[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #202 Saturday, May 31, 2008
Climate
Digging In The Desert (Turkmenistan)
	05/24/2008 1:47:19 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 6 replies · 436+ views Leader-Post /Canwest News | 5-24-2008 | Owen Murray Tish Prouse would be the first to admit that his interest in archaeology stems from a boyhood love of Indiana Jones. But the Edmonton native had no idea his interest would one day lead him to Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country of brutally hot summers, bitterly cold winters and a pockmarked landscape that invites comparisons with the moon. So why is he here? The answer is Merv, an ancient city along the Silk Road that was once a thriving metropolis, one of the...
Ancient Autopsies
Rubbish Threatens Tuvixeduu Necropolis (Ancient Ruins - Sardinia)
	05/24/2008 2:32:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 4 replies · 244+ views Times On Line | 5-24-2008 An ancient Mediterranean necropolis described as one of the world's greatest historical sites is being submerged beneath cement, high rise housing and rubbish dumps, according to Italian conservationists. Tuvixeddu - which means "hills with small cavities" in the Sardinian dialect - contains thousands of Phoenician and Punic burial chambers from the 6th century BC. It has long been robbed of funerary objects but some of its tombs have retained their original paintings, including "Ureo's Tomb", named after a sacred serpent, and "The Warrior's Tomb", in which a decoration depicts a warrior throwing...
Ancient Europe
Unique Dutch Settlement Discovered From Bronze Age
	05/24/2008 8:36:32 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 4 replies · 355+ views M&C | 5-23-2008 Archaeologists have found a settlement dating back to the Bronze Age just north of Eindhoven, a city in the southern Netherlands, Dutch archaeologist Nico Arts told Dutch media Friday. The discovery was made during preparations for the building of a highway junction at Ekkersrijt, north of Eindhoven. The settlement may be the largest ever discovered in the Netherlands, and is definitely the largest settlement ever found in the southern Netherlands. Bronze Age settlements (1500-850 BC) have also been discovered in the province of Drenthe in the...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Did Stonehenge start out as royal cemetery?
	05/29/2008 4:47:46 PM PDT · Posted by RDTF · 9 replies · 389+ views msnbc | May 29, 2008 | not specified England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings -- perhaps for ancient kings or chieftains, researchers reported Thursday. Radiocarbon dating of cremated remains shows that burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, said University of Sheffield archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson. Those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, he said. Parker Pearson heads the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project, which has been excavating sites around the world-famous monument for five years. He...
Stonehenge Mystery Solved. [Open]
	05/29/2008 5:46:06 PM PDT · Posted by SouthDixie · 22 replies · 914+ views AOL
Stonehenge Could Have Been Resting Place For Royalty
	05/29/2008 6:43:44 PM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 6 replies · 158+ views ScienceDaily | May 30, 2008 | ScienceDaily Archaeologists at the University of Sheffield have revealed new radiocarbon dates of human cremation burials at Stonehenge, which indicate that the monument was used as a cemetery from its inception just after 3000 B.C. until well after the large stones went up around 2500 B.C. The Sheffield archaeologists, Professor Mike Parker-Pearson and Professor Andrew Chamberlain, believe that the cremation burials could represent the natural deaths of a single elite family and its descendants, perhaps a ruling dynasty. One clue to this is the small number of burials in Stonehenge's earliest phase, a number that grows larger in subsequent centuries, as...
Gone To the Dogs
Star Watch - Archaeologists Discover A "Cosmic Clock"
	05/25/2008 8:29:53 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 22 replies · 1,289+ views Tenerife News | 5-24-2008 Overcrowded in their lower reaches they might be, but the Canary Islands still possess some solitary mountain wilder-nesses, places little visited thanks to their rugged inaccessibility, and which have hardly changed since they were frequented by the pre-colonial aboriginal islanders. And traces of their presence are still turning up, often in the form of petroglyphs, enigmatic scratched marks on rocks and boulders which held some special significance about which we can only guess today. The latest find is, say archaeologists, one of the most exciting. They are calling it a cosmic clock,...
Diet and Cuisine
Archaeologists find medieval feeding bottles in northwest Russia
	05/26/2008 5:20:08 PM PDT · Posted by rdl6989 · 12 replies · 418+ views Ria Novosti | May 26, 2008 Archaeologists have made a rare find of a number of medieval baby bottles at excavations in Veliky Novgorod, an ancient city in northwest Russia, a scientist said on Monday. "Similar bottles are rarely found in excavations, and here we have already discovered... three of them," Medieval Slavs made feeding bottles by attaching leather bags to the wider part of cow horns. A baby drank the milk from a hole made on the tip of a horn. Novgorod is one of the most ancient cities of the Eastern Slavs. It was first mentioned in...
