[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #200 Saturday, May 17, 2008
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Al Goodyear And The Secrets Of Ancient Americans
	05/15/2008 3:25:21 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 27 replies · 646+ views Free Times | 5-14/20-2008 | Ron Aiken It was the summer of 1998, and University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear had a problem on his hands. Fourteen years of digging at an ancient chert quarry outside Allendale had begun to bear fruit: At a site called Big Pine Tree, Goodyear was well on his way to establishing that a substantial Clovis population lived here. If you'll recall your history lessons from high school, the Clovis people -- named such because the first evidence of them was found...
Columbia
1,000 Ancient Tombs, Unique Remains Found (Colombia)
	05/10/2008 10:55:01 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 162+ views National Geographic News | 5-9-2008 | Colombia | Jose Orozco Builders clearing land for a housing project in Colombia have uncovered an ancient burial site containing nearly a thousand tombs linked to two little-known civilizations. The site covers some 12 acres (5 hectares) in the impoverished Usme district in southeast Bogot· (see map) and includes one set of remains that some researchers believe could be a victim of human sacrifice. The possible victim is a young woman who seems to have been buried alive, said Ana Maria Groot, one of the lead anthropologists...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Giant bacterium carries thousands of genomes - Why does it bother?
	05/10/2008 7:50:45 AM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 54 replies · 277+ views Nature News | 8 May 2008 | Heidi Ledford It seems like a peculiar case of genomic overkill: a single-celled bacterium has been found that keeps tens of thousands of copies of its genome. The finding sets a record for most genomes per cell, but also poses an obvious question: what could be the advantage of stashing away as much as 200,000 copies of your genome? The number of genome copies in each cell varies by species. Many bacteria have only one copy; most cells in the human body contain two. Plants are notorious for being genomically promiscuous, picking up extra genomes then losing them again in a cycle...
Prehistory and Origins
Long Lost Sisters (humanity was genetically divided for as much as 100,000 years)
	05/15/2008 12:49:19 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 19 replies · 789+ views American Friends of Tel Aviv University | May 15, 2008 | Unknown The human race was divided into two separate groups within Africa for as much as half of its existence, says a Tel Aviv University mathematician. Climate change, reduction in populations and harsh conditions may have caused and maintained the separation. Dr. Saharon Rosset, from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Tel Aviv University, worked with team leader Doron Behar from the Rambam Medical Center to analyze African DNA. Their goal was to study obscure population patterns from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Rosset, who crunched numbers and...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
Clash of the Cavemen
	05/16/2008 6:14:42 AM PDT · Posted by chessplayer · 35 replies · 796+ views http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=295752 25,000 B.C. In Europe, arctic glaciers reach as far south as London. Massive predators are on the prowl. Across the continent, two species of primitive man struggle to survive. The Neanderthals are natural hunters, built for brute strength and well-adapted to the cold. However, they lack the understanding of technology and ability to speak in abstract terms that our species has. The Cro-Magnon, Homo sapiens are smarter but more fragile. With exciting new research in anthropology, archaeology and genetics, follow these early humans through a season of survival.
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Ancient DNA Reveals Neandertals With Red Hair, Fair Complexions
	10/28/2007 4:03:27 PM PDT · Posted by Lessismore · 47 replies · 82+ views Science Magazine | 2007-10-26 | Elizabeth Culotta What would it have been like to meet a Neandertal? Researchers have hypothesized answers for decades, seeking to put flesh on ancient bones. But fossils are silent on many traits, from hair and skin color to speech and personality. Personality will have to wait, but in a paper published online in Science this week (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1147417), an international team announces that it has extracted a pigmentation gene, mc1r, from the bones of two Neandertals. The researchers conclude that at least some Neandertals had pale skin and red hair, similar to some of the Homo sapiens who today inhabit their European homeland....
