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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #421 Saturday, August 11, 2012 |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| How did the wolf become dog ? |
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· 08/05/2012 10:18:13 AM PDT · · Posted by djone · · 31 replies · · salon.com · · Mark Derr · |
Derr acknowledges that the story of the dog's emergence (as distinct from its evolutionary forebear, the wolf) cannot be "neatly distilled." Different estimates place the first appearance of dog-like creatures anywhere from 12,000 to 135,000 years ago. But Derr argues that the dog itself was an "evolutionary inevitability." He suggests that dogs and humans -- similar animals who "simply took to traveling with each other" tens of thousands of years ago, "and never stopped" -- |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| Brewing Stone Age beer |
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· 08/05/2012 7:33:03 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 50 replies · · sciencenordic.com · · 7-20-2012 · · Asle Rønning · |
Beer enthusiasts are using a barn in Norway's Akershus County to brew a special ale which has scientific pretensions and roots back to the dawn of human culture. The beer is made from einkorn wheat, a single-grain species that has followed humankind since we first started tilling the soil, but which has been neglected for the last 2,500 years. "This is fun -- really thrilling. It's hard to say whether this has ever been tried before in Norway," says Jørn Kragtorp. He started brewing as a hobby four years ago. He represents the fourth generation on the family farm of... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Researchers find evidence of ritual use of 'black drink' at Cahokia |
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· 08/08/2012 5:53:39 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 44 replies · · Heritage Daily · · 8-7-2012 · |
People living 700 to 900 years ago in Cahokia, a massive settlement near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, ritually used a caffeinated brew made from the leaves of a holly tree that grew hundreds of miles away, researchers report. The discovery -- made by analyzing plant residues in pottery beakers from Cahokia and its surroundings -- is the earliest known use of this "black drink" in North America. It pushes back the date by at least 500 years, and adds to the evidence that a broad cultural and trade network thrived in the Midwest and southeastern U.S.... |
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| Middle Ages & the Renaissance | |
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| For Indians, ax marked first chapter of disaster |
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· 08/07/2012 6:48:33 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · Columbus Dispatch · · Sunday July 29, 2012 8:04 AM · · Bradley T. Lepper · |
The ax is significant because it predates the documented arrival of European explorers in the region by a century or more. It likely was brought to America by Basque whalers or fishermen who traded it to some coastal-dwelling Indian for animal furs. It then must have been passed from one tribe to another until it was eventually acquired by a resident of the Mantle site. European artifacts also have been found at the late prehistoric Madisonville site in Hamilton County in southwestern Ohio. Although large by Ohio standards, it wouldn't have compared to the Mantle site. Archaeologist Penelope Drooker estimated... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| What Vikings really looked like |
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· 08/05/2012 6:28:12 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 45 replies · · ScienceNordic · · 7-29-2012 · · Irene Berg Sørensen · |
There's no shortage of myths about the appearance of our notorious Viking ancestors. To find out more about these myths, ScienceNordic's Danish partner site, videnskab.dk, asked its Facebook readers to list their favourite myths about what the Vikings looked like. We have picked out five myths from the resulting debate and asked researchers to help us confirm or bust these myths. Armed with this information, our graphic designer then took a shot at drawing some examples of our infamous forefathers, which you can see in our picture gallery... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Medieval silver treasure found on Gotland |
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· 08/05/2012 5:12:02 AM PDT · · Posted by csvset · · 4 replies · · The Local · · 4 Aug 12 · · Clara Guibourg · |
A silver treasure from the 12th century has been found on the Baltic island Gotland, where over 600 pieces of silver coins have been unearthed, according to reports in local media. "This is an amazing find. It's unbelievable that treasures of this scale exist here on Gotland," Marie Louise Hellquist of Gotland's County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) told local newspaper Hela Gotland. The medieval treasure was uncovered last Monday, as the landowner was moving soil. Some 500 pieces of coin were discovered in the field, and following further searches conducted once archaeologists arrived on Wednesday, that figure has swollen considerably. "In... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Mass grave in London reveals how volcano caused global catastrophe |
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· 08/05/2012 5:20:32 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 34 replies · · The Guardian (UK) · · 8-4-2012 · · Dalya Alberge · |
