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· Saturday, September 11, 2010 · 34 topics · 2587193 to 2583199 · 743 members · |
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Posted on 07/16/2004 11:27:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #321 Saturday, September 11, 2010 |
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| Navigation | |
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| WTC Ship Gives Up Lucky Coin |
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· 09/10/2010 7:06:18 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Discovery News · · Friday, September 10, 2010 · · James William · |
Lucky coin? Ever since the 2nd century B.C. -- not long after Romans began minting coins -- shipbuilders have been slipping a coin into the structure of their ships. It's a tradition that continues today. In fact, the USS New York -- made partially from steel recovered from the World Trade Center towers -- did it as well (see "What is Stepping the Mast?"). For the ancient Romans it was likely a continuation of religious customs. Now it's just a tradition and done for good luck. So we didn't find it during the five days we were actually excavating it.... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| Ancient Greek Pill-Poppers Dosed Themselves With Carrots and Yarrow |
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· 09/10/2010 7:30:58 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 39 replies · · Discover magazine 'blogs · · September 10th, 2010 · · Joseph Calamia · |
Pill-popping ancients liked a good dose of vegetables, archaeobotanists have found after analyzing plant DNA in Greek-made pills from a 130 BC shipwreck. Though archaeologists have known about the ship since the 1980s, this is the first time researchers have had a crack at analyzing the drugs found onboard. Using the GenBank genetic database as their guide, they have found that the pills appear to contain carrot, parsley, radish, alfalfa, chestnut, celery, wild onion, yarrow, oak, and cabbage. Geneticist Robert Fleischer of the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park says that many of the ingredients match those described in ancient texts, New... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Ancient Greeks spotted Halley's comet |
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· 09/10/2010 5:37:03 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 21 replies · · NewsScientist · · 09 Sep 2010 · · Jo Marchant · |
A CELESTIAL event in the 5th century BC could be the earliest documented sighting of Halley's comet - and it marked a turning point in the history of astronomy. According to ancient authors, from Aristotle onwards, a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC. The impact shocked the local population and the rock became a tourist attraction for 500 years. The accounts describe a comet in the sky when the meteorite fell. This has received little attention, but the timing corresponds to an expected pass of Halley's comet, which is visible... |
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| Prehistory and Origins | |
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| Timothy Taylor: Humans are products of their own technology |
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· 09/08/2010 8:16:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · Sunday, September 5, 2010 · · The Observer · · interviewed by Robin McKie · |
Timothy Taylor is an anthropologist and archaeologist based at Bradford University. In his new book, The Artificial Ape, he argues that the moment our apemen ancestors began chipping at lumps of stone to create their first tools, they released a force -- technology -- that has played a pivotal role in shaping the human species. Such innovations have altered the way we nurture our offspring, prepare our food, use our strength and establish cultures. We did not invent technology, this 50-year-old scientist argues. Technology invented us. "...There is a perception that technology -- from the industrial revolution to the computer... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| 'Mitochondrial Eve': Mother of All Humans Lived 200,000 Years Ago |
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· 09/04/2010 10:15:45 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 66 replies · · ScienceDaily staff · · August 17, 2010 · · materials provided by Rice U · |
The most robust statistical examination to date of our species' genetic links to "mitochondrial Eve" -- the maternal ancestor of all living humans -- confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago. The Rice University study was based on a side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models that each aim to determine when Eve lived using a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth... "Our findings underscore the importance of taking into account the random nature of population processes like growth and extinction," said study co-author Marek Kimmel, professor of statistics at... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| First Irish genome sequenced |
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· 09/07/2010 7:49:50 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 32 replies · · BioMed Central · · September 7, 2010 · · Unknown · |
The first entire genome of an Irish individual has been sequenced. The sequence is reported in BioMed Central's open access journal, Genome Biology and provides insight into the evolutionary history of this distinct lineage. Led by Professor Brendan Loftus, the research team from UCD Conway Institute used data from a previous genotyping study to select a suitable Irish male representative for sequencing. Then, using pair- and single-ended Illumina short read sequencing, one of the next generation sequencing approaches, the team created 9 DNA sequence libraries, which were overlaid to generate a high quality genome sequence with 11-fold coverage. Analyses were... |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| Queen of the Inch to be re-interred [ Inchmarnock in the Firth of Clyde ] |
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· 09/04/2010 11:53:13 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 29 replies · · BBC · · August 2010 · · unattributed · |
A 4,000-year-old skeleton, known as the Queen of the Inch, is to be re-interred in the tiny island of Inchmarnock in the Firth of Clyde. The grave was found by a farmer in the 1950s as he ploughed a field. Preserved in an ancient cist, the remains included a necklace and dagger. Despite being examined by archaeologists and reburied in the 1960s, the skeleton was recently exhumed and studied using modern research techniques. Scientists have since been able to determine that the woman lived on Inchmarnock and came from the Clyde Estuary and that she did not eat seafood, despite... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Ancient boat discovered on Norfolk Broads |
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· 09/06/2010 5:21:48 AM PDT · · Posted by sodpoodle · · 14 replies · · Eastern Daily Press UK · · 9/4/2010 · · Anthony Carroll · |
A series of scientific tests are now being carried out to find the age of the boat which could be from 1,000BC to 600AD - from the Iron Age to the time of the Anglo-Saxons. After the boat was carefully excavated from 2m of silt clay it was taken to the York Archaeological Trust where preservation work and extensive dating tests, including soil and pollen dating, will be carried out to pinpoint the age of the boat.... The discovery is the third major archaeological find in the region during the last few months, with evidence of a human settlement from... |
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| Saxon boat uncovered in Norfolk's River Ant |
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· 09/08/2010 8:38:38 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · · BBC · · September 2010 · · unattributed · |
A Saxon boat has been found during flood defence work on a Norfolk river. The boat, which is about 9.8 ft (3m) long and had been hollowed out by hand from a piece of oak, was found at the bottom of the River Ant. Five animal skulls were found near the boat, which has been taken to York for treatment to preserve it. The Environment Agency had commissioned work to take place between Horning Hall and Browns Hill when the discovery was made last month. Once preservation has been finished the vessel will return to Norfolk, where the Norfolk Museums... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Egyptian papyrus found in ancient Irish bog |
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· 09/07/2010 9:05:00 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 25 replies · · AFP · · 06 Sep 2010 · · AFP · |
Irish scientists have found fragments of Egyptian papyrus in the leather cover of an ancient book of psalms that was unearthed from a peat bog, Ireland's National Museum said on Monday. The papyrus in the lining of the Egyptian-style leather cover of the 1,200-year-old manuscript, "potentially represents the first tangible connection between early Irish Christianity and the Middle Eastern Coptic Church", the Museum said. "It is a finding that asks many questions and has confounded some of the accepted theories about the history of early Christianity in Ireland." Raghnall O Floinn, head of collections at the Museum, said the manuscript,... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Ancient city gradually uncovered in Egypt |
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· 09/08/2010 10:09:57 AM PDT · · Posted by wzlboy · · 11 replies · · ajc.com · · 9/8/2010 · · Nasser Nasser / AP · |
An ancient city nearly wiped out by a fourth-century tsunami is being uncovered by archaeologists near the modern Egyptian resort of Marina. Behind the restored Roman pillar tombs is a modern hotel. [IMAGE] |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, & PreClovis | |
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| Divers find prehistoric artifacts in North Port spring [ 10K yrs BP ] |
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· 09/04/2010 5:41:39 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · · Tampa Bay Online · · August 19, 2010 · · Keith Morelli, Tampa Tribune · |
In the pitch-black depths of an isolated North Port spring sits a silt-covered ledge that is revealing secrets about a prehistoric nomadic people, secrets held in murky silence for 100 centuries... This stuff could be as old as 13,000 years old, when wandering tribes traversed Florida. Their travels included stopovers at what is now known as Little Salt Spring, 90 minutes south of Tampa. Artifacts are delicately uncovered from a ledge 90 feet below the surface... John Gifford, an underwater archaeologist with UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science along with aquarium divers are working together to gather the... |
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| Red Paint People | |
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| Inconvenient Ice Study: Less ice in the Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 years ago |
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· 09/08/2010 12:13:06 PM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 19 replies · · Whats up With That? · · September 8, 2010 · · Anthony Watts · |
Since there is so much worry about the Arctic Sea Ice extent this time of year, it is always good to get some historical perspective. According to this study, our current low Arctic ice extents are not unprecedented.From a press release of the Geological Survey of Norway:Less ice in the Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 years ago Written by: Gudmund Løvø 20. October 2008 Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically... |
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| Climate | |
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| In Amazon, traces of an advanced civilization |
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· 09/06/2010 8:42:43 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 37 replies · · The Washington Post · · 05 Sep 2010 · · Juan Forero · |
To the untrained eye, all evidence here in the heart of the Amazon signals virgin forest, untouched by man for time immemorial - from the ubiquitous fruit palms to the cry of howler monkeys, from the air thick with mosquitoes to the unruly tangle of jungle vines. Archaeologists, many of them Americans, say the opposite is true: This patch of forest, and many others across the Amazon, was instead home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soil to feed thousands. The findings are discrediting a once-bedrock theory of archaeology that long held that... |
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| Arctic | |
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| Arctic in the Holocene, narwhals, and all that |
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· 09/08/2010 1:00:01 PM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 10 replies · · Whats up With That? · · September 7, 2010 · · Anthony Watts · |
UPDATE: Apparently Joe Romm can't handle this information. Ecotretas records the action here. Readers may have seen this BBC story:BBC -- Earth News -- Climate change threatens slow swimming narwhals "That places them at high risk from climate change, as narwhals will not be able to cope with shifting, highly mobile ice floes caused by warmer seas." As explained below, a narwhal fossil find suggests that the Arctic may have been more open and warmer in the past. Guest post by Ecotretas (visit his blog here)In early August, an ice island calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Later in the month,... |
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| Antarctic | |
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| A climate warning from the deep ( a sea passage once divided Antarctica 125,000 years ago. ) |
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· 09/08/2010 12:35:57 PM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 17 replies · · The Observer · · Sunday 5 September 2010 · · Robin McKie · |
Bryozoans found in the Ross and Weddell seas were almost identical, meaning the ice sheet that separates them isn't as ancient as once thought. Photograph: British Antarctic Survey -- Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute animals suggests a sea passage once divided Antarctica 125,000 years ago. |
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| Mongolia | |
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| Prehistoric bone hats found in Inner Mongolia |
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· 09/08/2010 8:09:06 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · · People's Daily Online · · September 6, 2010 · · Wang Hanlu · |
Recently, archaeologists found prehistoric hats of human beings who lived 4,600 years ago from an ancient tomb site at Tongliao City of Inner Mongolia. Experts said it was the first time this kind of hats, which were made from bones, have been found in the same period of prehistoric culture. As of now, archaeologists have found and cleared near 400 ancient tombs dating back 4,500 years ago around the site, and more than 1,500 objects of pottery, jade stone, horn and clam shell were excavated. The newly-found bone hats were tightly cramped on dead bodies' heads and had the obvious... |
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| China | |
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| Statues older, more numerous than terracotta warriors found in Hunan |
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· 09/04/2010 6:34:44 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · People's Daily Online · · August 18, 2010 · · unattributed · |
The group of stone statues is located at the worship site of Guizai Mountain, which is 1 kilometer to the south of Tianguangdong Village, Xianglinpu Town, Dao County in Hunan Province, and is part of the Nanling Mountains. A large cache of ancient stone statues outnumbering the Qin Terracotta Warriors was found in the depths of the Nanling Mountains located in Dao County of Yongzhou City... The group of stone statues is located at the worship site of Guizai Mountain, which is 1 kilometer to the south of Tianguangdong Village, Xianglinpu Town, Dao County in Hunan Province, and is part... |
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
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| Cyrus the Great's cylinder returns to Iran |
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· 09/11/2010 3:31:21 AM PDT · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 11 replies · · Australian Broadcasting Commission · · 11 Sept 2010 · · anon · |
A clay cylinder dating from the time of one of Persia's greatest rulers, Cyrus the Great, has been returned on loan to Iran following a prolonged dispute with the British Museum in London. In February Iran threatened to cut ties with the British Museum in protest to what it called politically motivated delays in returning the cylinder. However the museum says the delay occurred so that the cylinder could be compared with two stone tablets that were recently discovered. British Museum director Neil MacGregor says the cylinder has plenty of historical significance. "It's about Cyrus's respect for different peoples and... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Archaeology Series Opens with Talk on Roman Map-Making [ Valparaiso U, Indiana ] |
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· 09/10/2010 7:02:12 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · Valpo Life · · September 2010 · · Valparaiso Univ · |
The annual Valparaiso University Archaeological Institute of America lecture series will begin Sept. 21 with a discussion of Roman cartography and the creation of a map that would influence Christian mapmaking for centuries. Richard Talbert, professor of history at the University of North Carolina, will discuss "The Magnificent Peutinger Map: Roman Cartography at Its Most Creative" at 8 p.m. in Harre Union Brown and Gold Room. The lecture is free and open to the public. Talbert will discuss how the ancient Romans came to realize that maps are not mere factual records, but also value-laden documents, focusing on the powerful... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Gibbon- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter XVII |
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· 09/04/2010 2:34:07 PM PDT · · Posted by hc87 · · 23 replies · · Project Guttenburg · · 1781 · · Edward Gibbon · |
A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase of taxes. The impartial historian,who acknowledges the justice of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the foundations... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| CCU Ethno-archaeologist Gives Talk On Child Sacrifice [Coastal Carolina University] |
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· 09/10/2010 6:59:40 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · South Carolina Now · · September 07, 2010 · · CCU press release · |
Sharon Moses, an ethno-archaeologist on the Coastal Carolina University faculty, will give a talk titled "Baby's Breath to God's Ears: Child Sacrifice in the Ancient World" at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 14. The talk, sponsored by the Waccamaw Chapter of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina (ASSC), will be held in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration building, Room 225, on the CCU campus. The event is free and open to the public. Moses' presentation is based on research she has conducted on child sacrifice in ancient times. Her studies have taken her to the site... |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Archaeologists attack BP's drilling plans [ Libya ] |
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· 09/08/2010 8:35:15 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · · The Art Newspaper · · Thursday, September 9, 2010 · · Emily Sharpe · |
From Greek and Roman shipwrecks to 20th-century warships; from ancient streets with intact buildings and mosaics to amphorae and ingots, the Mediterranean is a subaqueous treasure trove. So BP's plans to drill exploratory oil wells off Libya has raised serious concerns among archaeologists, historians and heritage preservation organisations. The global energy giant says that it will begin the $900m project to drill five exploratory wells in the Gulf of Sirte "before the end of this year" despite the fact that the cause of the blowout of its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico has yet to be determined. The... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Garden Tomb Threatened by Muslim Construction |
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· 09/06/2010 11:01:15 AM PDT · · Posted by Blogger · · 58 replies · · Prophecy News Watch · |
More than a quarter of a million Christians visit Jerusalem's Garden Tomb every year. The holy site is believed by many to be the place where Jesus rose from the dead. But now, the sacred ground is in danger of being damaged by a Muslim construction project. Garden Tomb Director Richard Meryon showed CBN News the 15-foot wall being built above the tomb. "In the last few weeks the cemetery above has built this wooden construction into which they are now ready to pour hundreds of tons of concrete on top of our wall," he explained. Jerusalem's Islamic waqf is... |
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| Amidst Shrapnel in Afghanistan, an Archaeology Discovery |
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· 09/04/2010 5:13:43 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · Fox · · Tuesday, August 17, 2010 · · Reuters · |
Archaeologists in Afghanistan, where Taliban Islamists are fighting the Western-backed government, have uncovered Buddhist-era remains in an area south of Kabul, an official said on Tuesday. "There is a temple, stupas, beautiful rooms, big and small statues, two with the length of seven and nine meters, colorful frescos ornamented with gold and some coins," said Mohammad Nader Rasouli, head of the Afghan Archaeological Department... We need foreign assistance to preserve these and their expertise to help us with further excavations." The excavation site extends over 12 km (7.5 miles) in the Aynak region of Logar province just south of Kabul,... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Computer expert nails down Jewish New Year |
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· 09/09/2010 8:02:41 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 12 replies · · upi · · Sept. 8, 2010 · |
SAN FRANCISCO, - A San Francisco-based computer scientist says he has solved the mystery of dating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Year 5771 begins at sundown Wednesday. Steve Morse's interest in the Jewish calendar began when he was a teenager, more than 50 years ago, The Denver Post reported. He tried to figure out his grandmother's birth date in the Gregorian calendar -- the one commonly used in most of the world now -- from the one in the Jewish calendar used on her records from Europe. The Jewish calendar is a difficult one, based on the movements of... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| FReep this Poll: Greatest Military General in History |
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· 09/08/2010 2:09:37 PM PDT · · Posted by therightliveswithus · · 138 replies · · Right Handed Pitcher · · 9/8/10 · |
Vote in our poll: the Greatest General in History |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Dutch history student finds world's oldest share |
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· 09/10/2010 8:25:34 AM PDT · · Posted by James C. Bennett · · 13 replies · · Reuters · · Sep 10, 2010 · · Reuters · |
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch history student has unearthed the world's oldest share, dating back to 1606 and issued by the sea trading firm Dutch East India Company. Locked away in forgotten city archives, the share was made out to Pieter Harmensz, a male resident of the Dutch city Enkhuizen who served as an assistant to the city's mayors. After his death in 1638, Harmensz left the share to his widow and their daughter Ada and the document eventually ended up in Enkhuizen archives, kept in the northwestern city Hoorn. As the Netherlands' largest trading company in the 17th and... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| The American Rifleman in the Revolutionary War |
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· 09/04/2010 5:07:20 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 40 replies · · The New American · · 03 Sep 2010 · · Roger D. McGrath · |
"When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually." -- George Mason of Virginia, 1788 Our Founding Fathers were absolutely adamant about the right of the people to keep and bear arms. They were students of history and understood that from classical antiquity forward, an armed citizenry was essential to the preservation... |
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| Early America | |
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| Today In History, September 9,1776: Continental Congress changes "United Colonies" to "United States" |
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· 09/09/2010 4:20:43 PM PDT · · Posted by mdittmar · · 10 replies · · Journals of the Continental Congress · · September 9,2010 · · Continental Congress · |
"Resolved, That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words "United Colonies" have been used, the stile be altered, for the future, to the "United States." |
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| The Framers | |
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| The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness |
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· 09/07/2010 6:09:32 PM PDT · · Posted by dajeeps · · 7 replies · · amazon.com · · 2009 · · Harlow Giles Unger · |