Archeologists Discover Unique Things In Veliki Novgorod (Baby Bottles)
	05/27/2008 3:00:16 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 391+ views Russiaq IC | 5-27-2008 A group of archeologists carrying out diggings in Veliki Novgorod have found several ancient feeding bottles for babies. The finds were discovered at the digging site in Mikhailova Street. Here the archeologists found wooden feeding devices made of cow horns. The Slavs used to attach leather sacks with milk to the broad ends of hollow horns and their babies would suck the milk through holes in the narrow part of horns. It is interesting to note that not far from the archeological excavation site there is a working municipal kindergarten. Almost every...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?
	05/28/2008 4:14:50 AM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 11 replies · 318+ views Discover Magazine | 5-20-08 | Heather Pringle 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 as pleased as the father of a newborn -- and perhaps just as anxious -- as he shows me one of his...
The Vikings
Newfoundland Viking Site Remarkable
	05/24/2008 8:41:39 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 843+ views Canada.com | 5-23-3008 | Jeff Lukovich L'Anse aux Meadows likely marks the first European contact with New World -- 500 years before Columbus Jeff Lukovich , Special to The Sun More than 1,200 years ago, Vikings from Norway set out on a series of daring voyages that would eventually result in their being the first Europeans to explore the east coast of North America. In stages they established settlements in the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and finally Newfoundland and Labrador. Though we passed through an area around the capital of Nuuk, that would have been near the former Viking "Western Settlement,"...
Navigation
Sea Stallion Steps Back In History
	05/27/2008 3:06:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 13 replies · 386+ views Irish Examiner | 5-25-2008 | Richard Collins Richard Collins on a remarkable Danish replica ship. At three o'clock next Thursday afternoon Dubliners will be treated to an extraordinary spectacle. The Viking ship Sea Stallion, which has been on display at the National Museum in Collins Barracks, will be lifted 50 metres into the air by a giant crane. Then the huge vessel will be swung out over the three-storey museum building and deposited in the nearby Croppy's Acre. In the middle of the night it will be moved to the River Liffey, prior to its long sea journey back to Denmark. The...
Viking voyage: The crew's diary
	07/13/2007 7:40:37 AM PDT · Posted by WesternCulture · 49 replies · 923+ views news.bbc.co.uk | 07/12/2007 | Hans Jacob Andersen A replica Viking ship has set sail for Dublin from the Danish port of Roskilde. It is currently crossing the North Sea, in an attempt to recreate the voyages undertaken by early Norsemen. The volunteer crew on the 30m-long (100ft) Sea Stallion from Glendalough are recording their experiences on the journey. Bad weather is already proving a major challenge. Like the vikings the crew have no shelter from the weather, no cleaning facilities and no lavatories.
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Researchers retrieve authentic Viking DNA from 1,000-year-old skeletons
	05/28/2008 6:46:59 AM PDT · Posted by Red Badger · 32 replies · 981+ views www.physorg.com | 05/28/2008 | Staff Although "Viking" literally means "pirate," recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE this week, J¯rgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin...
Africa
'Indiana Jones'-Like Archeologist Says He's Found Cleopatra's Tomb
	05/25/2008 1:02:47 PM PDT · Posted by AngieGal · 28 replies · 1,022+ views Fox News | May 25, 2008 | The Sunday Times A flamboyant archeologist known worldwide for his trademark Indiana Jones hat believes he has identified the site where Cleopatra is buried. Now, with a team of 12 archeologists and 70 excavators, Zahi Hawass, 60, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has begun the search for her tomb. In addition, after a breakthrough two weeks ago, Hawass hopes to find Cleopatra's lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, sharing her last resting place at the site of a temple, the Taposiris Magna, 28 miles west of Alexandria.
Egypt
Headquarters of pharaohs' army found
	05/29/2008 8:48:44 AM PDT · Posted by CarrotAndStick · 15 replies · 633+ views REUTERS via. The Times of India | 29 May 2008, 0023 hrs IST | REUTERS Egyptian archaeologists have discovered what they say was the ancient headquarters of the pharaonic army guarding the northeastern borders of Egypt for more than 1,500 years, the government said on Wednesday. The fortress and adjoining town, which they identify with the ancient place name Tharu, lies in the Sinai peninsula about 3km northeast of the modern town of Qantara, Egyptian archaeologist Mohamed Abdel Maksoud said. The town sat at the start of a military road joining the Nile Valley to the Levant, parts of which were under Egyptian control for much of the period, the government's Supreme Council for...
Rome and Italy
Vatican Unveils Newly Restored Pagan Tomb
	05/27/2008 11:58:00 AM PDT · Posted by NYer · 27 replies · 1,115+ views CBS News | May 27, 2008 The Vatican unveiled the largest and most luxurious of the pagan tombs in the necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica on Tuesday after nearly a year of restoration work. A family of former slaves built the Valeri Mausoleum during the second half of the second century, when Emperor Marcus Aurelius ruled. It is one of 22 pagan tombs in the grottoes under the basilica. The newly restored tomb was shown to media Tuesday. Visitors can have a guided tour of the grottoes by appointment. Emperor Constantine, a convert to Christianity, had the pagan burial grounds covered up...
