Posted on 07/16/2004 11:27:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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· Saturday, March 29, 2008 · 36 topics · 1993226 to 1989940 · 679 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 193rd issue. 36 topics. It's pushing 2 AM, I've got a runny nose, and I want to finish this and go to bed. So, no smart mouthed comments follow. |
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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #194
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Greece
DNA Sheds Light On Minoans
Crete's fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans' forefathers had come from Africa. The new study -- a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey -- drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece. The results show that the country's neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia -- modern-day Iran, Iraq and...
Jacob's Ladder
Scientists Reshape Y Chromosome Haplogroup Tree Gaining New Insights Into Human Ancestry
The Y chromosome retains a remarkable record of human ancestry, since it is passed directly from father to son. In an article published in Genome Research scientists have utilized recently described genetic variations on the part of the Y chromosome that does not undergo recombination to significantly update and refine the Y chromosome haplogroup tree. Human cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes: 22 pairs of autosomes, and one pair of sex chromosomes. Females carry a pair of X chromosomes that can swap, or...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Sweeps of human DNA yield discoveries
San Luis Obispo Tribune | Mar. 31, 2008 | MALCOLM RITTER
Scientists are scanning human DNA with a precision and scope once unthinkable and rapidly finding genes linked to cancer, arthritis, diabetes and other diseases. It's a payoff from a landmark achievement completed five years ago - the identification of all the building blocks in the human DNA. Follow-up research and leaps in DNA-scanning technology have opened the door to a flood of new reports about genetic links to disease. On a single day in February, for example, three separate research groups reported finding several genetic variants tied to the risk of getting prostate cancer. And over the past year or...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Clay tablet holds clue to asteroid mystery
British scientists have deciphered a mysterious ancient clay tablet and believe they have solved a riddle over a giant asteroid impact more than 5,000 years ago. Geologists have long puzzled over the shape of the land close to the town of Kofels in the Austrian Alps, but were unable to prove it had been caused by an asteroid. Now researchers say their translation of symbols on a star map from an ancient civilisation includes notes on a mile-wide asteroid that later hit Earth - which could have caused tens of thousands of deaths. The circular clay tablet was discovered 150...
Researchers: Asteroid Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky. He referred to the...
Cuneiform clay tablet translated for the first time
A cuneiform clay tablet that has puzzled scholars for over 150 years has been translated for the first time. The tablet is now known to be a contemporary Sumerian observation of an asteroid impact at Kofels, Austria and is published in a new book, 'A Sumerian Observation of the Kofels' Impact Event.' The giant landslide centred at Kofels in Austria is 500m thick and five kilometres in diameter and has long been a mystery since geologists first looked at it in the 19th century. The conclusion drawn by research in the middle 20th century was that it must be...
Epidemic, Pandemic, Plague, the Sniffles
The Chances Of Surviving The Black Death
Why did some people survive the Black Death, and others succumb? At the time of the plague -- which ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351, carrying off 50 million people, perhaps half the population -- various prophylactics were tried, from the killing of birds, cats and rats to the wearing of leather breeches (protecting the legs from flea bites) and the burning of aromatic spices and herbs. Now it seems that the best way of avoiding death from the disease was to be fit and healthy. Sharon DeWitte and James Wood of the...
Ancient Autopsies
Scientists Tantalize With 'Iceman' Findings (Canada)
The Vancouver Sun | 4-4-2008 | Darah Hansen
Scientists from around the world who have been studying the centuries-old human remains that melted out of a glacier in northwestern British Columbia in 1999 will gather for the first time in Victoria later this month to talk about what they've learned from the unnamed "iceman." The Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi Symposium will be held April 24-27 at the University of Victoria. It is being held in conjunction with the Northwest Anthropology Conference. The conference brings together more than 30 researchers from fields as diverse as archeology,...
Asia
Whaling scene found in 3,000-year-old picture[Russian Arctic]
Nature News | 31 Mar 2008 | Alexandra Witze
Arctic carving shows complexity of ancient hunting groups. Northern hunters may have been killing whales 3,000 years ago and commemorating their bravery with pictures carved in ivory. Archaeologists working in the Russian Arctic have unearthed a remarkably detailed carving of groups of hunters engaged in whaling -- sticking harpoons into the great mammals. The same site also yielded heavy stone blades that had been broken as if by some mighty impact, and remains from a number of dead whales. All of this adds up to the probability that the site, called Un'en'en, holds the earliest straightforward evidence of the practice...
3,000-Year-Old Ivory Carving Depicts Whaling Scene
Archaeologists working in the Russian Arctic have unearthed a remarkably detailed 3,000-year-old ivory carving that depicts groups of hunters engaged in whaling, which pushes back direct evidence for whaling by about 1,000 years. According to a report in Nature News, the ancient picture implies that northern hunters may have been killing whales 3,000 years ago and commemorating their bravery with pictures carved in ivory. Among the picture which depicts hunters sticking harpoons into whales, the site also yielded heavy stone blades that had been broken as if by some...
Cave Art
Rock Art From 5,000 Years Ago (Finland)
The Astuvansalmi rock paintings are located on a steep outcrop, resembling a human head, on the shore of lake Yovesi. The site may have been used for ceremonial purposes. Rock paintings created during the Stone Age can still be seen today in dozens of sites around Finland. These awe-inspiring artworks are like windows into the ancient past, revealing tantalising glimpses of long lost cultures. FINLAND'S rock paintings mainly consist of brownish-red figures and markings painted onto steep granite walls, often overlooking waterways. Scenes feature people, boats, elk, fish and mysterious partly human figures that may...
Number 9, Number 9, Number 9
AB Negative Blood Types In Northern Ireland.
I have been talking to my Mother, Thanks Blam, about getting a DNA test to deturmine heritige. AB Negitive is a rare blood type in Ireland, less than 1%. I have been wondering about the distribution of this Blood Type among people descended from those who emmigrated from Northern Ireland. My Mother is Black Irish, Not Protestant, Black Hair, Dark Brown Eyes, Olive Skin, not your normal Harp. My Nana said it was the milk man, not likely!
China
Archaeologists Find Evidence Of Origin Of Pacific Islanders
The origin of Pacific Islanders has been a mystery for years. Now archaeologists believe they have the answer. As Heidi Chang reports, they found it in China. The excavation of the Zishan site (Zhejiang Province) in 1996, where many artifacts from the Hemudu culture have been found China had a sea-faring civilization as long as 7000 years ago. Archaeologist Tianlong Jiao says, one day, these mariners sailed their canoes into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, and stayed. He points out, "Most scientists, archaeologists,...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Archaeologist Begin Historic Stonehenge Dig
Archaeologists began a historic dig on Monday which they hope will unlock the ancient secrets of Stonehenge once and for all. The researchers started digging a trench to examine the first stones erected at the site -- the first excavation at the monument to be given the go-ahead for 44 years. Professors Geoffrey Wainwright (right) and Tim Darvill hope to unlock ancient secrets Samples recovered from the pit will provide material that could allow the team to date the start of work on the landmark...
Archaeologists start Stonehenge dig
Some of England's most sacred soil was disturbed Monday for the first time in more than four decades as archaeologists worked to solve the enduring riddle of Stonehenge: When and why was the prehistoric monument built? The excavation project, set to last until April 11, is designed to unearth materials that can be used to establish a firm date for when the first mysterious set of bluestones was put in place at Stonehenge, one of Britain's best known and least understood landmarks. The World Heritage site, a favorite with visitors the world over, has become popular with Druids,...
Roman Britain
Bones find may be Roman
Oxford Mail | 1st April 2008
Archaeologists working in Oxford city centre have unearthed bones that could be more than 2,000 years old. A team of archaeologists has been excavating a site between St Giles and Blackhall Road since mid January - and last week the diggers struck bone, uncovering what could be a mass grave. Seven bodies, believed to date to the Roman or Saxon period, have been found at the site. Sean Wallis, project officer for Reading-based Thames Valley Archaeological Services, said "The whole of the site has been quite dense with archaeology but the area that the bodies turned up we only started...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Were Assyrian rulers the forefathers of today's CEOs?
Dr. Oded Lipschits, from Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, directs Ramat Rachel, an archaeological dig two miles from the Old City of Jerusalem. Until now archaeologists believed the site was a palace of an ancient Judean king, probably King Hezekiah, who built it around 700 BCE. But evidence points to foreign rule, says Dr. Lipschits, who believes the site was likely an ancient local administrative center -- a branch office -- of Assyrian rulers. "They were wise rulers," he says, "using a good strategy for keeping control, stability and order in the region." As today's corporations know well, the...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Gold necklace found is 'oldest in Americas'
This elegant gold necklace looks as if it was only made yesterday. In fact the nine inch necklace is four thousand years old and marks the oldest known worked gold artifact ever uncovered in the Americas, also representing the earliest evidence of an elite emerging among the simple people who lived there. Is this gold necklace the first evidence of elite society in the Americas In short, it marks the very early steps towards the appearance of royalty in the region, along with politics and luxury. The nine bead necklace, found near Lake Titicaca in southern Peru, is described by...
Prehistory and Origins
Fossilized feces found in Oregon suggest earliest human presence in North America
Hold the potty humor, please, but archaeologists digging in a dusty cave in Oregon have unearthed fossilized feces that appear to be oldest biological evidence of humans in North America. The ancient poop dates back 14,300 years. If the results hold up, that means the continent was populated more than 1,000 years before the so-called Clovis culture, long believed to be the first Americans. "This adds to a growing body of evidence that the human presence in the Americas predates Clovis," said Michael Waters, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the project. DNA analysis of...
Navigation
Medieval Calculator Up For Grabs
The British Museum needs £350,000 to secure this astrolabe. The fate of a fourteenth-century pocket calculator is hanging in the balance between museum ownership and private sale. The device is a brass astrolabe quadrant that opens a new window on the mathematical and astronomical literacy of the Middle Ages, experts say. It can tell the time from the position of the Sun, calculate the heights of tall objects, and work out the date of Easter. Found in 2005, the instrument has captivated...
Epigraphy and Language
Aztec Math Decoded, Reveals Woes Of Ancient Tax Time
Today's tax codes are complicated, but the ancient Aztecs likely shared your pain. To measure tracts of taxable land, Aztec mathematicians had to develop their own specialized arithmetic, which has only now been decoded. By reading Aztec records from the city-state of Tepetlaoztoc, a pair of scientists recently figured out the complicated equations and fractions that officials once used to determine the size of land on which tributes were paid. Two ancient codices, written from A.D. 1540 to 1544, survive from Tepetlaoztoc. They...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Swedes Find Viking-Era Arab Coins
The Arab coins reveal where they were minted and the date Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport. About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely. There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s. Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor. The team from the Swedish...
Bloody Vikings!
From bones to berserkers -- Vikings under the spotlight
Viking experts will be gathering at The University of Nottingham to discuss the findings of latest research into the Norsemen. Taking in the way the Vikings fought, lived, and left their mark on Europe, some of the country's leading experts in the field will be getting together at the Midlands Viking Symposium (MVS) on April 26. The MVS is aimed at anyone with an interest in the history and culture of the Vikings, with talks from specialists from a variety of disciplines whose work contributes to research in Scandinavia, the British Isles, and further afield. This research covers topics including...
Paleontology
Scientists Discover 356 Animal Inclusions Trapped In Opaque Amber 100 Million Years Old
Scientists Discover 356 Animal Inclusions Trapped In Opaque Amber 100 Million Years OldExamples of virtual 3D extraction of organisms embedded in opaque amber: a) Gastropod Ellobiidae; b) Myriapod Polyxenidae; c) Arachnid; d) Conifer branch (Glenrosa); e) Isopod crustacean Ligia; f) Insect hymenopteran Falciformicidae. (Credit: M. Lak, P. Tafforeau, D. Neraudeau (ESRF Grenoble and UMR CNRS 6118 Rennes)) ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) -- Paleontologists from the University of Rennes (France) and the ESRF have found the presence of 356 animal inclusions in completely opaque amber from mid-Cretaceous sites of Charentes (France). The team used the X-rays of the European light source...
