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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #376 · v 8 · n 12 Saturday, October 1, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #376 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #376 Saturday, October 1, 2011 |
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| Africa | |
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| Preserved flesh of 2-million-year-old human ancestor found? |
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· 09/26/2011 7:20:26 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 56 replies · · Popular Archaeology · · Wednesday, September 21, 2011 · · Dan McLerran · |
His jaw must have dropped when he examined the material before him. It was a rare find. So rare, in fact, that, if what he was looking at was really what he thought it could be, it would be the first and only evidence of soft body tissue from an early hominin ever discovered.......soft tissue from an early (possible) pre-human ancestor nearly 2 million years old. The find was part of the remains uncovered by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand and his colleagues when they discovered fossils of Australopithecus sediba, a possible precursor to our earliest... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Many roads lead to Asia (Denisovans, migrations, etc.) |
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· 09/26/2011 2:55:29 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · · Max-Planck-Gesellschaft · · September 26, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Contrary to what was previously assumed, modern humans may have populated Asia in more than 1 migration waveThe discovery by Russian archaeologists of the remains of an extinct prehistoric human during the excavation of Denisova Cave in Southern Siberia in 2008 was nothing short of a scientific sensation. The sequencing of the nuclear genome taken from an over 30,000-year-old finger bone revealed that Denisova man was neither a Neanderthal nor modern human, but a new form of hominin. Minute traces of the Denisova genome are still found in some individuals living today. The comparisons of the DNA of modern humans... |
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| Corsica | |
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| 9000-year-old multiple burial uncovered in Corsica |
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· 09/26/2011 7:51:51 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · Stone Pages · · Tuesday, September 20, 2011 · · Edited from L'Express.fr, Le Figaro · |
The exceptional discovery of burials about 9,000 years old -- probably containing the oldest human remains ever found in Corsica (France) -- will allow a better understanding of the history of early settlement of the island and of the Mediterranean. On a hill near the village of Sollacaro, Southern Corsica, nestled under a huge ball-shaped block of eroded granite which served as a shelter for prehistoric peoples, the location has been excavated by a team of archaeologists from several French universities, assisted by a Danish colleague... Having uncovered the bones of four or five adults, a teenager, and a baby... |
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| Ice Cold Malta | |
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| New look for Ggantija temples |
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· 09/26/2011 6:53:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Stone Pages · · September 24, 2011 · · Malta Independent · |
The Ggantija Temples are the most popular heritage site in Malta, and a lot of work has gone into restoring their structural integrity... The new project incorporates two new lightweight walkways which will now take visitors straight into the heart of the temples. The project also includes an interactive digital and virtual tour of Ggantija. The Temples have also been decked out with an environmental monitoring station which measures exposure to environmental elements and the site has been made safer with the installation of a remote security system... Thanks to the construction of two walkways inside Ggantija, visitors will have... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Lost city found in Turkey: It is older than Troy |
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· 09/27/2011 6:16:07 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · · National Turk · · Monday, September 26, 2011 · · unattributed · |
A group of scientists and archeologists from Canakkale (Dardanelles) University have found traces of a lost city, older than famed Troy, now buried under the waters of Dardanelles strait. Led by associate professor Rustem Aslan, the archeology team made a surface survey in the vicinity of Erenkoy, Canakkale on the shore. The team has found ceramics and pottery, what led them to ponder a mound could be nearby. A research on the found pottery showed that the items belonged to an 7000 years old ancient city. The team has intensified the research and discovered first signs of the lost city... |
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| Greece | |
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| Rain unearths unknown Mycenaean cemetery |
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· 09/26/2011 7:08:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · Athens News · · Thursday, September 15, 2011 · · AMNA · |