Anatolia
2,000-Year-Old Treasures Tell Wild Story (Tillya Tepe)
	05/25/2008 8:09:52 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 867+ views The News Tribune | 5-25-2008 | Neely Tucker This sculpture likely depicts a supervisor of Greek athletics. It was unearthed in Afghanistan.Pendants showing the Dragon Master, a mythical nomadic man holding dragons by the leg, date back to the days of Christ.PHOTOS BY THIERRY OLLIVIER/MUSEE GUIMETA detailed ivory statuette of a woman probably adorned a piece of furniture in the 1st or 2nd century.An exhibit in Washington, D.C., reveals gold, intrigue and jewelry once buried in Afghanistan. The finds have survived looters and wars.
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Rag And Bone Cup Dates To 300BC
	05/27/2008 3:21:27 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 23 replies · 611+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 5-27-2008 The grandson of a rag and bone man who acquired a small metal cup is in line for a windfall after discovering it is a pure gold vessel dating back to the third or fourth century BC. A rag and bone man gave his grandson the pure gold vessel, which is from the third or fourth century BC The piece could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The 5 inch cup, believed to be from the Achaemenid empire, has two female faces looking in opposite directions, their...
Gold cup from 2,500 years ago found under bed
	05/28/2008 3:13:20 AM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 50 replies · 809+ views The Times Online | May 28, 2008 | Simon de Bruxelles A 2,500-year-old gold cup that has spent the past 60 years in a box under its owner's bed is expected to fetch up to £100,000 after being rediscovered during a house move. The cup was given to John Webber by his grandfather, a rag-and-bone man, who acquired it in the 1930s. Because his grandfather, William Sparks, dealt in brass and copper scrap, Mr Webber assumed that it was made from those metals until he had the unusual piece valued this year. The cup, which is 5.5in (14 cm) high, is embossed with two female faces, each wearing a crown formed...
Longer Perspectives
Women's rights in ancient Persia
	05/26/2008 9:19:16 PM PDT · Posted by freedom44 · 16 replies · 446+ views Press TV | 5/25/08 | Press TV Zoroastrian texts such as the Avesta clearly define the status of Persian women and reveal that at a time when many women in the world were deprived of their basic rights, Persian women enjoyed social and legal freedom and were treated with great respect. Avestan texts mention both genders asking them to share responsibility and make decisions together. They are equally praised for their good deeds rather than their gender, wealth or power. "Whoever, man or woman, does what Thou, O Ahura Mazda, knowest to be the best in Life. Whoever does right for the sake of Right; Whoever in...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Ancient Chinese Irrigation System Stands Test Of Time -- And Quake
	05/24/2008 1:55:14 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 9 replies · 546+ views Yahoo News | 5-22-2008 | Ian Timberlake High above the world's oldest operating irrigation system, Zhang Shuanggun, a local villager, stands on an observation platform cracked by China's massive earthquake last week. She has a simple answer for why the ancient, bamboo-based Dujiangyan irrigation system sustained only minor damage, while nearby modern dams and their vast amounts of concrete are now under 24-hour watch for signs of collapse. "This ancient project is perfection," Zhang said. From the hillside platform, the workings of the...
Haiku You Have Missed This?
Ancient Poem Found On Wood Strip (Japan)
	05/24/2008 8:46:56 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 373+ views Yomiuri | 5-24-2008 A wooden strip unearthed in fiscal 1997 from remains of the eighth-century Shigarakinomiya palace in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, was found to be inscribed with a pair of waka poems, one of which is included in "Manyoshu" (The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), Japan's oldest existing collection of poems, a board of education announced Thursday. It is the first time that a wooden strip inscribed with a poem from the collection has been found. On one side of the strip is a poem about Mt. Asaka, in present-day Fukushima Prefecture, while the...
Australia and the Pacific
Hobbit's relatives may have existed in northern Australia
	05/28/2008 9:43:22 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 267+ views Top News India | Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 | Sahil Nagpal An archaeologist, who discovered the "Hobbit", an ancient human like species, on an Indonesian island in 2003, has determined that a relative of the species may have existed in northern Australia. The Hobbits, or Homo floresiensis, who were only about one metre tall and weighed just 30kg, existed on the remote Indonesian island of Flores until about 12,000 years ago. The specie was dubbed as "hobbits" because of its small size and big feet. Now, according to Professor Mike Morwood, who had made the finding in 2003, these ancient species could have had relatives living in northern Australia. "We are...