Product Description In this lively and compelling biography Harlow Giles Unger reveals the dominant political figure of a generation. A fierce fighter in four critical Revolutionary War battles and a courageous survivor of Valley Forge and a near-fatal wound at the Battle of Trenton, James Monroe (1751-1831) went on to become America's first full-time politician, dedicating his life to securing America's national and international durability. Decorated by George Washington for his exploits as a soldier, Monroe became a congressman, a senator, U.S. minister to France and Britain, governor of Virginia, secretary of state, secretary of war, and finally America's fifth... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Democrats expel African-American state legislators |
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· 09/03/2010 10:44:09 AM PDT · · Posted by Michael Zak · · 9 replies · · Grand Old Partisan · · September 3, 2010 · · Michael Zak · |
On this day in 1868, the Democrat majority expelled all 28 African-Americans from the Georgia state legislature. The ousted legislators, all Republicans, had offended the neo-Confederate establishment by supporting the civil rights of emancipated slaves. Henry Turner (R-GA), an AME bishop and state legislator, was one of the most influential African-Americans in the 19th century. In his last speech before being expelled, he said: |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Rare Color Video Found of World War II "London Blitz" Aftermath -- Raw Video |
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· 09/07/2010 11:54:37 AM PDT · · Posted by Federalist Patriot · · 20 replies · · Freedom's Lighthouse · · September 7, 2010 · · Brian · |
Here is rare color video showing the bomb damage aftermath of the German Blitz of London that began 70 years ago today -- September 7, 1940. Hitler's Luftwaffe continued bombing for 76 consecutive nights, killing more than 43,000 people and destroying more than a million homes and buildings in London alone. This video was reportedly found in an attic recently. |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Hump-backed dinosaur may yield clues to origin of birds |
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· 09/09/2010 5:30:31 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 12 replies · · BBC · · September 8, 2010 · · Katie Alcock · |
Spanish palaeontologists have uncovered a new dinosaur with what may be the earliest evidence of feather follicles.The researchers, whose findings are published in Nature, located the fossils near Cuenca, central Spain. They named the reptile Concavenator corcovatus, meaning "meat eater from Cuenca with a hump". The type of dinosaur that was found is known as a theropod. Theropods are mainly known from the ancient southern landmass, Gondwana. Over time, Gondwana and other ancient landmasses broke up, forming the continents we see today. |
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| end of digest #321 20100911 | |
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· Saturday, September 11, 2010 · 34 topics · 2587193 to 2583199 · 743 members · |
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Saturday |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #322 Saturday, September 18, 2010 |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| New study finds milk drinkers may have a healthy weight advantage |
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· 09/15/2010 1:37:56 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 42 replies · · Weber Shandwick Worldwide · · September 15, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Research suggests boosting key milk nutrients calcium and vitamin D could aid weight lossNow there's a new reason to grab a glass of milk when you're on diet, suggests a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In a 2-year weight loss study, milk drinkers had an advantage over those who skipped the milk. Israeli researchers found that adults who drank the most milk (nearly 2 glasses per day) and had the highest vitamin D levels at 6 months, lost more weight after 2 years than those who had little or no milk or milk products --... |
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| Alexander the Great | |
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| Laminated Linen Protected Alexander the Great |
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· 09/16/2010 5:17:28 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · · Discovery News · · September 11, 2010 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
A Kevlar-like armor might have helped Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) conquer nearly the entirety of the known world in little more than two decades, according to new reconstructive archaeology research. Presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Anaheim, Calif., the study suggests that Alexander and his soldiers protected themselves with linothorax, a type of body armor made by laminating together layers of linen. "While we know quite a lot about ancient armor made from metal, linothorax remains something of a mystery since no examples have survived, due to the perishable nature of the material,"... |
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| Experts question claim that Alexander the Great's half-brother is buried at Vergina |
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· 09/12/2010 5:48:55 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · Eurekalert · · September 8, 2010 · · Hannah Johnson, U of Bristol · |
The tomb was discovered during the excavation of a large mound -- the Great Tumulus -- at Vergina in 1977. Along with many treasures including ceremonial military equipment, bronze utensils, silver tableware, and gold wreaths, the tomb contained two sets of skeletal remains. Those of a man were found in a gold casket in the main chamber and those of a woman in a smaller gold casket in the second chamber. Both individuals had been cremated and evidence of a wooden funerary house containing a pyre was also found near the tomb. Dr Jonathan Musgrave of the University of Bristol's... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| 2 Billion Year Old Nuclear Reactors Found In Africa |
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· 09/15/2010 3:31:11 PM PDT · · Posted by Dallas59 · · 54 replies · · NASA · · 9/12/10 · · NASA · |
Oklo: Ancient African Nuclear Reactors Explanation: The remnants of nuclear reactors nearly two billion years old were found in the 1970s in Africa. These reactors are thought to have occurred naturally. No natural reactors exist today, as the relative density of fissile uranium has now decayed below that needed for a sustainable reaction. Pictured above is Fossil Reactor 15, located in Oklo, Gabon. Uranium oxide remains are visible as the yellowish rock. Oklo by-products are being used today to probe the stability of the fundamental constants over cosmological time and distance scales and to develop more effective means for... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Research shows radiometric dating still reliable (again) |
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· 09/16/2010 3:35:58 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 36 replies · · NIST · · September 16, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Recent puzzling observations of tiny variations in nuclear decay rates have led some to question the science of using decay rates to determine the relative ages of rocks and organic materials. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with researchers from Purdue University, the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Wabash College, tested the hypothesis that solar radiation might affect the rate at which radioactive elements decay and found no detectable effect. Atoms of radioactive isotopes are unstable and decay over time by shooting off particles at a fixed rate, transmuting the material into... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Taking molecular snaps of ancient crops |
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· 09/16/2010 3:04:27 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · · Nature · · September 13, 2010 · · Ewen Callaway · |
Archaeologists interested in the genetics of ancient organisms have a new molecular tool at hand -- RNA. Two teams of scientists have decoded RNA from ancient crops in the hope of understanding the subtle evolutionary changes that accompanied the process of plant domestication. Unlike DNA, which remains largely unchanged throughout the life of an organism, RNA molecules offer a snapshot of the activity of a cell, indicating which genes are turned on and off, and to what extent. "With ancient DNA you can see what an ancient organism might have looked like. With ancient RNA we can see what it... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, & PreClovis | |
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| Undersea Cave Yields One of Oldest Skeletons in Americas |
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· 09/15/2010 12:56:28 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 27 replies · · National Geographic · · September 14, 2010 · · Ker Than · |
Apparently laid to rest more than 10,000 years ago in a fiery ritual, one of the oldest skeletons in the Americas has been retrieved from an undersea cave along Mexico's Yucat·n Peninsula, researchers say. Dating to a time when the now lush region was a near desert, the "Young Man of Chan Hol" may help uncover how the first Americans arrived -- and who they were. About 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Canc˙n, the cave system of Chan Hol -- Maya for "little hole" -- is like a deep gouge into the Caribbean coast. In 2006, after entering the cave's opening, about 30 feet (10... |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| History Of Peru Series Part 5: The Pucllana Period |
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· 09/14/2010 5:39:58 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · Peruvian Times · · Monday, September 13, 2010 · · Paul Goulder · |
In this Peruvian Times tour of early Peru we are now visiting the fourth site, Pucllana or the Huaca Juliana, part of the "intermediate" Lima Culture. Please see Part 2 for map and Part 3 for aerial views and context. I hope that during the course of the next five parts of the series -- which all have to do with the same time period as Pucllana, approximately 200-800 AD -- a more intimate understanding of this remarkable era in Peru's development will emerge. It is remarkable also because of the "flowering" of two neighboring cultures: those of the Moche... |
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| Navigation | |
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| A Medieval Coin in New England Soil |
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· 09/12/2010 3:35:25 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · Beachcombing 'blog · · September 11, 2010 · · eponymous blogger · |
It was only when the coin was later identified as Viking that the game heated up. By then poor Mellegren -- who, Beachcombing must say was someone with a reputation for integrity -- had passed away. Beachcombing has no illusions about much of the nonsense written about pre-Columbian visits to North America. But in this case he would give a thumb and a half followed by two cheers and three quarters. There is a good chance that this really is what it seems: A European coin that found its way to North America in the twelfth century. Minted in Norway,... |
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| Climate | |
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| Home of "Ice Giants" thaws, shows pre-Viking hunts |
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· 09/14/2010 1:49:49 PM PDT · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 30 replies · · Reuters on Yahoo · · 9/14/10 · · Alister Doyle · |
JUVFONNA, Norway (Reuters) -- Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains. "It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 meters (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway. Specialized hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| New finds suggest Romans won big North Germany battle [ Maximinus Thrax ] |
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· 09/15/2010 8:16:18 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 37 replies · · Monsters and Critics (DPA) · · Wednesday, September 15, 2010 · · Jean-Baptiste Piggin · |
Until only two years ago, northern Germany was believed to have been a no-go area for Roman troops after three legions were wiped out by German tribesmen in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9. The revelation that two centuries later a Roman force mounted a punitive raid deep inside the tribal areas in AD 235 has changed all that, suggesting that a soldier-emperor, Maximinus Thrax, seriously attempted to subjugate the north of Germany. The debris from the battle is scattered over a wooded hill, the Harzhorn. An archeological dig there this summer turned up 1,800 artefacts. A... |
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| Rome's Ancient Aqueduct Found |
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· 09/17/2010 7:54:05 AM PDT · · Posted by wildbill · · 34 replies · · Discovery News · · 9/17/10 · · Dislcovery News Staff · |
The long-sought source of the aqueduct that brought clean fresh water to ancient Rome lies beneath a pig pasture and a ruined chapel, according to a pair of British filmmakers who claim to have discovered the headwaters of Aqua Traiana, a 1,900-year-old aqueduct built by the Emperor Trajan in 109 A.D. |
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| British Isles | |
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| Treasure hunter finds rare antique in Cumbria (Roman helmet with mask) |
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· 09/13/2010 5:41:22 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 34 replies · · BBC · · September 13, 2010 · · Unknown · |
A metal detector enthusiast in Cumbria has discovered a rare Roman bronze helmet complete with face-mask. It is believed to be one of only three of its kind to be found in Britain. The helmet would have been worn, possibly with colourful streamers attached, as a mark of excellence by Roman soldiers at sport parades. Described as a "hugely important discovery", it is now expected to fetch £300,000 at Christie's Antiquities auction in London on 7 October. The Crosby Garrett Helmet has been named after the hamlet in Cumbria where it was found in a field in May. |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Hadrian's Wall child murder: estimated time of death pre-367AD |
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· 09/16/2010 7:59:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Guardian · · Wednesday, September 15, 2010 · · Martin Wainwright · |
The murderous reputation of one of Britain's best-known Roman towns has been raised by the discovery of a child's hastily buried skeleton under a barrack room floor. Archaeologists at Vindolanda fort near Hadrian's Wall are preparing for a repeat of a celebrated coroner's inquest in the 1930s that concluded two other corpses unearthed near the site were "victims of murder by persons unknown shortly before 367AD". The latest discovery at the frontier settlement in Northumberland is thought to be the remains of a girl aged between eight and 10 who may have been tied up before she died. Her burial... |
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| Africa | |
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| British archaeologist finds cave paintings at 100 new African sites |
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· 09/18/2010 2:55:15 AM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 17 replies · · Guardian UK · · Sept 17, 2010 · · Dalya Alberge · |
Striking prehistoric rock art created up to 5,000 years ago has been discovered at almost 100 sites in Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden in eastern Africa. A local team headed by Dr Sada Mire -- of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (UCL) -- made the finds which included a man on horseback, painted around 4,000 years ago -- one of the earliest known depictions of a mounted hunter. |
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| China | |
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| Kenya: National Museums Defends the Digging Up of Ancient Kingdom |
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· 09/16/2010 8:42:51 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · All Africa · · 13 September 2010 · · Mazera Ndurya · |
The National Museums of Kenya has defended archaeological work to locate the ancient settlement of Malindi Kingdom. A press release by the joint Sino-Kenya archaeological team said digging at the ancient sites in Mambrui Village in Magarini District was legal and all procedures had been followed. The head of the Chinese team, Prof Qin Dashu and his Kenyan counterpart, Dr Herman Kiriama of the NMK, said the sites were selected on the recommendations of Kenyan scholars. "The sites are not in the burial sections and the team tried to strictly adhere to Islamic laws where graves are not supposed to... |
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| India | |
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| India's lost university to rise from ashes |
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· 09/13/2010 10:39:27 AM PDT · · Posted by James C. Bennett · · 34 replies · · AFP · · 12 September, 2010 · · AFP · |
NEW DELHI -- Indian academics have long dreamt of resurrecting Nalanda University, one of the world's oldest seats of learning which has lain in ruins for 800 years since being razed by foreign invaders. Now the chance of intellectual life returning to Nalanda has come one step closer after the parliament in New Delhi last month passed a bill approving plans to re-build the campus as a symbol of India's global ambitions. Historians believe that the university, in the eastern state of Bihar, once catered for 10,000 students and scholars from across Asia, studying subjects ranging from science and philosophy... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| CT scan for 50 million year old snake |
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· 09/14/2010 7:22:42 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · PhysOrg · · Monday, September 13, 2010 · · Methodist Hospital System · |
Clarisse is a snake, found in the Fossil Butte region of Wyoming, perfectly fossilized in limestone and the only one of her kind known to be in existence. Palentologist Hussan Zaher found her, and he brought her to Houston in hopes of learning more about her. He brought his precious find to The Methodist Hospital and subjected her to a detailed CT (computerized tomography) scan in hopes of finding where Clarisse fits along the timeline of evolution. [You need Flash installed to watch this video] ...CT scan technician Pam Mager conducted the scan on a 64-slice scanner that is capable... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| This Day in Civil War History September 13th, 1862 The Union Discovers "Lost Order" |
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· 09/13/2010 5:01:47 AM PDT · · Posted by mainepatsfan · · 13 replies · · History.com · |
Sep 13, 1862: The Union Discovers "Lost Order" Union soldiers find a copy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's orders detailing the Confederates' plan for the Antietam campaign near Frederick, Maryland. But Union General George B. McClellan was slow to act, and the advantage the intelligence provided was lost. On the morning of September 13, the 27th Indiana rested in a meadow outside of Frederick, Maryland, which had served as the site of a Confederate camp a few days before. Sergeant John Bloss and Corporal Barton W. Mitchell found a piece of paper wrapped around three cigars. The paper was... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Communists Lured To Their Deaths By MI6 With Promise Of Sex |
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· 09/17/2010 9:04:21 PM PDT · · Posted by fight_truth_decay · · 12 replies · · Telegraph · · 7:10PM BST 17 Sep 2010 · · Duncan Gardham · |
Sidney Reilly, nicknamed the 'Ace of Spies,' planned to kill the whole of the Soviet leadership during a meeting at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1918 An MI6 agent became a serial killer as he used pretty young women to lure Russians to their deaths with the promise of sex, new documents reveal. A Cossack colonel called Mohammed Bek Hadji Lashet, and his gang used the women to attract communists to a lakeside villa where they were tortured and then killed, according to a new history of the intelligence service. The book, Six, by former military intelligence officer Michael Smith, reveals... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Diaries of a 19th Century Military Wife Uncovered |
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· 09/12/2010 10:29:28 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 22 replies · · Live Science · · September 11, 2010 · · Jeremy Hsu · |
Modern military wives typically don't ship out alongside their husbands, but the young wife of a British naval officer did just that during the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century. Now a historian who tracked down 40 unpublished volumes of her diaries has gotten the go-ahead to write a book investigating her life. Elizabeth "Betsey" Wynne accompanied her husband aboard his warship during a disastrous British assault on the Spanish Canary Islands. She spent the voyage home-nursing the wounded Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, whom lost his right arm during the attack and would go on to become one of England's greatest... |
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| Arctic | |
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| Russia finds last-days log of famed 1912 Arctic expedition [ Georgy Brusilov ] |
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· 09/14/2010 6:51:23 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · PhysOrg · · Monday, September 13, 2010 · · AFP · |
For decades mystery clouded the fate of the adventurer Georgy Brusilov -- captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West -- inspiring a generation of books and films. But the famed voyagers' remains and a journal -- dated to May 1913 from aboard their vessel, the Saint Anna -- were found this summer on the icy shores of Franz Josef Land, Europe's northernmost land mass... Midway into its epic journey along the Siberian coast, after navigating the perilous Vilkitsky Strait into the Kara Sea, the expedition ran aground on thick... |
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| Pages | |
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| The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph A. Tainter PhD |
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· 09/13/2010 4:15:07 PM PDT · · Posted by Lorianne · · 17 replies · · Financial Sense · · 13 September 2010 · · Joseph A. Tainter PhD · · interviewer Jim Paplava · |
Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Amazing Photo's of Ten Little Known Ancient Ruins. (Must See Photo's) |
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· 09/16/2010 2:50:54 PM PDT · · Posted by Proud Socialist · · 82 replies · · 9/16/10 · · ??? · |
Many places like the Gaza Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, and the ruins of ancient Greece, all seem to get the publicity and headlines for the beauty and history, but have you ever wondered about the places you never heard of but you know they exist if for no other reason then it's a big world that has existed a long time? Sometimes these unheard of ancient ruins offer even better images than the ones we know about, just because they are rarely seen by the eye if the general public.Well for the viewing pleasure of all freepers,... |
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| end of digest #322 20100918 | |
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· Saturday, September 18, 2010 · 24 topics · 2590584 to 2587796 · 747 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 25 great topics of the 322nd issue. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #323 Saturday, September 25, 2010 |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Volcanoes Killed Off Neanderthals, Study Suggests |
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· 09/24/2010 8:52:38 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · National Geographic News · · September 22, 2010 · · Ker Than · |
The Neanderthals were a hardy species that lived through multiple ice ages and would have been familiar with volcanoes and other natural calamities. But the eruptions 40,000 years ago were unlike anything Neanderthals had faced before, Cleghorn and company say. For one thing, all the volcanoes apparently erupted around the same time. And one of those blasts, the Campanian Ignimbrite, is thought to have been the most powerful eruption in Europe in the last 200,000 years... The researchers acknowledge that there are gaps in the volcanoes theory. For instance, the time line needs to be better defined -- did... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Neanderthals more advanced than previously thought |
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· 09/21/2010 4:51:39 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 51 replies · · U of Co Denver · · September 21, 2010 · · Unknown · |
They innovated, adapted like modern humans -- For decades scientists believed Neanderthals developed -- modern' tools and ornaments solely through contact with Homo sapiens, but new research from the University of Colorado Denver now shows these sturdy ancients could adapt, innovate and evolve technology on their own. The findings by anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore challenge a half-century of conventional wisdom maintaining that Neanderthals were thick-skulled, primitive -- cavemen' overrun and outcompeted by more advanced modern humans arriving in Europe from Africa. "Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals," said Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at UC Denver. "They were far more resourceful... |