When archaeologists discovered thousands of medieval skeletons in a mass burial pit in east London in the 1990s, they assumed they were 14th-century victims of the Black Death or the Great Famine of 1315-17. Now they have been astonished by a more explosive explanation -- a cataclysmic volcano that had erupted a century earlier, thousands of miles away in the tropics, and wrought havoc on medieval Britons. Scientific evidence -- including radiocarbon dating of the bones and geological data from across the globe -- shows for the first time that mass fatalities in the 13th century were caused by one... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| The Roots of Jewishness |
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· 08/09/2012 6:34:33 PM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 27 replies · · ScienceNOW · · 6 August 2012 · · Gisela Telis · |
Family ties. Most Jewish populations share a genetic connection, but some groups, such as Ethiopian Jews (pictured here, sharing unleavened bread ahead of Passover), stand alone. Credit: Eliana Aponte/Reuters Scholars of all kinds have long debated one seemingly simple question: What is "Jewishness?" Is it defined by genetics, culture, or religion? Recent findings have revealed genetic ties that suggest a biological basis for Jewishness, but this research didn't include data from North African, Ethiopian, or other Jewish communities. Now a new study fills in the genetic mapâ?"and paints a more complex picture of what it means to... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Susita Site Yields Surprises |
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· 08/07/2012 2:19:00 PM PDT · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 19 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 7/8/12 · · Gil Ronen · |
The 13th year of Haifa University's archeological digs at the Susita site just east of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) has yielded several surprises, including what experts believe is a portrait of a local man from the 3rd century CE, carved into a basalt gravestone. Susita -- as it is known in the Aramaic version -- was originally known by the Latin name Hippos. Both names refer to horses, although the reason for this name is not known. It was destroyed by the earthquake of 749 CE. Archeologist Dr. Michael Eisenberg explained that the "Susita man" rock was found in... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| First Person: Should Israel Return the Tablets of the Law to Egypt? [ hypothetically ] |
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· 08/08/2012 6:52:49 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Biblical Archaeology Review · · BAR 38:05, Sep/Oct 2012 · · Hershel Shanks · |
In 1969, barely two years after the 1967 Six-Day War, a team of Israeli archaeologists made an exploratory excavation at the base of one of the numerous sites in the Sinai Peninsula proposed as Biblical Mt. Sinai. It was not long before a member of the team exposed a piece of rock with a single Hebrew letter on it. This naturally led to more intensive excavation in this area, as a result of which additional, larger pieces of inscribed stones were recovered. They were taken to Israel for further study. When examined by paleographers, experts in dating inscriptions by the... |
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| Climate | |
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| Scafetta's new paper attempts to link climate cycles to planetary motion ( March 2012) |
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· 08/08/2012 12:52:53 PM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 14 replies · · March 21, 2012 · · Anthony Watts · |
Nicola Scafetta sent me this paper yesterday, and I read it with interest, but I have a number of reservations about it, not the least of which is that it is partially based on the work of Landscheidt and the whole barycentric thing which gets certain people into shouting matches. Figure 9 looks to be interesting, but note that it is in generic units, not temperature, so has no predictive value by itself.Fig. 9. Proposed solar harmonic reconstructions based on four beat frequencies. (Top) Average beat envelope function of the model (Eq. (18)) and (Bottom) the version modulated with a... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Ancient records shed light on Italian earthquakes (Aquila area) |
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· 08/10/2012 4:03:44 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · PhysOrg · · Friday, August 3, 2012 · · Seismological Society of America · |
The rich recorded history of settlement in the area, along with oral traditions, archaeological excavations, inscriptions and medieval texts, and offer insight into how often the region might expect destructive earthquakes. But according to a new study by Emanuela Guidoboni and colleagues, the historical record on ancient and medieval earthquakes comes with its own shortcomings that must be addressed before the seismic history of L'Aquila can be useful in assessing the current seismic hazard in this area... ...the researchers combed through written records and information from archaeological excavations, covering the period from ancient Roman occupation in the first century A.D.... |
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| Italian 'Super Volcano' May Threaten Millions: Scientists plan to drill deep below Romans'... |
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· 08/06/2012 7:54:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 35 replies · · Newser · · Monday, August 06, 2012 · · Rob Quinn · |
A hidden "super volcano" near Pompeii threatens an eruption that could make Vesuvius look like a picnic, scientists warn. The Phlegraean Fields zone of intense seismic activity -- which the ancient Romans believed was the gateway to hell -- could doom millions of people in the Naples area if it erupts, Reuters reports. Scientists plan to drill more than two miles below its surface to monitor any signs of a pending eruption in the huge chamber of molten rock, but some experts fear that the drilling itself could trigger an earthquake or eruption. Areas like the Phlegraean fields "can give... |
