and Renaissance
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"Tower Lions" May Help Resurrect Extinct African Breed?
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National Geographic News | 4-4-2008 | James Owen
An extinct breed of lion from North Africa was held at the Tower of London in medieval times, a new study shows. A pair of skulls unearthed from the tower's moat in the 1930s belonged to Barbary lions, a subspecies that has since died out in the wild. The discovery raises the possibility that descendants of Barbary lions may still survive in captivity, which could help efforts to resurrect the dark-maned breed, researchers say. The lions' North African roots were revealed by analysis of...
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Australia and the Pacific
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Ancient tools unearthed in Australia
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Associated Press | April 7, 2008 | TANALEE SMITH
Tools dating back at least 35,000 years have been unearthed in a rock shelter in Australia's remote northwest, making it one of the oldest archaeological finds in that part of the country, archaeologists said Monday. The tools include a piece of flint the size of a small cell phone and hundreds of tiny sharp stones that were used as knives. One local Aboriginal elder saw it as vindication of what his people have said all along -- that they have inhabited this land for tens of thousands of years. "I'm ecstatic, I'm over the moon, because it's...
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Navigation
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Russian-American Research Team Examines Origins Of Whaling Culture
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University Of Alaska - Fairbanks | 4-2-2008 | Kerynn Fisher
Un'en'en archaeological site on the Chutkotka Peninsula.(Photos by Sarah Meitl)Detail on the ivory carving excavated during the summer 2007 field season. Recent findings by a Russian-American research team suggest that prehistoric cultures were hunting whales at least 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than was previously known. University of Alaska Museum of the North archaeology curator Daniel Odess presented the team's findings at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia last week. "The importance of whaling in arctic prehistory is clear....
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India
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Artefacts Reveal Rich History Of Craftsmanship (Wari-Bateshwar, India)
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The Daily Star | 4-7-2008 | Emran Hossain
A few semi-precious stone beads with motifs found at the Wari-Bateshwar archaeological site recently. The findings indicate the spot was a rich trade centre. Photo: STAR Archaeological studies on semi-precious stone beads and other artefacts found in Wari-Bateshwar indicate people of this land have a rich history of craftsmanship as old as around 2,500 years. Plenty of semi-precious stone beads are found and unearthed from Wari-Bateshwar and some of those are even identical to the artefacts found in Southeast Asia and other parts in the Indian subcontinent. This suggests...
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Nubia / Kush
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In The Reign Of The Black Pharaohs
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Al-Ahram | 4-4-2008 | Mohamed El-Hebeishy
Which country has the largest collection of pyramids? Think again, for it is not Egypt, but Sudan. Join Mohamed El-Hebeishy as he visits north Sudan in search of answers The Northern Cemetery in Meroe, where more than 30 pyramids are in site Our great grandfathers called it Ta-Seti, Land of the Bow. They were referring to the area south of the First Cataract at Aswan, and the reason behind the name was the unparalleled skill its inhabitants demonstrated when using the bow as a method of arm. Those excellent bowmen were actually the Kushites....
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Egypt
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The Tassili n'Ajjer [Algeria] : birthplace of ancient Egypt ?
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Journal 3 | 04-05-08 | Phillip Coppens
The Tassili n'Ajjer of Southern Algiers is described as the "largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world". But could it also be the origins of the ancient Egypt culture ? In January 2003, I made enquiries to visit the Hoggar Mountains and the Tassili n'Ajjer, one of the most enchanting mountain ranges on this planet. The two geographically close but nevertheless quite separate landscapes are located in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria. I was told that if I could pack my bags immediately (literally), I could join the three weeks' trip. Unfortunately, I could not, but planned to...
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Panspermia
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Meteorites delivered the 'seeds' of Earth's left-hand life
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American Chemical Society | April 6, 2008 | Unknown
Flash back three or four billion years -- Earth is a hot, dry and lifeless place. All is still. Without warning, a meteor slams into the desert plains at over ten thousand miles per hour. With it, this violent collision may have planted the chemical seeds of life on Earth. Scientists presented evidence today that desert heat, a little water, and meteorite impacts may have been enough to cook up one of the first prerequisites for life: The dominance of "left-handed" amino acids, the building blocks of life on this planet. In a report at the...