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| Africa | |
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| Stone tools 'change migration story' (Out of Africa) |
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· 09/19/2010 5:12:44 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · · BBC · · September 19, 2010 · · Katie Alcock · |
A research team reports new findings of stone age tools that suggest humans came "out of Africa" by land earlier than has been thought. Geneticists estimate that migration from Africa to South-East Asia and Australia took place as recently as 60,000 years ago. But Dr Michael Petraglia, of Oxford University, and colleagues say stone artefacts found in the Arabian Peninsula and India point to an exodus starting about 70,000 to 80,000 years ago - and perhaps even earlier. Petraglia, whose co-workers include Australian and Indian researchers, presented his ideas at the British Science Festival, which is hosted this year at... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Australian Aborigines 'world's first astronomers' |
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· 09/18/2010 1:58:35 PM PDT · · Posted by Fred Nerks · · 18 replies · · Yahoo News · · Fri Sep 17, 5:39 am ET · · U/A · |
SYDNEY (AFP) -- An Australian study has uncovered signs that the country's ancient Aborigines may have been the world's first stargazers, pre-dating Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids by thousands of years. Professor Ray Norris said widespread and detailed knowledge of the stars had been passed down through the generations by Aborigines, whose history dates back tens of millennia, in traditional songs and stories. "We know there's lots of stories about the sky: songs, legends, myths," said Norris, an astronomer for Australia's science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO). "We wondered how much further does it go than that. It... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Inside Lascaux: Rare, Unpublished (cave drawings - link only) |
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· 09/23/2010 4:59:37 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · LIFE · · September 8, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Link only: An 'orse, of course |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Water buffalo, goats can distort Stone Age sites |
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· 09/23/2010 1:32:37 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · · So Methodist U · · September 23, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Taking a new look at old digs: Trampling animals can alter muddy Paleolithic sites Archaeologists who interpret Stone Age culture from discoveries of ancient tools and artifacts may need to reanalyze some of their conclusions. That's the finding suggested by a new study that for the first time looked at the impact of water buffalo and goats trampling artifacts into mud. In seeking to understand how much artifacts can be disturbed, the new study documented how animal trampling in a water-saturated area can result in an alarming amount of disturbance, says archaeologist Metin I. Eren, a graduate student at Southern... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| 8,000-year-old seal unearthed in western Turkey |
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· 09/20/2010 7:22:06 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Hurriyet · · Monday, September 20, 2010 · · Anatolia News Agency · |
The seal shows that the settlement in Izmir began some 8,500 year ago. Archaeologists have unearthed a seal believed to be 8,000 years old during excavations in the Yesilova Tumulus, one of the oldest settlements in western Turkey. Associate Professor Zafer Derin, who has been leading the excavations from Ege University's Department of Archaeology, said they found a historical artifact that proved that settlement in the western province of Izmir began some 8,500 years ago. "The seal is dated back to 6,200 B.C. It is evident that the seal belonged to an administrator. This bull-shaped seal is one of the... |
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| Researchers unearth 8,500-year-old bodies near Bursa [ Turkey ] |
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· 09/18/2010 9:32:15 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Hurriyet · · Thursday, September 16, 2010 · · Anatolia News Agency · |
Ancient bodies believed to be 8,500 years old have been unearthed at a burial mound in the Akçalar area of the Marmara province of Bursa. The five bodies, reportedly belonging to two adults and three children aged between 3 and 5, were found at the Aktopraklek mound... One of the children were hogtied while the other children were found between the legs of the adults, he said... Karul said it was too early yet to determine whether the bodies belonged to a single family, whether they had been punished, their exact age or any other particular details... "We have... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Did Uruk soldiers kill their own people? 5,500 year old fratricide at Hamoukar Syria |
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· 09/24/2010 3:17:03 PM PDT · · Posted by Little Bill · · 24 replies · · heritage-key.com · · 09/23/2010 · · owenjarus · |
Five years ago an archaeological team broke news of a major find that forever changed our views about the history of the Middle East. Researchers from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, and the Department of Antiquities in Syria, announced in a press release that they had found the "earliest evidence for large scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world." They had discovered that a city in Syria, named Hamoukar, had been destroyed in a battle that took place ca. 3500 BC by a hostile force. Using slings and clay bullets these troops took over the city, burning... |
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| Climate | |
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| The Impact of Abrupt Climate Change around 2650 BP in NW-Europe, Evidence for Climatic Teleconnections, and a Tentative Explanation |
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· 09/23/2010 6:01:49 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 29 replies · · knowledge.co.uk · · 11th-13th July 1997 · · Bas van Geel & Hans Renssen · |
A sudden and sharp rise in the 14C-content of the atmosphere, which occurred between ca 850 and 760 calendar years BC (ca 2750-2450 BP on the radiocarbon time scale), was contemporaneous with an abrupt climate change. In NW-Europe (as indicated by palaeoecological and geological evidence) climate changed from relatively warm and continental to oceanic (cooler and wetter). Archaeological and palaeoecological evidence for the abandonment of low-lying areas at the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in The Netherlands is interpreted as the effect of a rise of the water table and the extension of fens and bogs. ... The discussed oscillation of... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Cambridge dig looking for Anglo-Saxon skeletons finds Roman settlement |
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· 09/24/2010 6:31:56 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · Heritage Key · · Wednesday, September 22, 2010 · · Ann Wuyts · |
A dig in search of Anglo-Saxon skeletons has instead unearthed signs of a sprawling Roman settlement. The discovery was made last week, on the grounds of Cambridge's Newnham College. Evidence of a 16th or 17th century farmhouse that could date back to the reign of Henry VIII was unearthed at the site as well. "We knew there was a Roman settlement here before but we had no idea of the size," said Dr Catherine Hills. "The village has been buried under the gardens for nearly 2,000 years, and may have seen the Roman conquest of Britain and Boudicca's revolt. The... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Turkish farmer finds Roman settlement in backyard [ Zonguldak ] |
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· 09/24/2010 2:28:43 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Hurriyet Daily News · · Tuesday, September 21, 2010 · · unattributed · |
The discovery of a mosaic in a backyard in Turkey's Black Sea region has led to two years of excavations and the recent revelation that the area housed a third century Roman settlement. Farmer Nizamettin Oral found a mosaic in 2008 while working on expanding a greenhouse in his backyard in a village in Zonguldak. After Oral found the mosaic two-and-a-half years ago, an excavation was launched, leading to the discovery of a Roman villa that a museum director believes could be part of a larger Roman settlement, including a shrine. "The mosaic found in 2008 depicts Thracian King Lykurgos... |
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| Age of Heroes | |
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| Two tumuluses found in Turkey's ancient Daskyleion |
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· 09/24/2010 6:28:15 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · World Bulletin · · Tuesday, 21 September 2010 · · AA · |
Archaeologists have discovered two tumuluses during the excavations in the ancient city of Daskyleion in the northwestern province of Balikesir. Associate Professor Kaan Iren from the Mugla University who heads the excavation team, told reporters, "we found a gate in one of the tumuluses which leads to a grave chamber. There were remains of two skeletons in the grave. We believe that they belonged to noble people or to members of the royal family." "We also unearthed remains of a wooden desk in the tumulus. A glass bracelet, a silver earring, a perfume bottle and more than 30 coins were... |
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| The Greeks | |
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| Greek archaeologists uncover ancient tombs |
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· 09/22/2010 6:16:18 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 28 replies · · Yahoo! · · Thursday, September 16, 2010 · · AFP · |
Greek archaeologists on Thursday announced the discovery of 37 ancient tombs dating back to the iron age in a cemetery near the ancient Macedonian capital of Pellas. Discoveries at the site included a bronze helmet with a gold mouthplate, with weapons and jewellery, in the tomb of a warrior from the 6th century BC. A total of 37 new tombs were discovered during excavation work this year, adding to more than 1,000 tombs since work began in 2000, researchers said. The tombs date from 650-280 BC, covering the iron age up to the Hellenistic period (323-146 BC). The tombs contain... |
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| Alexander the Great | |
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| Apollo discovery tells a new story |
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· 09/20/2010 7:31:45 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · U of Haifa · · Sunday, September 19, 2010 · · Communications and Media Relations · |
A rare bronze signet ring with the impression of the face of the Greek sun god, Apollo, has been discovered at Tel Dor, in northern Israel, by University of Haifa diggers. "A piece of high-quality art such as this, doubtlessly created by a top-of-the-line artist, indicates that local elites developing a taste for fine art and the ability to afford it were also living in provincial towns, and not only in the capital cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms," explains Dr. Ayelet Gilboa, Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who headed the excavations at Dor along... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Goddess of fortune found in Sussita [ Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune ] |
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· 09/19/2010 5:32:52 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · EurekAlert! · · September 16, 2010 · · Rachel Feldman, U of Haifa · |
A wall painting (fresco) of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune, was exposed during the 11th season of excavation at the Sussita site, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was conducted by researchers of the University of Haifa. Another female figure was found during this season, of a maenad, one of the companions of the wine god Dionysus. "It is interesting to see that although the private residence in which two goddesses were found was in existence during the Byzantine period, when Christianity negated and eradicated idolatrous cults, one can still find clear evidence of earlier... |
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| Let's Have Bet She'an | |
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| Archaeologists in Israel Find a 1,500 Year Old Samaritan Synagogue |
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· 09/20/2010 7:14:53 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · Art Daily · · Monday, September 20, 2010 · · unattributed · |
According to Dr. Walid Atrash and Mr. Ya'aqov Harel, directors of the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The discovery of another Samaritan synagogue in the agricultural hinterland south of Bet She'an supplements our existing knowledge about the Samaritan population in this period. It seems that the structures uncovered there were built at the end of the fifth century CE and they continued to exist until the eve of the Muslim conquest in 634 CE, when the Samaritans abandoned the complex. The synagogue that is currently being revealed played an important part in the lives of the farmers who inhabited... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Archaeologists uncover theater box at Herod's palace |
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· 09/22/2010 11:59:58 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 27 replies · · Associated Press · · September 22, 2010 · · Aisha Mohammed · |
JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists have excavated a lavish, private theater box in a 400-seat facility at King Herod's winter palace in the Judean desert, the team's head said Tuesday. Ehud Netzer of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said the room provides further evidence of King Herod's famed taste for extravagance. Herod commissioned Roman artists to decorate the theater walls with elaborate paintings and plaster moldings around 15 B.C., Netzer said. Its upper portions feature paintings of windows overlooking a river and a seascape with a large sailboat. This is the first time this painting style has been found in Israel, Netzer said.... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Dynamics of Wind Setdown at Suez and the Eastern Nile Delta [ Exodus computer modelling ] |
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· 09/21/2010 8:30:47 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Public Library of Science [ PLoS ONE ] · · September 2010 · · Carl Drews & Weiqing Han · |
Background Wind setdown is the drop in water level caused by wind stress acting on the surface of a body of water for an extended period of time. As the wind blows, water recedes from the upwind shore and exposes terrain that was formerly underwater. Previous researchers have suggested wind setdown as a possible hydrodynamic explanation for Moses crossing the Red Sea, as described in Exodus 14. Methodology/Principal Findings This study analyzes the hydrodynamic mechanism proposed by earlier studies, focusing on the time needed to reach a steady-state solution. In addition, the authors investigate a site in the eastern... |
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| Parting the waters: Computer modeling applies physics to Red Sea escape route (Physics of Moses) |
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· 09/22/2010 7:16:05 AM PDT · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 18 replies · · UCAR · · 09/22/2010 · · Carl Drews & Weiqing Han · |
September 21, 2010 BOULDER -- The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters. The computer simulations show that a strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea. With the water... |
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| China | |
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| Big noses, curly hair on empress's coffin suggests deep cultural exchange on Silk Road |
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· 09/20/2010 7:40:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · · People's Daily · · September 14, 2010 · · Xinhua · |
Chinese archeologists have found new evidence of international cultural exchange on the ancient Silk Road. Four European-looking warriors and lion-like beasts are engraved on an empress's 1,200-year-old stone coffin that was unearthed in Shaanxi Province, in northwestern China. The warriors on the four reliefs had deep-set eyes, curly hair and over-sized noses -- physical characteristics Chinese typically associate with Europeans. The 27-tonne Tang Dynasty (618-907) sarcophagus contained empress Wu Huifei (699-737), Ge Chengyong, a noted expert on Silk Road studies, said Tuesday. Ge said one of the warriors was very much like [Zeus], the "father of gods and men" in... |
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| Giant teenage caveman discovered in China |
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· 09/21/2010 1:39:22 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 37 replies · · Global Times · · 20 Sep 2010 · · Global Times · |
The "little giant," a 1.93-meter tall human skeleton, was recently identified by experts at China's Archaeology Academy as the tallest prehistoric man ever found. Researcher Yang Yachang determined that the "little giant," which was discovered intact in an ancient cave dwelling in Guofenglou township, Shanxi province in 2006, to have been a 16 to 18 year-old male who lived about 4,200 years ago. Through morphological study and skeletal measurements, Cheng Liang, a professor at the academy found the "little giant" to have Asian features, his bone structure similar to that of modern day humans in South Asia.Researchers were confused as... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Fortress uncovered: Co Louth Viking site of international importance |
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· 09/22/2010 5:52:44 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Irish Times · · Friday, September 17, 2010 · · Frank McConald & Elaine Keogh · |
A Viking fortress of international importance has been uncovered at Annagassan, Co Louth. It is believed to be the longphort (ship fortress) of Linn Duchaill, founded in AD 841 -- the same year as Viking Dublin... A defensive rampart, consisting of a deep ditch and a bank, was excavated and, while the results of radio carbon tests are awaited to confirm the date, it "has all the appearances of the main fortification of the Viking fortress," he said. The excavations have also uncovered part of a human skull, a whorl for spinning thread and a brooch pin. Dr Pat Wallace,... |
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| Large Side of Slaw | |
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| Spreading Their Wings to Longest on Record |
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· 09/21/2010 6:34:19 PM PDT · · Posted by Inappropriate Laughter · · 5 replies · · New York Times · · September 20, 2010 · · Sindya N. Bhanoo · |
The wandering albatross has the largest known wingspan of any living bird, at times reaching nearly 12 feet. But millions of years ago, there was a bird with wings that dwarfed those of the albatross, researchers now report. The newly named species, Pelagornis chilensis, which lived about 5 million to 10 million years ago, had a wingspan of at least 17 feet. This is the largest wingspan known in any bird. Although other, larger estimates have been made, they were based on fossils of feathers, and not on an intact skeleton, as in this case. The report is in The... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Calif. utility stumbles on 1.4M-year-old fossils |
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· 09/21/2010 11:03:24 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 21 replies · · Yahoo News · · September 21, 2010 · · Gillian Flaccus · |
Riverside, Calif. -- A utility company preparing to build a new substation in an arid canyon southeast of Los Angeles has stumbled on a trove of animal fossils dating back 1.4 million years that researchers say will fill in blanks in Southern California's history.The well-preserved cache contains nearly 1,500 bone fragments, including a giant cat that was the ancestor of the saber-toothed tiger, ground sloths the size of a modern-day grizzly bear, two types of camels and more than 1,200 bones from small rodents. Other finds include a new species of deer, horse and possibly llama, researchers affiliated with the... |
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| Workers unearth huge fossil cache in California |
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· 09/22/2010 2:35:51 PM PDT · · Posted by billorites · · 128 replies · · BBC · · September 21, 2010 · |
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago. The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents. Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener. The bones will go on display next year. The find is a million years older than the famous haul from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, said Rick Greenwood, a microbiologist and... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Amazing Horned Dinosaurs Found on 'Lost Continent' (Fifteen Horns) |
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· 09/23/2010 4:04:05 AM PDT · · Posted by tlb · · 24 replies · · Fox · · September 22, 2010 · · staff · |
The Utah reptiles belong to the horned-dinosaur family, which is known for outlandish anatomy, and are wowing seasoned fossil hunters. The species named Kosmoceratops had 15 horns decorating its massive head, giving it the most elaborate dinosaur headdress known to science. At 15 feet long, it was larger than a Ford Fiesta. Its name means "ornate horned-face" in Latin. The newly discovered dinosaurs, close relatives of the famous Triceratops, were announced today. Utah scientists believe most of the horns were used to attract mates and intimidate rivals of the same species. The dinosaur fossils were found in the Grand Staircase-Escalante... |
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| Outlandish species alert: A dinosaur with 15 horns? |
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· 09/23/2010 6:39:34 PM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 13 replies · · The Week · · September 23, 2010 · |
Fossil hunters have unearthed the remains of two new dinosaur species that roamed Utah's swamps 76 million years ago. Here's a brief guide to what exactly they found: What are the two new species? Kosmoceratops and Utahceratops, which have been classified (for obvious reasons) in the horned-dinosaur family which also includes the Triceratops. What did they look like? Kosmoceratops, whose hulking head sprouted 15 horns, was about 15 feet long, the size of a small car. Scott Sampson, the study leader at the Utah Museum of Natural History, calls it "one of the most amazing animals known." Utahceratops was 30... |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| Ceremonial Temples 4,000 Years Old Found in Peruvian Jungle |
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· 09/20/2010 7:08:29 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · Latin American Times · · Monday, September 20, 2010 · · unattributed · |
...the most ancient in the country and identifies them with the Bracamoros culture, the daily El Comercio said on Saturday. On both sites were found 14 burial vaults that typically contain the skeletons of newborns and adolescents placed there as offerings at different times in the course of the 800 years these buildings were in use, the newspaper said. The Bracamoros culture occupied part of the current Ecuadorian province of Zamora Chinchipe and the Peruvian regions of Amazonas and Cajamarca, where the temples were found, the daily said. It said that the place where the archaeological remains were uncovered was... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, & PreClovis | |
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| Genocide Wiped Out Native American Population [ early 800s, inside job ] |
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· 09/20/2010 7:01:01 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 72 replies · · Discovery News · · Monday, September 20, 2010 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
A massive deposit of mutilated and processed human remains has been found in the American Southwest. The remains and other artifacts at the site, Sacred Ridge in Colorado, indicate ethnic cleansing took place there in the early ninth century. The genocide likely occurred due to conflict between different Anasazi Ancestral Puebloan ethnic groups. Crushed leg bones, battered skulls and other mutilated human remains are likely all that's left of a Native American population destroyed by genocide that took place circa 800 A.D., suggests a new study... The entire assemblage comprises 14,882 human skeletal fragments, as well as the mutilated remains... |
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| Rock Art with your Cart Out | |
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| Portals to Other Realities |
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· 09/18/2010 6:54:20 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 18 replies · · WSJ · · 18 Sep 2010 · · Michael FitzGerald · |