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| The Roman Empire | |
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| 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck that is so well preserved even the FOOD is intact |
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· 08/09/2012 8:38:47 AM PDT · · Posted by Kartographer · · 38 replies · · UK Daily Mail · · 8/9/12 · · Mark Prigg · |
The ship, a navis oneraria, or merchant vessel, was located at a depth of about 200 feet after a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was used to scour the seabed. A search for the shipwreck was launched after local fisherman revealed they kept finding pieces of pottery in their nets. The divers found the wreck so well preserved even the food, still sealed in over 200 pots, is intact. |
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| Egypt | |
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| Possible Egyptian pyramids found using Google Earth |
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· 08/10/2012 3:40:45 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 34 replies · · Archaeology News Network · · Monday, August 6, 2012 · · Posted by TANN · |
One of the complex sites contains a distinct, four-sided, truncated, pyramidal shape that is approximately 140 feet in width. This site contains three smaller mounds in a very clear formation, similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids. The second possible site contains four mounds with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width. This site complex is arranged in a very clear formation with the large plateau, or butte, nearby in a triangular shape with a width of approximately... |
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| Early America | |
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| Wreck thought to be famous 19th-century pirate ship that sank with hold full of treasure |
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· 08/09/2012 9:30:21 AM PDT · · Posted by wildbill · · 21 replies · · Mailonline · · 8/9/2012 · · Emma Reynolds · |
A shipwreck discovered in Tonga is thought to be a famous pirate vessel that sank in the 19th century with a hold full of treasure. Legend has it that the Port-au-Prince was attacked by warriors near the South Pacific archipelago in 1806 and most of its British crew massacred on the orders of King Finau 'Ulukalala II. The British had captured the ship from the French and made into a privateer -- meaning it had permission to attack and plunder boats belonging to rivals Spain and France. |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Ceremony held to remember the Battle of Oriskany [235 year anniversary] |
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· 08/08/2012 7:13:57 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 18 replies · · Rome (NY) Observer · · August 07, 2012 · · RACHEL MURPHY · |
ORISKANY -- Nearly 200 people gathered Monday to remember the 235th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles during the Revolutionary War at The Battle of Oriskany. It was a commemorative ceremony held by members of the Oneida Nation and representatives from the National Parks Service at Fort Stanwix. During the ceremony flags were lowered to half-staff, wreaths were placed at the monument, and men wore military costumes while firing off muskets. "There were hundreds of people who lost their lives here in this battle and it's really important to remember those people who gave their lives for our freedom today," said... |
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| Schooled | |
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| Three smart history podcasts |
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· 08/09/2012 12:57:00 PM PDT · · Posted by iowamark · · 4 replies · · Sacramento Bee · · August 8, 2012 · · Pete Basofin · |
The Internet Age is a golden age for history buffs. Think of the sheer quantity of material -- lectures, conferences, books, articles, photographs, paintings, maps, census records, historic audio and video clips, all kinds of of primary and secondary resources -- available at the click of a mouse. There are also podcasts devoted to history. Podcasts (for the uninitiated) are audio or video series produced by amateurs or professional outlets on every imaginable topic... BackStory with the American History Guys. Hosted by three experts representing the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, BackStory aims to bring a "historical perspective to the... |
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| Olympiads | |
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| The 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been the Strangest Ever |
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· 08/08/2012 10:13:31 AM PDT · · Posted by afraidfortherepublic · · 35 replies · · The Smithsonian · · 8-7-12 · |
America's first Olympics may have been its worst, or at least its most bizarre. Held in 1904 in St. Louis, the games were tied to that year's World's Fair, which celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase while advancing, as did all such turn-of-the-century expositions, the notion of American imperialism. Although there were moments of surprising and genuine triumph (gymnast George Eyser earned six medals, including three gold, despite his wooden leg), the games were largely overshadowed by the fair, which offered its own roster of sporting events, including the controversial Anthropology Days, in which a group of "savages" recruited... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Letter to Winston Churchill May Contain First Known Use of 'OMG' |
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· 08/08/2012 3:55:45 PM PDT · · Posted by TurboZamboni · · 17 replies · · NY Magazine · · 8-7-12 · · Brett Smiley · |