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Helix, Make Mine a Double
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Ancient DNA: Reconstruction Of The Biological History Of Aldaieta Necropolis (Basque)
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Basque Research | 4-7-2008 | University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
A research team from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology & Animal Physiology in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and led by Ms Concepci√›n de la R˙a, has reconstructed the history of the evolution of human population and answered questions about history, using DNA extracted from skeleton remains. Knowing the history of past populations and answering unresolved questions about them is highly interesting, more so when the information is obtained from the extraction of genetic material from...
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Prehistory and Origins
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Scientists Find Fingerprint Of Evolution Across The Human Genome
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Physorg | 4-8-2008 | National Academy of Sciences
The Human Genome Project revealed that only a small fraction of the 3 billion "letter" DNA code actually instructs cells to manufacture proteins, the workhorses of most life processes. This has raised the question of what the remaining part of the human genome does. How much of the rest performs other biological functions, and how much is merely residue of prior genetic events? Scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the University of Chicago now report that one of the steps in turning genetic information into proteins leaves genetic...
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Longer Perspectives
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Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery[Anasazi]
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NY Times | 08 Apr 2008 | GEORGE JOHNSON
Perched on a lonesome bluff above the dusty San Pedro River, about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn't seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising. Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style. "Salado polychrome," says a visiting archaeologist turning over a shard of broken pottery. Reddish on...
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River Runs Through It
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Much Still To Be Learned About Cahokia Mounds
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Examiner | 4-6-2008 | Elizabeth Donald
It's so much a part of the landscape that metro-east residents often don't even notice it, except when a visiting relative notices: "Look, there's the mound." Rising from what once was an endless grass sea parted by the Mississippi River, Monks Mound isn't even named after the Native American Indians who built it centuries ago, but the Trappist monks who lived there for only five years in the 19th century. No one knows what the long-vanished people who built the mounds called themselves,...
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PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
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Earliest Mixtec Cremations Found: Show Elite Ate Dog
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National Geographic News | 4-9-2008 | Willie Drye
An ancient burial site in Mexico contains evidence that Mixtec Indians conducted funerary rituals involving cremation as far back as 3,000 years ago. The find represents the earliest known hints that Mixtecs used this burial practice, which was later reserved for Mixtec kings and Aztec emperors, according to researchers who excavated the site. Evidence from the site also suggests that a class of elite leaders emerged among the Mixtecs as early as 1100 B.C. In addition, the burials hold clues that dogs were an...
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Mayans
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"Cracking the Maya Code"
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Nova - PBS | PBS
When the Spanish conquered the Maya empire in the 16th century, they forced their new subjects to convert to Christianity and speak and write in Spanish. But long before the Maya used the Roman alphabet, they had created their own rich and elegant script, featuring more than 800 hieroglyphs. Sadly, the glyphs' meanings were lost in the decades following the Conquest. Ever since, scholars have struggled to decode these symbols, pronounce the words they form, and understand the stories they tell. In this time line, follow the centuries-long decipherment, which has only recently reached the point...
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Gene, Gene, the Genest Grass
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'Ruthlessness gene' discovered - Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.
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Nature News | 4 April 2008 | Michael Hopkin
Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators? Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak -- from national dictators down to 'little Hitlers' found in workplaces the world over. Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'. The exercise allows players...
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Upchuck Darwin
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Genes Trigger Phobias In Kids And Teens
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New Scientist | 4-7-2008 | Jim Giles
Our response to the things that scare us, from threatening men on dark streets to hairy spiders in the bath, is programmed to become active at different times in our lives, suggest two studies on the genetics of fear. Scientists already know that fears and phobias are shaped in part by genes. Identical twins, for example, are more likely to develop phobias for the same objects, such as snakes or rats, than non-identical twins. But less is known about when the genes involved act...