Legend Rock carries 10,000 years of profound beliefs Ice Age paintings and carvings in Europe are revered as sublime achievements of early humans, yet the prehistoric rock art in the American West is far less known. At Legend Rock in central Wyoming, 10,000 years of profound beliefs are inscribed on red sandstone cliffs. As the Pleistocene period ended approximately 12,000 years ago with the passing of the last Ice Age, people were spreading from Asia to North America and south into what is now the U.S. Archaeologists have found evidence that the early immigrants took advantage of the moderating climate... |
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| Vandals strike N. Arizona archaeological site [ 1,000 year-old rock art ] |
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· 09/21/2010 8:14:36 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Associated Press · · September 16, 2010 · · unattributed · |
["ACE" was there -- AP story, link only] |
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| The Revolution | |
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| The most under-rated general in American history: Nathaniel Greene? |
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· 09/22/2010 3:17:47 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 36 replies · · Foreign Policy · · 22 Sep 2010 · · Tom Ricks · |
My friend and CNAS colleague Bob Killebrew nominates the Revolutionary War's Nathaniel Greene as the most under-rated general in American history: Regarded by peers and historians as the second-best American general in the war (after Washington) he would have assumed command if W. had been disabled. A Quaker who learned war from textbooks, he was both a field operator and the commissary-general, a trying position in the best of times. Sent by Washington to take over the Southern campaign after Gates' disaster (and personal cowardice) at Camden, Greene fought a masterly fabian campaign through the South, leading Cornwallis further and... |
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| America's Unjust Revolution: What British Tyranny? (Was the American Revolution a Just War?) |
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· 09/19/2010 9:50:49 AM PDT · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 75 replies · · The American Spectator · · 09/13/2010 · · John Keown · |
EXCERPT: Imagine that thousands of American citizens, wanting to leave the mainland in search of a better life and to populate a large, uninhabited island a thousand miles off the west coast of the U.S., petition the U.S. Government to live on the island under U.S. jurisdiction, ruled by a Federal Governor. The Government agrees. No sooner have the emigrants planted the Stars and Stripes on the island than they strike gold, build up a healthy trade with the mainland, and become hugely wealthy. However, the Japanese, wanting to expand their sphere of influence and enrich their coffers,... |
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| Early America | |
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| Alamo displays cannon likely used during battle |
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· 09/24/2010 10:31:29 AM PDT · · Posted by BradtotheBone · · 19 replies · · Houston Chronicle · · Sept. 24, 2010 · |
SAN ANTONIO -- A cannon thought to have been cast in Mexico and possibly used by the Texan army during the 1836 Alamo battle has taken its place at the historic mission. If its presumed link to the Alamo is proven, it would be the only known bronze Spanish cannon used by defenders that has been recovered, the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday. As was the case with other cannons seized and disabled by Mexican troops after the famous 1836 battle, the cannon's cascabel and trunnions, which are used to pivot and aim the weapon, have been broken off. "It's... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| DNA points to royal roots in Africa |
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· 09/19/2010 5:12:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 38 replies · · MSNBC blogs · · September 8, 2010 · · Alan Boyle · |
William Holland, a genealogical researcher living in Atlanta, has seen some pretty strange twists in his family tree. Several years ago, he found out that his great-grandfather was a black slave ... who wound up serving as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. But this year Holland's research resulted in something even stranger. Thanks to DNA testing, Holland is being welcomed as a long-lost relative by a ruling family of the West African nation of Cameroon... Holland plugged his genetic markers into a database provided by the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which draws upon GeneTree results as well as... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Pope's visit: 'Science cannot explain human existence' |
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· 09/22/2010 11:07:29 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 8 replies · · Guardian · · September 17, 2010 · · Riazat Butt & John Hooper · |
The pope intervened in the debate over the origins of the universe today by claiming that science could not explain the "ultimate meaning" of human existence.Speaking at St Mary's University College in Strawberry Hill, south-west London, Benedict told an audience of religious leaders from different faiths that the human and natural sciences provided us with an "invaluable understanding" of aspects of our existence.But he said science could not satisfy the "fundamental" question about why we exist."They cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart, they cannot fully explain to us our origin and our destiny, why and for what... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Titanic Sinking Was Falsified |
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· 09/22/2010 4:49:55 PM PDT · · Posted by Germanicus Cretorian · · 49 replies · · Yahoo · · Today · · Mike Collet-White · · Edited:Paul Casciato · |
The Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 because of a basic steering error, and only sank as fast as it did because an official persuaded the captain to continue sailing, an author said in an interview published on Wednesday. Louise Patten, a writer and granddaughter of Titanic second officer Charles Lightoller, said the truth about what happened nearly 100 years ago had been hidden for fear of tarnishing the reputation of her grandfather, who later became a war hero. Lightoller, the most senior officer to have survived the disaster, covered up the error in two inquiries on both sides of... |
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| Agitprop | |
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| "Collapse" NatGeo's Over-the-Top Enviro-Prop |
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· 09/18/2010 10:35:56 PM PDT · · Posted by TruthHound · · 33 replies · |
Billed as.... "How could a civilization that mastered the planet suddenly Collapse? Inspired by the New York Times best-selling book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", NGC time travels 200 years into the future to see what the world would look like after civilization as we know it collapsed. Guided by author Jared Diamond, we'll piece together the remarkable story of what on earth triggered our decline." |
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| Near East | |
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| Missing Iraqi antiquities discovered in warehouse |
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· 09/20/2010 9:44:28 PM PDT · · Posted by Company Man · · 8 replies · · mcclatchydc.com · · Shashank Bengali · |
BAGHDAD -- More than 600 looted artifacts that were retrieved by the United States, shipped back to Iraq and then mysteriously lost finally have been found in the prime minister's warehouse alongside boxes of kitchen supplies, the Iraqi tourism minister said Monday. The ancient pieces -- including clay pots, a bronze Sumerian figurine and stone tablets etched with cuneiform writing -- were returned to the Iraqi National Museum, resolving a real-life caper that began when many of them were stolen from a museum in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk in 1991. |
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| Missing Relics Found in PM's Office |
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· 09/20/2010 11:48:55 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 8 replies · · ABC · · 9/21/2010 · |
The Iraqi National Museum has found more than 600 missing artefacts stashed away in a storeroom of the prime minister's office, two years after the US government returned them to Iraq. Most of the artefacts were among 15,000 relics looted during the chaos that followed the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. The 638 pieces were recovered, handed over to the premier's office and promptly lost again, officials said. "We found these artefacts in one of the storerooms of the prime minister's office along with some kitchen appliances. When we opened the boxes we found them," Iraq's minister of... |
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| end of digest #323 20100925 | |
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· Saturday, September 25, 2010 · 41 topics · 2595923 to 2591675 · 752 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 41, yes, 41, topics of the 323rd issue. |
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Should we all post our favorite book?
What are you talking about?
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #324 Saturday, October 2, 2010 |
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| Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Mexican Archaeologists from INAH Explore Prehispanic Observatory in Tabasco |
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· 10/01/2010 7:38:56 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · Art Daily · · Friday, October 1, 2010 · · editors · |
Researchers of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) study a Prehispanic monticule known as Structure 12, at San Claudio Archaeological Zone in Tabasco, which may have had been used as an astronomical observatory to register the Sun movements at solstices when this city was dwelled by Maya people, between the first centuries of the Common Era to year 900. According to archaeologist Jose Luis Romero Rivera, director of the INAH project at the site located in Tenosique municipality, Structure 12 is a 2.5 meters high base, with other 2 bases slightly tallest at the north and south extremes...... |
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| & Megaliths | |
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| Stonehenge boy 'was from the Med' |
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· 09/28/2010 3:45:43 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 74 replies · · BBC · · 28 Sep 2010 · · Paul Rincon · |
Chemical tests on teeth from an ancient burial near Stonehenge indicate that the person in the grave grew up around the Mediterranean Sea. The bones belong to a teenager who died 3,550 years ago and was buried with a distinctive amber necklace. The conclusions come from analysis of different forms of the elements oxygen and strontium in his tooth enamel.Analysis on a previous skeleton found near Stonehenge showed that that person was also a migrant to the area.The findings will be discussed at a science symposium in London to mark the 175th anniversary of the British Geological Survey (BGS). The... |
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| The Greeks | |
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| Archaeologists on Crete Find Skeleton Covered with Gold Foil in 2,700-year-old Grave |
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· 10/01/2010 2:54:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · · Canadian Press/Google News · · Tuesday, September 28, 2010 · · Nicholas Paphitis · |
Excavator Nicholas Stampolidis said his team discovered more than 3,000 pieces of gold foil in the 7th-century B.C. twin grave near the ancient town of Eleutherna... The tiny gold ornaments, from 1 to 4 centimetres (0.4 to 1.5 inches) long, had been sewn onto a lavish robe or shroud that initially wrapped the body of a woman and has almost completely rotted away but for a few off-white threads... The woman, who presumably had a high social or religious status, was buried with a second skeleton in a large jar sealed with a stone slab weighing more than half a... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Stroke of the brush: Italian artworks go online |
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· 10/01/2010 6:53:30 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 18 replies · · Associated Press · · October 1, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Imagine being so close to Botticelli's Venus that you can see the strands of her blond hair, the shades of pink in her cheeks, the cracks in the centuries-old paint. That sensation is now just a click away. This week, an Italian company has put high-resolution images online of "The Birth of Venus" and five other masterpieces from the Uffizi gallery in Florence, including works by Caravaggio and Leonardo da Vinci. |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Experts Reveal the Full Beauty of Petra's 2K year-old Cave Painting |
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· 09/29/2010 7:28:25 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · ArtDaily · · Thursday, September 30, 2010 · · unattributed · |
Experts from London's Courtauld Institute of Art recently completed the conservation of a rare and exquisite Nabataean wall painting at the World Heritage site of Petra in Jordan, for the Petra National Trust. Conservators Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede from the Courtauld's Conservation of Wall Painting Department worked on the project for three years. The remarkable painting, that can now be clearly seen for the first time in many years, was unveiled on Wednesday 18 August 2010 in a ceremony marking the conclusion of the fifth and final phase of conservation work... Dating from around the 1st century AD, the... |
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| Mesopotamia | |
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| The Sound of Akkadian -- Listen to Ancient Babylonian online |
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· 10/01/2010 7:06:36 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Heritage Key · · Thursday, September 30, 2010 · · Ann Wuyts · |
Almost 2,000 years after its last native speakers disappeared... [t]he recordings include excerpts from some of the earliest known works of world literature, dating back to the first years of the second millennium BC... readings of Babylonian poems, myths and other texts in the original tongue... -- available online for free at www.speechisfire.com -- are given by Dr. Worthington's fellow Assyriologists. Babylonian is one of two variants (or dialects) of Akkadian, the other being Assyrian. Akkadian became the 'lingua franca' of the Near East around, until its use began to decline around the 8th century BC. The last Akkadian cuneiform... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Art Appreciation/Education series II class #1: Greco-Roman Realism and Early Christian Abstraction |
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· 09/25/2005 10:50:47 AM PDT · · Posted by Republicanprofessor · · 25 replies · 16,539+ views · · 9/25/05 · · republicanprofessor · |
The title of this first lecture in a new chronological series is: Greco-Roman Realism and Early Christian Abstraction. Christian abstraction in art? How and why can that be? Well, let's see how early art developed and why the Christians rebelled against Roman values in art and culture. This is the first "lecture" in my second series of Art Appreciation/Education classes. I figure we need to establish more of a base in how early art developed before we can explore Renaissance and other exciting periods of art. Let's look back even to Egyptian art, because then we can see how Greek... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Vindolanda Tablets come home |
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· 09/29/2010 8:09:41 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · · Hexham Courant · · Monday, September 27, 2010 · · Ruth Lognonne · |
Britain's favourite treasures, the Vindolanda Tablets, are coming home to Tynedale. The world famous wooden blocks, detailing the minutiae of life in Roman Britain, will be housed at Vindolanda, near Bardon Mill, where they were first discovered in a muddy ditch in 1973. A £4 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has made it possible to bring nine of the precious artefacts back to the Roman fort and museum, where they will go on permanent display. After the initial find, by former Vindolanda Trust director Robin Birley in 1973, around 400 of the perfectly preserved archaeological treasure chests have... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Jobless Man Uncovers Gold Hoard with Metal Detector |
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· 09/25/2009 10:10:49 AM PDT · · Posted by Justaham · · 36 replies · 1,454+ views · · Sky News · · 9-25-09 · |
An unemployed man has unearthed the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found with the help of his metal detector. Experts are now calculating its value -- a process that could take more than a year because of its size. Terry Herbert from Burntwood, Staffordshire, stumbled on the hoard in a private field with his trusty 14-year-old metal detector. Over five days in July, the 55-year-old dug up a fortune on the farmland near to his home. The find was declared as treasure by coroner Andrew Haigh, which means the cache will be offered for sale after it is valued. See the... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Ancient Egypt's Pyramids: Norwegian Researcher Unlocks Construction Secrets |
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· 09/25/2010 1:07:46 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 61 replies · · Science Daily · · 24 Sep 2010 · · Science Daily · |
Scientists from around the world have tried to understand how the Egyptians erected their giant pyramids. Now, an architect and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) says he has the answer to this ancient, unsolved puzzle. Researchers have been so preoccupied by the weight of the stones that they tend to overlook two major problems: How did the Egyptians know exactly where to put the enormously heavy building blocks? And how was the master architect able to communicate detailed, highly precise plans to a workforce of 10,000 illiterate men? A 7-million-ton structure These were among the... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Neanderthals were able to 'develop their own tools' |
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· 09/27/2010 12:18:16 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 36 replies · · BBC · · September 24, 2010 · · Katia Moskvitch · |
Neanderthals were keen on innovation and technology and developed tools all on their own, scientists say.A new study challenges the view that our close relatives could advance only through contact with Homo sapiens. The team says climate change was partly responsible for forcing Neanderthals to innovate in order to survive. The research is set to appear in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory in December. "Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals," said Julien Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado in Denver, who led the seven-year study. "They were far more resourceful than we have given them... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Early humans lived in PNG highlands 50,000 years ago (Papua New Guinea) |
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· 09/30/2010 4:14:44 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · Reuters · · September 30, 2010 · · by Tan Ee Lyn · · ed by Kim Coghill · |
Archeologists have uncovered evidence suggesting that early humans braved cold temperatures to occupy highlands in Papua New Guinea 50,000 years ago in search of food. Working on five archeological sites about 2,000 meters above sea level, researchers from Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand found charred nut shells from the pandanus tree and stone tools which carbon dated back to 50,000 years ago. "This is the first evidence of people at such a high altitude at the earliest of time," said anthropology professor Glenn Summerhayes at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Experts have... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, & PreClovis | |
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| Did Australian Aborigines reach America first? |
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· 09/30/2010 2:04:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 39 replies · · Cosmo Online · · 30 Sep 2010 · · Jacqui Hayes · |
Cranial features distinctive to Australian Aborigines are present in hundreds of skulls that have been uncovered in Central and South America, some dating back to over 11,000 years ago. Evolutionary biologist Walter Neves of the University of São Paulo, whose findings are reported in a cover story in the latest issue of Cosmos magazine, has examined these skeletons and recovered others, and argues that there is now a mass of evidence indicating that at least two different populations colonised the Americas.He and colleagues in the United States, Germany and Chile argue that first population was closely related to the Australian... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| No evidence for Clovis comet catastrophe, archaeologists say |
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· 09/29/2010 3:41:46 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 34 replies · · U of Chicago Press Journals · · September 29, 2010 · · Unknown · |
New research challenges the controversial theory that an ancient comet impact devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America. Writing in the October issue of Current Anthropology, archaeologists Vance Holliday (University of Arizona) and David Meltzer (Southern Methodist University) argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations. "Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record," the researchers write. "Insofar as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem... |
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| Not-so-Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Were Some Ancestral Puebloan People the Victims of Ethnic Conflict? |
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· 09/27/2010 5:06:29 PM PDT · · Posted by Little Bill · · 19 replies · · archaeology.org · · September 24, 2010 · · Heather Pringle · |
Not so very long ago that many archaeologists regarded the Ancestral Puebloan people -- or the Anasazi, as researchers once called them -- as a rather peaceful, mystical group of astronomers, artists, priests and farmers. They based this idea largely on their observations of modern Puebloan peoples: the Hopi, the Zuni and others who lived in traditional pueblos, such as Taos, and who often lived quiet lives of ritual and spirituality. In the early 90s, some Southwestern archaeologists began questioning this received wisdom. David Wilcox, an archaeologist at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, hypothesized that the rulers of Chaco Canyon, a massive... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Panama Canal fossils reveal ancient collision of worlds |
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· 09/30/2010 6:48:09 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 22 replies · · BBC · · Howard Falcon-Lang · |
It was the biggest event in our planet's history since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Three million years ago, the Americas collided. The creation of the Panama Isthmus -- the narrow land bridge that joins the two continents -- wreaked havoc on land, sea and air. It triggered extinctions, diverted ocean currents and transformed climate. Now a multi-billion dollar project to widen the Panama Canal is set to reveal new secrets about the event that changed the world. Panama is a tiny country, but in a perfect location. > The formation of the Panama Isthmus, however, did not only affect the... |
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| Ancient Penguins Were Giant, Colorful Beasts, New Fossils Reveal |
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· 10/01/2010 5:05:40 AM PDT · · Posted by ilovesarah2012 · · 35 replies · · foxnews.com · · September 30, 2010 · · Stephanie Pappas · |
Penguins didn't always boast tuxedo-like black-and-white markings, according to a new study. The discovery of the first ancient penguin fossil with evidence of feathers reveals the aquatic birds were once reddish-brown and gray. The 36 million-year-old fossil represents one of the largest ancient penguins ever found. The bird would have been 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, and probably weighed twice as much as modern Emperor penguins, which average about 66 pounds (30 kilograms). Its long, grooved beak suggests that, like modern penguins, it hunted by diving for fish. Imprints of feathers in the rock around the bones could help researchers... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| The "Population Bomb" Has Fizzled |
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· 09/01/2010 2:05:11 PM PDT · · Posted by WOBBLY BOB · · 14 replies · · Gwinnett Gazette · · 8-30-10 · · Harold Brown · |
Predicted calamities are always the worst; until the future comes. Then, they don't show up, or they shrink to ordinary. Overpopulation is a prime example. Calamity resulting from too many of us has been the subject of countless prophecies, but those never came true. More humans are living on the planet now than ever and living better, rather than being starved and desperate. |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Cerebral Malaria May Have Passed From Gorillas To Us |