Letters of Note curator Shaun Usher has pointed out what might be the first known usage of O.M.G., in a September 1917 missive from British admiral John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher (or Lord Fisher) to Sir Winston Churchill. In a letter to Churchill about some "utterly [upsetting]" World War I-era newspaper headlines, Fisher wrote, "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis -- O.M.G (Oh! My! God!) -- Shower it on the Admiralty!!" To which we assume Churchill replied, "Oh Dear Fisher! I am laughing heartily out loud!!" |
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| The Only Face of Socialism | |
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| Seventy-Five Years After Stalin's Great "Operation Kulak" Reign of Terror |
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· 08/05/2012 3:06:12 PM PDT · · Posted by ReformationFan · · 18 replies · · The New American · · August 5, 2012 · · Bruce Walker · |
Seventy-five years ago, on August 5, 1937, one of the most horrific -- and most ignored -- episodes in human history began. "Operation Kulak" ("kulak" meaning rich peasants) was the Soviet Union's effort to repress those farmers who had a little more than other farmers (according, at least, to the definitions of the Communist Party), and who resisted collectivization. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (pictured) had begun the development of "Operation Kulak" the previous month, when he contacted all the regional Party leaders as well as the NKVD (roughly the Soviet equivalent of the Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany), asking... |
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| Obituaries | |
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| Last Polish soldier of WWII opening battle dies (Westerplatte) |
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· 08/06/2012 12:40:15 PM PDT · · Posted by dfwgator · · 21 replies · · Associated Press · · · |
WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Maj. Ignacy Skowron, the last known survivor of World War II's Battle of Westerplatte, has died. He was 97. Family friend Zofia Nowak said Monday that Skowron died at his grandson's home in Kielce, in southern Poland on Sunday after suffering circulatory, liver and pancreas problems. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| 10 Things You Don't Know About Guadalcanal |
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· 08/07/2012 3:18:37 AM PDT · · Posted by PJ-Comix · · 90 replies · · 10 Things You Don't Know About · · August 7, 2012 · · PJ-Comix · |
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the first offensive land operation taken by the United States in World War II. On August 7, 1942, the U.S. Marines landed at Guadalcanal. The general outlines of that battle which lasted which lasted 6 months until February 9, 1943 are known by many but here are 19 things about Guadalcanal that you might not know. This is the first of my regular "20 Things You Don't Know" posts that I hope will encourage the History Channel to bring back that series. You can read my full mission statement about this in my... |
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| Pages | |
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| Book review- Bending the Twig: The Revolution in Education and Its Effect on Our Children |
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· 08/09/2012 6:52:43 AM PDT · · Posted by ProgressingAmerica · · 16 replies · · PGA Weblog · · · |
'Tis education forms the common mind Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined -- Alexander Pope Progressive education.... what is it? Where does it come from? Is America the only place it's ever been tried? I've made my own attempts to dig into progressive education, but I can only use the internet for my queries. This book titled "Bending the twig; the revolution in education and its effect on our children" is a genuine inquiry based on thoughtful research into the topic using sources I'd probably never have access to. The review for this book comes from a... |
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| The Tragedy Europe Forgot (Expulsions of Germans From East of the Oder) |
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· 08/10/2012 7:02:19 AM PDT · · Posted by C19fan · · 9 replies · · Wall Street Journal · · August 9, 2012 · · Andrew Stuttaford · |
By the late spring of 1945, Germany had lost a war, its honor and millions of dead. There was more to come. The Allies had decided that the country's east should be carved up between Poland and the Soviet Union and that its German inhabitants should be moved to the truncated Reich. There they would encounter Sudeten Germans, Czechoslovakia's second largest ethnic group, now also scheduled for deportation. In August 1945, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed at Potsdam that these transfers, which had in any case already begun, should be "orderly and humane." |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Dropping Atomic Bombs on Japan was Unavoidable |
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· 08/05/2012 1:27:24 PM PDT · · Posted by Retain Mike · · 46 replies · · class="attrib">Self · · August 5, 2012 · · Self · |
Dropping Atomic Bombs on Japan Unavoidable We now mark the 67th anniversary of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. Once again we must listen to the contra-factual analysis of revisionists as they expound on what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. In support of dropping the atomic bombs historians often cite the inevitability of horrifying casualties, if troops had landed on the home islands. They extrapolate from 48,000 American and 230,000 Japanese losses on Okinawa to estimates of 500,000 American and millions of Japanese casualties for mainland invasions. However,... |
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| Palontology | |