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Empty DNA
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Mitochondrial Mutations Make Tumors Spread
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ScienceNOW Daily News | 3 April 2008 | Jocelyn Kaiser
Cancer often strikes its final, fatal blow when a tumor spreads to other organs. A new study published online today in Science sheds light on this poorly understood process, called metastasis. The researchers report that mutations in mitochondrial DNA can spur metastasis and that it can be reversed with drugs, at least in mice. Mitochondria are the tiny organelles inherited from your mom that serve as the cell's powerhouses. They have their own DNA, called mtDNA. Ten years ago, cancer researchers noticed that mtDNA in tumor cells tends to be riddled with mutations--far more than in normal tissues. (This is...
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Epidemic, Pandemic, Plague, the Sniffles
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Plague Victims Discovered After 1500 Years (Justinian)
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Adnkronos | 4-10-2008
The remains of hundreds of victims, believed to have been killed in a plague that swept Italy 1500 years ago, have been found south of Rome. The bodies of men, women and children were found in Castro dei Volsci, in the region of Lazio, during excavations carried out by Lazio archaeological office. News of the extraordinary discovery was reported in the magazine, "Archeologia Viva". The victims are believed to have been victims of the Justinian Plague, a pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people around the...
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Africa
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Ethiopia: Dreamer helps unearth ancient church (Muslim guided by Blessed Mother)
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Africa News | October 17, 2007 | Tedla Desta
Almost a year ago, a buried church was unearthed in Ethiopia. The church has invaluable historical and cultural value. Striking is that the unearthing is initiated by a man with a dream, as Africanews reporter Tedla Desta found out. However, he had to persue his mission and walk from the upper to the lower official chest of drawers but to no avail until finally he went to journalists (the 4th estate). It was then that he realized that media has actually the power to bring about change. From this time onwards the ears and eyes of the executives, congregates and the...
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Let's Have Jerusalem
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Uncovering Ancient Jerusalem
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www.thetrumpet.com | 04/01/2008 | Stephen Flurry
While politicians draw up plans to divide Israel's capital city, archaeologists are busily digging up Jerusalem's celebrated past. Given the media exposure Jerusalem archaeology is beginning to receive, it is possible that this city's past could spark more than just archaeological fervor. In the Arab village of Silwan, archaeologists are hard at work excavating the original Jerusalem -- the City of David. An Associated Press story on February 10 outlined how Silwan is "hard-wired into the politics of modern-day Arab-Israeli strife" and that new digs are cutting to the heart of who owns the Holy City today. "Palestinians and Israelis are trying...
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Biology and Cryptobiology
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"Lyuba" Gives Scientists Glimpse Of Mammoth Insides
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Yahoo News | 4-10-2008 | Dmitry Solovyov
Reuters Photo: The carcass of the 4-month-old mammoth, known to researchers as Lyuba, is seen on an... MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian scientists say they have obtained the most detailed pictures so far of the insides of a prehistoric animal, with the help of a baby mammoth called Lyuba found immaculately preserved in the Russian Arctic. The mammoth is named after the wife of the hunter who found her last year. The body was shipped back to Russia in February from Japan, where it was studied...
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Paleontology
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Ancient serpent shows its leg (hindlimbed snake fossil)
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BBC | 04/10/08 | Jonathan Amos
What was lost tens of millions of years ago is now found.A fossil animal locked in Lebanese limestone has been shown to be an extremely precious discovery - a snake with two legs. Scientists have only a handful of specimens that illustrate the evolutionary narrative that goes from ancient lizard to limbless modern serpent. Researchers at the European Light Source (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, used intense X-rays to confirm that a creature imprinted on a rock, and with one visible leg, had another appendage buried just under...
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Catastrophism and Astronomy
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"Dino Killer" Asteroid Was Half the Size Predicted?