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· 09/27/2010 7:53:39 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · BBC News · · September 22, 2010 · · Katie Alcock · |
Humans may have originally caught malaria from gorillas, scientists say... researchers from the US, three African countries, and Europe have examined malaria parasites in great ape faeces. They found the DNA from western gorilla parasites was the most similar to human parasites. Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, and is carried by mosquitoes. The most common species found in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum, causes dangerous cerebral malaria. Over 800,000 people die from malaria each year in the continent. Until now, scientists had assumed that when the evolutionary tree of humans split off from that of chimpanzees -- around five... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Tanzania, Ethiopia origin for humans |
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· 04/03/2003 4:25:54 PM PST · · Posted by vannrox · · 8 replies · 614+ views · · BBC News · · 4-3-2003 · · By Paul Rincon · |
New DNA evidence suggests "African Eve", the 150,000-year-old female ancestor of every person on Earth, may have lived in Tanzania or Ethiopia. A genetic study has shown that the oldest known human DNA lineages are those of East Africans. The most ancient populations include the Sandawe, Burunge, Gorowaa and Datog people who live in Tanzania. Researchers found a very high amount of genetic variation, or diversity, between the mitochondrial DNA of different individuals in these populations. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively through the maternal line. The longer a population has existed, the more variation accumulates in its DNA... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Spotted 'Mysterious Pulse Of Light' From Direction Of Newly-discovered '2nd Earth' Two Years Ago |
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· 10/01/2010 3:22:54 AM PDT · · Posted by tlb · · 94 replies · · Daily Mail · · 1st October 2010 · · Niall Firth · |
An astronomer picked up a mysterious pulse of light coming from the direction of the newly discovered Earth-like planet almost two years ago, it has emerged. Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it. Dr Bhathal had been sweeping the skies when he discovered a 'suspicious' signal from an area of the galaxy that holds the newly-discovered Gliese 581g. The remarkable coincidence adds another layer of mystery to the announcement last night... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language' |
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· 05/23/2003 3:59:51 PM PDT · · Posted by unspun · · 1,286 replies · 1,084+ views · · author's site · · 1972 · · Dallas Willard · |
This paper has been read to the University of Southern California philosophy group and the Boston 1972 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, as well as to the Houston meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society. Appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, IV(1973), pp. 125-132. Numbers in "<>" refer to this journal. Among the principal assumptions of major portions of philosophy in recent decades have been: (1) That philosophy somehow consists of (some sort of) logic, and (2) that logic is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language. There, of... |
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| Publick Edge A Ma Cation | |
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| OC District Pushes Pause On Hip-hop Curriculum [Founding Fathers Called "Old Dead White Men"] |
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· 10/02/2010 12:12:50 AM PDT · · Posted by Daffynition · · 45 replies · · NewsOK.com · · October 1, 2010 · · Megan Rolland · |
Concern over a new hip-hop curriculum that refers to the founding fathers as "old dead white men" has delayed the program's rollout for at-risk students, Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Karl Springer said. "We're making sure that whatever we do, first, we do no harm," Springer said. "The science behind the concept is wonderful. There may be some things, though, that are inappropriate that we need to be careful about." Known as Flocabulary, the program is a music-based educational tool that uses raps, rhythms and rhymes to help students learn and memorize everything from vocabulary and English to math and... |
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| Early America | |
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| Researchers Resume Hunt for Artifacts at QAR Shipwreck Site (Blackbeard's Flagship) |
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· 09/26/2010 4:33:48 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 7 replies · · encToday · · September 23, 2010 · |
As underwater archaeologists dive to recover 300-year-old artifacts from the shipwreck presumed to Blackbeard's flagship, the effort to keep the public a part of the project are all 21st century. A six-week dive expedition at the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck site began this week, and anyone interested in following its progress can do so via the Facebook page Blackbeard's-Queen Anne's Revenge. Full information on the project is also available at the website qaronline.com. After a day of field preparations, a Wednesday afternoon Facebook post announced the biggest news of the expedition: "Returning to USCG Fort Macon. Still need to get... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Two Revolutions, Two Views of Man |
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· 07/25/2010 1:37:12 PM PDT · · Posted by betty boop · · 822 replies · 58+ views · · Conservative Underground · · July 6, 2010 · · Jean F. Drew · |
As every American schoolchild has been taught, in Western history there were two great sociopolitical revolutions that took place near the end of the eighteenth century: The American Revolution of 1775; and the French, of 1789. Children are taught that both revolutions were fought because of human rights in some way; thus bloody warfare possibly could be justified, condoned so long as the blood and treasure were shed to protect the "rights of man." The American schoolchild is assured that the American and French revolutions were both devoted to the... |
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| Historians lobby for state signage to recognize Revolutionary War general Nathaniel Woodhull |
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· 09/28/2010 10:13:36 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 7 replies · · NY Daily News · · Nicholas Hirshon · |
The cannon at Nathaniel Woodhull School (PS 35) in Hollis is the only marker of death of the Revolutionary War general Nathaniel Woodhull. Historians are lobbying for official state signage. Exactly 234 years ago this month, a Revolutionary War general died from wounds incurred during a defiant showdown with the British -- a gripping tale of patriotism that began in Queens. But the spot where Nathaniel Woodhull was mortally wounded in 1776 does not bear tribute to the first high-ranking colonial officer to become a prisoner of war and die in enemy captivity. "It needs to be preserved as a... |
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| Era of Good Feelings | |
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| Meriwether Lewis's Final Journey Remains a Mystery |
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· 09/25/2010 1:18:49 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 22 replies · · WSJ · · 25 Sep 2010 · · Mike Esterl · |
Famous Explorer's Relatives Deny Suicide Talk, Seek to Dig Up Body -- Meriwether Lewis conquered rivers, mountains and bears leading the Lewis and Clark Expedition across 8,000 miles of wilderness from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back. Two centuries later, relatives of Mr. Lewis are having a tough time moving his remains down 80 miles of paved Tennessee highway from a national park to a forensic lab. Mr. Lewis's body rests beneath a 20-foot-high stone monument at milepost 385.9 of the Natchez Trace Parkway. A plaque next to the gravesite states that it was here, in 1809, three years... |
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| Mass. Teacher Finds 1792 Document In Classroom |
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· 06/08/2010 2:21:28 PM PDT · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 24 replies · 59+ views · · AP/AOL News · · 8/6/10 · |
A Massachusetts teacher cleaning up her classroom in preparation for a move has discovered a Colonial-era document buried in a pile of outdated textbooks and dusty scraps of papers. Michelle Eugenio, a fourth-grade teacher in Peabody, Mass., found the yellowed sheet of paper two weeks ago. Dated April 1792 and protected by plastic, it appears to document the payment of a debt by a Vermont man named Jonathan Bates. Peabody Historical Society President Bill Power verified the paper's authenticity. He tells The Salem News he was thrilled with the discovery. No one knows how the paper ended up... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| President Garfield is shot -- July 2, 1881 |
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· 07/02/2003 11:55:26 AM PDT · · Posted by flutters · · 34 replies · 2,288+ views · · The Columbus Dispatch · · July 2, 2003 · · Gerald Tebben · |
James A. Garfield, the last of the nation's presidents to have been born in a log cabin, barely made it to the White House and spent only a few months there before he was felled by an assassin's bullets. Garfield, who was born to a farm family in Cuyahoga County on Nov. 19, 1831, was named president of Hiram College at 26 and became the youngest brigadier general in the Union Army in 1862. Garfield was an accidental president. In 1880, delegates to the Republican convention were deadlocked after 34 votes. Garfield's name was offered as a compromise. That fall,... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Germany end World War One reparations after 92 years with £59m final payment |
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· 09/28/2010 6:49:01 AM PDT · · Posted by C19fan · · 126 replies · · Daily Mail · · September 28, 2010 · · Allan Hall · |
World War One finally ends for Germany on Sunday -- 92 years after the guns fell silent and nearly nine million men lay dead -- as it pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. A final payment of 69.9 million euros, or £59.3 million, writes off the crippling debt which was the price for one world war -- and laid the foundations for another. |
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| Pages | |
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| Muscular Movement -- A review of "Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement" by Justin Vaïsse |
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· 10/01/2010 4:36:38 PM PDT · · Posted by mojito · · 3 replies · · TNR · · 7/20/2010 · · Adam Kirsch · |
By the middle of 2003, as it became clear that the American invasion of Iraq would result not in a quick "mission accomplished" but a long, bloody occupation, a certain narrative of what went wrong began to take root in some precincts of the anti-war left. The decision to invade Iraq, this story went, was the result of the government falling under the sway of a dangerous ideology, called neoconservatism. The neocons, as they were often derisively called, believed in the naked assertion of American power -- in a kind of imperialism, really, which gave America the right to invade other countries... |
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| end of digest #324 20101002 | |
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· Saturday, October 2, 2010 · 31 topics · 2599630 to 2595973 · 753 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 31 topics of the 324th issue. We've reached 753 members. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #325 Saturday, October 9, 2010 |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Project Troia -- Bronze Age Troy Just Keeps on Growing |
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· 10/08/2010 6:04:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Heritage Key · · Monday, October 4, 2010 · · Ann Wuyts · |
German archaeologists have made new discoveries at modern day Hisarlik, northwest Turkey -- ancient Troy. The finds further confirm the area occupied during the Bronze Age was not limited to the citadel; Troy VI and VII were much larger than originally thought. The three year research project at Troy -- lead by Prof. Ernst Pernicka, from the University of Tubingen's Institute of Pre- and Early History -- sees scholars focus on the analysis and publication of materials found since the university started excavations at the site in 1988... smaller excavations... in combination with geophysical surveying and the drilling of test... |
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| The Greeks | |
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| Mystery skeleton found at ancient Cypriot site |
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· 10/08/2010 5:32:14 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Reuters Life · · Wednesday, October 6, 2010 · · Sarah Ktisti · · ed by Steve Addison · |
Experts in Cyprus are trying to unravel the identity of one of the island's older inhabitants, after a skeleton was discovered protruding from a cliff in one of the island's richest archaeological sites. The intact skeleton was found at Curium in the southwest of the Mediterranean island renowned for its links to the ancient world. The earliest settlements here can be dated as far back as the Neolithic age, about 4,500 BC. Experts believe the skeleton came to the surface due to years of erosion from the sea. The discovery is reminiscent of three skeletons found embracing in the same... |
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| Alexander the Great | |
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| Berlin Researchers Crack the Ptolemy Code |
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· 10/04/2010 7:07:43 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 18 replies · · Spiegel · · 01 Oct 2010 · · Matthias Schulz · |
A 2nd century map of Germania by the scholar Ptolemy has always stumped scholars, who were unable to relate the places depicted to known settlements. Now a team of researchers have cracked the code, revealing that half of Germany's cities are 1,000 years older than previously thought. The founding of Rome has been pinpointed to the year 753. For the city of St. Petersburg, records even indicate the precise day the first foundation stone was laid. Historians don't have access to this kind of precision when it comes to German cities like Hanover, Kiel or Bad Driburg. The early histories... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Even the Romans recycled glass |
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· 10/04/2010 6:50:30 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · Planet Earth Online · · Thursday, September 30, 2010 · · Tamera Jones · |
The Romans weren't just dab hands at making beautiful vessels, ornaments and plates from glass; they were also good at recycling the stuff. A new study has found that towards the end of their rule in Britain, the Romans were recycling vast amounts of glass. But the researchers behind the study think this probably had less to do with their concern for the environment, and more to do with the fact that glass became scarcer in the northern fringes of the Roman Empire during the last century of their rule. Glassmaking was a highly sophisticated and successful industry during Roman... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Remains of Roman settlement discovered under Newnham [Cambridge University in England] |
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· 10/08/2010 8:46:19 PM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 3 replies · · The Varsity · · October 1, 2010 · · Jemma Trainor · |
It seems that Newnham College has been hiding several skeletons in its back gardens, providing a group of Sixth Formers with the perfect opportunity to get a rare taste of a hands-on archaeological dig. While digging at Newnham, the group of 20 girls from schools in Peterborough, London and Birmingham uncovered evidence that the college was once the site of a significant Roman settlement, as well as the location of a farmhouse from the 16th or 17th century. The dig was organised as part of an access programme, funded by Newnham and the Higher Education Field Academy, to offer Sixth... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, & PreClovis | |
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| Teotihuacan's Emblematic Monument, The Sun Pyramid, Still an Enigma for Archaeologists |
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· 10/08/2010 6:23:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 27 replies · · Art Daily · · Friday, October 8, 2010 · · unattributed · |
How long did it take to build the Sun Pyramid? It was in 1986 when the first calculations on this regard were estimated.It is considered that it was built by 12,000 to 14,000 persons working simultaneously, by specialized groups in each of the tasks such as loaders, water-bearers, stonemasons, quarrymen and builders.Working 10 hours a day, seven days a week.Adding up 139 years of work conducted in normal conditions. |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| Machu Picchu reveals new secrets: Inkaraqay |
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· 10/04/2010 7:18:20 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 37 replies · · Peru 'blog in English · · October 3, 2010 · · Stuart Starrs · |
Only ever seen by a few people over the past century, the Inca site of Inkaraqay located on an inaccessible and nearly vertical side of the Huayna Picchu mountain that overlooks Machu Picchu, is only now being revealed to the wider world. With the appearance of a fort hanging on to the sheer drop that gives way to the Vilcanota river and the well-known moon temple below, its huge walls and terraces covering 4,500 square metres are actually agricultural in nature. |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Fighting the Fungus [ Easter Island statues threatened by lichens ] |
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· 10/08/2010 5:45:01 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 29 replies · · The Art Newspaper · · Saturday, October 9, 2010 · · Tina Lepri · |
Lichen are eating away at the Moai, the 400 volcanic stone heads that dominate the skyline of Easter Island. Earlier treatments to preserve these ancient monoliths at this World Heritage Site called for filling some of the most deeply corroded stones with concrete. Unfortunately, experts think that this treatment might have worsened the damaging effects of the wind and saltwater that batter the Polynesian island. In fact, the lichen may even be feeding off the concrete used to save the Moai. Professor Lorenzo Casamenti and five of his students from the restoration school Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence have found... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| The Crimes of Christopher Columbus |
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· 10/11/2004 4:44:09 PM PDT · · Posted by Coleus · · 102 replies · 21,425+ views · · First Things & other sources · · November 1995 · |
The Crimes of Christopher Columbus Dinesh D'Souza Multiculturalism is presented by its advocates in the schools and universities as a benign alternative to monoculturalism. Historian Peter Stearns insists that the multicultural debate "is between those who think there are special marvelous features about the Western tradition that students should be exposed to, and others who feel it's much more important for students to have a sense of the way the larger world has developed." This is the unmistakable appeal of multiculturalism: it is obviously better to study many cultures rather than a single culture, to have diverse points of... |
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| Climate | |
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| Ancient Colorado river flowed backwards |
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· 10/04/2010 11:36:05 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 41 replies · · Carnegie Institution · · October 4, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Palo Alto, CA -- Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source in the Mojave region of southern California. Lead author Steven Davis, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution, and his colleagues* discovered the ancient river system by comparing sedimentary deposits in Utah and southwest Arizona. By analyzing the... |
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| Africa | |
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| Study to reveal link between climate and early human evolution |
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· 10/09/2010 4:33:45 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · University of Liverpool · · October 6, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Olduvai Gorge is a steep-sided ravine on the edge of the Serengeti Plain, East Africa, and is home to some of the world's most important fossil hominins. Geologists are investigating the chemical composition of carbonate rocks that lie beneath the surfaces where early human fossils have been uncovered. The data will help an international team of geologists, paleoanthropologists and archaeologists understand how environmental pressures may have influenced the development of human ancestors and their use of the land. Professor Ian Stanistreet, from the School of Environmental Sciences, said: "Research findings so far suggest that environmental changes, such as very dry... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Archaeologists find statue of Tutankhamun's grandad |
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· 10/02/2010 4:13:58 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · AFP · · October 2, 2010 · · Unknown · |
CAIRO (AFP) -- Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed part a 3,000-year-old statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Saturday. "The statue was found near the northern entrance of Amenhotep III's temple and depicts the king sitting down on a throne with Amun," the chief deity, Hawass said. The red-granite top half of the statue was discovered at the site of the Amenhotep III's funerary temple in the southern city of Luxor, Hawass said. The newly-discovered artifact which measures 130 cm (51 inches) in height and 95... |
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| Statue of King Tut's grandfather unearthed in Egypt |
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· 10/03/2010 8:11:05 AM PDT · · Posted by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears · · 23 replies · · UK Daily Mail · · October 3, 2010 · · Daily Mail Reporter · |
Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed part a 3,400-year-old statue of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, believed to be the grandfather of the young King Tutankhamun, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Saturday. 'The statue was found near the northern entrance of Amenhotep III's temple and depicts the king sitting down on a throne with Amun,' the chief deity, Hawass said. The 4ft by 3ft statue of Amenhotep III in Kom el-Hittan was discovered at the site of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor, Egypt's Ministry of Culture said. The temple is one of the largest on the west... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Underwater T.Rex-Like Carnivores Built to Kill |
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· 10/02/2010 1:47:40 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · Discovery News · · Friday, October 1, 2010 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
These extinct relatives of crocodiles sunk their sharp, serrated teeth into prey and then spun, ripping out chunks of flesh... The carnivores that evolved alongside dinosaurs hunted with quick, opportunistic strikes... marine mega meat-eaters ripped into prey with massive, serrated teeth some 171 to 136 million years ago to satisfy a diet of at least 70 percent flesh. What's more, metriorhynchids, the extinct relatives of today's crocodiles, had a killing skill that T. Rex lacked: The death roll. The creatures would sink their teeth into prey and then spin their bodies in the water to tear out large chunks of... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Giant Deep Sea Jellyfish Filmed in Gulf of Mexico |
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· 04/26/2010 3:52:46 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 20 replies · 2,582+ views · · BBC News · · 4/23/2010 · · Jody Bourton · |
Direct observations of these creatures from submersibles are very rare. It has been previously videoed by scientists off the Pacific coast of the US and by ROVs off Japan. However, this is the first time the giant jelly has been recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. The researchers reported four chance encounters with jellyfish between 2005 and 2009, during the routine underwater work the energy companies carried out on their underwater structures. The footage shows the reddish purple coloured jellyfish at depths ranging from 996m to 1747m. Trap prey The scientists observed the jellyfish attaching itself to the subsea equipment... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Neanderthals had feelings too, say York researchers |