Five box-shaped Mycenaean era tombs were unearthed in Soha, near Vaskina village, some ten kilometers northwest of Leonidio, by recent heavy rainfall. The most impressive of the funerary gifts found in the graves were several clay sympotic vases. According to archaeologists, the finds dating back to the 14th century BC. A recovery excavation was conducted by the 38th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Ancient luxury residence of rich family found in Izmir |
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· 09/27/2011 6:11:57 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Hurriyet · · Wednesday, September 28 2011 · · Anatolian News Agency · |
A luxurious house with plenty of rooms, a restroom and a kitchen, believed to pertain to a rich family, is found in Izmir. It islocated by the side of a newly-discovered Roman road. A luxury residence dating back about 2,000 years to the Roman era has been discovered in the Aegean province of Izmir. Located in the ancient city of Smyrna, the 400-square-meter residence has many rooms, including a bathroom and kitchen... It is the first time that a residence has been found in the central part of the city since excavation started three years ago, said Ersoy. The residence,... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Archeological Sites in Ancient City of Apamea Vandalized and Pillaged |
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· 09/26/2011 6:59:48 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · SANA · · Tuesday, September 20, 2011 · · H. Sabbagh · |
Several archeological sites in the ancient city of Apamea were vandalized and pillaged by groups taking advantage of the events in Syria to excavate secretly, dig randomly and steal artifacts in secret, damaging several finds including a mosaic and the crown of a column in the middle of the city. Head of Hama Archeology Department Abdelkader Firzat called on locals to report those who commit such acts of vandalism and robbery, adding that Apamea became a target for such crimes due to its wealth of historical periods and its large size. He pointed out that secret excavations and random digging... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| More Than 7,200 Indian Jews to Immigrate to Israel |
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· 09/27/2011 3:42:53 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 37 replies · · Times of India · · Sep 27, 2011 · |
The Israeli government is expected to approve the long awaited 'aliyah' (immigration) of more than 7,200 Indian Jews from the north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram in the coming weeks, a media report said. The decision to allow the last members of the "lost" Bnei Menashe tribe to immigrate to Israel is being greeted with excitement by local Evangelical Christian groups, who view it as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and who have pledged financial support for the move, 'The Jerusalem Post' daily reported. The ministerial committee on immigration and absorption, headed by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, decided, about three months... |
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| Dead Sea Scrolls | |
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| 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls go online |
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· 09/26/2011 2:45:30 PM PDT · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 23 replies · · AP · · 26/9/11 · · Matti Friedman · |
JERUSALEM -- Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls went online for the first time on Monday in a project launched by Israel's national museum and web giant Google. The appearance of five of the most important Dead Sea scrolls on the Internet is part of a broader attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts -- who were once criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars -- to make them available to anyone with a computer. See msnbc.com's... |
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| Google makes 5 Dead Sea Scrolls searchable |
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· 09/27/2011 2:18:25 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 13 replies · · cnn blog · · September 26, 2011 · |
Jerusalem (CNN) ‚Ä" In a perfect blending of 21st-century advances with the cutting-edge technology of an earlier age, starting this week internet users can, for the first time, use Google search and scanning technology to examine five manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Google and the Israel Museum unveiled the project Monday in Jerusalem with the launch of a museum website that allows users to interact with the ancient texts in a way impossible just a few years ago."You have the capability with high-resolution definition to look at the scrolls in a comfortable setting - to enlarge them, to magnify... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Mohammed shows face at the Met |
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· 09/25/2011 2:48:35 PM PDT · · Posted by ConservativeStatement · · 19 replies · · New York Post · · September 25, 2011 · · Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein · |
The Met is no longer non-prophet. After at least an eight-year absence, images of Mohammed will return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the renovated Islamic galleries reopen in November. The controversial depictions have not been seen in years, and there was some doubt about whether they would resurface when a $50 million renovation of the gallery space is completed. |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Texas Drought Turns Weekend Warriors Into Looters of Artifacts, Fossils |