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Silbury gives up its final secret
	05/16/2008 3:42:40 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 346+ views Guardian | Monday May 12, 2008 | Maev Kennedy Jim Leary, the archaeological director for English Heritage throughout the work, thinks he has solved a riddle which archaeologists have fretted over for centuries: why thousands of people piled up 35 million baskets of chalk into the largest artificial hill in Europe, now part of the Stonehenge World Heritage site. It wasn't the final structure, but the staggering contribution of work which was important, he now believes, marking a site of immense but only guessable significance to the hunters and farmers of Bronze Age Wiltshire... the archaeologists and engineers are convinced there is no secret chamber, prehistoric passage or treasure...
Climate
NC State researcher finds El Nino may have been factor in Magellan's Pacific voyage
	05/15/2008 3:34:21 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 6 replies · 128+ views North Carolina State University | May 15, 2008 | Unknown A new paper by North Carolina State University archaeologist Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick shows that Ferdinand Magellan's historic circumnavigation of the globe was likely influenced in large part by unusual weather conditions -- including what we now know as El Nino -- which eased his passage across the Pacific Ocean, but ultimately led him over a thousand miles from his intended destination. Magellan set out from Spain in 1519 with hopes of claiming the wealth of the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, for the Spanish. Two years later the explorer claimed the first European contact with a Pacific island culture when he...
Longer Perspectives
Rapid Acceleration in Human Evolution Described
	12/11/2007 12:34:37 AM PST · Posted by anymouse · 63 replies · 178+ views Reuters | Dec 10, 2007 | Will Dunham Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought, researchers said on Monday. In fact, people today are genetically more different from people living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago, according to anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin. The genetic changes have related to numerous different human characteristics, the researchers said. Many of the recent genetic changes reflect differences in the human diet brought on by agriculture, as well as resistance to epidemic diseases...
Humans Are Still Evolving - And It's Happening Faster Than Ever
	12/11/2007 4:00:09 AM PST · Posted by JACKRUSSELL · 16 replies · 39+ views The Guardian Unlimited / Reuters | December 11, 2007 | By Ian Sample Humans are evolving more quickly than at any time in history, researchers say. In the past 5,000 years, humans have evolved up to 100 times more quickly than any time since the split with the ancestors of modern chimpanzees 6m years ago, a team from the University of Wisconsin found. The study also suggests that human races in different parts of the world are becoming more genetically distinct, although this is likely to reverse in future as populations become more mixed. "The widespread assumption that human evolution has slowed down because it's easier to live and we've conquered nature is...
Human Evolution Seems to Be Accelerating (Jews evolved from "financing!")
	12/11/2007 8:28:45 AM PST · Posted by squireofgothos · 144 replies · 95+ views AP via Fox News | 12-11-07 above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews -- those of northern European heritage -- resulted from natural selection in medieval Europe, where they were pressured into jobs as financiers, traders, managers and tax collectors. Those who were smarter succeeded, grew wealthy and had bigger families to pass on their genes, they suggested. That evolution also is linked to genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher in Jews. The new study was funded by the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Aging, the Unz Foundation, the University of Utah and the University of Wisconsin.
Is human evolution speeding up?
	12/12/2007 7:22:02 AM PST · Posted by Renfield · 41 replies · 63+ views MSNBC | 12-10-07 | Randolph E. Schmid Residents of various continents becoming increasingly different ~~~snip~~~ If evolution had been proceeding steadily at the current rate since humans and chimps separated 6 million years ago, there should be 160 times more differences than the researchers found. That indicates that human evolution had been slower in the distant past, Harpending explained. "Rapid population growth has been coupled with vast changes in cultures and ecology, creating new opportunities for adaptation," the study says. "The past 10,000 years have seen rapid skeletal and dental evolution in human populations, as well as the appearance of many new genetic responses to diet and...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Death toll in China earthquake rises to 8,533 [Photos]
	05/12/2008 8:47:42 AM PDT · Posted by charles m · 82 replies · 3,234+ views Yahoo! AP | 5/12/2008 A rescuer searches for victims after an earthquake in Chongqing municipality May 12, 2008. Water and mud flow on a street after an earthquake broke an underground pipe in Chengdu, Sichuan province CHONGQING, China - Chinese state media says more than 8,500 have died in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake. The official Xinhua News Agency said that another 10,000 people were believed hurt in one of the province's counties after the 7.8-magnitude quake on Monday. Nearly 900 students were trapped after their school collapsed about 60 miles from the quake's epicenter. Xinhua reported students also were buried...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Gene trawl shows Druze are living "gene sanctuary"
	05/10/2008 2:13:58 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 29 replies · 222+ views Yahoo! | Wednesday, May 7, 2008 | Maggie Fox, ed by Julie Steenhuysen and Xavier Briand The Druze people of Israel are a genetic sanctuary of ancient lineages of DNA, researchers reported on Wednesday... The researchers looked at mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material that is passed down virtually unchanged from mother to daughter. It can provide a kind of snapshot of the ancestry of a person... The mitochondrial DNA backed up the legendary origin of this close-knit religious group, believed to number 1 million or fewer. For instance, Skorecki's team discovered an unusually high frequency of a haplogroup, or a distinct collection of genetic markers, called haplogroup X. Haplogroup X is rare but is...