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· 10/05/2010 11:12:14 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · · University of York · · October 5, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Pioneering new research by archaeologists at the University of York suggests that Neanderthals belied their primitive reputation and had a deep seated sense of compassion.A team from the University's Department of Archaeology took on the "unique challenge' of charting the development of compassion in early humans. The researchers examined archaeological evidence for the way emotions began to emerge in our ancestors six million years ago and then developed from earliest times to more recent humans such as Neanderthals and modern people like ourselves. The research by Dr Penny Spikins, Andy Needham and Holly Rutherford is published in the journal Time... |
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| Neanderthals more advanced than previously thought (they were a different kind of human) |
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· 10/05/2010 11:07:29 AM PDT · · Posted by WebFocus · · 23 replies · · PhysOrg · · October 5, 2010 · |
For decades scientists believed Neanderthals developed -- modern' tools and ornaments solely through contact with Homo sapiens, but new research from the University of Colorado Denver now shows these sturdy ancients could adapt, innovate and evolve technology on their own. The findings by anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore challenge a half-century of conventional wisdom maintaining that Neanderthals were thick-skulled, primitive -- cavemen' overrun and outcompeted by more advanced modern humans arriving in Europe from Africa. "Basically, I am rehabilitating Neanderthals," said Riel-Salvatore, assistant professor of anthropology at UC Denver. "They were far more resourceful than we have given them credit for." His research, to... |
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| Rock Art with your Cart Out | |
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| The cave dwellers of 21st-century China |
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· 10/05/2010 2:32:35 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · BBC · · October 4, 2010 · · Daniel McCrohan · |
China's high-tech building industry may have been flexing its ample construction muscles for the past decade in places like Beijing and Shanghai, but a few hundred miles away in Shanxi province, an estimated three million people still live in caves. These simple homes often dot the countryside in small, hard-to-find clusters, but in places like Lijiashan, where hundreds of caves scale nine different levels of a hillside, it is possible to find whole communities made up entirely of cave dwellers. People have been living in caves in Shanxi for around 5,000 years, and it is believed that at one stage... |
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| Central Asia | |
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| Unearthed Aryan cities rewrite history |
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· 10/04/2010 12:15:28 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 49 replies · · The Australian · · 04 Oct 2010 · · The Sunday Times · |
Bronze Age cities archaeologists say could be the precursor of Western civilisation is being uncovered in excavations on the Russian steppe. Twenty of the spiral-shaped settlements, believed to be the original home of the Aryan people, have been identified, and there are about 50 more suspected sites. They all lie buried in a region more than 640km long near Russia's border with Kazakhstan. The cities are thought to have been built 3500-4000 years ago, soon after the Great Pyramid in Egypt. They are about the same size as several of the city states of ancient Greece, which started to come... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Archaeologists find 'mini-Pompeii' [ Norway, 3500 BC ] |
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· 10/04/2010 5:14:28 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · · Views and News from Norway · · October 1, 2010 · · Sven Goll · |
The discovery of a "sealed" Stone Age house site from 3500 BC has stirred great excitement among archaeologists from Norway's Museum of Cultural History at the University in Oslo. The settlement site at Hamresanden, close to Kristiansand's airport at Kjevik in Southern Norway, looks like it was covered by a sandstorm, possibly in the course of a few hours. The catastrophe for the Stone Age occupants has given archaeologists an untouched "mini-Pompeii," containing both whole and reparable pots... the team working on the site at Hamresanden has discovered so many large shards of pottery that they think they can put... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| New images may yield Viking ships |
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· 10/04/2010 6:43:52 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · Views and News from Norway · · September 24, 2010 · · Sven Goll · |
Archaeologists think they have found two more Viking ships buried in Vestfold County south of Oslo. The biggest may be 25 metres long, larger than any found so far. Road construction near the old Viking trading center at Kaupang has led to the discovery of two large ship silhouettes on ground radar pictures. The pictures have been made possible through a venture involving the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning, NIKU) and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archeological Prospection and Virtual Archeology. They portray some "exciting" images with the help of high tech methods including satellites,... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Lost Pieta masterpiece by Michelangelo found |
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· 10/05/2010 11:27:53 PM PDT · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 11 replies · · Catholic News · · 6 Oct 2010 · · anon · |
An unfinished painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ owned by a former American pilot has been hailed as a lost masterpiece by Michelangelo, says an Italian art historian and restorer in a new book. Antonio Forcellino, who has worked on Michelangelo's masterpieces, first came across the pieta, a 63cm x 48cm oil painting on a panel made of fir, when he was contacted by email by its owner, said a report in The Australian. If confirmed, the work will rank alongside only three surviving panel paintings by the Italian master, potentially making it worth more than the record $118... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Habsburg heir goes to European rights court over election ban |
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· 10/06/2010 6:49:00 AM PDT · · Posted by wolfman23601 · · 6 replies · · Kansascity.com · · October 5, 2010 · · Albert Otti · |
An heir to the house of Habsburg has called on the European Court of Human Rights to overturn Austria's ban on members of former ruling families running for president, his lawyer said Tuesday. Because of this constitutional rule, Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen was not allowed to stand as a candidate for the presidential election in April. His lawyer, Rudolf Vouk, said the Strasbourg court's ruling would take several years. "But it should work out until the next election," he said, looking ahead to the 2016 polls. Citizens have shown little interest in the campaign of Habsburg- Lothringen, a third-degree nephew of Otto... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Tale of Jews under Muslim rule Scholar traces mistreatment back to 628 AD |
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· 10/03/2010 7:02:26 PM PDT · · Posted by Inappropriate Laughter · · 15 replies · · Chronicle & Herald · · Sun, Oct 3 · · Paul W. Bennett · |
The Middle East is a tinder box and sparks fly whenever the shared history of Muslims and Jews is on the table for discussion. The recent furor over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York City showed just how intense the raging public debate can become. And whenever the debate arises, the focus is almost always on the plight of the Palestinians and the West's mistreatment of Muslims. While most Canadians are painfully aware of the Palestinian struggle, much lesser known is the Mideast refugee crisis that accompanied the 1948 birth of Israel. That crisis involved the forced... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Ottoman Soldiers' Remains Found Near Nablus (Blame the British; Oops it Didn't Work) |
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· 10/02/2010 9:51:00 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 12 replies · · Ynet · · 09.30.10 · |
Eighteen troops belonging to Ottoman Empire found in West Bank cave some 92 years after their deaths The remains of 18 soldiers belonging to the Ottoman Empire have been found in the West Bank, the Turkish TRT and Palestinian Ma'an news agencies reported Thursday. According to the reports, the soldiers' remains were found in a cave near Nablus, some 92 years after their deaths. Preliminary results yielded by the remains indicate that they were killed by British soldiers in 1918. The rare findings prompted the Nablus authorities to order a funeral march to be held in the soldiers' honor Friday,... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| The Battle that Saved the Christian West (October 7, 1571: Battle of Lepanto) |
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· 10/07/2010 3:58:49 PM PDT · · Posted by iowamark · · 39 replies · · This Rock magazine · · 07/03/2007 · · Christopher Check · |
Americans know that in 1492 Christopher Columbus "sailed the ocean blue," but how many know that in the same year the heroic Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the Moors in Grenada? Americans would also probably recognize 1588 as the year of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by Francis Drake and the rest of Queen Elizabeth's pirates. It was a tragedy for the Catholic kingdom of Spain and a triumph for the Protestant British Empire, and the defeat determined the kind of history that would one day be taught in American schools: Protestant British history. As a result, 1571,... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Witnesses to mass murder in the icy Bann [the 1641 massacre of Protestants in Ireland] |
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· 10/08/2010 9:20:45 PM PDT · · Posted by Alex Murphy · · 16 replies · · The Irish Times · · October 9, 2010 · · Mary Russell · |
The winter of 1641 was the coldest in memory, but in Portadown it is remembered for something else. That year one of the worst atrocities in this island's history took place, when about 100 men, women and children were stripped of their clothes, corralled overnight in a barn and then thrown over the town bridge to drown in the icy waters of the Bann. Was this yet another crime by the old enemy Cromwell? No, it was a massacre of Protestants by Irish-speaking natives intent on revenge for land taken from them by the Ulster settlers. After this, and other... |
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| Diggin' It | |
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| Rampaging Romans, Black Death, Civil war: the whole history of England in one village |
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· 10/03/2010 12:36:01 PM PDT · · Posted by Lorianne · · 17 replies · · Daily Mail UK · · 02 October 2010 · · Michael Wood · |
As snowflakes swirled around the peasants' houses in the depths of January 1414, a travel-weary horseman galloped up the muddy lanes of the Leicestershire village of Kibworth-Harcourt. After a frantic two-day ride from London, the messenger was cold and exhausted. But he lost no time in leaping from his horse and rushing straight across the cattle yard and into one of the timber-framed farms on Main Street. For he had terrible news to impart to the woman of the house. Emma Gilbert, a widowed merchant's wife, hailed from one of the oldest and most respected families in Kibworth. She... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? (Suprising answer) |
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· 10/09/2010 8:08:47 AM PDT · · Posted by prisoner6 · · 140 replies · · Nick Patrick blog via Fark.com · · October 9, 2010 · · Nick Patrick · |
The typical English accent didn't develop until after the Revolutionary War, so Americans actually speak proper English. Here comes the science. Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? Reading David McCullough's 1776, I found myself wondering: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? If so, when did American accents diverge from British accents? The answer surprised me. I'd always assumed that Americans used to have British accents, and that American accents diverged after the Revolutionary War, while British accents remained more or less the same. Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn't... |
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| The Framers | |
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| When Ben Franklin Met the Battlefield |
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· 10/08/2010 2:51:14 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 10 replies · · Smithsonian Magazine · · 08 Oct 2010 · · Brooke C. Stoddard · |
Most famous today as a founding father, inventor and diplomat, Franklin also commanded troops during the French and Indian War Weapons ready, slogging into the deserted village, the men and their commander were appalled at what they saw: dead soldiers and civilians and evidence of a hasty retreat. The commander ordered quick fortifications against further attack, then burial parties. The orders came from an unlikely figure: Benjamin Franklin, 50 years old, already rich, retired from his printing business and notably famous for his inventions. He had received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society of London in 1753 for his... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| This Day in Civil War History October 3rd, 1862 Battle of Corinth, MS |
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· 10/03/2010 5:01:20 AM PDT · · Posted by mainepatsfan · · 5 replies · · History.com · |
Oct 3, 1862: Battle of Corinth Confederates under General Earl Van Dorn suffer a major defeat when they fail to recapture Corinth, a vital rail center in Mississippi. Northern Mississippi was the scene of much maneuvering during the summer of 1862. The Confederates were forced to evacuate Corinth in May in the face of heavy Union pressure, but they maintained two armies in the area. On September 19, one of these armies, commanded by Van Dorn, was defeated by William Rosecrans at the Battle of Iuka, 20 miles east of Corinth. Shortly after, Van Dorn combined his force with that... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| The Queasy Side of Theodore Roosevelt's Diplomatic Voyage |
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· 02/23/2010 5:34:05 PM PST · · Posted by kcvl · · 18 replies · 595+ views · · New York Times · |
James Bradley's incendiary new book about Theodore Roosevelt is not really packed with secrets. Much of the material it discusses has long been hidden in plain sight. But Roosevelt biographers often subscribe to certain orthodoxies, and one of them is this: When Roosevelt made noxiously racist and ethnocentric remarks about Anglo-Saxon greatness, so what? He was just voicing the tenets of his time. Mr. Bradley, the author of "Flags of Our Fathers," does not simply cite Roosevelt's egregious talk. He presents this much-ignored aspect of Roosevelt's thinking with sharp specificity ("I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic... |
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| Pages | |
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| What Are You Reading Now? - My Quarterly Survey |
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· 10/01/2010 8:54:31 AM PDT · · Posted by MplsSteve · · 221 replies · · October 1, 2010 · · MplsSteve · |
Hi everyone! It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" thread. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the more well-read member of the cyber world. I like to find out what you're all reading. Essentially, it can be anything. A timeless classic, a trashy pulp novel, a technical journal, etc. In short, anything! Please do not ruin this thread by posting something stupid like "I'm Reading Your Thread". It became really really unfunny a long time ago. I'll start. I'm reading "Pendergast!" by Lawrence J Larsen and Nancy J Hulston. Written in 1997, it... |
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| What are your "Must Read" books |
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· 10/01/2010 8:36:26 PM PDT · · Posted by MNDude · · 97 replies · |
Everyone's opinion, what would be three books that every adult should read? How about three books every kid should read? (besides the Bible, since that's a given for most) |
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| What Are You Reading Now? - My Quarterly Survey |
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· 07/12/2010 10:39:11 AM PDT · · Posted by MplsSteve · · 170 replies · 6+ views · · July 12, 2010 · · MplsSteve · |
Hi, everyone! It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" survey. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the more well-read groups currently on the Internet. Each quart, I like to find out what everyone is reading. It can be anything...a technical journal, a NY Times best-seller, a trashy pulp novel...in short, anything! Please do not ruin this thread by posting something inane like "I'm reading this post". It became very unfunny a long time ago. I'll start. I'm reading a historical biography called "John L Lewis: Labor Leader" by Robert Zieger. I have found... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| History of canned foods |
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· 10/07/2010 9:54:17 AM PDT · · Posted by djf · · 56 replies · · FDA · · Dale Blumenthal · |
The Canning Process: Old Preservation Technique Goes Modern by Dale Blumenthal The steamboat Bertrand was heavily laden with provisions when it set out on the Missouri River in 1865, destined for the gold mining camps in Fort Benton, Mont. The boat snagged and swamped under the weight, sinking to the bottom of the river. It was found a century later, under 30 feet of silt a little north of Omaha, Neb. Among the canned food items retrieved from the Bertrand in 1968 were brandied peaches, oysters, plum tomatoes, honey, and mixed vegetables. In 1974, chemists at the National Food Processors... |
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| Not-So-Golden Gate | |
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| Unearthed Presidio Tunnel Is a Monument to Failure |
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· 10/08/2010 3:55:38 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · NBC Bay Area · · October 6, 2010 · · Joe Rosato, Jr. · |
Eric Blind sat up to his ankles in mud. With a brush, he scraped away at a structure of 157-year-old brick, taking in a sight he knew would soon disappear. Behind him, sat the entrance to an old tunnel, carved into the bedrock of San Francisco's Presidio in the years when mad gold speculation fueled a population explosion in the City. Just a week ago, this tunnel, with its brick-lined entrance, sat buried beneath 43-feet of earth -- forgotten for a century by just about everyone except for Blind... The rumored tunnel wasn't the kind to conjure images of gold... |
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| Railroad warehouse key to history of Oakland |
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· 10/03/2010 9:13:51 PM PDT · · Posted by thecodont · · 19 replies · · SF Chronicle · · Sunday, October 3, 2010 · · Carolyn Jones · |
Over the howls of historians, Union Pacific plans to demolish an 1874 cavernous brick warehouse in West Oakland that is one of the last remnants of the transcontinental railroad. Designed for train repair, the towering structure was erected on the heels of the transcontinental railroad's arrival in Oakland, in the days when West Oakland was a national industrial center. "It tells the story of when railroads were the pioneer industry in California, and this was the center of it," said architect Randy Ruiz, one of 30 visitors Union Pacific allowed to tour the building recently. "It represents that can-do American... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Nazi foreign minister 'planned to retire to Cornwall', new exhibition claims |
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· 10/03/2010 2:46:05 PM PDT · · Posted by Riflema · · 9 replies · · Daily Telegraph · · October 3, 2010 · · Nick Britten · |
Adolf Hitler's foreign minister had plans to retire to one of the most picturesque locations in England following the planned German invasion, an author has claimed -- Joachim von Ribbentrop fell in love with Cornwall and was a regular visitor there, particularly to St Ives, where he intended to set up home... |
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| end of digest #325 20101009 | |
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· Saturday, October 9, 2010 · 39 topics · 2604316 to 2600444 · 755 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 325th issue. We've reached 755 members. Stuff that doesn't necessarily make it to GGG here on FR still gets shared: |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #326 Saturday, October 16, 2010 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Rotten Experiments Help to Create Picture of Our Early Ancestors |
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· 10/16/2010 4:57:16 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 4 replies · · Science Daily · · October 12, 2010 · · Unknown · |
An innovative experiment at the University of Leicester that involved studying rotting fish has helped to create a clearer picture of what our early ancestors would have looked like. The scientists wanted to examine the decaying process in order to understand the decomposition of soft-body parts in fish. This in turn will help them reconstruct an image of creatures that existed 500 million years ago. Their findings have been published Oct. 13 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The researchers, from the Department of Geology at... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Ancient Virus Found Hiding Out in Finch Genome |
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· 10/02/2010 11:21:25 AM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 25 replies · · ScienceNOW · · 28 September 2010 · · Cassandra Willyard · |
Enlarge Image Buried gem. Researchers have uncovered "fossil virus" inside the zebra finch genome. Credit: Peripitus/Wikimedia The hepatitis B virus and its ilk have been around for a long, long time. A newly uncovered "viral fossil" buried deep in the genome of the zebra finch indicates that the hepatitis B family of viruses -- known as hepadnaviruses -- originated at least 19 million years ago. Together with recent findings on other viruses, the work suggests that all viruses may be much older than thought. No one knows exactly where or when viruses originated. They don't leave fossils, so scientists have begun scouring the... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Scientists After Finding Almost No Trace Of Disease In Egyptian Mummies |
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· 10/15/2010 5:08:41 AM PDT · · Posted by facedodge · · 70 replies · · dailymail.co.uk · · 15th October 2010 · · Fiona Macrae · |
Cancer is a man-made disease fuelled by the excesses of modern life, a study of ancient remains has found. Tumours were rare until recent times when pollution and poor diet became issues, the review of mummies, fossils and classical literature found. A greater understanding of its origins could lead to treatments for the disease, which claims more than 150,000 lives a year in the UK. Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said: 'In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. 'The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| How Middle Eastern Milk Drinkers Conquered Europe |
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· 10/15/2010 7:56:47 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 26 replies · · Spiegel · · 15 Oct 2010 · · Matthias Schulz · |
New research has revealed that agriculture came to Europe amid a wave of immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period. The newcomers won out over the locals because of their sophisticated culture, mastery of agriculture -- and their miracle food, milk. Wedged in between dump trucks and excavators, archeologist Birgit Srock is drawing the outline of a 7,200-year-old posthole. A concrete mixing plant is visible on the horizon. She is here because, during the construction of a high-speed rail line between the German cities of Nuremberg and Berlin, workers happened upon a large Neolithic settlement in the Upper... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Maghera tomb: 5,000-year-old burial site to give up secrets |
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· 10/15/2010 10:09:36 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 17 replies · · Belfast Telegraph · · Friday, 15 October 2010 · · Linda Stewart · |
Normally portal tombs, which are among the oldest built structures still standing in Northern Ireland, are off limits to excavators and must be preserved. But after the massive capstone of this portal tomb fell to the ground earlier this year, archaeologists will be able to uncover the secrets it has held for millennia before repairs are carried out. Tirnony Dolmen is between 5,000 and 6,000 years old, according to Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIIEA) archaeologist Paul Logue. "After standing in Northern Ireland weather for over 5,000 years some of the tomb's structural stones have begun to crack, causing the capstone... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Stonehenge's newly discovered second henge |
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· 07/23/2010 3:44:19 AM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 22 replies · 1+ views · · BBC · · July 22, 2010 · · David Gregory · |