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| Dinosaur Boom Linked to Rise of Rocky Mountains |
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· 08/05/2012 5:26:49 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 22 replies · · Live Science · · 8-3-2012 · · Charles Choi · |
The evolution of new dinosaur species may have surged due to the rise of the Rocky Mountains and the emergence of a prehistoric inner sea in North America, researchers say. Duck-billed and horned dinosaurs flourished in North America, reaching a peak about 75 million years ago, a time known as the Campanian. For instance, one Campanian region known as the Dinosaur Park formation in what is now Canada saw seven different duck-billed dinosaur species and five horned dinosaur species emerge. A comparable region known as the Hell Creek formation in the United States from the Maastrichtian, the time that led... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Has the Loch Ness Monster Finally Been Caught on Camera? |
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· 08/04/2012 6:49:40 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 65 replies · · The Telegraph · · 08/03/2012 · |
A monster hunter who has spent 26 years searching for the Loch Ness Monster claims to have taken the "best picture ever" of the beast, after dedicating 60 hours a week to his quest.Nessie hunter George Edwards waited 26 years for this moment -- and he now believes he has the best picture ever taken of the Loch Ness monster. He spends his life on the loch -- around 60 hours a week -- taking tourists out on his boat Nessie Hunter IV, and has led numerous Nessie hunts over the years. But this image is the one that's convinced... |
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| end of digest #421 20120811 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #421 · v 9 · n 5 Saturday, August 11, 2012 |
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28 topics |
This week I was a kept man, having to barely lift a finger posting topics, and yet we have 28! Nice job, and many thanks, to all who contributed! |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #422 Saturday, August 18, 2012 |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Genetic Study Offers Clues to History of North Africa's Jews |
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· 08/12/2012 6:05:27 AM PDT · · Posted by marshmallow · · 9 replies · · Reuters · · 8/7/12 · · Sharon Begley · |
(Reuters) - A new genetic analysis has reconstructed the history of North Africa's Jews, showing that these populations date to biblical-era Israel and are not largely the descendants of natives who converted to Judaism, scientists reported on Monday. The study also shows that these Jews form two distinct groups, one of which is more closely related than the other to their European counterparts, reflecting historical migrations. The findings are the latest in series of genetic studies, which began in the 1990s, indicating that the world's Jews share biological roots, not just cultural and religious ties. In many cases the analyses... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Severed Hands Discovered in Ancient Egypt Palace |
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· 08/12/2012 6:57:33 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 56 replies · · LiveScience · · August 10th, 2012 · · Owen Jarus · |
A team of archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris, in Egypt, has made a gruesome discovery. The archaeologists have unearthed the skeletons of 16 human hands buried in four pits. Two of the pits, located in front of what is believed to be a throne room, hold one hand each. Two other pits, constructed at a slightly later time in an outer space of the palace, contain the 14 remaining hands. They are all right hands; there are no lefts. "Most of the hands are quite large and some of them are very large," Manfred Bietak,... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Siberian Princess reveals her 2,500 year old tattoos |
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· 08/16/2012 8:42:37 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 21 replies · · Siberian Times · · 8-14-2012 · |
The ancient mummy of a mysterious young woman, known as the Ukok Princess, is finally returning home to the Altai Republic this month. She is to be kept in a special mausoleum at the Republican National Museum in capital Gorno-Altaisk, where eventually she will be displayed in a glass sarcophagus to tourists. For the past 19 years, since her discovery, she was kept mainly at a scientific institute in Novosibirsk, apart from a period in Moscow when her remains were treated by the same scientists who preserve the body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin. To mark the move 'home', The... |
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| The Ice-Maiden with the Tiger Tattoo |
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· 08/17/2012 11:09:05 PM PDT · · Posted by rjbemsha · · 46 replies · · WebProNews/Science · · 17 Aug 2012 · · Amanda Crum · |
The Ice-Maiden is the most famous Pazyryk (Siberian culture probably related to the Scythians) mummy yet found. She died at about the age of 25. Buried clothed in luxurious wild silk, her body was perfectly preserved in perma-frost. But it is the tattoos that set Pazyryk burials apart. "Compared to all tattoos found by archeologists around the world, those on the mummies of the Pazyryk people are the most complicated and the most beautiful," according to the lead researcher, Dr. Natalia Polosmak. |
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| India | |
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| Was Narmada valley the centre of human evolution? |
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· 08/16/2012 6:41:47 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Times of India · · Thursday, August 14, 2012 · · Prashant Rupera, TNN · |