Really Old Bus Schedule
Mystery Bone Found on Peruvian Bus
A suspicious package found on a bus in Peru turned out to contain a mysterious and massive animal jawbone, officials announced on Tuesday. Police who investigated the bus's cargo hold said they noticed the package because it had no identifying marks and was oddly heavy. "They were worried about its weight, opened it, and found the fossil," Kleber Jimenez, a local police officer, told the Reuters news service. Pablo de la Vera Cruz, an archaeologist at the Universidad Nacional de San AgustÃŒn de Arequipa, initially identified the 19-pound (8.6-kilogram) jawbone via police photos as perhaps belonging to a Triceratops, according...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Climate Change And Human Hunting Combine To Drive The Woolly Mammoth Extinct
Woolly mammoths were driven to extinction by climate change and human impacts. (Credit: Mauricio Anton) ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) -- Does the human species have mammoth blood on its hands" Scientists have long debated the relative importance of hunting by our ancestors and change in global climate in consigning the mammoth to the history books. A new paper uses climate models and fossil distribution to establish that the woolly mammoth went extinct primarily because of loss of habitat due to changes in temperature, while human hunting acted as the...
Study: Humans Drove Final Nail into Mammoth Coffin
Humans may have struck the final blow that killed the woolly-mammoth, but climate change seems to have played a major part in setting up the end-game, according to a new study. Though mammoth populations declined severely around 12,000 years ago, they didn't completely disappear until around 3,600 years ago. Scientists have long debated what finally drove the furry beasts over the edge. Researchers led by David Nogues-Bravo of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain used models of the climate,...
Climate
Melting Ice Caps May Trigger More Volcanic Eruptions
Catherine Brahic Vatnajokull in the south-east is the largest ice cap in Iceland and conceals several volcanoes (Image: NASA) A warmer world could be a more explosive one. Global warming is having a much more profound effect than just melting ice caps -- it is melting magma too. Vatnajokull is the largest ice cap in Iceland, and is disappearing at a rate of 5 cubic kilometres per year. Carolina Pagli of the University of Leeds, UK, and Freysteinn Sigmundsson of the University of Iceland have...
Australia and the Pacific
Natural Selection Protected Some East Asian Populations From Alcoholism, Study Suggests
Some change in the environment in many East Asian communities during the past few thousand years may have protected residents from becoming alcoholics, a new genetic analysis conducted by Yale School of Medicine researchers suggests. Scientists have long known that many Asians carry variants of genes that help regulate alcohol metabolism. Some of those genetic variants can make people feel uncomfortable, sometimes even ill, when drinking small amounts of alcohol. As a result of the prevalence of this gene, many, but not all, communities...
Location, Location, Location
Attention Freeper Braintrust -- Help Needed
These are photos of inscriptions which are over two of the doorways of the house we recently bought. The question - Are these just artistic decorations or do they actually say something in some language? If you don't know, but work at a university, etc. that has someone who knows middle eastern languages, I would REALLY appreciate you forwarding this to them so we can figure this out.
Early America
Silver Cross Reveals A Piece Of Acadian History
The Vancouver Sun | 3-29-2008 | Jill St. Marseille
Experts hope a small piece of Acadian history that offers a rare glimpse into pre-deportation Canada may open a wider window on that sore point in the country's past. The three-centimetre silver cross was discovered in Grand Pre, N.S., during an archeological dig by Saint Mary's University in 2006. Its physical properties and 250-year-old grave mark it as part of an important historical era - the deportation of thousands of Acadians in 1755. The tiny cross may even have links to...
Antarctic Folly
Flying penguins found by BBC programme
The BBC will today screen remarkable footage of penguins flying as part of its new natural history series, Miracles of Evolution. Camera crews discovered a colony of Adelie penguins while filming on King George Island, some 750 miles south of the Falkland Islands. The programme is being presented by ex-Monty Python star Terry Jones, who said: "We'd been watching the penguins and filming them for days, without a hint of what was to come.
Flying Penguins Found By BBC Programme (Amazing Photos)
The BBC will today screen remarkable footage of penguins flying as part of its new natural history series, Miracles of Evolution. Camera crews discovered a colony of Adelie penguins while filming on King George Island, some 750 miles south of the Falkland Islands. The programme is being presented by ex-Monty Python star Terry Jones, who said: "We'd been watching the penguins and filming them for days, without a hint of what was to come. "But then the weather took a turn for...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Shakespeare came from Wales
William Shakespeare's plays were penned by a little known Welsh law clerk, Dyfed ap Davis, it was revealed today. Because Welshmen were out of favour at the court of Queen Elizabeth 1, Monmouth-born ap Davis bribed the actor William Shakespeare to put his name to what are fallaciously known as the works of the great Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. They shared the royalties and were often seen drunk together in Covent Garden and Cardiff Bay. Many of the plays were originally set in Wales but, because of the Queen's preferences, had to be transferred to more exotic climes. The character Hamlet...
end of digest #194 20080405
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· Saturday, April 5, 2008 · 34 topics · 1996734 to 1993735 · 681 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 194th issue. Welcome, new members. Worked plenty long on this one, but I'm not sure about the continuity. There are some major and unrelated stories, and that's a good problem to have. :') |
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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #195
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Epigraphy and Language
Lost in Translation (Chinese and English speaking dyslexics have differences in brain anatomy.)
All dyslexics are not alike. According to new research, Chinese- and English-speaking people with the disorder have impairments in different regions of their brains. The findings shed light on the neurological basis of dyslexia and reveal fundamental differences in how brains process the two languages. Dyslexics, about 5% to 10% of the population in both the United States and China, have trouble making the connection between the sight and sound of a word. In English, this results in word distortions or transpositions of letters. "Dyslexia," for example, might be read as "Lysdexia." In Chinese, the problem can affect how a...
Ancient Autopsies
Skull Returns To Final Rest Place BBC | 4-11-2008
The skull is believed to be that of a woman in her 50s A rare 2,000-year-old Roman skull has been returned to the cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales where it was discovered by divers in 1996. Archaeologists were called in after cave divers unearthed human bones in what is believed to be one of the most important cave discoveries ever made. The skull dates to the 2nd Century and is that of a local woman in her 50s. It was stored at Sheffield University for carbon-dating and recently returned to the cave, which has...
British Isles
Bejeweled Anglo-Saxon Burial Suggests Cult
In seventh century England, a woman's jewelry-draped body was laid out on a specially constructed bed and buried in a grave that formed the center of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery, according to British archaeologists who recently excavated the site in Yorkshire. Her jewelry, which included a large shield-shaped pendant, the layout and location of the cemetery as well as excavated weaponry, such as knives and a fine langseax (a single-edged Anglo-Saxon sword), lead the scientists to believe she might have been a member of royalty who led a...
Roman Britain
Roman soldier's gift found[UK]
HE was many miles from home - a Roman soldier posted to Manchester, perhaps feeling cold and lonely, longing for loved ones left behind. He was called Aelius Victor. And now after 2,000 years an altar he built to keep a promise to the goddesses he prayed to has been unearthed in the middle of the city. The altar - described by experts as being in 'fantastic' condition - was discovered during an archaeological dig at a site on Greater Jackson Street earmarked for development. Aelius Victor had dedicated it to two minor goddesses. A Latin inscription on the altar...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
"Tower Lions" May Help Resurrect Extinct African Breed?
An extinct breed of lion from North Africa was held at the Tower of London in medieval times, a new study shows. A pair of skulls unearthed from the tower's moat in the 1930s belonged to Barbary lions, a subspecies that has since died out in the wild. The discovery raises the possibility that descendants of Barbary lions may still survive in captivity, which could help efforts to resurrect the dark-maned breed, researchers say. The lions' North African roots were revealed by analysis of...
Australia and the Pacific
Ancient tools unearthed in Australia
Tools dating back at least 35,000 years have been unearthed in a rock shelter in Australia's remote northwest, making it one of the oldest archaeological finds in that part of the country, archaeologists said Monday. The tools include a piece of flint the size of a small cell phone and hundreds of tiny sharp stones that were used as knives. One local Aboriginal elder saw it as vindication of what his people have said all along -- that they have inhabited this land for tens of thousands of years. "I'm ecstatic, I'm over the moon, because it's...
Navigation
Russian-American Research Team Examines Origins Of Whaling Culture University Of Alaska - Fairbanks | 4-2-2008 | Kerynn Fisher
Un'en'en archaeological site on the Chutkotka Peninsula.(Photos by Sarah Meitl)Detail on the ivory carving excavated during the summer 2007 field season. Recent findings by a Russian-American research team suggest that prehistoric cultures were hunting whales at least 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than was previously known. University of Alaska Museum of the North archaeology curator Daniel Odess presented the team's findings at the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia last week. "The importance of whaling in arctic prehistory is clear....
India
Artefacts Reveal Rich History Of Craftsmanship (Wari-Bateshwar, India) The Daily Star | 4-7-2008 | Emran Hossain
A few semi-precious stone beads with motifs found at the Wari-Bateshwar archaeological site recently. The findings indicate the spot was a rich trade centre. Photo: STAR Archaeological studies on semi-precious stone beads and other artefacts found in Wari-Bateshwar indicate people of this land have a rich history of craftsmanship as old as around 2,500 years. Plenty of semi-precious stone beads are found and unearthed from Wari-Bateshwar and some of those are even identical to the artefacts found in Southeast Asia and other parts in the Indian subcontinent. This suggests...
Nubia / Kush
In The Reign Of The Black Pharaohs
Which country has the largest collection of pyramids? Think again, for it is not Egypt, but Sudan. Join Mohamed El-Hebeishy as he visits north Sudan in search of answers The Northern Cemetery in Meroe, where more than 30 pyramids are in site Our great grandfathers called it Ta-Seti, Land of the Bow. They were referring to the area south of the First Cataract at Aswan, and the reason behind the name was the unparalleled skill its inhabitants demonstrated when using the bow as a method of arm. Those excellent bowmen were actually the Kushites....
Egypt
The Tassili n'Ajjer [Algeria] : birthplace of ancient Egypt ? Journal 3 | 04-05-08 | Phillip Coppens
The Tassili n'Ajjer of Southern Algiers is described as the "largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world". But could it also be the origins of the ancient Egypt culture ? In January 2003, I made enquiries to visit the Hoggar Mountains and the Tassili n'Ajjer, one of the most enchanting mountain ranges on this planet. The two geographically close but nevertheless quite separate landscapes are located in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria. I was told that if I could pack my bags immediately (literally), I could join the three weeks' trip. Unfortunately, I could not, but planned to...
Panspermia
Meteorites delivered the 'seeds' of Earth's left-hand life
Flash back three or four billion years -- Earth is a hot, dry and lifeless place. All is still. Without warning, a meteor slams into the desert plains at over ten thousand miles per hour. With it, this violent collision may have planted the chemical seeds of life on Earth. Scientists presented evidence today that desert heat, a little water, and meteorite impacts may have been enough to cook up one of the first prerequisites for life: The dominance of "left-handed" amino acids, the building blocks of life on this planet. In a report at the...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Ancient DNA: Reconstruction Of The Biological History Of Aldaieta Necropolis (Basque)
A research team from the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology & Animal Physiology in the Faculty of Science and Technology at the Leioa campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and led by Ms Concepci√›n de la R˙a, has reconstructed the history of the evolution of human population and answered questions about history, using DNA extracted from skeleton remains. Knowing the history of past populations and answering unresolved questions about them is highly interesting, more so when the information is obtained from the extraction of genetic material from...
Prehistory and Origins
Scientists Find Fingerprint Of Evolution Across The Human Genome
The Human Genome Project revealed that only a small fraction of the 3 billion "letter" DNA code actually instructs cells to manufacture proteins, the workhorses of most life processes. This has raised the question of what the remaining part of the human genome does. How much of the rest performs other biological functions, and how much is merely residue of prior genetic events? Scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and the University of Chicago now report that one of the steps in turning genetic information into proteins leaves genetic...