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· 09/30/2011 4:35:12 PM PDT · · Posted by BenLurkin · · 25 replies · · www.thepostgame · · Friday, September 30, 2011 8:15 am · · Ben Maller · |
When the weather is right, Lake Whitney State Park in Texas is a wonderful place for outdoor weekend athletes to get their fix. From boating, fishing, scuba diving and water skiing, the lake offers it all. But with Texas locked in a record setting drought, the sinking water levels have turned the lake into something Indiana Jones would love. Texans have recently uncovered 8,000-year-old secrets, reports WFAA Dallas. Both fossils and Native American tools have turned up at Lake Whitney. You have to go back at least 20 years since anyone has seen the formerly remote underwater caverns that have... |
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| The Mayans | |
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| Bowls of Fingers, Baby Victims, More Found in Maya Tomb |
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· 09/25/2011 6:27:22 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 59 replies · · National Geographic · · 7-21-2010 · · John Roach · |
Reeking of decay and packed with bowls of human fingers, a partly burned baby, and gem-studded teeth -- among other artifacts -- a newfound Maya king's tomb sounds like an overripe episode of Tales From the Crypt. But the tightly sealed, 1,600-year-old burial chamber, found under a jungle-covered Guatemalan pyramid, is as rich with archaeological gold as it is with oddities, say researchers who announced the discovery Friday. "This thing was like Fort Knox," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who led the excavation in the ancient, overgrown Maya town of El Zotz. Alternating layers of flat stones and mud preserved human bones, wood... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Mamma Maya! 2,000-year-old skeleton of Queen discovered among treasures in rodent-infested tomb |
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· 09/25/2011 6:49:19 AM PDT · · Posted by csvset · · 17 replies · · Daily Mail · · 25 sep 2011 · · Daily Mail Reporter · |
The skeleton of a Maya Queen -- with her head mysteriously placed between two bowls -- is just one of the treasures found in a 2,000-year-old rodent-infested tomb. Priceless jade gorgets, beads, and ceremonial knives were also discovered in the cavern -- which was found underneath a younger 1,300-year-old tomb which also contained a body -- in the Guatemalan ruins of Nakum. The two royal burials are the first to be discovered at the site, which was once a densely packed Maya centre. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Shipwreck of SS Gairsoppa discovered with £155m silver haul onboard |
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· 09/27/2011 6:09:43 PM PDT · · DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 14 replies · · Telegraph UK · · September 26, 2011 · |
The SS Gairsoppa was carrying seven million ounces of silver, worth around £155 million at today's prices. The 412 foot steel-hulled ship was torpedoed while in the service of the Ministry of War Transport. Odyssey Marine Exploration said it had confirmed the identity and location of the shipwreck site, nearly 4,700 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic, about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland in international waters. The company said in a statement: "Contemporary research and official documents indicate that the ship was carrying £600,000 (1941 value) or seven million total ounces of silver, including over three... |
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| The Framers | |
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| In Brief: American History [Book review of Constitution's Signers] |
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· 09/24/2011 7:50:42 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 7 replies · · Wall St Journal · · 9-24-11 · · Charles S. Dameron · |
Mark Twain's aphorism that "there is no distinctly native American criminal class -- except Congress" sums up a long-standing national contempt for public servants. Generally the Founding Fathers are exempt from such derision, making it tempting to believe that America's first politicians were of a more pristine character than our present-day scalawags. Not so, suggest Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese in "Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution," which offers brief vignettes of all 39 signatories to the nation's founding document and shows that for every great name there were at least... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| X-ray reveals hidden Goya painting (Joseph Napoleon?) |
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· 09/23/2011 8:54:55 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · BBC · · September 22, 2011 · · Unknown · |
A previously unknown painting by Francisco de Goya has been found hidden underneath one of his masterpieces, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced.The unfinished work was discovered underneath Goya's Portrait Of Don Ramon Satue, using a new X-ray technique. It is thought to depict a French general, and may even portray Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, Joseph. The Rijksmuseum says the Spanish master may have covered up the portrait for political reasons. Joseph Bonaparte was briefly King Of Spain, from 1808-1813. When the Napoleonic army was driven out and Ferdinand VII restored to the throne, Goya, who retained the painting, would have... |