Oh So Mysterioso
LU Lab Called On Again To Check Ancient DNA (Jesus's DNA?)
	05/12/2008 12:13:55 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 21 replies · 864+ views The Chronicle Journal | 5-6-2008 | LINDSAY LAFRAUGH Kathryn Reuseh uses a pipette during the first day of the Paleo DNA ancient DNA training program Monday at Lakehead University. A Thunder Bay DNA expert was in New York City on Monday to discuss findings that could help researchers prove that Jesus did marry Mary Magdalene and that they had children. Lakehead University's Paleo DNA Laboratory operations supervisor Renee Fratpietro joined English filmmaker Bruce Burgess in the Big Apple to discuss his film "Bloodline", which follows a three-year investigation led by Burgess and his American...
Pages
Norman Levitt on Nadia Abu el Haj and "Science Studies"
	05/13/2008 9:36:04 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 6 replies · 205+ views The Volokh Conspiracy | May 13, 2008 | David Bernstein (Professor Levitt) I think that it was shameful of Barnard to retain her as a tenured faculty member, but that her political views, as well as those of her opponents, are not especially relevant to the issue... Abu el Haj tries to engage with archaeology on the basis of the assumptions and theories that are regnant in "science studies"... the attitude that knowledge claims are, perforce, political claims, that "objective knowledge" is an oxymoron, and that modern science, in particular, is a repressive ideological edifice designed to bolster the hegemony of western capitalist patriarchal societies, not least by demeaning and...
Buried in Tomb's Grant
Radiocarbon Dating of Malibu Artifacts Confirms Importance of Farpoint Site
	05/15/2008 4:01:32 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 17 replies · 345+ views Malibu Surfside News | 5-14-2008 | ANNE SOBLE Archaeologist Gary Stickel announced at a recent lecture at the Malibu Public Library that a stone spearhead, or point, found at a local construction site by a Native American project monitor in 2005 has been established as an artifact from the oldest archaeological find in the City of Malibu. Radiocarbon dating of mussel shell fragments from the site that was provided gratis by the National Science...
Rome and Italy
Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C.
	05/13/2008 6:41:24 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 86 replies · 1,866+ views AP on Yahoo | 5/13/08 | AP Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France's Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known. The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles -- founded by Caesar. Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects is a 5.9 foot marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after...