Longer Perspectives
Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery[Anasazi]
Perched on a lonesome bluff above the dusty San Pedro River, about 30 miles east of Tucson, the ancient stone ruin archaeologists call the Davis Ranch Site doesn't seem to fit in. Staring back from the opposite bank, the tumbled walls of Reeve Ruin are just as surprising. Some 700 years ago, as part of a vast migration, a people called the Anasazi, driven by God knows what, wandered from the north to form settlements like these, stamping the land with their own unique style. "Salado polychrome," says a visiting archaeologist turning over a shard of broken pottery. Reddish on...
River Runs Through It
Much Still To Be Learned About Cahokia Mounds
It's so much a part of the landscape that metro-east residents often don't even notice it, except when a visiting relative notices: "Look, there's the mound." Rising from what once was an endless grass sea parted by the Mississippi River, Monks Mound isn't even named after the Native American Indians who built it centuries ago, but the Trappist monks who lived there for only five years in the 19th century. No one knows what the long-vanished people who built the mounds called themselves,...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Earliest Mixtec Cremations Found: Show Elite Ate Dog
An ancient burial site in Mexico contains evidence that Mixtec Indians conducted funerary rituals involving cremation as far back as 3,000 years ago. The find represents the earliest known hints that Mixtecs used this burial practice, which was later reserved for Mixtec kings and Aztec emperors, according to researchers who excavated the site. Evidence from the site also suggests that a class of elite leaders emerged among the Mixtecs as early as 1100 B.C. In addition, the burials hold clues that dogs were an...
Mayans
"Cracking the Maya Code"
When the Spanish conquered the Maya empire in the 16th century, they forced their new subjects to convert to Christianity and speak and write in Spanish. But long before the Maya used the Roman alphabet, they had created their own rich and elegant script, featuring more than 800 hieroglyphs. Sadly, the glyphs' meanings were lost in the decades following the Conquest. Ever since, scholars have struggled to decode these symbols, pronounce the words they form, and understand the stories they tell. In this time line, follow the centuries-long decipherment, which has only recently reached the point...
Gene, Gene, the Genest Grass
'Ruthlessness gene' discovered - Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.
Could a gene be partly responsible for the behaviour of some of the worlds most infamous dictators? Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak -- from national dictators down to 'little Hitlers' found in workplaces the world over. Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'. The exercise allows players...
Upchuck Darwin
Genes Trigger Phobias In Kids And Teens
Our response to the things that scare us, from threatening men on dark streets to hairy spiders in the bath, is programmed to become active at different times in our lives, suggest two studies on the genetics of fear. Scientists already know that fears and phobias are shaped in part by genes. Identical twins, for example, are more likely to develop phobias for the same objects, such as snakes or rats, than non-identical twins. But less is known about when the genes involved act...
Empty DNA
Mitochondrial Mutations Make Tumors Spread
Cancer often strikes its final, fatal blow when a tumor spreads to other organs. A new study published online today in Science sheds light on this poorly understood process, called metastasis. The researchers report that mutations in mitochondrial DNA can spur metastasis and that it can be reversed with drugs, at least in mice. Mitochondria are the tiny organelles inherited from your mom that serve as the cell's powerhouses. They have their own DNA, called mtDNA. Ten years ago, cancer researchers noticed that mtDNA in tumor cells tends to be riddled with mutations--far more than in normal tissues. (This is...
Epidemic, Pandemic, Plague, the Sniffles
Plague Victims Discovered After 1500 Years (Justinian)
The remains of hundreds of victims, believed to have been killed in a plague that swept Italy 1500 years ago, have been found south of Rome. The bodies of men, women and children were found in Castro dei Volsci, in the region of Lazio, during excavations carried out by Lazio archaeological office. News of the extraordinary discovery was reported in the magazine, "Archeologia Viva". The victims are believed to have been victims of the Justinian Plague, a pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people around the...
Africa
Ethiopia: Dreamer helps unearth ancient church (Muslim guided by Blessed Mother)
Almost a year ago, a buried church was unearthed in Ethiopia. The church has invaluable historical and cultural value. Striking is that the unearthing is initiated by a man with a dream, as Africanews reporter Tedla Desta found out. However, he had to persue his mission and walk from the upper to the lower official chest of drawers but to no avail until finally he went to journalists (the 4th estate). It was then that he realized that media has actually the power to bring about change. From this time onwards the ears and eyes of the executives, congregates and the...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Uncovering Ancient Jerusalem
While politicians draw up plans to divide Israel's capital city, archaeologists are busily digging up Jerusalem's celebrated past. Given the media exposure Jerusalem archaeology is beginning to receive, it is possible that this city's past could spark more than just archaeological fervor. In the Arab village of Silwan, archaeologists are hard at work excavating the original Jerusalem -- the City of David. An Associated Press story on February 10 outlined how Silwan is "hard-wired into the politics of modern-day Arab-Israeli strife" and that new digs are cutting to the heart of who owns the Holy City today. "Palestinians and Israelis are trying...
Biology and Cryptobiology
"Lyuba" Gives Scientists Glimpse Of Mammoth Insides
Reuters Photo: The carcass of the 4-month-old mammoth, known to researchers as Lyuba, is seen on an... MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian scientists say they have obtained the most detailed pictures so far of the insides of a prehistoric animal, with the help of a baby mammoth called Lyuba found immaculately preserved in the Russian Arctic. The mammoth is named after the wife of the hunter who found her last year. The body was shipped back to Russia in February from Japan, where it was studied...
Paleontology
Ancient serpent shows its leg (hindlimbed snake fossil)
What was lost tens of millions of years ago is now found.A fossil animal locked in Lebanese limestone has been shown to be an extremely precious discovery - a snake with two legs. Scientists have only a handful of specimens that illustrate the evolutionary narrative that goes from ancient lizard to limbless modern serpent. Researchers at the European Light Source (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, used intense X-rays to confirm that a creature imprinted on a rock, and with one visible leg, had another appendage buried just under...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
"Dino Killer" Asteroid Was Half the Size Predicted?
The meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs might have been less than half the size of what previous models predicted. That's the finding of a new technique being developed to estimate the size of ancient impactors that left little or no remaining physical evidence of themselves after they collided with Earth. Scientists working on the technique used chemical signatures in seawater and ocean sediments to study the dino-killing impact that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 65 million years ago. They...
Climate
Ancient Imbalances Sent Earth's Continents "Wandering"
A new study lends weight to the controversial theory that Earth became massively imbalanced in the distant past, sending its tectonic plates on a mad dash to even things out. Bernhard Steinberger and Trond Torsvik, of the Geological Survey of Norway, analyzed rock samples dating back 320 million years to hunt for clues in Earth's magnetic field about the history of plate motions. The researchers found evidence of a steady northward continental motion and, during certain time intervals, clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. That pattern matches the...
Goring of Gore
The temperature of the planet is dropping like a stone...(They should have checked with Al first)
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASAGISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen...The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years.
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Rochdale's Stonehenge? Manchester Evening News | April 9, 2008 | Alice McKeegan and David Ottewell
Archaeologists have unearthed a "mini-Stonehenge"... on the moors of Rochdale. The two nearby sites - an oval made up of collapsed slabs, and a 30-metre circle of rounded stones - are believed to be ancient burial sites dating back as far as 5,000 years... The two sites have been visited by Peter Iles, a leading archaeological expert from Lancashire County Council. They have also been inspected by English Heritage and entered on the official Greater Manchester archaeology database. English Heritage described both as "fairly well preserved" and claim both are "possible of Bronze age date" - meaning they could date...
Stonehenge
'Breakthrough' At Stonehenge Dig
Professor Darvill explains what is happening at the Stonehenge dig Archaeologists carrying out an excavation at Stonehenge say they have broken through to a layer that may finally explain why the site was built. The team has reached sockets that once held bluestones - smaller stones, most now missing or uprooted, which formed the site's original structure. The researchers believe that the bluestones could reveal that Stonehenge was once a place of healing. The dig is the first to take place...
Early America
67 Bodies Secretly Exhumed From NM Grave
Working in secret, federal archaeologists have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread grave-looting. The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67 skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig -- 39 men, two women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal archaeologists who helped with the dig. They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted. The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near the historic New Mexico fort...
World War Eleven
Franco 'Collaborated With Nazis' To Prove Canary Islands Were Home To Aryan Race The Telegraph (UK) | 4-11-2008 | Fiona Govan
Spanish archaeologists collaborated with the Nazis in their attempts to prove the theory of Aryan supremacy and justify their claims of racial superiority over the Jews, according to a new book. Spain wanted to promote the idea that the Aryan race could be traced to the Canary Islands, amid claims they were all that remained of the lost continent of Atlantis. Archaeologists appointed by Franco were asked to look into claims the Canary Islands were the remains...
China
Need recommendation for edition of "Art of War"
I would like to buy my son a copy of The Art of War, but I've noticed that there are several editons, each with a different co-author. Would someone please recommened a particular edition/co-author? Thank you in advance.
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Sat nav drivers 'damaging ancient buildings' Telegraph.co.uk | 4-10-2008 | Aislinn Simpson
Britain's historic bridges, buildings and roads are under threat from drivers blithely following satellite navigation directions, a conservation society warned yesterday. Among those which have been damaged by traffic driving down unsuitable roads is a 200-year-old bridge in Oxfordshire, a 300-year-old cottage in Greater Manchester and Pevensey Castle in East Sussex, according to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Phillip Venning, the society's secretary, said the cost of repairing some of the damage to the buildings had run into thousands of pounds. "Blind reliance on satellite navigation is fast becoming a serious issue for old buildings as motorists...
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· Saturday, April 12, 2008 · 34 topics · 2000400 to 1997350 · 684 members · |
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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #196
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Ronnie, We Heartily Knew You
Oh, that big 1982 Siberian explosion?
Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a CIA campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia -- all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss -- helped us win the Cold War. Weiss worked down the hall from me in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president -- detente notwithstanding -- to place restrictions on the export of computers...
Prehistory and Origins
Archaeology: Bones, Isles And Videotape
Nature | Rex Dalton
Old human remains found on the Pacific islands of Palau are caught in the crossfire between entertainment and science. Rex Dalton reports. The Palauan caves lie in the 'rock islands' of the archipelago.R. DALTONCircled by a protective coral reef, the 300-island archipelago of Palau is one of the Pacific Ocean's most biodiverse ecosystems. The first intrepid voyagers who arrived here, more than 3,000 years ago, would have found lush plants and waters teeming with fish and crustaceans. By 2,500 years ago the Palauans were even practising sophisticated agriculture, creating terraces on the archipelago's largest island on...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
Neanderthals Speak Out After 30,000 Years
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal child's face (Image: Anthropological Institute, University of Z¸rich) Talk about a long silence -- no one has heard their voices for 30,000 years. Now the long-extinct Neanderthals are speaking up -- or at least a computer synthesiser is doing so on their behalf. Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to simulate the voice. He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech....
Grunt work: Scientists make Neanderthals speak again
After a nearly 30,000-year silence, Neanderthals are speaking once more, thanks to researchers who have modelled the hominids' larynx to replicate the possible sounds they would have made, New Scientist says. The work, led by Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University at Boca Raton, is based on Neanderthal fossils found in France, the British journal said on its website on Wednesday. The item includes an audio snippet in which a computer synthesiser replicates how a Neanderthal would say an "e" and compares this with the same sound as made by modern humans. A study published...
Ancient Autopsies
Alpine Guardians Try To Put Treasures On Ice
The Times Online | 4-17-2008 | Richard Owen
Prehistoric treasures unearthed in the Alps as melting glaciers recede are under threat from looters who are removing many of them. Such is the concern for the newly revealed objects - which include weapons, clothing and tools - that a task force of archaeologists, anthropologists, mountain climbers and Alpine rescue teams has been formed in an attempt to salvage them. Franco Nicolis, an archaeologist from Trento, said: "We must be ready to intervene as if we were dealing with a public calamity." He said that mountain climbers and...