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| end of digest #376 20111001 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #376 · v 8 · n 12 Saturday, October 1, 2011 |
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16 topics |
Welcome to issue #376 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #377 Saturday, October 8, 2011 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Stone-age toddlers had art lessons, study says |
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· 10/08/2011 9:33:08 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Guardian UK · · Thursday 29 September 2011 · · Caroline Davies · |
Research on Dordogne cave art shows children learned to finger-paint in palaeolithic age, approximately 13,000 years ago -- Archaeologists at one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France, the complex of caverns at Rouffignac in the Dordogne known as the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths, have discovered that children were actively helped to express themselves through finger fluting -- running fingers over soft red clay to produce decorative crisscrossing lines, zig-zags and swirls. The stunning drawings, including 158 depictions of mammoths, 28 bisons, 15 horses, 12 goats, 10 woolly rhinoceroses, four human figures and one bear, form just... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Archaeologist argues world's oldest temples were not temples at all |
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· 10/07/2011 2:07:06 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · University of Chicago Press Journals · · October 6, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Ancient structures uncovered in Turkey and thought to be the world's oldest temples may not have been strictly religious buildings after all, according to an article in the October issue of Current Anthropology. Archaeologist Ted Banning of the University of Toronto argues that the buildings found at Göbekli Tepe may have been houses for people, not...gods. The buildings at Göbekli, a hilltop just outside of the Turkish city of Urfa, were found in 1995 by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute and colleagues from the Sanliurfa Museum in Turkey. The oldest of the structures at the site are immense... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| How two little ducks could transform our understanding of Stonehenge |
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· 10/06/2011 8:38:54 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · Daily Mail · · Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 · · Gavin Allen · |
The most significant artifacts uncovered are two carved ducks, the first of their kind to be found in Britain and the oldest figurines ever hewn from the UK. The ducks were likely, say the team, to be a result of the Bronze Age tradition of carving animal figurines which were then thrown into water as offerings. But while the ducks date back to 700BC, a ceremonial dagger was also found which originated around 1400BC. However, another item which Jacques initially believed was a cow's tooth was revealed by radiocarbon dating to date back to around 6250BC, some 3,000 years before... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Aboriginal Stonehenge: Stargazing in ancient Australia |
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· 10/07/2011 4:12:22 PM PDT · · Posted by FritzG · · 5 replies · · BBC · · 05 Oct 2011 · · Stephanie Hegarty · |
An egg-shaped ring of standing stones in Australia could prove to be older than Britain's Stonehenge -- and it may show that ancient Aboriginal cultures had a deep understanding of the movements of the stars. Fifty metres wide and containing more than 100 basalt boulders, the site of Wurdi Youang in Victoria was noted by European settlers two centuries ago, and charted by archaeologists in 1977, but only now is its purpose being rediscovered. It is thought the site was built by the Wadda Wurrung people -- the traditional inhabitants of the area. All understanding of the rocks' significance... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Comet's water 'like that of Earth's oceans' |
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· 10/05/2011 6:41:44 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 39 replies · · BBC · · October 5, 2011 · · Jason Palmer · |
Comet Hartley 2 contains water more like that found on Earth than prior comets seem to have, researchers say. A study using the Herschel space telescope aimed to measure the quantity of deuterium, a rare type of hydrogen, present in the comet's water. The comet had just half the amount of deuterium seen in comets. The result, published in Nature, hints at the idea that much of the Earth's water could have initially came from cometary impacts. Just a few million years after its formation, the early Earth was rocky and dry; something must have brought the water that covers... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Rock spiral found in Dingle could date back to Bronze Age |
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· 10/08/2011 9:23:54 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Irish Times · · Tuesday, September 27, 2011 · · Anne Lucey · |