Paleontology
Oldest Embryo Fossil Found
	05/28/2008 12:11:24 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 10 replies · 299+ views LiveScience.com on Yahoo | 5/28/08 | Jeanna Bryner An armored fish was about to become a mom some 380 million years ago. Though the primitive fish perished, its fossilized remains remarkably reveal an embryo and umbilical cord inside the soon-to-be mother's body. The discovery marks the oldest evidence of an animal giving live birth, pushing the known record of such reproduction back by some 200 million years. It also supports the idea that internal fertilization in vertebrates (animals with backbones) originated in a group of primitive fish. "When I first saw the embryo inside the mother fish, my jaw dropped," said researcher John Long, a paleontologist at Museum...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Huge Flying Reptiles Ate Dinosaurs
	05/27/2008 9:38:03 PM PDT · Posted by pissant · 53 replies · 1,206+ views Live Science | 5/27/08 | jeanna Bryner With a name like T. rex, you'd expect to be safe from even the fiercest paleo-bullies. Turns out, ancient, flying reptiles could have snacked on Tyrannosaurus Rex To uncover these feeding habits, Witton and Portsmouth colleague Darren Naish analyzed fossils of a group of toothless pterosaurs called azhdarchids, which are muchbabies and other landlubbing runts of the dinosaur world. A new study reveals a group of flying reptiles that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs some 230 million to 65 million years ago did not catch prey in flight, but rather stalked them on land. Until now, paleontologists pictured the...
Health Care
Leeds medics solve an ancient riddle -- and offer new tool for diagnosis (finger clubbing)
	05/30/2008 3:18:02 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 11 replies · 530+ views University of Leeds | May 28, 2008 | Unknown A puzzling medical condition, identified more than 2,000 years ago by Hippocrates, has finally been explained by researchers at the University of Leeds. The phenomenon of "finger clubbing", a deformity of the fingers and fingernails, has been known for thousands of years, and has long been recognized to be a sign of a wide range of serious diseases -- especially lung cancer. "It's one of the first things they teach you at medical school," explained Professor David Bonthron of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine. "You shake the patient by the hand, and take a good look at their fingers...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Pisa's leaning tower said to be safe for 300 years
	05/28/2008 2:10:35 PM PDT · Posted by Daffynition · 15 replies · 299+ views YahooNews | May 28, 2008 | Philip Pullella The leaning tower of Pisa has been successfully stabilised and is out of danger for at least 300 years, said an engineer who has been monitoring the iconic Italian tourist attraction. "All of our expectations have been confirmed," Professor Michele Jamiolkowski, an engineer and geologist, was quoted as telling Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera. The tower's tilt of about four metres off the vertical has remained stable in recent years, after a big engineering project that ended in 2001 corrected its lean by about 40 centimetres from where it was in 1990 when the project began. "Now we can...
Epigraphy and Language
National Spelling Bee Brings Out Protesters Who R Thru With Through
	05/30/2008 7:32:21 AM PDT · Posted by MissouriConservative · 85 replies · 1,316+ views The Wall Street Journal | May 30, 2008 | Rebecca Dana A fyoo duhzen ambishuhss intelectchooals, a handful ov British skool teechers and wuhn rokit siuhntist ar triing to chang the way we spel. They are the leaders of the spelling-reform movement, a passionate but sporadic 800-year-old campaign to simplify English orthography. In its long and failure-ridden history, the movement has tried to convince an indifferent public of the need for a spelling system based on pronunciation. Reformers, including Mark Twain, Charles Darwin and Theodore Roosevelt, argued that phonetic spellings would make it easier for children, foreigners and adults with learning disabilities to read and write. For centuries, few listened, and...
Oh So Mysterioso
Shakespeare was a woman: Expert
	05/28/2008 4:21:43 AM PDT · Posted by CarrotAndStick · 88 replies · 1,635+ views PTI via, The Times of India | 28 May, 2008 | PTI Shakespeare was actually a Jewish woman who had disguised to get her work published in Elizabethan London where original literature from women was not acceptable, an expert has contended. The woman, Amelia Bassano Lanier Bassano, was of Italian descent and lived in England as a Marrano. She has been known only as the first woman to publish a book of poetry ( Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum in 1611) and as a candidate for "the dark lady" referred to in the sonnets, daily Ha'aretz reported. The theory rests largely on the circumstances of Bassano's life, which John Hudson, an expert...
Faith and Philosophy
When the Founding Fathers Faced Islamists ( History ... The Barbary Pirates )
	05/28/2008 10:00:46 AM PDT · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 53 replies · 1,187+ views Pajamas Media | May 27, 2008 | Michael Weiss Back in 1784, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had to decide whether to appease or stand up to armed Middle Eastern pirates. Sound familiar? John McCain and Barack Obama are now engaged in a long-distance dispute over whether talking to America's enemies is integral to America's security (with neither one wishing to talk to poor Hillary Clinton any longer). McCain has not so subtly assailed Obama as an "appeaser" for his stated willingness to sit down with the Iranian leadership about its nuclear weapons program and sponsorship of jihadism in Iraq -- and never mind for now if that leadership...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Absolutely chuffed! What happened when 30 grown men gave up 18 years to build a steam train
	05/30/2008 5:23:00 PM PDT · Posted by uglybiker · 12 replies · 377+ views Daily Mail | 30th May 2008 | Michael Hanlon Ask any child to draw a picture of a train and you will invariably get the same result: a cylindrical boiler shape, with some big wheels underneath, a cab and a chimney belching steam and smoke at the front. In other words, the classic railway locomotive. Nobody draws a picture of a diesel or an electric train. To a child there is only one noise a train can make: 'choo choo'. Plenty of enthusiasts...