Epigraphy and Language
Achaemenid Inscription Names Uncle Of Darius In Old Persian For First Time
The name of Farnaka, who was the uncle of Darius I, has been identified in a newly discovered Old Persian Achaemenid inscription for the first time. Written in cuneiform, the stone inscription bears the names of Darius the Great and his uncle, Farnaka, the Persian service of CHN reported on Friday. His name had previously only been found in historical texts written in other languages. Greek texts refer to him as Pharnaces and Elamite texts call him Parnaka. "Sometime ago, I discovered...
Egypt
Pharaoh Seti I's Tomb Bigger Than Thought
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered that the tomb of the powerful pharaoh Seti I -- the largest tomb in the Valley of the Kings -- is bigger than originally believed. During a recent excavation, the team found that the crypt is actually 446 feet (136 meters) in length. Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who discovered the tomb in 1817, had noted the tomb at 328 feet (100 meters). "[This is] the largest tomb and this is longest tunnel that's ever found in any place in the Valley of the Kings,"...
Africa
Cray Supercomputer... Discover Origin Of Mysterious Glass Found In King Tut's Tomb
Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today announced that researchers running simulations on the Cray supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories have re-created what could have happened 29 million years ago when an asteroid explosion turned Saharan sand into glass. The greenish natural glass, which can still be found scattered across remote stretches of the desert, was used by an artisan in ancient Egypt to carve a scarab that decorates one of the bejeweled breastplates buried...
Rome and Italy
Rare statue of Roman emperor found
Italian police have recovered a rare statue of a Roman emperor who co-ruled alongside Marcus Aurelius and was known for his reluctance to sit for portraits. Police said Friday that the marble head of Lucius Verus was the most spectacular find among more than a dozen looted ancient artifacts hidden in a boat garage near Rome. The bearded visage of Lucius Verus is believed to have been secretly unearthed at a site in the Naples area and was probably destined for the international market, said Capt. Massimo Rossi of a special police unit that hunts down archaeological thieves....
British Isles
Pytheas Visited The Isle Of Man In 300BC - Claim
An Ancient Greek explorer's extraordinary voyage took him to the Isle of Man 300 years before the birth of Christ, new research claims. Scientist and geographer Pytheas (pronounced Puth-e-as) is now believed to have visited the Island in about 325BC to take sun measurements during a three-year voyage -- the first recorded circumnavigation of the British Isles. Pytheas was born in the Greek settlement of Massalia, now Marseille, about 360BC and was a contemporary of Alexander the Great (356-323BC). Marseille at that...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Is Stonehenge Roman?
Geoffrey Wainwright, the co-Director of the excavations. Geoffrey's friends will be glad to note that he has now recovered from his hip replacement, though he can still not get down the deep holes After a gap of some forty four years, Stonehenge is once again being excavated. Admittedly, this time it is only a very small hole, and is only being dug for a fortnight, but it is a very important hole, and on April the 9th, we were invited down to Stonehenge to inspect it. It was a wonderful trip, not least because the weather was...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Old Cellulose [and DNA] Found in NM Salt Crystals
This photo provided by Jack Griffith, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, shows Waste Isolation Pilot Plant staff member Sam Dominguez using a core drill to extract salt crystal samples from a salt wall at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. in December 2006. Griffith and his team found cellulose dating back 253 million years _ along with some possible ancient DNA _ in salt crystals from the underground nuclear waste dump. The crystals were taken from newly mined areas 2,000 feet below WIPP's desert surface last fall...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Unearthing Clues Of Catastrophic Earthquakes 'An Inviting Tale Of Destruction' (Archaeoseismology)
Eureka Alert | 4-16-2008 | Seismological Society of America
The destruction and disappearance of ancient cultures mark the history of human civilization, making for fascinating stories and cautionary tales. The longevity of today's societies may depend upon separating fact from fiction, and archeologists and seismologists are figuring out how to join forces to do just that with respect to ancient earthquakes, as detailed in new studies presented at the international conference of the Seismological Society of America. "It's an idea whose time has come, "...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High Desert
An interview with Dennis Jenkins -- In this interview, conducted at Paisley Five Mile Point Caves on June 13, 2007, by Rick Pettigrew of ALI, Dr. Dennis Jenkins describes the remarkable discovery of human DNA in coprolites dated between 14,000 and 15,000 calibrated years ago. This evidence, reported in the 3 April 2008, issue of the journal Science, strongly supports the proposition that human migrants to North America arrived at least 1000 years before the widespread Clovis complex appeared. The data also support the conclusion that the first...
Fabric of Society
Analysis of Rare Textiles From Honduras Ruins Suggests Mayans Produced Fine Fabrics
An analysis of textile fragments excavated from a 5th century Mayan tomb in Honduras, some of the few surviving textiles from the Mayan civilization, revealed high quality fabrics produced by highly skilled spinners and weavers. Newswise -- Very few textiles from the Mayan culture have survived, so the treasure trove of fabrics excavated from a tomb at the Cop·n ruins in Honduras since the 1990s has generated considerable excitement. Textiles conservator Margaret Ordonez, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, spent a month at the site in...
Mayans
Mayan Apocalypse, 2012
If you observe the ancient Mayan calendar, then your time's running out. Dr Karl has been rummaging through ancient Mayan scribblings that are said to indicate an apocalyptic end by 2012. By Karl S. Kruszelnicki Villagers and tourists celebrate next to the Kukulkan pyramid at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula(Source: Victor Ruiz/Reuters) The driver was taking me from Melbourne airport into the city. As we chatted, it came out that he was deeply worried. He had a wife and child, and a new baby on the way - but what was the...
Faith and Philosophy
'Ben-Hur' headed for TV miniseries remake (taking out religous aspect)
UPI/AP | 04/10/2008
The son of the man who directed the 1959 Hollywood film classic "Ben-Hur" said he is producing a new version of the story as a $30 million TV miniseries. David Wyler, son of director William Wyler, is producing the remake with Alchemy TV, Variety.com reported Thursday...
Australia and the Pacific
Ancient Burial Cave Discovered[Philippines]
Arab News | 11 Apr 2008 | Al Jacinto
An ancient burial cave was discovered in the Philippine island of Mindanao, south of Manila, and officials have sealed the site to prevent looting of artifacts, many of them jars made from clay. It was not immediately known whether there are other treasures in the cave which was accidentally discovered by quarry diggers yesterday in Maitum town in Sarangani province. The latest discovery in the village of Pinol was near another ancient burial site discovered in 1991 where burial jars, shaped in different human forms, had been recovered inside Ayub cave. Lingling Jabel, owner of the quarry site, informed local...
Biology and Cryptobiology
"Extinct" Plants Found in Remote Australia
Two plants that were thought to have been extinct since the late 1800s have been rediscovered in far northern Australia, according to an official report released on Saturday. The Queensland state government's State of the Environment report said the two species were found on Cape York, in tropical far north Queensland. "The Rhaphidospora cavernarum, which is a large herb that stands about one and a half meters high, has reappeared," state climate change minister Andrew McNamara told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. "It hasn't been seen in Queensland since 1873," he said. He said the second plant that...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Trading Across Medieval Europe Revealed In Cod Bones
The catastrophic decline of North Sea cod as the result of over fishing has had an impact on all our menus, from the poshest restaurants to the corner chippie: the fish left are few and small, compared with those of less than a century ago. Cod more than a metre in length are rare these days, whereas archaeological remains show that fish several times that size were common. A new study shows that cod were exploited in the Middle Ages from many, often distant, fishing grounds, with an...
Navigation
In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic's Doom
Titanic, left, and Olympic sat next to one another in a double gantry in the last photo of the two together, weeks before Olympic set sail Researchers have discovered that the builder of the Titanic struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago Tuesday. The builder's own archives, two scientists say, harbor evidence of a deadly mix of low quality rivets and lofty ambition as the builder labored to construct the three biggest ships in the world at once -- the Titanic...
Oh So Mysterioso
Legend Of The Crystal Skulls
Along with superstars like Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, and Shia LaBeouf, the newest Indiana Jones movie promises to showcase one of the most enigmatic classes of artifacts known to archaeologists, crystal skulls that first surfaced in the 19th century and that specialists attributed to various "ancient Mesoamerican" cultures. In this article, Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh shares her own adventures analyzing the artifacts that inspired Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (in theaters May 22), and details her efforts tracking down a...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
AP Exclusive: On Manson's trail, forensic testing suggests possible new grave sites
Bone-white stretches of salt, leached up from the lifeless soil, lay like a shroud over the high desert where a paranoid Charles Manson holed up after an orgy of murder nearly four decades ago. Now, as then, few venture into this alkaline wilderness -- gold-diggers, outlaws, loners content to live and let live. But a determined group of outsiders recently made the trek. They were leading forensic investigators searching for new evidence of death -- clues pointing to possible decades-old clandestine graves. And the results of just-completed followup tests suggest bodies could indeed be lying...
end of digest #196 20080419
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· Saturday, April 19, 2008 · 23 topics · 2003182 to 1999899 · 685 members · |
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Welcome to the 196th issue, and a public welcome to our new members. |
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Do we have two weeks of April 12th or are my eyes still blurry? Thanks for all the good work!
Well, the truth is, I effed it up. :’) I didn’t see this until just now, when I flipped back to that tab to do the new digest and thought I’d just saved the wrong “reply” link... uh-boy... I was in a bit of a hurry the past couple of weeks...
Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #197
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Macedonia
Alexander the Great's "Crown," Shield Discovered?
04/25/2008 7:11:55 PM PDT · by blam · 16 replies · 605+ views
National Geographic News | 4-23-2008 | Sara Goudarzi
An ancient Greek tomb thought to have held the body of Alexander the Great's father is actually that of Alexander's half brother, researchers say. This may mean that some of the artifacts found in the tomb -- including a helmet, shield, and silver "crown" -- originally belonged to Alexander the Great himself. Alexander's half brother is thought to have claimed these royal trappings after Alexander's death. The tomb was one of three royal Macedonian burials excavated in 1977 by archaeologists working in the northern Greek village of Vergina (see map of...
Egypt
Egypt: Tomb Of Cleopatra And Lover To Be Uncovered
04/25/2008 7:44:34 PM PDT · by blam · 35 replies · 578+ views
Adnkronos | 4-24-2008
Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year. Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together. He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs. Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris...
Ancient Autopsies
Berkshire Museum Puts A Face On Its Mummy
04/20/2008 7:46:15 PM PDT · by blam · 19 replies · 605+ views
Berkshire Eagle
The mummy has returned. And he has new tales to tell. One of the county's most beloved relics -- the nearly 2,300-year-old corpse of the ancient priest Pahat -- is back on view at the Berkshire Museum's recently reopened Ancient Civilizations gallery. But now, thanks to modern forensic science and technology, specialists have been able to put flesh to his bones, creating a three-dimensional reconstruction of Pahat's head. Further research has also revealed that Pahat...
Rome and Italy
Integration: a centuries-old issue (Where all roads lead)
04/23/2008 9:48:34 AM PDT · by decimon · 6 replies · 205+ views
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research | April 3, 2008 | Unknown
When can a person be regarded as a full and equal citizen of a country? Is a double nationality possible and what advantages does it offer a newcomer? These questions were already contemplated in ancient Rome. The Italian allies of Rome were keen on obtaining the Roman citizenship. Dutch researcher Roel van Dooren investigated why.At first sight, the Social War appears to be an old problem that is only interesting for historians. However, this war provides surprising insights into current societal issues. Even the ancient state of Rome struggled with integration and immigration problems and an understanding of this provides...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Exhibit Shows Ancient Links Between Persia And Korea
04/24/2008 7:53:38 AM PDT · by blam · 9 replies · 255+ views
Chosun.com | 4-24-2008 | Arirang News
Cultural exchange between Korea and Persia goes back more than a thousand years. Some historians say through the Silk Road, Muslim traders put the name, Shilla, Korea's ancient dynasty, on the world map. To open a window into this intriguing past, the National Museum of Korea is hosting an exhibit of Persian artifacts. "Glory of Persia" showcases the history of Persia over a span of twelve centuries when it was one of the world's biggest empires. Shilla-period artifacts such as pottery and daggers show Persian influences in the form of artistic techniques...