Early America
Shipwreck's Coins Are Very Rare
	05/14/2008 10:43:27 PM PDT · Posted by fishhound · 32 replies · 1,260+ views AOL/AP | 2008-05-14 | ALAN SAYRE, A steamship that sank off the Louisiana coast during an 1846 storm has produced a trove of rare gold coins, including some produced at two largely forgotten U.S. Mints in the South, coin experts say. Last year, four Louisiana residents salvaged hundreds of gold coins and thousands of silver coins from the wreckage of the SS New York in about 60 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico, said David Bowers, co-chairman of New York-based Stack's Rare Coins. "Some of these are in uncirculated or mint condition," Bowers said, predicting the best could bring...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Works added to National Recording Registry (spoken word as well as music)
	05/15/2008 11:21:50 AM PDT · Posted by weegee · 3 replies · 97+ views By The Associated Press (via yahoo) | Wed May 14, 10:31 AM ET | no byline The 25 recordings added Wednesday to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress: 1. The first trans-Atlantic broadcast (March 14, 1925) 2. "Allons a Lafayette," Joseph Falcon (1928) 3. "Casta Diva," from Bellini's "Norma"; Rosa Ponselle, accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Giulio Setti. (recorded December 31, 1928, and January 30, 1929) 4. "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again," Thomas A. Dorsey (1934) 5. "Sweet Lorraine," Art Tatum (February 22, 1940) 6. Fibber's Closet Opens for the First Time, "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio program (March 4, 1940) 7. Wings Over Jordan,...
end of digest #200 20080517

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #200 20080517 · Saturday, May 17, 2008 · 20 topics · 2017093 to 1937908 · 686 members ·
	Saturday May 17 2008 v 4 n 44 view this issue	Welcome to the 200th issue. Obviously I'm completely crazy. The fourth anniversary of my doing the GGG digest isn't that far off now, and I find it difficult to believe. You probably find the Digest difficult to believe every week, though, so... Alas, there were only twenty topics this week, one or more of which was an oldie. It was a slow week. Actually, it probably was decent, but hey, the ones that were posted were high quality. Blam only posted three or four, which is surprising. And there were too many DNA articles for my taste. The new header from #198, "Pages", to spotlight books which look worth reading, didn't appear last week, so I made sure we had one this week. I've already pinged all GGGers, along with the members of three other lists, regarding Jim Robinson's surgery. Here's the update. Check out FReeper Foxhole for military history topics. Also, < Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. Defeat Hillary -- first for the White House, then for reelection to the Senate. Obama exploded in semi-coherent rage over one eminently sensible statement President Bush made regarding Chamberlain-esque appeasement of terrorists. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and other Demwits likewise condemned the President's statement. Pelosi said it was beneath the dignity of his office, and Biden called it "b*llsh*t". The irony of that will probably be lost on the permanently partisan press. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #201 Saturday, May 24, 2008
Australia and the Pacific
New research forces U-turn in population migration theory
	05/23/2008 10:49:58 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 19 replies · 359+ views University of Leeds | May 23, 2008 | Unknown Research led by the University of Leeds has discovered genetic evidence that overturns existing theories about human migration into Island Southeast Asia (covering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo) - taking the timeline back by nearly 10,000 years. Prevailing theory suggests that the present-day populations of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) originate largely from a Neolithic expansion from Taiwan driven by rice agriculture about 4,000 years ago - the so-called "Out of Taiwan" model. However an international research team, led by the UK's first Professor of Archaeogenetics, Martin Richards, has shown that a substantial fraction of their mitochondrial DNA lineages (inherited...
Prehistory and Origins
Orkney Islanders Have Siberian Relatives
	05/23/2008 3:11:09 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 272+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 5-23-2008 | Roger Highfield A new study on ancient human migrations suggests that Orcadians and Siberians are closely related, writes Roger Highfield. Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations. The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
DNA Reveals Neanderthal Redheads
	05/20/2008 6:22:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 60 replies · 1,067+ views Harvard Gazette | 2007 | Steve Bradt Neanderthals' pigmentation possibly as varied as humans', scientists say. Neanderthals' surviving bones providing few clues, scientists have long sought to flesh out the appearance of this hominid species. Illustration created by Knut Finstermeier, Neanderthal reconstruction by the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum Mannheim Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones of two Neanderthals suggests that at least some of them had red hair and pale skin, scientists report this week in the journal Science. The international team says that Neanderthals' pigmentation may even have been as varied as that of modern humans, and that at least 1 percent of...