A rock bearing what is believed to be a rare piece of art dating back to the Bronze Age has been discovered on an outcrop alongside a medieval pilgrim route in west Kerry. The discovery two weeks ago of "a perfect spiral" on a rock off the main Cos·n na Naomh on the Dingle peninsula, is being assessed by county archaeologist Michael Connolly. Measuring 19.5cm, it was found by local man Colm Bambury between Cill MhicÈadair and Baile an Lochaigh near the foot of Mount Brandon. The area is dotted with standing stones, Ogham and beehive huts and other monuments... |
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| Greece | |
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| Pavlopetri: A window on to Bronze Age suburban life (impressive CGI images) |
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· 10/08/2011 7:38:17 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 15 replies · · BBC · · October 7, 2011 · · Dr Jon Henderson · |
Semi-detached houses with gardens, clothes drying in the courtyards, walls and well-made streets -- Pavlopetri epitomises the suburban way of life. Except that it's a Bronze Age port, submerged for millennia off the south-east coast of Greece. This summer it became the first underwater city to be fully digitally mapped and recorded in three dimensions, and then brought back to life with computer graphics. The result shows how much it has in common with port cities of today -- Liverpool, London, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo or Shanghai -- despite the fact that its heyday was 4,000 years ago. Covering an... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Study tracks mutations causing CDA II back to the Roman Empire |
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· 10/07/2011 1:33:32 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · · IDIBAPS · · October 7, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The study, led by the ENERCA member professor Achille Iolascon, was recently published in the American Journal of Hematology Many of you might know that Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type II (CDA II) is a rare blood disorder, due to a failure in final part of erythropoiesis. What will surprise you is the fact that some mutations responsible for the disease can be tracked 3.000 years back. A study led by the ENERCA member Prof. Achille Iolascon, from CEINGE Advanced Biotechnologies (Naples, Italy) and the University of Naples Federico II, analyzes two mutations (E109K and R14W) of the SEC23B gene and... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Rome's Christian past revealed by 3-D imaging |
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· 10/03/2011 9:05:45 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 5 replies · · cna · · October 3, 2011 · · David Kerr and Alan Holdren · |
Rome's Lateran Baptistery. Credit: Anthony Majanlahti (CC BY 2.0) Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2011 / 07:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A remarkable Vatican-Swedish project is providing a new 3-D insight into Christian Rome's architectural history. "It's what we call building archaeology," Olof Brandt of the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology explained to CNA. He is currently working on a 3-D study of Rome's Lateran Baptistery, situated next to the Cathedral of St. John Lateran. "That's the archeology of existing structures, which is about reading the traces of the past in the existing walls of a building." Brandt points out the... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Litcham Cryptogram: a medieval mystery |
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· 10/07/2011 7:08:54 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Past Horizons · · Wednesday, October 5, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The initial survey work soon proved that the Litcham Cryptogram was by no means he only inscription to be found in the church. Within a matter of days the survey had identified over fifty individual images and inscriptions etched into the soft stone pillars of the church. "Almost every pillar was covered with inscriptions", continued Matthew, "and it was clear that there had once been many more. However, our attention kept coming back to the Litcham Cryptogram". The inscription was etched far deeper into the pillar than much of the surrounding graffiti and it is supposed that this is what... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| The Aramaic Language is Being Resurrected in Israel |
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· 10/01/2011 3:31:36 PM PDT · · Posted by marshmallow · · 30 replies · · Vatican Insider · · 9/24/11 · · Marco Tosatti · |
Two television channels have been involved in initiatives to bring to life, once again, the language that Jesus and his contemporaries spoke. Today, it is spoken by 400 thousand people throughout the world. Two Israeli television channels are trying to see to it that Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his contemporaries in that region of the Roman Empire, will once again become a living language and not just be an almost extinct curiosity for scholars of Semitic languages to study. "Suroyo TV" and "Suryoyo TV" offer an endless supply of material for online discussion by fans so they can... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| An Egyptian Jew in Exile: An Interview with Bat Ye'or |
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· 10/01/2011 8:18:55 AM PDT · · Posted by ventanax5 · · 13 replies · · New English Review · · Jerry Gordan · |