Through the largest exploration exercise ever undertaken, M S University's Department of Archaeology and Ancient History along with United States' Stone Age Institute will unearth evidence of our own ancestors. MSU and Indiana-based Stone Age Institute at Gosport have joined hands for the 'Narmada Basin Paleoanthropology Project (NBPA)' with the target to collect all the paleoanthropological evidence within the last two million years. "This project may throw new light giving credence to the belief that the Narmada Valley could have been the centre of human evolution," says professor K Krishnan, head of MSU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient History. The... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Humans, Neanderthals Did Not Have Babies |
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· 08/17/2012 9:37:26 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 112 replies · · Discovery News · · Aug 16, 2012 · · Anon · |
Recent research strikes a blow to the theory that humans and Neanderthals interbred. THE GIST Studies over the last two years suggest that Neanderthals vanished more than 30,000 years ago. This would mean that early humans and Neanderthals could not have interbred. enlarge Over the last two years, several studies have suggested that Homo sapiens got it on with Neanderthals, an hominid who lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for up to 300,000 years but vanished more than 30,000 years ago. The evidence for this comes from fossil DNA, which shows that on average Eurasians... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Sex with early mystery species of humans seen in DNA. (Proof of Fallen Angels) |
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· 08/13/2012 11:50:12 AM PDT · · Posted by TaraP · · 194 replies · · Seattle Times · · July 26th, 2012 · · Brian Vastag · |
There's only one way the foreign DNA could have made it into modern human populations. "We're talking about sex," said Joshua Akey of the University of Washington, whose lab identified the foreign DNA in three groups of modern Africans. The human family tree just got another -- mysterious -- branch, an African "sister species" to the heavy-browed Neanderthals that once roamed Europe. While no fossilized bones have been found from these enigmatic people, they did leave a calling card in present-day Africans: snippets of foreign DNA. There's only one way that genetic material could have made it into modern human... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Noble Savages? The era of the hunter-gatherer was not the social and environmental Eden some suggest |
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· 01/01/2008 11:54:37 AM PST · · Posted by billorites · · 24 replies · · Economist.com · · December 19, 2007 · |
HUMAN beings have spent most of their time on the planet as hunter-gatherers. From at least 85,000 years ago to the birth of agriculture around 73,000 years later, they combined hunted meat with gathered veg. Some people, such as those on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Sea, still do. The Sentinelese are the only hunter-gatherers who still resist contact with the outside world. Fine-looking specimens -- strong, slim, fit, black and stark naked except for a small plant-fibre belt round the waist -- they are the very model of the noble savage. Genetics suggests that indigenous Andaman islanders have been isolated since the... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Stone Age skull-smashers spark a cultural mystery |
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· 08/17/2012 5:42:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · New Scientist · · August 16, 2012 · · Jessica Hamzelou · |
An unusual cluster of Stone Age skulls with smashed-in faces has been found carefully separated from the rest of their skeletons. They appear to have been dug up several years after being buried with their bodies, separated, then reburied. Collections of detached skulls have been dug up at many Stone Age sites in Europe and the Near East -- but the face-smashing is a new twist that adds further mystery to how these societies related to their dead... No one knows why Neolithic societies buried clusters of skulls -- often near or underneath settlements. Some think it was a sign... |
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| Thrace | |
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| Archaeologists Find Thracian Town on Bulgarian Sea Coast |
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· 08/14/2012 5:06:24 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Novinite · · Tuesday, August 14, 2012 · · unattributed · |
Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered a Thracian settlement during the first ever excavations in the town of Tsarevo on the southern Black Sea coast. The team is led by Milen Nikolov, an archaeologist from the Regional History Museum in the Black Sea city of Burgas. The settlement is very close in location to the town church "Uspenie Bogorodichno." The find proves that Tsarevo and nearby areas have a history more ancient that what was believed until now. During the excavations, the archaeologists have found remnants showing that as early as the 4th - 5th century BC Thracians have built a town... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Why the Chinchorro suddenly began to mummify their dead |
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· 08/14/2012 12:38:53 PM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 17 replies · · Past Horizons · · 8-13-2012 · |
Researchers in Chile, led by Pablo Marqueta, an ecologist with Universidad Cat -- lica de Chile have arrived at a new theory to explain why a culture that existed around seven thousand years ago suddenly began to mummify their dead. The Chinchorro The researchers have been examining the Chinchorro, hunter-gatherers that lived in the desert region of what is now northern Chile and southern Peru, from about 10,000 to 4,000 years ago. The mummies first date to 5050 BCE and continue to be made until about 1800 BCE. The Chinchorro people lived by a combination of fishing, hunting and gathering: the word... |