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National Geographic News | 4-10-2008 | Ker Than
The meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs might have been less than half the size of what previous models predicted. That's the finding of a new technique being developed to estimate the size of ancient impactors that left little or no remaining physical evidence of themselves after they collided with Earth. Scientists working on the technique used chemical signatures in seawater and ocean sediments to study the dino-killing impact that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. They...
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Climate
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Ancient Imbalances Sent Earth's Continents "Wandering"
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National Geographic News | Continents "Wandering"
A new study lends weight to the controversial theory that Earth became massively imbalanced in the distant past, sending its tectonic plates on a mad dash to even things out. Bernhard Steinberger and Trond Torsvik, of the Geological Survey of Norway, analyzed rock samples dating back 320 million years to hunt for clues in Earth's magnetic field about the history of plate motions. The researchers found evidence of a steady northward continental motion and, during certain time intervals, clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. That pattern matches the...
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Goring of Gore
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The temperature of the planet is dropping like a stone...(They should have checked with Al first)
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Spectator | 4/9/08 | Melanie Phillips
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASAGISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen...The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years.
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Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
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Rochdale's Stonehenge?
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Manchester Evening News | April 9, 2008 | Alice McKeegan and David Ottewell
Archaeologists have unearthed a "mini-Stonehenge"... on the moors of Rochdale. The two nearby sites - an oval made up of collapsed slabs, and a 30-metre circle of rounded stones - are believed to be ancient burial sites dating back as far as 5,000 years... The two sites have been visited by Peter Iles, a leading archaeological expert from Lancashire County Council. They have also been inspected by English Heritage and entered on the official Greater Manchester archaeology database. English Heritage described both as "fairly well preserved" and claim both are "possible of Bronze age date" - meaning they could date...
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Stonehenge
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'Breakthrough' At Stonehenge Dig
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BBC | 4-9-2008 | Rebecca Morelle
Professor Darvill explains what is happening at the Stonehenge dig Archaeologists carrying out an excavation at Stonehenge say they have broken through to a layer that may finally explain why the site was built. The team has reached sockets that once held bluestones - smaller stones, most now missing or uprooted, which formed the site's original structure. The researchers believe that the bluestones could reveal that Stonehenge was once a place of healing. The dig is the first to take place...
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Early America
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67 Bodies Secretly Exhumed From NM Grave
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AP via SFGate | 4/8/8 | MELANIE DABOVICH, Associated Press writer
Working in secret, federal archaeologists have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread grave-looting. The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67 skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig -- 39 men, two women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal archaeologists who helped with the dig. They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted. The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near the historic New Mexico fort...
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World War Eleven
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Franco 'Collaborated With Nazis' To Prove Canary Islands Were Home To Aryan Race
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The Telegraph (UK) | 4-11-2008 | Fiona Govan
Spanish archaeologists collaborated with the Nazis in their attempts to prove the theory of Aryan supremacy and justify their claims of racial superiority over the Jews, according to a new book. Spain wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis. Archaeologists appointed by Franco were asked to look into claims the Canary Islands were the remains...
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China
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Need recommendation for edition of "Art of War"
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self | April 07,2008 | self
I would like to buy my son a copy of The Art of War, but I've noticed that there are several editons, each with a different co-author. Would someone please recommened a particular edition/co-author? Thank you in advance.
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Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
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Sat nav drivers 'damaging ancient buildings'
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Telegraph.co.uk | 4-10-2008 | Aislinn Simpson
Britain's historic bridges, buildings and roads are under threat from drivers blithely following satellite navigation directions, a conservation society warned yesterday. Among those which have been damaged by traffic driving down unsuitable roads is a 200-year-old bridge in Oxfordshire, a 300-year-old cottage in Greater Manchester and Pevensey Castle in East Sussex, according to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Phillip Venning, the society's secretary, said the cost of repairing some of the damage to the buildings had run into thousands of pounds. "Blind reliance on satellite navigation is fast becoming a serious issue for old buildings as motorists...
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end of digest #195 20080412
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