I first encountered Gis√‹le Littman, better known as "Bat Ye'or," through her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam while browsing through a Judaica section of a Barnes & Noble book store in Westport, Connecticut in 1985. Reading it opened my mind to the historical evidence of the subjugated treatment of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims under shari'a in the wake of Islamic Jihad over conquered lands. Her book threw into considerable doubt the then fashionable medievalist commentary that Jews and Christians had been well treated in Al Andaluz, Muslim Spain and in the far reaches of the Caliphate... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| 358-yr-old Taj Mahal 'in the danger of collapsing within 5 years |
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· 10/05/2011 7:04:46 AM PDT · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 48 replies · · Economic Times · · 10/05/11 · |
LONDON: The Taj Mahal will collapse within five years unless urgent action is taken to fix its rotting foundations, campaigners warn. The 358-year-old marble mausoleum is India's most famous tourist attraction, bringing four million visitors a year to the northern city of Agra. But the river crucial to its survival is being blighted by pollution, industry and deforestation. Campaigners believe the foundations have become brittle and are disintegrating. Cracks appeared last year in parts of the tomb, and the four minarets, which surround... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group |
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· 10/06/2011 5:45:10 PM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 32 replies · · National Geographic · · 9-30-2011 · · Sabrina Valle · |
It's long been rumored that an ancient, isolated people in what's now northern Mexico ate their own kind, in the hopes that they'd be able to eat corn later. Now an analysis of more than three dozen bones bearing evidence of boiling and defleshing confirms that the Xiximes people were in fact cannibals, archaeologists say. The Xiximes believed that ingesting the bodies and souls of their enemies and using the cleaned bones in rituals would guarantee the fertility of the grain harvest, according to historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries... |
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| The Mayans | |
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| University of Colorado Boulder team discovers ancient road at Maya village buried by volcanic ash 1,400 years ago |
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· 10/05/2011 4:45:30 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 3 replies · · U of Colorado Boulder · · October 5, 2011 · · Unknown · |
A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash. The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren... |
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| Climate | |
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| What lessons from history's climate shifts? |
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· 10/06/2011 12:51:54 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · BBC · · October 6, 2011 · · Richard Black · |
Earlier this week, the journal Proceeedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study on climate change that is at the same time scary, comforting, insightful and a statement of the obvious.To be more accurate, I should probably say that the paper is capable of being interpreted in all of those ways, rather than risk implying that the authors intended to do more than run the numbers and see what popped up. What they're talking about is climate change in Europe, specifically between 1500 and 1800 AD -- a period that encompasses the so-called Little Ice Age. It... |
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| Glaciography | |
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| Long-Lost Lake Offers Clues to Climate Change (Younger Dryas) |
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· 10/05/2011 4:33:36 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · University of Cincinnati · · October 5, 2011 · · Greg Hand · |
Not long ago, geologically speaking, a now-vanished lake covered a huge expanse of today's Canadian prairie. As big as Hudson Bay, the lake was fed by melting glaciers as they receded at the end of the last ice age. At its largest, Glacial Lake Agassiz, as it is known, covered most of the Canadian province of Manitoba, plus a good part of western Ontario. A southern arm straddled the Minnesota-North Dakota border. Not far from the ancient shore of Lake Agassiz, University of Cincinnati Professor of Geology Thomas Lowell will present a paper about the lake to the Geological Society... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Pitt biologists find 'surprising' number of unknown viruses in sewage |
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· 10/05/2011 4:59:23 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · · University of Pittsburgh · · October 5, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Researchers developed new computational tools to characterize viruses; published this week in mBioThough viruses are the most abundant life form on Earth, our knowledge of the viral universe is limited to a tiny fraction of the viruses that likely exist. In a paper published this week in the online journal mBio, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Barcelona found that raw sewage is home to thousands of novel, undiscovered viruses, some of which could relate to human health. There are roughly 1.8 million species of organisms on our planet, and each... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Revolutionary War battlefield of Saratoga to be excavated |