The team was very excited when I was there by this black and white image. It's a scan of an existing barrow and in this image the archaeological team see a segmented ditch and 24 deep pits which they say would probably have been dug for timbers and a wooden structure. A wooden henge. The diagram on the right shows this more clearly. |
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| British Isles | |
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| White Horse of Uffington is a dog, claims vet |
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· 10/15/2010 8:56:35 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 44 replies · · Guardian · · Tuesday 12 October 2010 · · James Meikle · |
Challenging the traditional description of the Oxfordshire landmark, retired vet Olaf Swarbrick asks whether the "beautiful, stylised" figure might instead be a dog such as a greyhound or wolfhound. In a letter to the Veterinary Record, his profession's journal, the former cattle and poultry specialist suggests a canine origin for the 110-metre by 38.5-metre animal, which was carefully dug into the downland. He invites alternative theories, too.... "Looking at it again, it seems that it is not a horse at all: the tail and head are wrong for a horse and more suggestive of a dog. It appears more like... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Ancient Roman helmet sells for $3.7m |
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· 10/10/2010 7:40:51 AM PDT · · Posted by Flavius · · 31 replies · · news.com.au · · October 08, 2010 · · afp · |
AN ancient Roman helmet found in a British field by a treasure hunter with a metal detector has sold for 2.3 million pounds ($3.7 million), auctioneers Christie's say. The "exceptional" bronze cavalry parade helmet dates from the late first century or early second century, and features a well-preserved face mask, locks of curly hair and a griffin atop the cap. |
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| The Bloody Games | |
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| Colosseum opens gladiator pits - Third storey also unveiled as Rome icon boosts allure |
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· 10/16/2010 7:56:16 AM PDT · · Posted by GonzoII · · 10 replies · · ANSA · · 15 October 10 · |
(ANSA) - Rome, October 15 - The Colosseum has added to its allure by opening the undergrounds pits where gladiators and wild beasts waited before being winched from darkness into the light of the killing ground. As well as revealing the bowels of the one-time blood-and-guts arena, the famed monument is also reopening its third storey, closed since the 1970s, affording a breathtaking view of Rome. The two new attractions, presented here Friday, aim to boost visitor numbers at the site, which is already Italy's single most visited monument at some 19,000 people a day. Crowds were already flocking to... |
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| Mini Collosseum or Amphitheathre Discovered Under Rome's Airport |
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· 02/27/2010 2:51:06 PM PST · · Posted by wildbill · · 18 replies · 630+ views · · Discovery News · · Oct. 2, 2009 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
Beneath Rome's Fiumicino airport lies a "mini-Colosseum" that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists. The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia's port on the Tiber River. A monumental seaport that saved imperial Rome from starvation, Portus is now reduced to a large hexagonal pond on a marshy land owned by a noble family, the Duke Sforza Cesarinis. The two-square-mile site has been known since around the 16th century, but... |
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy | |
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| Pompeii 'a symbol of Italy's sloppiness' |
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· 10/16/2010 1:01:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Telegraph · · Sunday, October 10, 2010 · · Nick Squires · |
For visitors to Pompeii, they are a guaranteed crowd pleaser: erotic frescoes, including one of Priapus, the god of fertility, adorning the walls of a 2,000 year old Roman villa. Or rather they were until two years ago, when the House of the Vettii closed for a restoration project which was supposed to last a year but which still grinds on, the villa encased in scaffolding and a sign outside offering no indication of when it might reopen... critics say years of neglect and indifference have turned [Pompeii] into an international embarrassment and an emblem of the dysfunction which plagues... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Unraveling the Etruscan Enigma |
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· 10/15/2010 10:02:40 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Archaeology mag · · November/December 2010 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
They taught the French to make wine and the Romans to build roads, and they introduced writing to Europe, but the Etruscans have long been considered one of antiquity's great enigmas. No one knew exactly where they came from. Their language was alien to their neighbors. Their religion included the practice of divination, performed by priests who examined animals' entrails to predict the future. Much of our knowledge about Etruscan civilization comes from ancient literary sources and from tomb excavations, many of which were carried out decades ago. But all across Italy, archaeologists are now creating a much richer picture... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Shoe of discord: Archeologists and officials divided over care of ancient artifact |
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· 10/16/2010 1:21:53 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · · ArmeniaNow · · Tuesday, October 12, 2010 · · Gayane Mkrtchyan · |
Boris Gasparyan, of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the RA National Academy of Sciences, head of the Armenian archeological expedition, is extremely concerned about the further examination of the ancient shoe and says he himself had time enough only to estimate the age of the shoe and learn a little bit about how it was made, before it was taken custody by the state history museum... According to the order by which archeological excavations are held, artifacts must be delivered to the State two years after the excavations. Gasparyan says that the legislation regulating archeology is imperfect; there... |
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| Near East | |
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| Oath On The Platform: 2,700 Year Old Temple At Tayinat Had Royal Loyalty Oath Prominently Displayed |
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· 10/15/2010 9:47:28 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Heritage Key · · Thursday, October 14, 2010 · · Owen Jarus · |
A team of researchers -- excavating a 2,700 year old temple at the ancient city of Tayinat in southeastern Turkey -- have discovered evidence that its inhabitants prominently displayed a tablet which bore a pledge of loyalty to the heir of an Assyrian king... Professor Tim Harrison of the University of Toronto... leads the Tayinat excavations. The city itself was built on the Amuq plain, on the Orontes River near the modern day Syrian border... a sort of crossroads that connected Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Levant -- allowing Tayinat to flourish. The Assyrian Empire conquered it in 738 BC, with... |
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| Central Asia | |
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| New Bronze Age civilization discovered in Russia |
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· 10/11/2010 12:17:16 PM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 13 replies · · Yahoo · · Oct 11, 2010 · · AFP · |
MOSCOW (AFP) -- Traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization have been discovered in the peaks of Russia's Caucasus Mountains thanks to aerial photographs taken 40 years ago, researchers said Monday. "We have discovered a civilization dating from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk," in Russia's North Caucasus region, Andrei Belinsky, the head of a joint Russian-German expedition that has been investigating the region for five years, told AFP. |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| 400,000 year old spears found in an German coal mine! |
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· 10/11/2010 6:38:35 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 58 replies · · reinep.wordpress.com · · 07-04-2010 · · Staff · |
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000 year old wooden spears from what appears to be an ancient lake shore hunting ground stunning evidence that human ancestors systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed. The three spears, each carved from the trunk of a spruce tree, are 6 feet to more than 7 feet long. They were found with more than 10,000 animal bones, mostly from horses, including many obviously butchered. That indicates the ancient hunters were organized enough to trap horses and strong enough to kill them by throwing spears, perhaps ambushing herds that showed up for water. "There's... |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| Italian scientist claims find of geoglyphs near Lake Titicaca, Peru |
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· 10/14/2010 1:40:57 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 21 replies · · LIP · · 13 Oct 2010 · · Mario Sandoval · |
According to an Italian scientist, a huge network of earthworks, or geoglyphs, is visible in satellite imagery of a large area, over 463 square miles, in the surroundings of the Titicaca Lake, Peru. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, professor at Italy's Politecnico di Torino, claims the patterns she discovered while studying satellite pictures near the Titicaca Lake. She says the shapes are the result of an almost unimaginable agricultural effort of Andean communities centuries ago. "People created a system of terraced hills and raised fields, which were large elevated planting platforms, with the corresponding drainage canals, to improve soil, temperature and moisture... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| A 'Mike' found in Buffalo? (Michelangelo painting) |
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· 10/11/2010 10:18:32 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 30 replies · · New York Post · · 11:06 AM, October 11, 2010 · · By Melissa Klein · |
This unfinished painting of Jesus and Mary could be a lost Michelangelo, potentially the art find of the century. But to the upstate family on whose living-room wall it hung for years, it was just "The Mike." When the kids knocked the painting off its perch with an errant tennis ball sometime in the mid-1970s, the Kober clan wrapped it up and tucked it away behind the sofa. There it remained for 27 years, until Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Kober retired in 2003 and had some time on his hands. His father gave him a task -- research the... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| The Battle of Tours |
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· 10/10/2010 7:17:08 AM PDT · · Posted by Mmogamer · · 15 replies · · Allexperts · · 10/10/10 · · Allexperts · |
The Battle of Tours (October 10, 732), often called Battle of Poitiers and also called in Arabi... (Balaat Alshuhada'a) The Court of Martyrs was fought near the city of Tours, France, by Frankish forces under Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel and a massive invading Muslim army led by Emir Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, Governor-general of Al-Andalus. The Franks defeated the Islamic army and Emir Abd er Rahman was killed. Charles earned the nickname Martel ("The Hammer") for the merciless way he hammered his opponents during this victory, and went on to repulse later Muslim invasions, driving Muslim forces back to the port of Narbonne. Edward Gibbon said of the Muslim invasions and Charles Martel "in the public danger, he was summoned by the voice of his country." |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Working Replica of Noah's Ark Opens In Schagen, Netherlands |
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· 10/14/2010 9:54:48 AM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 21 replies · · News Blaze · · September 19, 2008 · |
This is truly amazing! Cannot even imagine the work time and money that went into this venture. It's also amazing to see how large this is - and that the fact it is to scale of biblical times. Enjoy. *** The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was thrown open Saturday for the first crowd of curious Pilgrims and townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible. The ark is 150... |
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| Early America | |
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| Historian To Speak On Witchcraft In Early Connecticut |
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· 10/11/2010 11:47:25 AM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 5 replies · · Hartford Courant · · October 11, 2010 · |
Connecticut State Historian Walter Woodward will lecture on alchemy and witchcraft during the early years of the Connecticut colony in a presentation before the Windsor Historical Society at 7 p.m., Oct. 19. Woodward's talk will draw from his new book, "Prospero's America: John Winthrop Jr., Alchemy And The Creation of Early New England Culture." The work examines colonial Gov. Winthrop's interest in alchemy and the occult and his efforts to curb the Hartford witch trials, which resulted in seven executions, including two Windsor women. Tickets are $6 for adults; $5 for seniors and students and $4 for society members. Call... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Liberals attempt to rewrite history on the Boston Tea Party |
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· 10/09/2010 11:42:31 AM PDT · · Posted by mainestategop · · 23 replies · · MainestateGOP · · mainestategop · |
In yet another attempt to assault the tea party movement, the left has a new weapon up its sleeve. A weapon its predecessors in totalitarian countries such as liberal Germany and liberal China have used frequently. Revisionist history. In this case it concerns an event in American history. the Boston Tea party. A revolt by colonists where a merchant ship carrying tea from the British East India company was seized and its cargo dumped overboard. This was all due to unjust taxation by British Parliament thousands of miles away. Taxation without representation as our founders put it which was considered... |
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| Today In History, October 14,1774, Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress |
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· 10/14/2010 3:42:55 PM PDT · · Posted by mdittmar · · 5 replies · · various · · October 14, 2010 · · First Continental Congress · |
Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament, claiming a power, of right, to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath, in some acts, expressly imposed taxes on them, and in others, under various presences, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in these colonies, established a board of commissioners, with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county: And... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| 140th anniversary of the death of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee |
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· 10/11/2010 4:26:35 PM PDT · · Posted by BigReb555 · · 44 replies · · The Telegraph · · October 10, 2010 · · Calvin E. Johnson, Jr. · |
General Lee died at his home at Lexington, Virginia at 9:30 AM on Wednesday, October 12, 1870. |
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| end of digest #326 20101016 | |
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· Saturday, October 16, 2010 · 24 topics · 2608857 to 2604566 · 754 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 326th issue. A tiny but potent 24 topics. We've reached 754 members. Stuff that doesn't necessarily make it to GGG here on FR still gets shared: |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #327 Saturday, October 22, 2010 |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Glenn Beck: What if God made us from monkeys? |
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· 10/20/2010 9:45:29 PM PDT · · Posted by RobinMasters · · 67 replies · · WND · · October 19, 2010 · · Joe Kovacs · |
Were human beings created by God in an instant, or over millions of years through evolution? Glenn Beck addressed the question on his radio show today as he came to the defense of Christine O'Donnell, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Delaware under fire for challenging evolution. "Did evolution just stop?" Beck asked rhetorically. "I haven't seen the half-monkey/half-person yet. ... There's no other species that's developing into half-people." "I don't know how God creates. I don't know how we got here," he continued, wondering what God might tell him after he dies. "If God's like, 'Yup, you were a... |
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| Three R's | |
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| Abacus: Mystery Of The Bead -- The Bead Unbaffled |
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· 10/21/2010 5:58:39 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · webhome.idirect.com · · prior to 2010 · · Totton Heffelfinger & Gary Flom · |
Abacus is a Latin word meaning sand tray. The word originates with the Arabic "abq", which means dust or fine sand. In Greek this would become abax or abakon which means table or tablet... Probably, the first device was the counting board. This appeared at various times in several places around the world. The earliest counting boards consisted of a tray made of sun dried clay or wood. A thin layer of sand would be spread evenly on the surface, and symbols would be drawn in the sand with a stick or ones finger. To start anew, one would simply... |
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| Agriculture and Animal Husbandry | |
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| Bread was around 30,000 years ago -study |
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· 10/18/2010 5:01:00 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 53 replies · · Reuters/yahoo · · October 18, 2010 · |
LONDON (Reuters Life!) -- Starch grains found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that prehistoric man may have dined on an early form of flat bread, contrary to his popular image as primarily a meat-eater. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal on Monday, indicate that Palaeolithic Europeans ground down plant roots similar to potatoes to make flour, which was later whisked into dough. "It's like a flat bread, like a pancake with just water and flour," said Laura Longo, a researcher on the team from the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History. |
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| Stone Age flour found across Europe |
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· 10/19/2010 4:03:37 PM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 28 replies · · NatureNews · · Oct 18, 2010 · · Ewen Callaway · |
Once thought of as near total carnivores, early humans ate ground flour 20,000 years before the dawn of agriculture. Flour residues recovered from 30,000-year-old grinding stones found in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic point to widespread processing and consumption of plant grain, according to a paper published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. "It's another nail in the coffin of the idea that hunter-gatherers didn't use plants for food," says Ofer Bar-Yosef, an archaeologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study. Work in recent years has also... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| Red Meat Molecule'May Cause Health Problems' |
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· 09/29/2003 3:20:49 PM PDT · · Posted by blam · · 33 replies · 480+ views · · Ananova · · 9-29-2003 · |
Eating red meat introduces a potentially dangerous non-human molecule into the body tissues, new research has showed. A study found that the molecule, a sugar only found in non-human mammals, is absorbed into tissues such as blood vessels and secretory cells. Tests showed that it can generate an immune response which might induce harmful inflammation. The scientists have not ruled out a link with cancer and heart disease - although they acknowledge that at present this is speculation. To date, research has focused on the role of red meat saturated fats and chemical... |
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| Climate | |
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| Weathering climate change in the Near East: dating and Neolithic adaptations 8200 years ago |
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· 10/19/2010 6:07:02 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Antiquity · · September 2010 · · P.M.M.G. Akkermans, J. van der Plicht, O.P. Nieuwenhuyse, A. Russell, A. Kaneda & H. Buitenhuis · |
Tell Sabi Abyad (northern Syria), a key-site for the Late Neolithic in Upper Mesopotamia (Figures 1 & 2), was continuously inhabited during the seventh millennium, spanning the 8.2ka event. Many cultural and economic transitions are seen in the archaeological record around 6200 BC. The site as a whole remains occupied, but the village shifts from west to east. The village layout shows new architectural forms (Figure 3). Key changes in animal husbandry occurred, such as the exploitation of sheep and goats for milk and fibre production and the abandonment of pig husbandry in favour of cattle. The number of spindle... |
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| Humans' 10,000-Year Warming Habit |
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· 12/10/2003 10:03:37 AM PST · · Posted by blam · · 58 replies · 421+ views · · BBC · · 12-10-2003 · · Richard Black · |
Human influence on climate is hotly debated Humans have been warming the Earth's climate for the last 10,000 years, US scientist William Ruddiman claims. The University of Virginia professor says agriculture has put greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, pushing up temperatures by about one Celsius. This, he claims, has broadly balanced the cooling that should have come from a natural reduction in the Sun's heat reaching Earth over the same period. The professor has presented his ideas to the American Geophysical Union. The AGU is holding its... |
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy | |
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| The fall of Phaethon: a Greco-Roman geomyth preserves the memory of a meteorite impact in Bavaria |
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· 10/19/2010 3:53:11 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · Antiquity · · v84 n324 · · Rappengluck et al · |
Arguing from a critical reading of the text, and scientific evidence on the ground, the authors show that the myth of Phaethon -- the delinquent celestial charioteer -- remembers the impact of a massive meteorite that hit the Chiemgau region in Bavaria between 2000 and 428 BC. Keywords: Bronze Age, Phaethon, Ovid, meteorite, Celts, myth Access this article (PDF File). |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Ancient Shipwreck Points to Site of Major Roman Battle |
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· 10/19/2010 8:17:39 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · Live Science · · October 18, 2010 · · Clara Moskowitz · |
The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage. The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars. Archaeologists think the newly discovered remnants of the warship date from the final battle of the first Punic War, which allowed Rome to expand farther into the Western... |
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| Roman Statues Found in Blue Grotto Cave |
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· 09/28/2009 3:45:34 PM PDT · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 23 replies · 1,574+ views · · Discovery.com · · 9/28/09 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
Sept. 28, 2009 -- A number of ancient Roman statues might lie beneath the turquoise waters of the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri in southern Italy, according to an underwater survey of the sea cave. Dating to the 1st century A.D., the cave was used as a swimming pool by the Emperor Tiberius (42 B.C. - 37 A.D.), and the statues are probably depictions of sea gods. "A preliminary underwater investigation has revealed several statue bases which might possibly hint to sculptures lying nearby," Rosalba Giugni, president of the environmentalist association, Marevivo, told Discovery News. Carried out in... |
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| Italy: Emperor Augustus house reopened after restoration |
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· 12/24/2007 2:33:06 AM PST · · Posted by FreedomCalls · · 4 replies · 241+ views · · adn Kronos International · · Dec 11, 2007 · · AKI · |
Rome, 11 Dec. (AKI) - After decades of restorations, a series of well preserved frescoed rooms dating to the year 30 BC in the Roman Emperor Augustus's house are set to go on display next year in the Italian capital. The rooms are on Rome's Palatine hill, which is one of Rome's original seven hills and from which the word 'palace' is derived. Legend has it that the twin brothers Romulus and Remus founded Rome on the Palatine and its where many Roman emperors had their palaces built. Augustus's rooms were discovered in the late 1970s and were painted in... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Hackney gardeners dig up hoard of American gold coins[UK] |