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| Foster Brooks | |
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| Prehistoric Human Brain Found Pickled in Bog |
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· 08/17/2012 6:32:07 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 26 replies · · Discovery News · · 04-06-2011 · · By Jennifer Viegas · |
A brain in near-perfect condition is found in a skull of a person who was decapitated over 2,600 years ago. A human skull dated to about 2,684 years ago with an "exceptionally preserved" human brain still inside of it was recently discovered in a waterlogged U.K. pit, according to a new Journal of Archaeological Science study. The brain is the oldest known intact human brain from Europe and Asia, according to the authors, who also believe it's one of the best-preserved ancient brains in the world. "The early Iron Age skull belonged to a man, probably in his thirties," lead... |
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| The Roman Empire | |
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| Who Really Killed the Pax Romana? |
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· 08/13/2012 11:05:09 AM PDT · · Posted by wtd · · 38 replies · · The Gates of Vienna · · August 13, 2012 · · Baron Bodissey · |
The title of this thread "Who Really Killed the Pax Romana?" refers to a recent post at Gates of Vienna Blog written by Baron Bodissey. The Baron reviews the book Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy by Emmet Scott. If you have an interest in the subject of the Greco-Roman legacy and Islam as they relate to the sudden decline of medieval Europe this book will expose the linkage between Islam's destructive forces at that time and have you reconsider the implications of current events related to Islam today. Scott argues that the collapse of Latin-Greek civilization... |
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| Who Really Killed the Pax Romana? |
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· 08/14/2012 8:16:21 AM PDT · · Posted by ckilmer · · 16 replies · · Gates Of Vienna · · Sunday, August 12, 2012 · · Barron Boddissy · |
Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy by Emmet Scott New English Review Press · 2012 · 270 pages $19.95 · Kindle version $9.95 Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited by Emmet ScottThroughout the coastal areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, archaeologists have uncovered a layer of subsoil that was deposited over a period of three hundred years beginning in the middle of the seventh century AD. This stratum, named the "Younger Fill" by the geologist Claudio Vita-Finzi, covers the ruins of all the major cities and settlements that were established along the Mediterranean littoral during classical antiquity. It stands as... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Monastery where Christian saint was martyred is uncovered on Eigg |
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· 08/14/2012 4:58:26 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · The Scotsman · · Tuesday, August 14, 2012 · · Alistair Munro · |
Students and local people have uncovered what are thought to be remains of St Donnan's monastery... St Donnan brought Christianity to many places in the West Highlands in the seventh century before settling on Eigg. According to local folklore, he became a martyr after he was killed by Norsemen, along with 50 monks, while giving Mass on Easter Sunday in the year 617... The dig at Kildonnan Graveyard on the south-east side of the island has now uncovered evidence which experts believe shows it is the exact site... Pictish pottery from the same period was also found in the graveyard.... |
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| Middle Ages & the Renaissance | |
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| The man who should have been King: Australian forklift driver... |
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· 08/16/2012 3:38:27 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Daily Mail · · Thursday, August 16, 2012 · · Daily Mail Reporter · |
Mike Hastings, 71, was a real-life aristocrat, born the 14th earl of Loudoun, who moved to Australia in 1960 in search of adventure. He made international headlines in 2004 when a Channel Four documentary team conducted extensive research into the monarchy and concluded his ancestors were cheated out of the crown in the 15th century. Hastings, an avowed republican, died on June 30 and was buried today in Jerilderie, about 465 miles southwest of Sydney, the local Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser reported. He was a descendant of England's House of York, whose dynastic struggle with the House of Lancaster became... |
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| Age of Sail | |
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| World's oldest shipping firm Stephenson Clarke Shipping in liquidation |
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· 08/09/2012 11:24:52 PM PDT · · Posted by bruinbirdman · · 6 replies · · The Telegraph · · 8/9/2012 · |
The world's oldest shipping firm, UK-based Stephenson Clarke Shipping, has gone into liquidation after nearly 300 years of trading. Established in 1730, Stephenson Clarke had tried to sell its ships and cut costs in the face of crashing rates for dry bulk shipping on which it relied - transporting cargoes such as coal, grain and iron ore. High and dry But liquidator Tait Walker was appointed on August 3, the company and liquidator said in a statement. "While previous economic downturns have been weathered, the current market is one of the worst experienced for many years with no upturn forecast... |