Anatolia
Turkish Site A Neolithic 'Supernova'
04/21/2008 3:24:52 PM PDT · by blam · 20 replies · 807+ views
Washington Times | 4-21-2008 | Nicholas Birch
Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was among the first to realize the significance of the Gobekli Tepe site, which is 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. URFA, Turkey - As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, as a member of the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable. "This place is a supernova," said Mr. Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
Neanderthals At Mealtime: Pass The Meat
04/25/2008 6:58:54 PM PDT · by blam · 15 replies · 477+ views
Discovery News | 4-23-2008 | Jennifer Viegas
Neanderthals living in southwestern France 55,000 to 40,000 years ago mostly ate red meat from extinct ancestors of modern bison, cattle and horses, according to a new study on a large, worn Neanderthal tooth. The extinct hominids were not above eating every edible bit of an animal, since they were dining for survival, explained Teresa Steele, one of the study's co-authors. While a steak dinner "is probably the closest modern comparison," Steele said, "remember too that they were consuming all parts of...
Origins
Humans re-united to fight extinction
04/25/2008 11:04:35 AM PDT · by CarrotAndStick · 52 replies · 778+ views
AFP via. The Times of India | 25 Apr 2008, 1932 hrs IST | AFP
Human beings for 100,000 years lived in tiny, separate groups, facing harsh conditions that brought them to the brink of extinction, before they reunited and populated the world, genetic researchers in a study said on Thursday. "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction," said paleontologist Meave Leakey, of Stony Brook University, New York. The genetic study examined for the first time the evolution of our species from its origins with "mitochondrial Eve," a female hominid...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Study: Humans Almost Went Extinct 70,000 Years Ago
04/24/2008 12:07:36 PM PDT · by Sopater · 66 replies · 1,364+ views
Fox News | Thursday, April 24, 2008 | AP
Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
Study Says Near Extinction Threatened People
04/24/2008 2:05:33 PM PDT · by blam · 52 replies · 751+ views
Physorg | 4-24-2008 | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics...
Prehistory and Origins
Did The Flores Hobbit Have A Root Canal?
04/20/2008 7:35:51 PM PDT · by blam · 25 replies · 830+ views
Scientific American | 4-18-2008 | Kate Wong
The lower left first molar of the hobbit is claimed to have a filling -- an observation that other hobbit researchers say is refuted by this photograph. PETER BROWN University of New England And you thought Frodo had it hard. In what is shaping up to be a battle of Tolkienian proportions, the tiny remains from Flores, Indonesia -- paleoanthropology's hobbit -- have once again come under attack. Most paleoanthropologists believe that the hobbit belongs to a new species of human, Homo floresiensis. But now comes...
Baby I Hate Your Weight
Early Parents Didn't Stand For Weighty Kids
04/23/2008 1:30:31 PM PDT · by blam · 19 replies · 462+ views
Physorg | University of Manchester
A volunteer carrying baby mannequin on the hip has her energy consumption measured. Credit: University of Manchester Scientists investigating the reasons why early humans -- the so-called hominins -- began walking upright say it's unlikely that the need to carry children was a factor, as has previously been suggested. Carrying babies that could no longer use their feet to cling to their parents in the way that young apes can has long been thought to be at least one explanation as to why humans became bipedal. But University of Manchester researchers investigating...
British Isles
Germanic Invaders May Not Have Ruled By Apartheid
04/23/2008 2:49:29 PM PDT · by blam · 15 replies · 544+ views
New Scientist | 4-23-2008 | Emma Young
When a strong Germanic signal was discovered in the Y-chromosome of British men, geneticists at University College London suggested that enslavement and apartheid imposed by Saxon invaders was responsible. It was an idea that, given 20th-century European history, had a particular resonance. The argument is, that from AD 430 to 730, the Germanic conquerors of Britain formed an elite, with a servant underclass of native Britons. Inter-marriage was restricted, and the invaders and their genes flourished. "But it is just not necessary to...
Welcome to Sherwood!
Anglo-Saxon Mound Found In Sherwood Forest
04/25/2008 6:26:52 PM PDT · by blam · 7 replies · 424+ views
thisisnottingham.co.uk
A Mysterious mound in Notts that was once thought to mark the boundary of two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is to be investigated by historians, the Forestry Commission has said. Known as Thynghowe, the hillock was only discovered three years ago in the Birklands area of Sherwood Forest by former teacher Lynda Mallet and her husband Stuart Reddish. With their friend John Wood, the couple used an original 19th Century perambulation document to find Thynghowe, which is believed to be an ancient meeting place dating back to Viking times. Experts think...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Viking Acquitted In 100-Year-Old Murder Mystery
04/25/2008 4:08:07 PM PDT · by blam · 17 replies · 446+ views
Yahoo News | 4-25-2008 | Alister Doyle
Photo: Archaeological conservationist Brynjar Sandvoll and his co-worker Ragnar Lochen (R) study the bones of a... OSLO (Reuters) - Tests of the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat have dispelled 100-year-old suspicions that one was a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife, experts said on Friday. The bones indicated that a broken collarbone on the younger woman had been healing for several weeks -- meaning the break was not part of a ritual execution as suspected since the...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
How Deep Should We look For evidence Of First Americans
04/20/2008 7:20:42 PM PDT · by blam · 21 replies · 908+ views
Corsicana Daily Sun | 4-20-2008 | Bill Young
Three sites in Texas have been discovered and at least partially excavated in the past 15 years yielding evidence of at least one culture older than Clovis. Most of the Clovis sites have been firmly dated to around 12,500 to 13,000 years ago. Not only did these Clovis sites yield projectile points of the very distinct Clovis type, the sites also yielded true blades and very large well- made thin preforms diagnostic of only the Clovis people. The archeologists who have worked at some of these Clovis...
Fossil Feces Push Back Earliest Date of Humans in Americas
04/04/2008 7:47:46 AM PDT · by Malone LaVeigh · 21 replies · 660+ views
Foxnews.com | April 04, 2008
New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known. Discovered in a cave in Oregon, fossil feces yielded DNA indicating these early residents were related to people living in Siberia and East Asia, according to a report in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science. "This is the first time we have been able to get dates that are undeniably human, and they are 1,000 years before Clovis," said Dennis L. Jenkins, a University of Oregon archaeologist, referring to the Clovis culture, well known for its unique spear-points...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Buried Dogs Were Divine "Escorts" for Ancient Americans
04/25/2008 7:30:07 PM PDT · by blam · 8 replies · 192+ views
National Geographic News | 4-23-2008 | Anne Casselman
Hundreds of prehistoric dogs found buried throughout the southwestern United States show that canines played a key role in the spiritual beliefs of ancient Americans, new research suggests. Throughout the region, dogs have been found buried with jewelry, alongside adults and children, carefully stacked in groups, or in positions that relate to important structures, said Dody Fugate, an assistant curator at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Fugate has conducted an ongoing survey of known dog burials in the...
Peru
Bandurria Is Oldest Peruvian Archaeological Site, Say Expert
04/20/2008 7:28:12 PM PDT · by blam · 8 replies · 362+ views
Andina | 4-16-2008 | Alejandro Chu
The archaelogical site of Bandurria dating back 3200 BC (located in the province of Huaura, Lima) is considered the origin of ancient American civilization, said archaeologist Alejandro Chu Barrera, director of the Archaeological Project of Bandurria. "Several radiocarbon datings done in the United states confirmed that Bandurria dates back from 3200 B.C., while Caral dates from 2900", said the archaeologist. The expert mentioned that the main reason for the development of highly organized cultures along the Peruvian coast is...
Central Asia
Synchrotron Light Unveils Oil In Ancient Buddhist Paintings From Bamiyan
04/22/2008 1:37:21 PM PDT · by blam · 5 replies · 557+ views
Physorg | 4-2-2008 | European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
A cross-section of the sample, where the different layers are visible. Credit: National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (Japan) The world was in shock when in 2001 the Talibans destroyed two ancient colossal Buddha statues in the Afghan region of Bamiyan. Behind those statues, there are caves decorated with precious paintings from 5th to 9th century A.D. The caves also suffered from Taliban destruction, as well as from a severe natural environment, but today they have become the source of a major discovery. Scientists have proved, thanks to experiments...
China
Terracotta Army Has Egg On Its Face
04/21/2008 10:04:15 PM PDT · by blam · 33 replies · 874+ views
ABC News - Discovery News | 4-21-1008 | Jennifer Viegas
Soldiers of China's terracotta army were once brightly painted, then preserved with an egg coating (Source: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer) China's terracotta army, a collection of 7000 soldier and horse figures in the mausoleum of the country's first emperor, was covered with beaten egg when it was made, scientists say. According to German and Italian chemists who have analysed samples from several figurines, the egg was as a binder for colourful paints, which went over a layer of lacquer. "Egg paint is normally very stable, and not...
Australia and the Pacific
Fiji Jewellery Box Find Stuns Archaeologists (Lapita People)
04/22/2008 2:59:43 PM PDT · by blam · 14 replies · 899+ views
Fiji Live | 4-22-2008
Archeologists have discovered a 3000-year-old pot in Fiji containing jewellery believed to have been made by the South Pacific's original settlers -- the Lapita people. The discovery was made by an excavation party from the Fiji-based University of the South Pacific and the Fiji Museum at Bourewa in Natadola on the Coral Coast. The dig at Bourewa, which is the earliest human settlement in Fiji, unearthed the pot and a thick piece of "exquisitely decorated pottery". The Lapita people were the first colonists of Pacific Island groups, including the eastern Solomon...
Paleontology
Tests Confirm T. Rex Kinship With Birds
04/24/2008 11:04:30 PM PDT · by Soliton · 37 replies · 339+ views
NYT | April 25, 2008 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
In the first analysis of proteins extracted from dinosaur bones, scientists say they have established more firmly than ever that the closest living relatives of the mighty predator Tyrannosaurus rex are modern birds.
Faith and Philosophy
Film Director: Jesus Was Son of a Roman Rapist
04/23/2008 10:36:19 PM PDT · by Aussie Dasher · 25 replies · 564+ views
Newsbusters.org | 24 April 2008 | Warner Todd Huston
According to The Hollywood Reporter, film director Paul Verhoeven is soon to release a book that is claimed to be a new "biography" of Jesus Christ. In this new publication, Verhoeven feels that he successfully proves that Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, was raped by a Roman soldier during the Jewish uprising in Galilee and the boy Jesus was the result of that attack. No virgin birth for Christ, but instead a rape. Verhoeven is best known as the director of the films "Basic Instinct," the Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Total Recall," as well as the spectacular flop "Showgirls." The...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
1600 Eruption Caused Global Disruption (Peruvian eruption)
04/23/2008 11:46:31 AM PDT · by decimon · 20 replies · 655+ views
UC Davis | April 23, 2008 | Unknown
The 1600 eruption of Huaynaputina in Peru had a global impact on human society, according to a new study of contemporary records by geologists at UC Davis. The eruption is known to have put a large amount of sulfur into the atmosphere, and tree ring studies show that 1601 was a cold year, but no one had looked at the agricultural and social impacts, said Ken Verosub, professor of geology at UC Davis. "We knew it was a big eruption, we knew it was a cold year, and that's all we knew," Verosub said. Sulfur reacts with water in the...
Africa
Slowly-Developing Primates Definitely Not Dim-Witted
04/21/2008 8:49:33 AM PDT · by RightWhale · 5 replies · 217+ views
SPX | 21 Apr 08 | staff
Some primates have evolved big brains because their extra brainpower helps them live and reproduce longer, an advantage that outweighs the demands of extra years of growth and development they spend reaching adulthood, anthropologists from Duke University and the University of Zurich have concluded in a new study. The four investigators compared key benchmarks in the development of 28 different primate species, ranging from humans living free of modern trappings in South American jungles to lemurs living in wild settings in Madagascar. "This research focused specifically on the balance between the costs and benefits...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
New TB threat: Global ties bring an ancient disease to Silicon Valley
04/20/2008 9:20:48 AM PDT · by Technoman · 33 replies · 759+ views
San Jose Mercury News | 4-18-08 | Mike Swift
Call it one price of globalism. Last year, tuberculosis increased in four of the Bay Area's five largest counties, and the San Jose area in 2006 had the highest TB rate of any large American metro area, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health. San Francisco, after an outbreak of TB among Latino day workers in the Mission district, has the highest TB rate of any...