end of digest #202 20080531

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #202 20080531 · Saturday, May 31, 2008 · 32 topics · 2023735 to 2021660 · 688 members ·
	Saturday May 31 2008 v 4 n 44 view this issue	Welcome to the 202nd issue. This week kinda kicked keister, although I haven't yet taken a count of topics, and there were at least a couple of groups of duplicates. We've had a few join each of the last few weeks, which could presage another period of sudden slight growth. I was going to be sure to post a "Pages" topic, instead I've been engaged in self-recrimination about my failure to do so. Now leaf me alone. The new software kicks out the keyword topic listings as unordered lists instead of tables, but it's actually EASIER to process the text now. I was as surprised as anyone, and had just forgotten to mention it. As you may have noticed, we're still using tables, in order to keep using the category headers. I also just noticed a typo in the next paragraph, and when I checked last week's issue for the correction, found it was already wrong then. I'm not going to track it down just now, but have eliminated it. Check out FReeper Foxhole for military history topics. 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. The Demwit Debacle in Denver is looking like a lock, and that will make for short-lived fun. Enjoy it, because if McCain loses in November to either of those Dhimmicrats, you can kiss it goodbye. I'll predict that The Phenomobama will win the nomination, but will lose the election. I need a new job.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #203 Saturday, June 7, 2008
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Tsunami Or Melting Glaciers: What Caused Ancient Atlit To Sink?
	06/04/2008 12:58:10 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 35 replies · 172+ views Haaretz | 6-3-2008 | By Ofri Ilani At the bottom of the sea, some 300 meters west of the Atlit fortress, lies one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of the Mediterranean basin. About 20 years ago, archaeologists discovered a complex of ancient buildings and ancient graves with dozens of skeletons at the underwater site of Atlit-Yam. The team of marine archaeologists that excavated the site, headed by Dr. Ehud Galili of the Israel Antiquities Authority, came to the consclusion that an ancient settlement once existed there, but sank beneath the surface of the sea...
Volcanism
Big Bangs: 'Stirring' Secrets Of Deadly Supervolcanoes Uncovered
	05/31/2008 2:28:14 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 42 replies · 1,135+ views Science Daily | 5-30-2008 | McGill University Supervolcanoes are orders of magnitude greater than any volcanic eruption in historic times. They are capable of causing long-lasting change to weather, threatening the extinction of species, and covering huge areas with lava and ash. (Credit: iStockphoto/Koch Valerie) ScienceDaily (May 30, 2008) -- Researchers from McGill University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) have simulated in the lab the process that can turn ordinary volcanic eruptions into so-called "supervolcanoes," with potentially devastating worldwide impact. The study was conducted by Dr. Ben Kennedy and and Dr. Mark Jellinek of UBC's Department of Earth...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
First Shoes Worn 40,000 Years Ago
	06/05/2008 8:01:34 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 74 replies · 1,160+ views Yahoo News | 6-5-2008 | Maggie Koerth-Baker Humans started wearing shoes about 40,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought, new anthropological research suggests. As any good clothes horse knows, the right outfit speaks volumes about the person wearing it. Now, anthropologists are tapping into that knowledge base, looking for the physical changes caused by wearing shoes to figure out when footwear first became fashionable. Turns out, clothes really do make the man (and the woman), at least when it comes to feet. That's because wearing shoes changes the...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Footprints In The Ash (Human-Mexico-40,000-YA)
	05/31/2008 12:25:17 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 76 replies · 1,217+ views Science News | 5-29-2008 | Sid Perkins Footprints (one left) left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico's Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years could be evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer than previously confirmed. Laser scans of the prints (right) confirm their human origins, the researchers report today at the American Geophysical Union meeting. Footprints left in volcanic ash that fell in central Mexico's Valsequillo Basin about 40,000 years ago are evidence that humans have inhabited the Americas far longer...