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| Early America | |
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| Navy's oldest commissioned warship to sail again |
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· 08/17/2012 2:51:51 PM PDT · · Posted by ConorMacNessa · · 56 replies · · AP via Tampa Bay Online · · Aug 17, 5:26 PM EDT · · JAY LINDSAY · |
BOSTON (AP) -- The U.S. Navy's oldest commissioned warship will sail under its own power for just the second time in more than a century to commemorate the battle that won it the nickname "Old Ironsides." The USS Constitution, which was first launched in 1797, will be tugged from its berth in Boston Harbor on Sunday to the main deepwater pathway into the harbor. It will then set out to open seas for a 10-minute cruise. The short trip marks the day two centuries ago when the Constitution bested the British frigate HMS Guerriere in a fierce battle during the... |
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| Not-Too-Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Earhart expedition team says video possibly shows plane debris |
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· 08/17/2012 10:48:11 PM PDT · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 16 replies · · Reuters · · August. 18, 2012 · · Malia Mattoch McManus · |
(Reuters) - A team of researchers trying to solve the mystery of aviator Amelia Earhart's 1937 disappearance said on Friday that underwater video from a Pacific island has revealed a field of man-made debris that could be remnants of her plane. The footage was collected in July by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) during a $2.2 million expedition to Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati. Unsolved questions about Earhart's fate have long heightened her legendary status as a pioneering aviator, and TIGHAR's voyage to seek clues in her disappearance gained interest far beyond the shores of the... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Closure, World War II sub found under the sea (Final Resting Place for 85) |
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· 08/12/2005 11:31:24 AM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 29 replies · · The Charlotte Observer · · Thu, Aug. 11, 2005 · · KELLY KENNEDY · |
In the ghostly blue lights of a video camera, sea snakes, squids and schools of blue and yellow fish swirl past five-inch battle guns of a World War II submarine 200 feet beneath the South China Sea. "With all the fish and the coral covering the Lagarto, it's almost like someone put flowers on a grave," said Elizabeth Kenney-Augustine, whose grandfather, Bill Mabin of La Grange, Ill., was on the sub. For decades, no human knew where to put flowers for the 86 men who disappeared with the U.S.S. Lagarto somewhere between Thailand and Australia shortly before World War II... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| World War II Deconstructed |
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· 08/16/2012 7:43:49 AM PDT · · Posted by Academiadotorg · · 74 replies · · Accuracy in Academia · · August 15, 2012 · · Malcolm A. Kline · |
Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and its Aftermath. As it turns out, Hoover stated what would be his central thesis in a conversation at a 1951 Manhattan dinner to a New York public relations man in language that history buffs who associate the former president with the high starch collars he wore would never guess that he would use. "When Roosevelt put America in to help Russia as Hitler invaded in June, 1941," Hoover said. "We should have let those two bastards annihilate themselves." George H. Nash, no mean historian himself, supplied the above anecdote in... |
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| Climate | |
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| Salvage firm finds the ship that took Scott on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition |
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· 08/17/2012 10:33:34 PM PDT · · Posted by smokingfrog · · 10 replies · · dailymail.co.uk · · 17 Aug 2012 · · Mark Prigg · |
The SS Terra Nova, the ship that carried Captain Robert Scott on his doomed expedition to the Antarctic a century ago, has been discovered off Greenland. It was discovered by a team from a US research company using a hi-tech underwater vehicle after they spotted an unusual object while testing their sonar equipment. Scott and his party set off from Cardiff aboard the Terra Nova in 1910 with the aim of becoming the first expedition to reach the South Pole. A crew from the Schmidt Ocean Institute discovered the Terra Nova whilst testing echo-sounding equipment aboard its flagship vessel --... |
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| Greeks & Armenians | |
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| More Turk Bias Against Greeks, Armenians |
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· 08/13/2012 8:44:48 AM PDT · · Posted by bayouranger · · 6 replies · · commentarymagazine.com · · 12AUG12 · · Michael Rubin · |
The White House continues to talk about Turkey not only as a regional ally but also as a model for reform in the Middle East. It has been several years, however, since Turkish reforms contributed to democracy. The latest case in point is Turkish real estate reform. The Turkish government has announced new regulations. Here is the rub: While the government has removed onerous rules and regulations that made navigating Turkish real estate a nightmare, the government has in effect legislated its traditional hatreds. Armenians, for example, need not apply. They are by law unable to own housing or businesses... |
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| end of digest #422 20120818 | |
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