Paleontology
Dinosaur tracks found on Arabian Peninsula
	05/21/2008 5:19:38 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 17 replies · 413+ views Associated Press | May 21, 2008 | Unknown Scientists say they have found dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula, a discovery they say may shed more light on where dinosaurs lived, their migration patterns and how they evolved they way they did. The discovery of tracks of a large ornithopod dinosaur and a herd of 11 sauropods walking along a coastal mudflat in Yemen was reported in Wednesday's issue of the journal PLoS ONE. "No dinosaur trackways had been found in this area previously. It's really a blank spot on the map," said Anne Schulp of the Maastricht Museum of Natural History in The Netherlands....
Stuns Easily, Yet Wouldn't 'Voom' If You Ran 4 Million Volts Through It
Old parrott wasn't pinin' for the fjords
	05/17/2008 10:37:50 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 390+ views Ipswich Evening Star | May 15, 2008 | unattributed Dr David Waterhouse, assistant curator of Natural History at Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service, could not resist the Monty Python associations after the discovery of a fossil which he says is the oldest parrot ever found. The dead parrot in the classic sketch was a Norwegian Blue, but the one which Dr Waterhouse has been studying was found on the isle of Morse in the northwest of Denmark... Officially named Mopsitta tanta, the bird has already been nicknamed the Danish Blue, and like John Cleese in the sketch, his first task was to establish it actually was a parrot. He...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
	05/18/2008 6:38:57 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 31 replies · 1,112+ views NY Times | May 8, 2008 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD If it has a bill and webbed feet like a duck, lays eggs like a bird or a reptile but also produces milk and has a coat of fur like a mammal, what could the genetics of the duck-billed platypus possibly be like? Well, just as peculiar: an amalgam of genes reflecting significant branching and transitions in evolution. An international scientific team, which announced the first decoding of the platypus genome on Wednesday, said the findings provided "many clues to the function and evolution of all mammalian genomes," including that of humans, and should "inspire rapid advances in other investigations...
Unremitting Gaul
Metal detector finds silver ring for a bloodthirsty god[UK]
	05/23/2008 2:04:37 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 12 replies · 651+ views Leighton Buzzard Observer | 23 May 2008 | Mick King PART of a Romano/British ring found by a Leighton metal detectorist in fields near Hockliffe has been declared treaure. The ring, which has provided archaeologists with the missing link to a bloodthirsty ancient Celtic warrior god, was unearthed by Greg Dyer of Churchill Road in September 2005. At an inquest last Tuesday, Beds coroner David Morris told the court that the piece of ring, thought to be from the third century AD, contains 2.98 grammes of silver. The piece of jewellery, inscribed with the words 'Deo Tota Felix' is currently in the British Museum waiting to be valued. In a...
Let's Have Jerusalem
The Mystery of Lag B'omer
	05/23/2008 8:07:12 AM PDT · Posted by Zionist Conspirator · 7 replies · 146+ views Jewish World Review | 5/23/'08 | Rabbi Pinchas Stolper Thirty-three days following the first day of Passover, Jews celebrate a "minor" holiday called Lag B'Omer, the thirty-third day of the Omer. It is an oasis of joy in the midst of the sad Sefirah period that passes almost unnoticed by most contemporary Jews. Yet it contains historic lessons of such gravity that our generation must attempt to unravel its mystery. We may well discover that our own fate is wrapped in the crevices of its secrets. The seven weeks between Passover and Shavuos are the days of the "Counting of the Omer," the harvest festivities which were observed in...
Prehistoric Galilee
Prehistoric Cave Uncovered In Western Galilee
	05/22/2008 1:57:45 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 13 replies · 878+ views MFA | 5-22-2008 A stalactite cave containing prehistoric remains was exposed in the Western Galilee. Among the artifacts found are flint implements and the bones of animals that have long since become extinct from the country's landscape The stalactite cave uncovered in Western Galilee (Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority) (Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesman) While carrying out development work connected with the construction of a sewage line in a forest of the Jewish National Fund, a large stalactite cave was accidentally breached inside of which an abundance of prehistoric artifacts were discovered. Immediately...