Peru
Ancient "Human Sacrifices" Found in Peru, Expert Says
	06/05/2008 8:11:43 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 8 replies · 289+ views National Geographic News | 6-4-2008 | Kelly Hearn Three possible human sacrifice victims have been found at a 4,000-year-old archaeological site in Peru, an archaeologist says. The apparently mutilated, partial skeletons (see photos) could overturn the peaceful reputation of the Pre-Ceramic period (3000 B.C. to 1800 B.C.) in the Andes mountains -- a time generally seen as free of ritualized killing and warfare. Alejandro Chu Barrera, who led the dig, said: "We found two pairs of legs -- probably young females around their 20s -- and the decapitated body of a young male in his 20s." "They appear to...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Unexpected origin of an early Eskimo
	05/31/2008 11:22:09 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 13 replies · 633+ views Nature | 29 May 2008 | Daniel Cressey But [the] hair sample could have been from a wandering mercenary. An early wave of migration into the New World and the Arctic has been identified by sequencing a genome from a frozen hair excavated in Greenland. Archaeological evidence shows that there were two waves of migration to Greenland starting 4,500 years ago, first with the Saqqaq and then the Dorset groups, collectively known as the Paleo-Eskimos. Later, around 1,000 years ago, came the Thule culture which led to the current native population. The relationship between these three groups has been uncertain. Some theories hold that Paleo-Eskimos derived from the populations...
Rewriting Greenland's Immigration History
	05/31/2008 12:38:01 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 574+ views Eureka Alert | 5-30-2008 | Eske Willerslev-University of Copenhagen Thirty-six-year-old Professor Eske Willerslev, University of Copenhagen, and his team of fossil DNA researchers have done it a couple of times before: rewritten world history. Most recently two months ago when he and his team discovered that the ancestors of the North American Indians were the first people to populate America, and that they came to the country more than 1,000 years earlier than originally assumed. And the evidence is, so to speak, quite tangible: DNA samples of fossilised human faeces found in deep caves in southern Oregon....
Australia and the Pacific
Humans May Have Come To New Zealand Later Than Thought
	06/03/2008 3:50:05 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 27 replies · 50+ views CBS News | 6-3-2008 Radiocarbon dating of rat bones and rat-gnawed seeds reinforces a theory that human settlers did not arrive in New Zealand until 1300 A.D. -- about 1,000 years later than some scientists believe, according to a study released Tuesday. The first settlement date "has been highly debated for decades," said Dr. Janet Wilmshurst, a New Zealander who led the international team of researchers in the four-year study. The team carbon dated rat...
Ancient Europe
Neolithic Men Were Prepared To Fight For Their Women
	06/02/2008 8:41:45 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 704+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 6-3-2008 | Roger Highfield Neolithic age men fought over women too, according to a study that provides the most ancient evidence of the lengths men will go to in the hunt for partners. Many archaeologists have argued that women have long motivated cycles of violence and blood feuds throughout history but there has really been no solid archaeological evidence to support this view. Now a relatively new method has been used to work out the origins of the victims tossed into a mass grave of...
Diet and Cuisine
How Sugar Changed The World
	06/03/2008 4:03:17 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 17 replies · 37+ views Live Science | 6-2-2008 | Heather Whipps What's not to like about candy, ice cream and all those other sweet treats made with everybody's favorite indulgence, sugar? Plenty, as it turns out, beyond the way it expands waistlines and causes cavities. It's unlikely that many candy-lovers in the United States think about history while quaffing an estimated 100 pounds of sugar per year, but sweet stuff once played a major role in one of the sourest eras in modern times. White Gold, as British colonists called it, was the engine...
Health Care
Medicinal Mercury In Medieval Bones
	06/02/2008 8:34:47 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 9 replies · 405+ views spectroscopynow.com | 6-1-2008 | Journal of Archaeological Science 2008 The Middle Ages, often referred to as Medieval times, spanned a long period in history from the 5th to the 16th Centuries. During this time, European society and culture enjoyed many advances and it could be argued that the quality of life improved beyond recognition. One area which progressed steadily was medicine and the treatment of disease, although these days we would not touch some of the medicinal compounds with a bargepole, let alone administer them to patients. One substance in popular use was mercury, used variously in gilding of jewellery and...
Physical Fitness
Ancient Nemea to host 2008 Olympic-like summer games
	06/05/2008 11:18:50 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 2 replies · 99+ views UC Berkeley press release | Wednesday, June 4, 2008 | Kathleen Maclay Just as the official Summer Olympics get underway in Beijing on June 21, an ancient athletic stadium at a UC Berkeley archaeological site in Greece that was home to the original Panhellenic Games will once again come alive with competition. The Nemean Games revived footraces held in the village of Ancient Nemea every four years since 1996, are not for trained athletes, but for anyone worldwide who wants to run. There will be a 100-meter sprint on the fourth-century clay track on June 21 and a 7.5- kilometer race the following day from the ancient temple of Herakles near the...
Central Asia
Pagan sect at Pakistan border lives amid conservative Muslims
	06/03/2008 11:51:20 AM PDT · Posted by swarthyguy · 15 replies · 41+ views McClatchy | 3.6.08 | Saeed Shah Bordering Afghanistan's Nuristan province, inaccessible Chitral district has long been thought to be a refuge for Osama bin Laden. With the high peaks of the Hindu Kush range and narrow valleys, ... easy to dodge through secret mountain routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. home of the Kalasha, a unique pagan civilization that's lived in the area for 2,000 years or more, boxed in by an increasingly militant Islam. According to locals, bin Laden lived with a Kalasha family in Chitral for some time during his first Afghan jihad, . With his now much more severe ideology, the al...