Civil War
On this Day April 20: Republicans outlawed the Ku Klux Klan
04/20/2008 5:42:38 AM PDT · by paltz · 6 replies · 312+ views
GRAND OLD PARTISAN | 4/20/08 | Michael Zak
For decades after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party. Klansmen murdered hundreds of Republican activists and office-holders, including U.S. Representative James Hinds (R-Arkansas). On this day in 1871, the Republican-controlled 42nd Congress passed and the Republican President, Ulysses Grant, signed into law the Ku Klux Klan Act. The law banned the KKK and other Democrat terrorist organizations. President Grant then deployed federal troops to crush a Klan uprising in South Carolina. Eleven years later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned most provisions of the Act. Though legalized, this original version of the...
World War Eleven
Gay Paris? Photos of Paris under Nazi occupation draw fire
04/23/2008 7:52:53 AM PDT · by Tolkien · 42 replies · 1,699+ views
Breitbart.com | 4/23/08 | Breitbart.com
Photos of carefree Parisians lazing in cafes, flocking to cinemas or enjoying a day at the races during the Nazi occupation have sparked outrage in Paris and calls for the exhibit to be shut down.
Oh So Mysterioso
New footage of JFK in Dallas released
02/19/2007 5:52:35 PM PST · by Mr. Brightside · 65 replies · 3,012+ views
Yahoo | 2/19/07
Previously unreleased footage of John F. Kennedy's fateful motorcade in Dallas moments before he was gunned down was released on Monday, a surprising new detail in a saga that has gripped the United States for four decades. The silent 8mm film shows a beaming Jacqueline Kennedy close up in vivid color waving to the crowd. A group of excited bystanders -- women sporting big 1960s hairstyles -- waves to the cameraman shortly before the motorcade sweeps past. The president's coat is...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
5th-grader finds mistake at Smithsonian
04/02/2008 6:12:07 PM PDT · by Hildy · 91 replies · 2,874+ views
Yahoo News
Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake...
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Welcome to the 197th issue. Thanks to Founding Father for noting that I'd failed to update the header for last week's digest. I didn't notice it until I went back to the tab I'd opened to post the new one, and thought I had the wrong saved link and hunted forward one by one. Anyway, mea culpa. |
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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #198
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Africa
500-Year-Old Shipwreck Found By Diamond Firm
04/30/2008 8:44:11 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 778+ views
The Telegraph (UK) | 5-1-2008
A shipwreck, believed to be 500 years old, containing a treasure trove of coins and ivory has been discovered off the southern African coast. The site yielded a wealth of objects including thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins A Namibian diamond company, Namdeb, said on Wednesday that it found the wreck during mining operations in the Atlantic. "The site yielded a wealth of objects including six bronze cannon, several tons of copper, more than 50 elephant tusks, pewter tableware, navigational instruments, weapons and thousands of Spanish and Portuguese...
Mesopotamia
Were Mesopotamians The First Brand Addicts
04/26/2008 3:09:16 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 263+ views
New Scientist | 4-26-2008 | Jeff Hecht
Product branding first emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of cities and writing. So claims David Wengrow, an archaeologist at University College London, who says that bottle stops stamped with symbols some 5000 years ago are evidence of the first branded goods. Around 8000 years ago, village-dwelling Mesopotamians began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the caps and stoppers used to seal food and drink. Originally these goods would have been traded directly with neighbours and travellers. But when urbanisation began -...
India
Megalithic Period Pottery Found
04/26/2008 7:21:13 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 4 replies · 366+ views
Hindu.com | 4-26-2008 | T.S. Subramanian
Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department leads excavation -- Significant finds: Pottery with graffiti marks found at Sembiyankandiyur village in Nagapattinam district. CHENNAI: Pottery items including bowls, dishes and urns, from the Megalithic period, have been excavated at Sembiyankandiyur near Kuthalam in Mayiladuthurai taluk of Nagapattinam district by the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department. An important finding: eight urns aligned in a particular manner, three of them with human bones inside. These might be of members of one family, according to department officials. The pottery included black-and-red ware, black ware and red ware. The site yielded a rich...
Epigraphy and Language
From Indus Valley To Coastal Tamil Nadu
05/02/2008 8:03:44 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 116+ views
The Hindu | 5-2-2008 | TS Subramanian
Strong resemblances between graffiti symbols in Tamil Nadu and the Indus script Continuity of tradition: Megalithic pots with arrow-work graffiti found at Sembiankandiyur village in Nagapattinam district. CHENNAI: In recent excavations in Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu, megalithic pottery with graffiti symbols that have a strong resemblance to a sign in the Indus script have been found. Indus script expert Iravatham Mahadevan says that what is striking about the arrow-mark graffiti on the megalithic pottery found at Sembiyankandiyur and Melaperumpallam villages is that they are always incised twice and together, just...
Egypt
A new angle on pyramids: Scientists explore whether Egyptians used concrete
05/01/2008 11:04:55 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 30 replies · 475+ views
Boston Globe | April 22, 2008 | Colin Nickerson
At MIT, Hobbs and two colleagues teach a course called Materials in Human Experience... The MIT pyramid will contain only about 280 blocks, compared with 2.3 million in the grandest of the Great Pyramids... Hobbs describes himself as "agnostic" on the issue, but believes mainstream archeologists have been too contemptuous of work by other scientists suggesting the possibility of concrete. "The degree of hostility aimed at experimentation is disturbing," he said. "Too many big egos and too many published works may be riding on the idea that every pyramid block was carved, not cast." ...In 2006, research by Michel W....
Egypt's Pyramids Packed With Seashells (Not Concrete)
05/01/2008 2:02:14 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 43 replies · 1,067+ views
Discovery Channel | 5-1-2008 | Jennifer Viegas
Many of Egypt's most famous monuments, such as the Sphinx and Cheops, contain hundreds of thousands of marine fossils, most of which are fully intact and preserved in the walls of the structures, according to a new study. The study's authors suggest that the stones that make up the examined monuments at Giza plateau, Fayum and Abydos must have been carved out of natural stone since they reveal what chunks of the sea floor must have looked like over 4,000 years ago, when the buildings were...
Australia and the Pacific
Hobbit Wars (Small Islanders Show No Signs Of Growth Disorder)
04/28/2008 2:25:37 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 334+ views
Science News | 4-24-2008
Computer-generated reconstructions (bottom) of the fossilized skulls of the small islanders suggest that, contrary to corresponding photos (top), these "hobbits" belonged to a unique species.K. Smith/Mallinckrodt Inst. Radiology, Wash. Univ. St. Louis; E. Indriati, D. Frayer -- Defenders of a small humanlike species that lived on an Indonesian island more than 12,000 years ago have launched their latest scientific counterattacks against critics of their position. Remains of Homo floresiensis, also referred to as hobbits, display no signs of growth disorders proposed by researchers who regard the fossils as...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
Neandertals Had Big Mouths, Gaped Widely
05/02/2008 3:01:53 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 42 replies · 1,016+ views
National Geographic News | 5-2-2008 | Mati Milstein
Neandertals had big mouths that they were able to open unusually wide, new research has determined. A recent study found that a combination of facial structure, forward-positioned molars, and an unusually large gap between the vertical parts of the back of the jaw allowed Neandertals (also spelled Neanderthals) to gape widely. Modern humans and our direct ancestors don't have these traits, the researchers note. But the team was unable to measure exactly how far Neandertals could open their mouths. "This ability is connected...
Diet, Nutrition, Health
Neandertals Ate Their Veggies, Tooth Study Shows
04/29/2008 1:18:25 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 11 replies · 340+ views
National Geographic News | 4-28-2008 | ShowsSara Goudarzi
Tiny bits of plant material found in the teeth of a Neandertal skeleton unearthed in Iraq provide the first direct evidence that the human ancestors ate vegetation, researchers say. Little is known about diet of Neandertals (also spelled Neanderthals), although it's widely assumed that they ate more than just meat. Much of what is known about their eating habits has come from indirect evidence, such as animal remains found at Neandertal sites and chemical signatures called isotopes detected in their teeth. The new hard evidence is...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Heated Debate Over Who Planted First Sunflower
04/28/2008 7:21:53 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 16 replies · 330+ views
New Scientist | 4-28-2008 | Colin Barras
Could raking over the ashes of past civilisations help tackle the current food crisis? David Lentz at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, thinks so. Genetic information from wild strains of domestic crops could help to improve crop yield, he says, making it important to identify the point of domestication. That makes his controversial theory that the sunflower was domesticated in Mexico at least 4000 years ago more than just a matter of ancient history. "If we are to improve the sunflower crop, we need...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iran: Seven historic synagogues in Tehran destroyed
04/16/2008 2:44:05 PM PDT · Posted by knighthawk · 15 replies · 603+ views
AKI | April 15 2008
Seven ancient synagogues in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have been destroyed by local authorities. The synagogues were in the Oudlajan suburb of Tehran, where many Iranian Jews used to live. "These buildings, which were part of our cultural, artistic and architectural heritage were burnt to the ground," said Ahmad Mohit Tabatabaii, the director of the International Council of Museums' (ICOM) office in Tehran. "With the excuse of renovating this ancient quarter, they are erasing a part of our history," said Tabatabaii. He called for the government to intervene to stop the work commissioned by the...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Jerusalem's Wailing Wall at risk of collapse
04/28/2008 1:56:22 PM PDT · Posted by NYer · 38 replies · 639+ views
Telegraph | April 28, 2008 | Carolynne Wheeler
For thousands of years it has withstood fires, floods and earthquakes. But now a portion of one of Judaism's holiest sites, Jerusalem's Western Wall, is crumbling.The rabbi charged with watching over the structure, which the faith believes to be the last remnants of a retaining wall from the ancient Second Temple, has warned that a section repaired more than a century ago is again at risk of falling. †Mourning prayer: a young Jew at Jerusalem's Western Wall which is losing its mortar to the rain Because the weakened stonework is high on the 60ft wall, the danger from any...
Japan
Japanese Royal Tomb Opened To Scholars For First Time
04/28/2008 2:33:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 410+ views
National Geographic News | Tony McNicol
A rare visit by archaeologists to a fifth-century imperial tomb offers hope that other closely guarded graves in Japan might soon be open to independent study. This month a group of 16 experts led by the Japanese Archaeological Association released results from their February visit inside Gosashi tomb. The event marked the first time that scholars had been allowed inside a royal tomb outside of an official excavation led by Japan's Imperial Household Agency. Archaeologists have been requesting access to Gosashi tomb...
Need This Like A...
Incan Skull Surgery
04/26/2008 7:32:58 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 25 replies · 716+ views
Science News | 4-25-2008 | Bruce Bower
When Incan healers scraped or cut a hunk of bone out of a person's head, they meant business. Practitioners of this technique, known as trepanation, demonstrated great skill more than 500 years ago in treating warriors' head wounds and possibly other medical problems, rarely causing infections or killing their patients, two anthropologists find. Trepanation emerged as a promising but dangerous medical procedure by about 1,000...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Tse-Whit-Zen Artifacts Languish In Storage
05/01/2008 1:42:41 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 285+ views
Seattle Times | 5-1-2008 | Jonathan Martin
An arrowhead created by a Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member. One of the Pacific Northwest's most astonishing archaeological finds in a generation has languished for more than a year, lingering on metal shelves in a Seattle warehouse, unseen by the public and unexamined by scientists. No one questions the discoveries -- artifacts from a 2,700-year-old Native American village excavated from the Port Angeles waterfront amid great public interest -- should be exhibited, analyzed and celebrated. But the 900 boxes of artifacts -- such things as spindle whorls carved from...