Longer Perspectives
Dig Uncovers African Beads Buried In Ancient (Irish) Village
	05/22/2008 1:43:03 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 31 replies · 714+ views Irish Examiner | 5-22-2008 | Sean O'Riordan Beads that originated in Africa are some of the treasures archaelologists have found as they begin to explore an ancient settlement in north Cork. Test trenches also revealed pottery and weapons from a medieval period. In addition, there was evidence of prehistoric settlements in the area and an early ecclesiastic settlement, possibly from the 7th-8th century. Evidence of a large moat and cobbled walkways were also uncovered. Experts are due to conduct major excavations within weeks. One archaeologist said: "It's one of the most exciting discoveries in...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
The Androgynous Pharaoh? Akhenaten had feminine physique
	05/02/2008 10:57:44 AM PDT · Posted by ElkGroveDan · 50 replies · 1,660+ views AP via Yahoo | Fri May 2, 6:23 AM ET | ALEX DOMINGUEZ Akhenaten wasn't the most manly pharaoh, even though he fathered at least a half-dozen children. In fact, his form was quite feminine. And he was a bit of an egghead. So concludes a Yale University physician who analyzed images of Akhenaten for an annual conference Friday at the University of Maryland School of Medicine on the deaths of historic figures. The female form was due to a genetic mutation that caused the pharaoh's body to convert more male hormones to female hormones than needed, Dr. Irwin Braverman believes. And Akhenaten's head was misshapen because of a condition in...
Egypt
Spain, Egypt To Investigate 19th Century Shipwreck (Khafre's Mummy?)
	05/22/2008 1:48:47 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 274+ views Novosti | 5-22-2008 Spain and Egypt will start a project later this year to investigate the 19th century sinking of a ship that some believe contained the mummy of a Fourth Dynasty pharaoh, news agency MENA said. MENA cited Egyptian Ambassador to Spain Yasser Murad as saying the countries would first hold consultations and compare historical records, and attempt to establish the location of the shipwreck. Khafre, who ruled Egypt more than 2,500 years ago, is known for building the second largest of the three...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Ramhormoz Graves May Be Elamite Royal Burials: Experts
	05/20/2008 8:12:13 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 323+ views Mehr News | 5-20-2008 A team of archaeologists studying two graves discovered in the city of Ramhormoz in southern Iran said that they bear their remains of a girl and a woman who were most likely members of an Elamite royal family. The team led by Arman Shishegar was assigned to carry out a series of rescue excavations in the Jubji region of the city in Khuzestan Province in May 2007 after the Khuzestan Water and Waste Water Company stumbled on two U-shaped coffins containing skeletons of a girl and a...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Romans Were Upper Crust On Daily Bread
	05/21/2008 3:38:38 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 14 replies · 525+ views Journal Live | 5-21-1008 | Tony Henderson When it came to their daily bread, troops at a Northumberland Roman fort took no chances. Excavations at Vindolanda are revealing two massive granaries whose quality even outshone the nearby commanding officer's quarters. The dig is also uncovering a magnificent flagged roadway next to the granaries. "The masonry of these granaries is far superior to that of the nearby commanding officer's residence, and although some of the walls have suffered from stone robbing, others are standing to a height of around 5ft," said director of...
Rome and Italy
Martyrs Or Imperial Guard?
	05/18/2008 7:19:55 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 6 replies · 467+ views Archaeology Magazine | 5-15-2008 | Sarah Yeomans New discoveries in the catacombs of San Pietro and Marcellinus Details of faces -- 7th century fresco devotional fresco (The Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology) When a sinkhole opened up after a pipe broke underneath the convent and school of the Instituto Sacra Famiglia on Rome's Via Casilina, the sisters there received a surprise--about 1,200 surprises, in fact. The partial collapse of the building's foundation revealed five large chambers in which the remains of more than a thousand individuals had been interred almost simultaneously sometime at the beginning of the third century...