Greece
Living In The 'Bowels Of The Earth'
	06/04/2008 2:18:43 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 197+ views Athens News | 6-3-2008- | HEINRICH HALL The mythical birthplace of Zeus: the Idaean Cave, central Crete AT SOME point between AD575 and 600, at least 33 men, women and children entered a cave near modern Andritsa, southwest of Argolid, in the eastern Peloponnese. They carried a Christian cross, some money and food supplies, perhaps intending to hide from some temporary threat. They were never to see the light of day again. One by one, they died from starvation, unable or unwilling to escape the...
Ancient Autopsies
DNA Reveals Sister Power In Ancient Greece
	06/02/2008 7:58:25 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 21 replies · 268+ views The University Of Manchester | 6-2-2008 | The University Of Manchester University of Manchester researchers have revealed how women, as well as men, held positions of power in ancient Greece by right of birth. Women were thought to have had little power in ancient Greece, unless they married a powerful man and were able to influence him. But a team of researchers testing ancient DNA from a high status, male-dominated cemetery at Mycenae in Greece believe they have identified a brother and sister buried together in a richly endowed grave, suggesting that she had as much power as him. The team,...
Faith and Philosophy
Thracian God Dionysus's Temple Discovered in Bulgaria?
	06/02/2008 8:28:30 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 6 replies · 321+ views International News.bg | 5-27-20087 | Blaga Bangieva Over the tomb of Sevt III (on the coin) in the mound Goliama Kosmatka near Shipka town (Central Bulgaria) is most probably located the temple of Dionysius - the God of Fruitfulness. The news was reported in Kazanluk city by the director of local History Museum Kosio Zarev. According to Zarev's words the conclusion was made after the detailed geo-radar examinations of the mound executed by a private team. The researches showed that immediately over the Sevt III's tomb, revealed three years ago, is located a...
Egypt
Egypt uncovers 'missing' pyramid of a pharaoh (Menkauhor, obscure ruler over 4000 years ago)
	06/05/2008 9:09:00 AM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 21 replies · 911+ views AP on Yahoo | 6/5/08 | Katarina Kratovac - ap Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday. Zahi Hawass said the pyramid -- of which only the base remains -- is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago. In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said. But the desert sands covered Lepsius'...
Pyramidiocy
Pi, Phi and the Great Pyramid
	06/03/2008 7:59:35 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 31 replies · 283+ views Al-Ahram Weekly | 27 Mar 2008 | Assem Deif We can forget all the ideas crediting Atlanteans or space aliens with building the Great Pyramid of Giza, and instead imagine ourselves travelling back in time in H G Wells's time machine to try and work out not how the ancient Egyptians built this enormous edifice, because this lies beyond our present understanding, but rather what we can best judge to be its most appropriate proportions. Then, however, there were no electronic calculators, only ropes and rods. Constructing right angles at the four corners of a pyramid is easy. To do it, history tells us that the Egyptians were aware...
Sinai
Ancient Egyptian City Unearthed in Sinai
	06/04/2008 8:32:08 PM PDT · Posted by Lorianne · 10 replies · 533+ views Live Science | 28 May 2008 | Maamoun Youssef Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed 3,000-year-old remains from an ancient fortified city, the largest yet found in Egypt, antiquities authorities announced Wednesday. Among the discoveries at the site was a relief of King Thutmose II (1516-1504 B.C.), thought to be the first such royal monument discovered in Sinai, said Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It indicates that Thutmose II may have built a fort near the ancient city, located about two miles northeast of present day Qantara and known historically as Tharu. A 550-by-275-yard mud brick...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Temple Mount '100% Islamic'
	06/01/2008 3:22:52 PM PDT · Posted by kellynla · 99 replies · 1,624+ views worldnetdaily.com | June 01, 2008 | Aaron Klein Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims, declared the chief of staff for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," said Abbas' chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini. The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site. Husseini was referring to Israeli plans to construct a new bridge from the...
Oh So Mysterioso
Will Judean Desert Find Shed Light On Shroud Of Turin?