Prehistory and Origins
Humans Have More Distinctive Hearing Than Animals, Study Shows
04/02/2008 5:56:12 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 7 replies · 348+ views
Science Daily | 4-2-2008 | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Do humans hear better than animals? It is known that various species of land and water-based living creatures are capable of hearing some lower and higher frequencies than humans are capable of detecting. However, scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and elsewhere have now for the first time demonstrated how the reactions of single neurons give humans the capability of detecting fine differences in frequencies better than animals. They did this by utilizing a technique for recording the activity of single neurons in the auditory...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Iceman's DNA Linked To Coastal Aboriginals (Canada)
04/26/2008 7:01:25 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 1,047+ views
Leader - Post | 4-26-2008 | Judith Lavoie
Sisters Sheila Clark and Pearl Callaghan held hands and blinked back tears Friday as they talked about their ancestor Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi, better known as Long Ago Person Found, a young aboriginal man whose frozen body was discovered nine years ago at the foot of a melting glacier in Northern B.C. Three hunters found the body in 1999 in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, part of the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. And earlier this month, 17 aboriginal...
Paleontology
Shock: First Animal on Earth Was Surprisingly Complex
04/27/2008 6:07:35 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 184 replies · 1,595+ views
Yahoo! | Thursday, April 10, 2008 | LiveScience
Earth's first animal was the ocean-drifting comb jelly, not the simple sponge, according to a new find that has shocked scientists who didn't imagine the earliest critter could be so complex... scientists analyzed massive volumes of genetic data to define the earliest splits at the base of the animal tree of life... The new study surprisingly found that the comb jelly was the first animal to diverge from the base of the tree, not the less complex sponge, which had previously been given the honor... Unlike sponges, comb jellies have connective tissues and a nervous system, and so are more...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Sun's Movement Through Milky Way... Comets Hurtling...Life Extinctions
05/02/2008 8:53:50 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 68 replies · 1,020+ views
Science Daily | 5-2-2008 | Cardiff University
A large body of scientific evidence now exists that support the hypothesis that a major asteroid or comet impact occurred in the Caribbean region at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods in Earth's geologic history. Such an impact is suspected to be responsible for the mass extinction of many floral and faunal species, including the large dinosaurs, that marked the end of the Cretaceous period. (Credit: Art by Don Davis / Courtesy of NASA) ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) -- The sun's movement through the Milky...
Oh So Mysterioso
Penis theft panic hits city...
04/24/2008 10:56:48 PM PDT · Posted by Menelaus · 36 replies · 491+ views
Reuters | Joe Bavier
Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur. Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of...
Geology
Geology Picture of the Week, April 27-May 3, 2008: Giant's Causeway, Ireland
04/29/2008 3:11:51 PM PDT · Posted by cogitator · 34 replies · 675+ views
simonward.com | Simon Ward
British Isles
Bronze Age Axe 'Factory' Survey
04/29/2008 10:45:00 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 417+ views
BBC | 4-28-2008
Part of a Bronze Age axe made from picrite rock Archaeologists are hoping to unearth evidence of what they believe to have been one of Bronze Age Britain's largest axe-making "factories". Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) said the axes, made from a distinctive type rock - known as picrite - had been found throughout the country. A three-week survey at the 4,000-year-old site will start soon in Hyssington, near Welshpool, Powys. The trust's Chris Martin said it may have been a large industrial centre. The trust carried out a preliminary survey last year, but it did...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Gloucester's Roman Mass Grave Skeletons Were Plague Victims (Smallpox?)
04/30/2008 6:04:50 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 2 replies · 397+ views
24 Hour Museum | 4-29-2008 | Oxford Archaeology
Archaeologists work to uncover the Roman mass grave in Gloucester during 2005. © Oxfod Archaeology A mass Roman grave, discovered in Gloucester in 2005, may have contained the victims of an acute disease of epidemic proportions, possibly plague. This is the startling conclusion to a new report by Oxford Archaeology and archaelogical consultancy CgMs, who have been conducting an 18-month programme of scientific study on the grave, which contained around 91 skeletons. The discovery of a mass grave of Roman date is almost unparalleled in British...
Rome and Italy
Stunning Finds On Archaeological Dig (UK)
05/01/2008 1:53:51 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 12 replies · 882+ views
The hereford Times | 5-1-2008 | By Paul Ferguson
One of the bodies discovered on the site -- a 35-year-old woman, who had curvature of the spine. A ROMAN cemetery containing items of national importance has been uncovered in Herefordshire. One of the biggest historical finds in the Marches has been made at Stretton Grandison. A complete wooden coffin -- only the third to be found in the UK -- was one of the items uncovered by Leominster-based Border Archaeology (BA). A kiln, various urns and a working brooch were also unearthed, along with the remains of up...
Ancient Autopsies
Cave Woman Is Laid To Rest After 1,900 Years
04/29/2008 1:26:02 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 15 replies · 604+ views
Yorkshire Post | 4-29-2008 | Rob Preece
The remains of a woman have been laid to rest in a hidden location in the Yorkshire Dales -- about 1,900 years after she died. She was returned in a special ceremony to the mysterious limestone cave where she was discovered by two Yorkshire divers more than a decade ago. Phillip Murphy, an academic at Leeds University, and his friend Andrew Goddard found the woman's skull by chance during a diving mission at the cave, dubbed the Wolf Den, in 1997. Carbon dating tests confirmed that...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Words coined by Shakespeare
04/28/2008 11:35:28 AM PDT · Posted by Borges · 12 replies · 330+ views
Rhymezone | 1589-1611 | Shakespeare
Nouns: accused addiction alligator amazement anchovies assassination backing bandit bedroom bump buzzers courtship critic dauntless dawn design dickens discontent embrace employer engagements excitements exposure eyeball fixture futurity glow gust hint immediacy investments kickshaws leapfrog luggage manager mimic misgiving mountaineer ode outbreak pageantry pedant perusal questioning reinforcement retirement roadway rumination savagery scuffles shudders switch tardiness transcendence urging watchdog wormhole zany Verbs: besmirch bet blanket cake cater champion compromise cow denote deracinate dialogue dislocate divest drug dwindle elbow enmesh film forward gossip grovel hobnob humour hurry impedes jet jig label lapse lower misquote negotiate numb pander partner petition puke rant reword secure...
Numismatism
Boy 9, And Grandfather Find Medieval Silver Treasure In Sweden
04/28/2008 2:47:11 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 22 replies · 1,087+ views
Earth Times | 4-28-2008 | DPA
A 9-year-old boy's search for shrapnel on an old battlefield resulted in a huge find of medieval silver coins near the Lund in southern Sweden, local media reported Monday. Alexander Granhof, 9, and his grandfather made the recent discovery, dubbed "silverado" by archaeologists. "We went out on the field looking for cannonballs," Alexander Granhof told the online edition of the Sydsvenskan newspaper. "I found a piece of metal and thought at first it was shrapnel from a...
Holocaust Denial
France - Le Pen: Auschwitz didn't have gas chambers
04/25/2008 9:07:30 PM PDT · Posted by HAL9000 · 83 replies · 1,331+ views
Agence France-Presse (excerpt) | April 25, 2008
Extreme right-wing leader repeats claim that no Jews were gassed or burned at Nazi death camps, says Auschwitz inmates worked as laborers for factory -- Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen sparked a chorus of outrage in France on Friday by repeating an incendiary claim that the Nazi gas chambers were a "detail of history." Anti-racism and Jewish groups threatened immediate legal action against the National Front chief - who already holds several similar convictions - after he made the comments in a magazine interview. "I said the gas chambers were a detail of...
World War Eleven
Scholars Run Down More Cluels to Abiding Holocaust Mystery [Fate of Raoul Wallenberg]
04/28/2008 8:36:32 PM PDT · Posted by justiceseeker93 · 18 replies · 783+ views
Yahoo! News | April, 28, 2008 | Arthur Max and Randy Herschaft (AP)
Budapest, November 1944: Another German train has loaded its cargo of Jews bound for Auschwitz. A young Swedish diplomat pushes past the SS guard and scrambles onto the roof of the cattle car. Ignoring shots fired over his head, he reaches through the open door to outstretched hands, passing out dozens of bogus "passports" that extended Sweden's protection to the bearers. He orders everyone with a document off the train and into his caravan of vehicles. The guards look on dumfounded. Raoul Wallenberg was a minor official of a neutral country, with an unimposing appearance and a...
Longer Perspectives
The Left's Theft of the Open Society and the Scientific Method
04/24/2008 1:15:40 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 15 replies · 570+ views
American Thinker | April 24, 2008 | Jonathan David Carson
The Left misappropriates intellectual capital for perverse ends, in order to lend itself a veneer of respectability and befuddle its critics. According to the website of the Open Society Institute, the George Soros funded nerve-center of today's Left, "The term 'open society' was popularized by the philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 book Open Society and Its Enemies. Popper's work deeply influenced George Soros, the founder of the Open Society Institute, and it is upon the concept of an open society that Soros bases his philanthropic activity." But the Open Society Institute embodies Popper's idea of an open society the way...
Pages
The Forgotten Man (Required Summer Reading for ALL conservatives)
04/30/2008 5:37:48 AM PDT · Posted by mek1959 · 10 replies · 347+ views
Amitysclaes.com | 2007 | Amity Shlaes
"Americans just now need what Amity Shlaes has brilliantly supplied, a fresh appraisal of what the New Deal did and did not accomplish...." -George F. Will, Columnist
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Father loses custody of son over lemonade
04/28/2008 8:00:02 AM PDT · Posted by mombyprofession · 223 replies · 3,460+ views
WZZM 13 Website | 4-28-08 | Brian Dickerson
If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade. And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television. The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage...
end of digest #198 20080503
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· Saturday, May 3, 2008 · 32 topics · 2009527 to 2006491 · 685 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 198th issue. Smokin' bunch of topics again this week, many thanks to blam who posted at least 95 per cent of 'em. No, I didn't actually do the math, so don't write in, okay? As happened last week, a few topics are not all that new, but had somehow previously escaped the GGG dragnet. |
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Dang, SCiv...
I loathe, detest and abhor Hitlery.
I loathe, detest and abhor Obamasama.
I don’t believe any of the lies that have been spread by any of the liars running for office, and therefore, my voting selection is very slim.
However, Ron Paul is looking better and better!!!
Why Ron Paul? He’s a 9/11 Truther, among other detestable traits.
Ew, that was supposed to be a private reply. I am now going to bed.
NONE of the candidates look “good.”
At least, to me they don’t. There really isn’t a lot to choose from.
In the process, we’ll be choosing two, three, possibly four Supreme Court justices.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #199
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Let's Have Jerusalem
Archaeologists find Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia
05/08/2008 6:33:17 PM PDT · Posted by HAL9000 · 35 replies · 801+ views
Deutsche Presse-Agentur | May 7, 2008
Archaeologists believe they have found the Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia and an altar which held the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant, the University of Hamburg said Wednesday. Scientists from the German city made the startling find during their spring excavation of the site over the past three months. The Ethiopian queen was the bride of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era. The royal match is among the memorable events in the Bible. Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which allegedly contained Moses' stone...
Neanderthal / Neandertal
Neanderthals Were Seperate Species, Says New Human Family Tree
05/05/2008 11:38:41 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 85 replies · 1,834+ views
Physorg | 5-4-2008
A wax figure representing a Neanderthal man on display at a museum. A new, simplified family tree of humanity has dealt a blow to those who contend that the enigmatic hominids known as Neanderthals intermingled with our forebears. A new, simplified family tree of humanity, published on Sunday, has dealt a blow to those who contend that the enigmatic hominids known as Neanderthals intermingled with our forebears. Neanderthals were a separate species to Homo sapiens, as anatomically modern humans are known, rather than offshoots of the same species, the new organigram...