Anatolia
"King's" villas cause outrage [Caria, in modern Turkey]
	05/17/2008 11:11:27 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 461+ views Voices Newspaper | Saturday, May 17, 2008 | editor
Africa
In Search Of The Lost Sahara
	05/18/2008 7:00:06 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 13 replies · 637+ views eitb24.com | 5-15-2008 A team of Basque and Sahrawi archaeologists is making the first catalogue of the prehistoric heritage of the Western Sahara. Archaeologists doing some research. Photo: EiTBThe region of Tiris, a vast desert area south of Western Sahara, is the work field of the Basque-Sahrawi expedirion researching the past of this inhospitable place of the planet. A team of Basque archaeologists led by Andoni Sienz de Buruaga, a professor at the Basque public university UPV, is visiting the Western Sahara for a fifth time. "We presented our research project to the Sahrawi Government in...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Renovating A Historic Home (16K YO Meadowcroft Rockshelter)
	05/18/2008 6:39:56 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 450+ views South Jersey Local News | 5-14-2008 | James Smart The Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Museum in western Pennsylvania is getting a lot of attention this week, as it reopens the archaeological site of a 16,000-year-old human habitation. It had been closed to the public for a year for renovations.The idea of renovating a dwelling after 16,000 years is intriguing. They could have called in a television team consisting of the guys from This Old House, that Extreme Makeover crew and those cavemen from the insurance commercials. Radioactive carbon testing in 1974 of remnants of burned firewood determined the age of the domicile, making...
Climate
Beringia: Humans Were Here
	05/19/2008 8:17:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 17 replies · 445+ views The Gazette | 5-17-2008 | fantastic creatures and intrepid people. It was an extraordinary ancient land filled with fantastic creatures and intrepid people. Beringia is thought by a handful of renegade scientists to be a prehistoric homeland for aboriginal people who later spread across the Americas and the key to one of archeology's greatest Holy Grails - figuring out how humans first got to this continent. This July, Jacques Cinq-Mars, a renowned archeologist living in Longueuil, is heading to Beringia - a vast territory that once spanned the Yukon, Alaska and Siberia - in hopes of resolving...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Divers find combined gold toothpick, earwax spoon
	05/20/2008 1:52:00 PM PDT · Posted by Red Badger · 28 replies · 1,322+ views www.physorg.com | 05-20-2008 | Staff In this photo released by the Florida Keys News Bureau, a tiny solid gold combination toothpick and earwax scoop is displayed inside a clam shell Monday, May 19, 2008, in Key West, Fla. A Blue Water Ventures salvage diver recovered the artifact Sunday, May 18, about 40 miles west of Key West during a search for remains of the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita that shipwrecked in a 1622 hurricane. According to archaeologists, the 3-inch-long grooming tool is more than 385 years old and was probably worn on a gold chain. Estimated value could exceed $100,000. (AP Photo/Florida Keys News...
Navigation
Did Humans Colonize The World By Boat
	05/20/2008 6:57:41 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 43 replies · 938+ views Discover Magazine | 5-20-2008 | Heather Pringle Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago. Jon Erlandson shakes out what appears to be a miniature evergreen from a clear ziplock bag and holds it out for me to examine. As one of the world's leading authorities on ancient seafaring, he has devoted much of his career to hunting down hard evidence of ancient human migrations, searching for something most archaeologists long thought a figment: Ice Age mariners. On this drizzly late-fall afternoon in a lab at the University of Oregon in Eugene, the 53-year-old Erlandson looks...
Ancient Autopsies
Ancient King's Face Revealed (Denmark)
	05/19/2008 3:56:34 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 909+ views The Copenhagen Post | 5-19-2008 By using the terracotta facial reconstruction technique a Danish scientist and sculptor have recreated the faces of both King Svend Estridsen and the oldest Dane ever found King Svend Estridsen has been dead for over 900 years but Danes can finally get a realistic view of what the former monarch looked like thanks to a coroner and a sculptor. A cast of the king's skull was taken at the beginning of the 1900s and has been used by the two men to create a vivid likeness of the ruler's face using the terracotta technique. The technique...