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· 10/04/2011 9:00:38 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 61 replies · · gadling.com · · Oct 3rd 2011 · · Sean McLachlan · |
One of the most important battlefields of the Revolutionary War is going to be excavated by archaeologists ahead of an EPA cleanup. Back in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, General Electric dumped polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River near Saratoga, New York. The dumping was banned in 1977 due to risks to public health, and the EPA has ordered GE to dredge up the affected silt from the river. Dredging destroys archaeological sites, though, and has already damaged Fort Edward, a British fort in the area dating to the mid 18th century. Archaeologists are working to excavate the stretch... |
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| The Framers | |
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| UN Slavery Memorial Design Competition Launched |
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· 10/01/2011 9:20:40 AM PDT · · Posted by Iron Munro · · 61 replies · · Voice of America · · September 30, 2001 · · Joe DeCapua · |
The United Nations Friday announced an international competition to design a memorial honoring the victims of slavery. It's estimated that over 500 years, more than 18 million people were abducted from Africa and forced into slavery in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. The sculpture will be located at U.N. headquarters in New York. Its official name is The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honor of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. "The issue of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade stands out still today as a crime against humanity -- one of the first... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Donor asks failed slavery museum to return artifacts |
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· 10/01/2011 2:38:37 PM PDT · · Posted by csvset · · 18 replies · · The Virginian-Pilot · · September 30, 2011 · · Linda McNatt · |
SUFFOLK A slave's collar, circa 1856, valued at $16,500. A first edition copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1853, valued at $6,000. A slave's leg shackle, with an estimated value of $1,380. Therbia Parker figures he donated about $75,000 worth of slavery artifacts to the United States National Slavery Museum in 2004. Even before the museum, which never opened, filed for bankruptcy this month, Parker had been trying to reach former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, the museum's founder, to get his artifacts back. "Not just me, but other people donated artifacts, donated money," he said. "Like a thief in the night,... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| FDR at War: How Expanded Power, National Debt, Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America |
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· 10/02/2011 2:04:15 PM PDT · · Posted by lbryce · · 2 replies · · Amazon · · October 2, 2011 · · Burton W. Jr. Folsom, Anita Folsom · |
(Full Title) FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America Release Date:October 11, 2011 Reviews:"FDR Goes to War is a page-turning tour de force --- and a scholarly one, at that --- of the politics and economics of America's involvement in WWII. Be prepared to rethink much of what you think you know about FDR, the war, and the post-Depression U.S. economy." ---Don Bordreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University "In New Deal or Raw Deal? Burt Folsom exposed FDR's failed policies during the Great Depression.... |
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| Pages | |
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| What Are You Reading Now? -- My Quarterly Survey |
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· 10/03/2011 7:39:10 AM PDT · · Posted by MplsSteve · · 124 replies · · · |
Hi everyone! It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" survey. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the most well-read of those of us on the 'Net. I like to get a feel as to what everyone is reading right now. It can be anything -- a technical journal, a NY Times best seller, a class work of fiction, a trashy pulp novel. In short, it can be anything. Please do not respond to this thread by posting "I'm reading this thread" -- or any variation thereof. It became really unfunny a long time... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Scientist finds 100 million-year-old bee |
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· 10/30/2006 8:19:35 AM PST · · Posted by presidio9 · · 42 replies · · 433+ views · · Associated Press · · 10/30/06 · |
A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found. "I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before," said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University. The bee is about 40 million years older than previously found bees. The discovery of the ancient bee may help explain the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants during that time. Poinar found the bee in amber from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Many researchers buy... |
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| end of digest #377 20111008 | |
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