	06/01/2008 8:55:11 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 27 replies · 924+ views Jerusalem Post | 5-29-2008 | ETGAR LEFKOVITS Can a 6,000-year-old shroud uncovered in the Judean Desert in 1993 help illuminate the centuries-old debate over the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin Slideshow: Pictures of the week That is the question posed by Olga Negnevitsky, a conservator at the Israel Museum who was involved in the conservation of the lesser-known shroud for the Antiquities Authority after it was discovered inside a small cave near Jericho. The idea to use the older shroud to learn more about the famous one...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Unique Book Dedicated To Trial Against Templars On Display In Sofia
	05/31/2008 4:33:37 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 561+ views Novinite.com | 5-30-3008 A copy of the unique book dedicated to the trial against templars, issued by Secret Vatican City archive, was presented Friday in Sofia's National Archeological Museum. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency) The unique book dedicated to the trial against templars issued by Secret Vatican City archive was presented Friday in Sofia's National Archeological Museum. The publication, called "Processus Conta Templarios", is an expensive limited edition of the proceedings of the 1307-1312 papal trial of the mysterious medieval crusading order of warrior-monks who were...
Epigraphy and Language
Pictish stone found by gravedigger most significant in decade -- expert [Shetland]
	06/06/2008 7:58:43 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 26 replies · 822+ views Shetland Today | 06 June 2008 | Heather Baillache A PICTISH stone found in Cunningsburgh has been described as the most important archaeological discovery in Shetland for 10 years. It was found in Mail cemetery by gravedigger Malcolm Smith, his second such find in 16 years The sculptured stone is inscribed with mysterious symbols and dates back to the dark ages. It is the ninth stone of its kind to be discovered in the same area in the last 130 years. Its significance has been high≠lighted by Dr Ian Tait, collections curator at the Shetland Museum and Archives. "It is extremely exciting because it is a single find which...
British Isles
Ancient Skeletons Unearthed At Reepham (UK)
	06/03/2008 4:11:38 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 3 replies · 25+ views North Norfolk News | 6-2-2008 A glimpse of mediaeval life - and death - in the heart of Norfolk has been revealed after more than 60 skeletons were found under a town centre street. Contractors charged with laying pipelines in part of Reepham, in north Norfolk, made the grim discovery as they opened a trench in the town's Church Street. But the road's name gave some clue to the fate of the bodies. Archaeology work carried out since the discovery last year has found that underneath Church Street there was part of an old graveyard. Just 70cm...
Paleontology
Clue to Earth's Beginning Seen In Ordinary Lead as "Timepiece' (Real Time + 70 Years)
	06/05/2008 5:52:39 AM PDT · Posted by Homer_J_Simpson · 3 replies · 224+ views Microfiche-New York Times archives | 6/5/38 | No byline Harvard physicists plan to determine age of planet and "explore' eras farther back than ever before with the aid of lead, Harvard physicists hope to trace the earth's history back further than ever before into the ages following this planet's birth from the sun. For a timepiece scientists have used uranium-lead, a "dead" end-product of uranium's disintegration. Because they know how long it takes uranium to "die," they can tell how old a deposit is from the proportion of live uranium and inactive uranium-lead found side by side. Mineral deposits...
Blankity Blank Blank Blankers
BLANK History month
	05/30/2008 10:35:25 PM PDT · Posted by An American in Turkiye · 9 replies · 248+ views An American In Turkiye Fill in the blank history month. It seems like every month is a _______ history month. I've heard many arguments why there is a black, hispanic, asian, etc. month, but no white history month. It's a good argument. If every other ethnic group has one, why can we? People walk on egg shells when this question is posed, because "white guilt" has permeated this country. If you even argue for it, you're called a racist. Mind you, ________ history month celebrates the achievements of whichever ethnic group has dibs on the month. I've done the math, and adding up all...
Longer Perspectives
The New Copperheads
	05/31/2008 10:34:42 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 24 replies · 1,252+ views American Thinker | June 01, 2008 | Bruce Walker During the Civil War, when the issues of right and wrong were clear, one of President Lincoln's appointees, General George McClelland, betrayed him. The anti-war Democrats to whom McClelland pandered were called "Copperheads." They rallied around McClelland to defeat the president politically, when they could not defeat the armies of America militarily. McClelland had a pretty high opinion of himself. He knew what Lincoln did not: That the war come not be won, that giving up and bringing the troops home was the only sensible answer, and that the president was not much of a leader. Democrats overwhelmingly supported this...
World War Eleven
In Memoriam - June 6, 1944
	06/01/2008 5:54:34 PM PDT · Posted by PowderMonkey · 33 replies · 441+ views Dedicated in memory of all those who landed in Normandy June 6, 1944. In loving memory and with eternal gratitude. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Uncle Ralph. At ease, fellas. Bravo Zulu.
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Historical Societies
	06/01/2008 9:46:13 PM PDT · Posted by Lusis · 11 replies · 311+ views 2 June 2008 | Lusis I've been doing some genealogical research and have traced a couple branches of my family through the Civil War, the Texas War of Independence, and the Revolutionary War. I've also been given the opportunity via some co-workers to join the Sons of the Republic of Texas. I've checked into it, but have also found other historical societies such as the Sons of the Confederacy, and the Sons of the American Revolution. Does anyone out there have any info on these groups as to what it's like to be involved in these groups, and which ones are worth joining?
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