Climate
Once Lush Sahara Dried Up Over Millennia, Study Says
05/08/2008 7:08:12 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 24 replies · 677+ views
National Geographic News | 5-8-2008 | James Owen
The grassy prehistoric Sahara turned into Earth's largest hot desert more slowly than previously thought, a new report says -- and some say global warming may turn the desert green once again. The new research is based on deposits from a unique desert lake in remote northern Chad. Lake Yoa, sustained by prehistoric groundwater, has survived for millennia despite constant drought and searing heat. The body of water contains an unbroken climate record going back at least 6,000 years, said study lead author Stefan Kropelin of...
Solar Minima and Maxima
New Data on Sea Ice Contradicts Media Climate Change Reporting
05/06/2008 7:53:13 AM PDT · Posted by Rufus2007 · 46 replies · 1,158+ views
Newsbusters.org | May 6, 2008 | Jeff Poor
If the Earth has a fever, as former Vice President Al Gore suggests, it's not showing signs of it. According to Climateaudit.org's Steve McIntyre, global sea ice has actually increased. "On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were "unprecedented' for the month of April in over 25 years," Steve McIntyre wrote on Climateaudit.org on May 4. "Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982." That data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Snow and Ice Data Center...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Did Comets Cause Ancient American Extinctions?
05/07/2008 6:40:10 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 29 replies · 529+ views
National Geographic News | 5-6-2008 | Anne Casselman
Debate has heated up over a controversial theory that suggests huge comet impacts wiped out North America's large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago. The hypothesis, first presented in May 2007, proposes that an onslaught of extraterrestrial bodies caused the mass extinction known as the Younger Dryas event and triggered a period of climatic cooling. The theory has been debated widely since it was introduced, but it drew new scrutiny in March at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada. Stuart...
Paleontology
Dinosaur killer may have struck oil
05/08/2008 12:11:16 PM PDT · Posted by Berlin_Freeper · 44 replies · 856+ views
Australian Broadcasting Corporation | May 07, 2008 | Larry O'Hanlon
The dinosaur-killing Chicxulub meteor might have ignited an oilfield rather than forests when it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago, say geologists. Smoke-related particles found in sediments formed at the time of the impact are strikingly similar to those created by modern high-temperature coal and oil burning, as opposed to forest fires, says Professor Simon Brassell of Indiana University. He and colleagues from Italy and the UK publish their report on the discovery in the May issue of the journal Geology. ...What he and his colleagues have found instead are particles called cenospheres, which resemble the...
Diet, Nutrition, Health
First Americans Thrived On Seaweed
05/08/2008 2:07:20 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 33 replies · 412+ views
New Scientist | 5-8-2008 | Jeff Hecht
How times have changed. Instead of large amounts of meat and spuds, some of the first Americans enjoyed healthy doses of seaweed. The evidence comes from 27 litres of material collected from the Monte Verde site in southern Chile, widely accepted as the oldest settlement in the Americas. Nine species of seaweed, carbon dated at 13,980 to 14,220 years old, played a major role in a diet that included land plants and animals. Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, argues that the seaweeds were...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Modern Subdivision Is Home To Ancient Village
05/09/2008 3:41:00 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 15 replies · 169+ views
Cleveland Daily Banner | 5-8-2008 | David Davis
Upon entering Princeton Hills subdivision off Freewill Road, visitor's see a wide expanse of green space bordered by a circular drive. Large, expensive homes surround the green, grassy mound in an arrangement akin to a prehistoric village. In a sense, that is exactly what the mound represents. It is the five-acre site of the Candies Creek Village Archaeological Preserve owned by the Archaeological Conservancy. It contains the remains of houses, human burials and pit features. Developer Jim Sharp sold the site to the Conservancy in 2001...
Navigation
45-Foot Ancient Canoe Stuck In Muck Of Weedon Island (Tampa Bay)
05/06/2008 10:48:16 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 53 replies · 1,442+ views
MSNBC - Tampa Tribune | 5-5-2008 | KEITH MORELLI
Stuck somewhere in the muck of Weedon Island is a significant piece of history. A 45-foot canoe, buried for more than a thousand years and used by a long-dead culture of Native Americans, worked its way to the surface, and now authorities are trying to figure out how best to preserve it. The vessel is carved out of a single pine tree, and archaeologists say it was used to...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Jiroft Is Ancient City Of Marhashi: US Scholar
05/08/2008 6:25:35 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 10 replies · 267+ views
Tehran Times | 5-7-2008
Piotr Steinkeller, professor of Assyriology in Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of Harvard University, believes that the prehistoric site of Jiroft is the lost ancient city of Marhashi. He developed the theory in his paper during the first round of the International Conference on Jiroft Civilization, which was held in Tehran on May 5 and 6. Marhashi, (in earlier sources Warahshe) was a 3rd millennium BC polity situated east of Elam,...
Rome and Italy
Italian Builders Uncover (27) 2,000 year Old Tombs (Etruscans)
05/08/2008 1:54:01 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 13 replies · 448+ views
The Scotsman | 5-7-2008
Archaeologists were yesterday celebrating the discovery of 27 2,000-year-old tombs in Italy's "Valley of the Dead". The tombs, some dating back to the 7th century BC, were found by chance while builders carried out work. The whole area was sealed off yesterday and put under police guard to prevent anyone from trying to steal artefacts inside the burial chambers. Grave robbers, or tombaroli as they are known in Italy, make a lucrative living from selling such objects to museums or private collectors. Archaeologists say there is also a "good chance" that there may well be...
Prehistory and Origins
Our Celtic Roots Lie In Spain And Portugal
05/06/2008 8:59:53 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 29 replies · 953+ views
IC Wales - Western Mail | 5-5-2008 | Darren Devine
The Welsh have more in common with sun-kissed glamour pusses like actress Penelope Cruz and footballer Christiano Ronaldo than pale- faced Germans like Helmet Kohl, according to an academic. Professor John Koch suggests the Welsh can trace their ancestry back to Portugal and Spain, debunking the century-old received wisdom that our forebears came from Iron Age Germany and Austria. His radical work on Celtic origins flatly contradicts the writing of Sir John Rhys, who in the late 19th century established the idea that we...
British Isles
Irish Viking Trade Centre Unearthed
05/07/2008 6:48:40 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 23 replies · 542+ views
BBC | 5-7-2008
Almost 6,000 artefacts and a Viking chieftain's grave have been discovered -- One of the Vikings' most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland. The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old. It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings. The Irish government said the settlement was one of the most important early Viking age trading centres discovered in the country. Its working group, which includes archaeologists from Ireland's museum and monuments service, said it was of...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Dive Team To Scour Danube For Queen Mary's Lost Belongings
05/08/2008 1:59:42 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 13 replies · 433+ views
All Hungarian News | 5-8-2008
The legend goes something like this: after the disastrous Battle of Mohacs in 1526, the twenty-one-year-old Queen Mary of Hungary fled the encroaching Ottoman army on a caravan of ships headed to Vienna. But, on her way up the Danube a few ships sank along with their valuable cargo. It is said that to this day they remain hidden in the murky depths of the river. Soon, any truth to this story may soon be discovered, or disproved. According to inforadio.hu, a team of...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
Some Diabetics Don't Have What They Thought They Had
05/05/2008 10:31:25 PM PDT · Posted by neverdem · 14 replies · 1,413+ views
NY Times | May 6, 2008 | ANDREW POLLACK
Ryan Collins of Aldie, Va., was only 10 weeks old when doctors made the diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes. That meant up to eight insulin shots per day, a big burden on him and his family. "He couldn't be anywhere unless there was someone around to give a shot," said his mother, Dana Collins. "Everything had to be planned. There was no impromptu anything." Until last month, that is, when Ryan, now almost 7, stopped needing shots. Ryan, it turns out, does not have Type 1 diabetes after all. He has a rare form of diabetes, not yet discovered when he...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Sorry, but family history really is bunk
05/08/2008 3:18:15 PM PDT · Posted by forkinsocket · 142 replies · 1,601+ views
The Spectator | 30th April 2008 | Leo McKinstry
Leo McKinstry says the current craze for genealogy reflects an unhealthy combination of snobbery and inverse snobbery, and is a poor replacement for national history When I visited the National Archives at Kew last week the place was full of them, scurrying about with their plastic wallets in hand, a look of eager concentration on their faces. It was impossible to escape their busy presence as they whispered noisily to relatives or whooped over the discovery of some new piece of information. These were the followers of one of Britain's fastest-growing craze, the mania for researching family history. Studying bloodlines...
Longer Perspectives
Is everything we know about American history wrong?
05/09/2008 6:05:00 PM PDT · Posted by indcons · 18 replies
Salon | May 9, 2008 | Louis Bayard
Empire building isn't for sissies. Just ask the Spanish conquistadors of the 16th century. Before attacking Indian settlements, they were required to read a summons called the Requerimiento, which spelled out the consequences of resistance: "I assure you that, with the help of God, I will attack you mightily. I will make war against you everywhere and in every way ... I will take your wives and children, and I will make them slaves ... I will take their property. I will do all the harm and damage to you that I can ... I declare that the deaths and...
Oh So Mysterioso
Save Water To Avoid Eating Your Neighbor
05/07/2008 6:28:29 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 31 replies · 500+ views
The Telegraph (UK) | 5-2-2008 | Chris Turney
It's easy to get hung up on the tag 'global warming'. There's no doubt it's a useful catchphrase for describing the challenges we face, but there's always the risk that our predicament is just seen as warming. Temperature is of course an important facet of the climate, but it's not our only concern. Downpours in the future are likely to vary around the world and throughout the year. The combined effect of changing rainfall and increasing temperature will mean that some regions will get wetter,...
The Civil War
Civil War Cannonball Kills Relic Collector
05/02/2008 8:39:16 PM PDT · Posted by fishhound · 69 replies · 2,197+ views
Aol, AP | May 2,2008 | STEVE SZKOTAK,
Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. More than 140...
Ancient Cannon Ball Explodes
05/05/2008 9:46:50 AM PDT · Posted by Abathar · 41 replies · 1,222+ views
strategypage.com | 05/05/08 | Unknown
May 5, 2008: The U.S. Civil War continues to kill. Sam White, a Virginia based collector of Civil War munitions, died recently while cleaning up a nine inch, 75 pound, cannon ball. White had previously restored or examined over 1,500 of these shells. But the one that killed him was different. It was fired from a ship board gun, and was designed to be more waterproof than shells used by land based artillery. This kept the fuze, and black powder explosive charge, dry and viable after 150 years. Mister White was using metal tools to clean up the shell, which...
The World War
Canadian WW1 vet to become a Canadian citizen
05/09/2008 8:14:35 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 6 replies
Reuters on Yahoo | 5/9/08 | Allan Dowd
Canada's last known surviving veteran of World War One is becoming a Canadian citizen, the government said on Friday. John Babcock, 107, was born in Canada but became a U.S. citizen in 1946 and had to give up his status as a British subject - as Canadians were designated before Canada's own citizenship act came into force a year later. Canadian officials recently visited Babcock at his home in Spokane, Washington, to give him an award, and he told them he was interested in being granted citizenship in his birth country. "This means the last...
Peking Duck
Ancient bird is missing link to Archaeopteryx (rational caucus)
05/06/2008 5:27:49 PM PDT · Posted by Soliton · 32 replies · 412+ views
The New Scientist | 02 May 2008 | Jeff Hecht
A spectacularly preserved new Chinese fossil reveals a previously unseen stage in the early evolution of flight. Called Eoconfuciusornis, it is a missing link between the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, and more advanced birds that have been discovered in the Yixian geological formation in China. The Yixian deposits have yielded remarkably diverse fauna that have revolutionised avian palaeontology, but they are limited to a period from 125 to 120 million years ago -- too narrow a time span to show much evidence of evolution within bird lineages
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
LA Democrat Legislator Who Called Civil Rights Activist "Buckwheat" Loses Her Job
11/18/2007 3:38:49 PM PST · Posted by DogByte6RER · 73 replies · 185+ views
WWLTV.com | WWLTV.com
State Representative District 51 40 of 40 Precincts 100% Joe Harrison 4,338 57% Carla Dartez (I) 3,276 43% (I) denotes incumbent candidate
end of digest #199 20080510
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