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· 10/18/2010 11:40:41 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 11 replies · · London Today · · 18 Oct 2010 · · Dalya Alberge · |
A valuable hoard of American gold coins has been unearthed in an east London garden -- one of Britain's most curious treasure finds. Buried hoards are discovered every so often, but their Anglo-Saxon, Viking or Roman owners were themselves interred long ago. Whoever hid the 80 coins from the 19th and early 20th centuries may be alive. Why they chose the garden of a residential block in Hackney is a mystery. Archaeologists more used to deciphering which Roman emperor is depicted on a coin have been taken aback by the find -- gold $20 "Double Eagle" pieces dating from 1854... |
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| China | |
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| Could a rusty coin re-write Chinese-African history? |
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· 10/18/2010 11:30:24 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 45 replies · · BBC · · 18 Oct 2010 · · Peter Greste · |
It is not much to look at - a small pitted brass coin with a square hole in the centre-but this relatively innocuous piece of metal is revolutionising our understanding of early East African history, and recasting China's more contemporary role in the region. A joint team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists found the 15th Century Chinese coin in Mambrui-a tiny, nondescript village just north of Malindi on Kenya's north coast. In barely distinguishable relief, the team leader Professor Qin Dashu from Peking University's archaeology department, read out the inscription: "Yongle Tongbao" - the name of the reign that minted... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet |
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· 10/19/2010 8:44:34 AM PDT · · Posted by GonzoII · · 14 replies · · Reuters · · Tue Oct 19, 2010 · · Jeffrey Heller · |
(Reuters) - Scholars and anyone with an Internet connection will be able to take a new look into the Biblical past through an online archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, said on Tuesday it was collaborating with Google's research and development center in Israel to upload digitized images of the entire collection. Advanced imaging technology will be installed in the IAA's laboratories early next year and high-resolution images of each of... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Arabs decide Jericho is 10,000 years old, throw it a birthday party -- and nobody bothers to show |
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· 10/19/2010 7:23:09 PM PDT · · Posted by Immerito · · 20 replies · · Jerusalem World Review · · 10/19/2010 · · Edmund Sanders · |
Jericho -- (MCT) Imagine you turned 10,000 years old -- and nobody showed up at your birthday party. That's a bit how they're feeling in the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, believed to be one of the world's oldest continually inhabited settlements. Three years ago, Palestinians made big plans for Jericho's historic birthday. Nobody really knows the exact anniversary, but Palestinians thought 10-10-10 had a good ring to it. The idea was to host an international blowout to rival the 2000 millennium, including fireworks, laser shows, half a million guests and a who's who of international dignitaries. They dreamed... |
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| Christian Massacre Tugs at Islamili's (Muslim sect) hearts in Saudia Arabia |
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· 10/21/2010 12:35:32 AM PDT · · Posted by Cronos · · 21 replies · · New York Times · · 20-Oct-2010 · · Robert F Worth · |
Among the ruins on the edge of this ancient oasis city are deep trenches littered with bones. That, local people say, is all that remains of one of the great atrocities of antiquity, when thousands of Christians were herded into pits here and burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. The massacre, which took place in about A.D. 523, is partly shadowed by myth and largely unknown to the outside world. But it has become central to the identity of the people now living here, who mostly belong to the minority Ismaili sect... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| 1,800-yr-old Buddha statue excavated |
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· 10/21/2010 8:06:40 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · Deccan Chronicle · · October 8th, 2010 · · unattributed · |
The state archaeology department has found a limestone statue of Gautam Buddha that dates back to at least 1,800 years. "It was a chance discovery," said the director of archaeology and museums, Prof. P. Chenna Reddy. The limestone statue from the second century CE was discovered at Chada village in the Atmakur mandal of Nalgonda district when labourers were tilling the fields. In addition to the idol, Buddhist sculptural panels and a few large bricks were also unearthed. "The finds reveal the existence of a new Buddhist site in the Telangana region. This evidence adds to the cluster of Buddhist... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Bacteria "R' Us |
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· 10/19/2010 10:22:18 PM PDT · · Posted by grey_whiskers · · 16 replies · · Miller-McCune · · 10-18-2010 · · Valerie Brown · |
A few scientists noticed in the late 1960s that the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri appeared to coordinate among themselves the production of chemicals that produced bioluminescence, waiting until a certain number of them were in the neighborhood before firing up their light-making machinery. This behavior was eventually dubbed "quorum sensing." It was one of the first in what has turned out to be a long list of ways in which bacteria talk to each other and to other organisms. |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Cause of the big plague epidemic of Middle Ages identified |
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· 10/20/2010 12:55:40 AM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 49 replies · · PhysOrg.com · · October 11, 2010 · · NA · |
Geographical position of the five archaeological sites investigated. Green dots indicate the sites. Also indicated are two likely independent infection routes (black and red dotted arrows) for the spread of the Black Death (1347-1353) after Benedictow. -- The 'Black Death' was caused by at least two previously unknown types of Yersinia pestis bacteria. The latest tests conducted by anthropologists at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have proven that the bacteria Yersinia pestis was indeed the causative agent behind the "Black Death" that raged across Europe in the Middle Ages. The cause of the epidemic has always remained... |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| 'Bronze Age' cremation urn at Fortrose housing site [Scotland] |
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· 10/21/2010 8:25:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · · BBC · · Wednesday, October 13, 2010 · · unattributed · |
An ancient cremation urn has been found by archaeologists surveying a site earmarked for a housing project. The team from Headland Archaeology believe the object uncovered at Fortrose dates from the Bronze Age. Developer Tulloch Homes, which has planning consent to build 156 properties on the land, commissioned the survey. Further excavations will be done under the supervision of Highland Council's archaeology officer. A spokesman for Tulloch Homes said: "It is the most significant find in their initial dig and the urn has been removed from the site for more detailed examination. "Further archaeological excavation at the Fortrose site will... |
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| Bronze Age burials at Inverness Asda site [ Scotland ] |
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· 10/21/2010 8:28:48 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · BBC · · September 15, 2010 · · unattributed · |
A Bronze Age burial site has been uncovered at the planned location of the Highlands' first Asda supermarket. Archaeologists found an area of cremation pits surrounded by a ring ditch at Slackbuie, in Inverness. Almost 2,000 flints were also recovered from the field on the city's distributor road. Pieces of Neolithic pottery known as Unstan Ware were also discovered during digs led by Edinburgh-based NG Archaeology Services. The details are contained in an interim report following excavations made last November through to May this year as part of the store's planning process. A full report will be published later. The... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Bulgarian Archaeologist Comes Across Ancient Rock Stove |
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· 10/21/2010 8:19:26 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · Novinite · · Tuesday, October 5, 2010 · · unattributed · |
Leading Bulgarian archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov has completed his four-month summer excavations at the Ancient Thracian city of Perperikon. On Tuesday, Ovcharov presented his latest intriguing discovery an ancient cooking stove cut right into the stones of the rock city dated back to 3rd-4th century. The stove consists of a lower part, a hearth, whose ceiling has two holes that let through some fire; the ceramic cooking vessels would be placed on top of the holes. "We can easily call this discovery a prototype of the contemporary cooking stoves," Ovcharov said. The archaeologist made a recapitulation of his four months of... |
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| She Wrote Upon It | |
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| X-ray scanning reveals return address of 3500 year old letters |
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· 10/22/2010 5:16:07 PM PDT · · Posted by SonOfDarkSkies · · 7 replies · · io9.com · · uncertain · |
Even thousands of years ago, written messages were sent over long distances. Unfortunately, the concept of including your return address hadn't been invented yet, so we don't know where ancient letters came from (and which cultures were talking)...until now. Professor Yuval Goren, an archaeologist at Israel's Tel Aviv University, has modified a standard portable X-ray scanner to determine the secret origins of ancient letters. At its most basic, the scanner can determine the soil and clay composition of any artifact. Since different regions at different times have different mixes of soil and clay, this allows Professor Goren to place the... |
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| Mayans | |
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| Resurrecting the Maize King [ Mayan funeral ] |
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· 10/21/2010 8:11:19 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Archaeology · · September/October 2010 · · David Freidel, Michelle Rich, and F. Kent Reilly III · |
For two weeks we had been tunnelling beneath the surface of the acropolis hill at the ancient Maya city of Wak· in Guatemala's Petén rainforest. It was the spring of 2006, and we knew that under the surface of the acropolis was a virtual layer cake of earlier structures. The acropolis had been one of the city's enduring spiritual centers before it was abandoned around A.D. 820. A large pyramid and several buildings still stand there today.We were at the bottom of a shaft we had dug the previous spring, working our way up the stairs of a buried building... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| 1000-year-old mummies found in Peru |
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· 10/22/2010 6:40:36 PM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 7 replies · · NDTV · · Oct 22, 2010 · · AP · |
Lima, Peru: Peruvian archaeologists have unearthed four perfectly preserved mummies at an ancient burial site in the capital city, Lima. The mummies are more than 1000 years old and were found at the Huaca Pucllana - a pre Inca temple. |
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| Peru & the Andes | |
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| Anthropology: Cracking the Khipu Code |
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· 06/12/2003 6:09:19 PM PDT · · Posted by Lessismore · · 14 replies · 6,326+ views · · Science Magazine · · 2003-06-13 · · Charles C. Mann · |
Researchers take a fresh look at Incan knotted strings and suggest that they may have been a written language, one that used a binary code to store information In the late 16th century, Spanish travelers in central Peru ran into an old Indian man, probably a former official of the Incan empire, which Francisco Pizarro had conquered in 1532. The Spaniards saw the Indian try to hide something he was carrying, according to the account of one traveler, Diego Avalos y Figueroa, so they searched him and found several bunches of the cryptic knotted strings known as khipu. Many khipu... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Scientists find sign cave dwellers took care of elderly |
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· 10/21/2010 8:42:01 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · · Google News · · Tuesday, October 12, 2010 · · AFP · |
Scientists said Monday they had uncovered evidence suggesting cave dwellers who lived in northern Spain some 500,000 years ago took care of their elderly and infirm. University of Madrid palaeontologists discovered the partial skeleton of a male of a European species ancestral to the Neanderthals who suffered from a stoop and possibly needed a stick to remain upright, they said in a statement. "This individual would be probably impaired for hunting, among other activities. His survival during a considerable period with these impairments allows us to hypothesize that the nomadic group of which this individual was part would provide special... |
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| India | |
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| Colgate Accused of Stealing Thousand-Year-Old Toothpaste |
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· 10/21/2010 10:47:10 AM PDT · · Posted by Texas Fossil · · 22 replies · · Fox News (Orlando) · · Updated: Thursday, 21 Oct 2010 · · (NewsCore) · |
(NewsCore) - A legal dispute between the U.S. and India over a herbal toothpaste was leaving a bitter aftertaste between the two countries Thursday, with Colgate Palmolive accused of filing a bogus patent. Colgate, the world's largest producer of toothpaste, patented a toothcleaning powder in the hope that it would take the multibillion-dollar Indian oral hygiene market by storm. However, Indian activists claim that the patent is bogus because the ingredients -- including clove oil, camphor, black pepper and spearmint -- have been used for the same purpose for hundreds, "if not thousands," of years on the subcontinent. |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Swiss archaeologists find 5,000-year-old door |
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· 10/20/2010 3:13:36 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 47 replies · · Associated Press · · October 20, 2010 · · Frank Jordans · |
GENEVA -- Archaeologists in the Swiss city of Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe. The ancient poplar wood door is "solid and elegant" with well-preserved hinges and a "remarkable" design for holding the boards together, chief archaeologist Niels Bleicher said Wednesday. Using tree rings to determine its age, Bleicher believes the door could have been made in the year 3,063 B.C. -- around the time that construction on Britain's world famous Stonehenge monument began. |
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| Swiss unearth 5,000-year-old door |
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· 10/22/2010 7:10:25 PM PDT · · Posted by Islander7 · · 8 replies · · Guardian UK · · Oct 20, 2010 · · AP · |
Archaeologists in Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe. The ancient poplar wood door is "solid and elegant" with well-preserved hinges and a "remarkable" design for holding the boards together, archaeologist Niels Bleicher said today. |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Malarial mosquitoes helped defeat British in battle that ended Revolutionary War |
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· 10/19/2010 2:08:48 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 23 replies · · Washington Post · · 18 Oct 2010 · · J.R. McNeill · |
Major combat operations in the American Revolution ended 229 years ago on Oct. 19, at Yorktown. For that we can thank the fortitude of American forces under George Washington, the siegecraft of French troops of Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the count of Rochambeau - and the relentless bloodthirstiness of female Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes. Those tiny amazons conducted covert biological warfare against the British army.Female mosquitoes seek mammalian blood to provide the proteins they need to make eggs. No blood meal,no reproduction. It makes them bold and determined to bite. Some anopheles mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite, which they can... |
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| The Framers | |
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| If Men Were Angels |
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· 10/17/2010 2:46:47 PM PDT · · Posted by citizenredstater9271 · · 28 replies · · mises.org · · Robert Higgs · |
In The Federalist No. 51, arguably the most important one of all, James Madison wrote in defense of a proposed national constitution that would establish a structure of "checks and balances between the different departments" of the government and, as a result, constrain the government's oppression of the public. In making his argument, Madison penned the following paragraph, which comes close to being a short course in political science: The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers |
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· 10/20/2010 8:19:20 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 132 replies · · Washington Post · · 20 Oct 2010 · · Kevin Sieff · |
A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War -- a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery's role as a cause of the conflict. The passage appears in "Our Virginia: Past and Present," which was distributed in the state's public elementary schools for the first time last month. The author, Joy Masoff, who is not a trained historian but has written several books, said she found the information about black Confederate soldiers primarily through Internet research, which turned up work... |
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| Five Union Soldiers Find Peace |
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· 10/19/2010 9:15:22 AM PDT · · Posted by Bodleian_Girl · · 104 replies · · Southern Pines Pilot · · 10/17/10 · · Jim Dodson · |
Shortly after 10 o'clock on a crisp Saturday morning two weeks ago, 75 folks solemnly clutching small American flags and digital cameras assembled in a grove of young pines at a modest farm in the Zion community, tucked into in the soft hills west of downtown Rockingham. Their objective was to honor five forgotten Union soldiers who died in a skirmish only days before the end of the Civil War. Until now, the solders' remains have lain in hand-dug graves marked only by small piles of white stones for 145 years, their identities unknown. The event, sponsored by the Richmond... |
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| This Day in Civil War History October 16th, 1859 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry |
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· 10/16/2010 4:28:16 AM PDT · · Posted by mainepatsfan · · 109 replies · · History.com · |
Civil War Oct 16, 1859: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery. Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Dead 100 Years, Mark Twain Lets Loose |
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· 10/19/2010 10:14:57 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 35 replies · · CBS News · · October 17, 2010 · · Jeff Glor · |
It's been 100 years since Mark Twain died, after declaring, "If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there." Wherever he is, a century later, the words and stories he left behind live on... President Theodore Roosevelt is "one of the most impulsive men in existence" . . . the American soldiers Roosevelt sent to the Philippines Twain called "uniformed assassins" . . . and then there's his Italian landlady, who's "excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, and obscene" . . . and that's just for starters...our... |
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| Three Words? You Lose | |
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| Can You Name the Greatest President of the Past 100 Years? (Cato Inst. says it's Calvin Coolidge) |
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· 10/19/2010 7:07:22 AM PDT · · Posted by WebFocus · · 73 replies · · Cato Institute · · 10/19/2010 · · Daniel Mitchell · |
It's tempting to say that Ronald Reagan was the best U.S. president of the past century, and I've certainly demonstrated my man-crush on the Gipper. But there is some real competition. I had the pleasure yesterday of hearing Amity Shlaes of the Council on Foreign Relations make the case for Calvin Coolidge at the Mont Pelerin Society Meeting in Australia. I dug around online and found an article Amity wrote for Forbes that highlights some of the attributes of "Silent Cal" that she mentioned in her speech. As you can see, she makes a persuasive case ...the Coolidge style... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| NYC man, 95, gets medal for WWII rescue [largest air rescue of Americans] |
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· 10/18/2010 3:24:58 AM PDT · · Posted by Daffynition · · 16 replies · · AP via MSNBC · · 10/17/2010 · · Verena Dobnik · |
New York -- The U.S. government has recognized the World War II architect of a mission to rescue more than 500 U.S. bomber fliers shot down over Nazi-occupied Serbia -- the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines in any war. George Vujnovich, a 95-year-old New Yorker, is credited with leading the so-called Halyard Mission in what was then Yugoslavia. The 95-year-old New York City man was awarded the Bronze Star in a ceremony Sunday at Manhattan's St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. He received a standing ovation from a crowd of several hundred. |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Obama To Appear On Episode Of 'Mythbusters' |
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· 10/18/2010 4:53:28 AM PDT · · Posted by rightwingintelligentsia · · 62 replies · · WPXI · · October 18, 2010 · |
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will appear on an episode of "Mythbusters," a television show that uses science to determine the truth behind urban legends. The White House says the episode will air Dec. 8 on the Discovery Channel. Discovery says the episode considers this question: Did Greek scientist Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun? |
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| Obama to Appear on "Mythbusters" |
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· 10/18/2010 10:34:04 AM PDT · · Posted by mandaladon · · 64 replies · · New York Times · |
For a president under siege, maybe this could help. In an episode of "Mythbusters" on the Discovery Channel to be shown on Dec. 8, President Obama will help determine whether the Greek scientist Archimedes really set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun. Legend has it that during the Siege of Syracuse, circa 214 B.C., Archimedes destroyed the enemy ships with fire, the result of a "heat ray" involving a series of mirrors set up on the coast. But the question has long remained: Did it really happen that way? "Mythbusters"... |
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| Obama to Appear on Mythbusters, Bolster America's Giant-Mirror Capability |
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· 10/18/2010 1:31:20 PM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 27 replies · · Time Magazine's Tuned In Blog · · October 18, 2010 · · James Poniewozik, TV Critic · |
President Obama and Discovery Channel announced today that the chief executive will appear on the Dec. 8 episode of Mythbusters. And surprisingly, the myth being busted has nothing to do with either Islam or Kenyan birth certificates. On the episode, Obama will ask Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to test whether it was possible for the Greek scientist Archimedes, as told in story, to have set fire to an invading fleet using a giant mirror and the reflected rays of the sun. Which forces me to ask: What the hell is the government secretly planning to do with a giant... |
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| end of digest #327 20101022 | |
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· Saturday, October 22, 2010 · 41 topics · 2612899 to 991755 · 756 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 327th issue. A backbreaking 41 topics. We've reached 756 members. I've made one small addition to my tiny little processor program that prepares the source buffer, and it worked on the first try, IOW, no foolish little errors. For some reason the idea for it (and it's very minor) had not occurred to me before, and for some other reason it hit me as I drove across town this evening. |
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Epigraphy? EPIGFREAKINGRAPY!. I didn’t know that pigs could send emails.
I bet you just found and used that big word to make the rest of us look dumb.
[’Civ checks his nail buffing job]
LOL.
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