Scotland Yet
Eminent Historian Debunks Scottish History As Largely Fabrication
	05/19/2008 4:05:09 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 43 replies · 1,032+ views The Times Online | 5-18-2008 | Stuart MacDonald A book by the late Hugh Trevor-Roperand due to be published five years after his death argues that Scottish history is based on myths and falsehoods. Scottish history is weaved from a "fraudulent" fabric of "myths and falsehoods", according to an explosive new study by one of the world's most eminent historians. The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, is the last book, and one of the most controversial, written by the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. Now, five years after his death, the book is to be published at one of the...
Franks and Beans
French told to shrug off Gallic myth
	03/31/2002 3:17:14 PM PST · Posted by Pokey78 · 42 replies · 445+ views The Times (U.K.) | 04/01/2002 | Adam Sage The French identity is based on an historical nonsense, according to an academic who says that the Gauls were a fiction invented by the Romans and exploited by French revolutionaries after 1789. Christian Goudineau, Professor of History at the respected College de France, says in a new book, Par Toutatis, that the Gallic people never existed and that contemporary symbols are figments of the popular imagination. Take, for example, the cock that always accompanies French rugby supporters to Twickenham. M Goudineau claims that the bird is not the Gallic emblem that France believes it to be. In fact, it was...
Faith and Philosophy
Solemn Copies Approved By The I Council Of Lyons, July 13th, 1245
	05/18/2008 7:07:37 PM PDT · Posted by cardinal4 · 3 replies · 114+ views artorius castus blog | ? | www.vatican.va During the days before the historical assembly of the I Council of Lyon, when the deposition of the Emperor Frederick I was announced (17th July 1245), Pope Innocent IV ordered 17 solemn copies (later called "transunti"), which contained a total of 91 sovereign documents, to prove and preserve for the future memory those rights the Empire had acknowledged until then to the Church, but also to condemn, together with the faithless emperor, his political conception
Early America
Cobblestone formation appears man-made, more than 300 years old
	05/17/2008 11:05:25 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 664+ views Schenectady Daily Gazette | Saturday, May 17, 2008 | Kathleen Moore More than 300 years ago, someone carried a load of white cobblestones from the river, carefully stacked them on Jan Roeloffsen's property and firmly cemented them into place with dirt... After speculating all winter as to whether the rocks they found were dragged here by a glacier or stacked by human hands, one day of old-school geology and fancy new radar technology appears to have solved the mystery. in fact, New York State Museum archaeologist Julieann Van Nest didn't even need her colleague's radar to determine that the rock formation was probably man-made. if it is, it may be the...
Diet and Cuisine
Mary Ball Washington's Pancake Syrup (what the young General ate)
	05/23/2008 8:35:37 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 14 replies · 371+ views Mitchell's Cookbooks | 1994 | Patricia Mitchell Ferry Farm Sauce 1 1/3 c. honey 1 c. maple syrup 2 tsp. cinnamon A few caraway seeds In a double boiler slowly heat together the honey and maple syrup. Stir in cinnamon and caraway seeds and serve warm over pancakes, waffles, etc.
Oh So Mysterioso
Archaeologists Explore Peruvian Mystery
	05/22/2008 1:36:34 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 14 replies · 682+ views Physorg | 5-22-2008 | University of Bristol A hummingbird geoglyph. Photo by Dr Nick Saunders Indiana Jones may be flying over the Nazca Lines in Peru in his latest Hollywood adventure, but two British archaeologists have been investigating the enigmatic desert drawings for several years. Dr Nick Saunders from Bristol University and Professor Clive Ruggles from the University of Leicester are locating and measuring the lines with high-precision GPS, photographing the distribution of 1,500-year old pottery, and painstakingly working out the chronological sequence of overlying lines and designs. Professor Ruggles and Dr Saunders agree with other experts that some lines were pathways across...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Coast-to-coast AM May 22nd, 2008 - Crystal skulls
	05/22/2008 4:25:30 PM PDT · Posted by Perdogg · 11 replies · 329+ views Coast-to-coast AM | 05.22.08 | Perdogg Egyptologist and pre-historian Stephen Mehler will share research into the crystal skulls and how they relate to UFOs, ETs, and portals into other dimensions. I guess this in celebration of the new Indiana Jones movie.
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