[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #91 Saturday, April 15, 2006
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Archaeologists Find 10,000 Years Of History At Lowcountry Site (South Carolina)
	Posted by blam On General/Chat 04/14/2006 2:18:09 PM PDT · 10 replies · 120+ views WCNC | 4-13-2006 | AP Archaeologists find 10,000 years of history at Lowcountry site 12:51 PM EDT on Thursday, April 13, 2006 HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. -- Archaeologists reviewing a site for a highway bridge over the Combahee River have found nearly 10,000 years of history art the location. The archaeologists are reviewing the site before work begins to build a wider bridge to take U.S. 17 across the river, which marks the boundary between Beaufort and Colleton counties. The new bridge will be named for Harriet Tubman, who in 1863 led black Union soldiers on a raid that freed 700 slaves from plantations in...
Epigraphy and Language
UK's New Official Language: 9th Century Cornish
	Posted by yankeedame On News/Activism 08/22/2002 5:49:57 AM PDT · 2 replies · 65+ views BBC On-Line | Thursday, 22 August, 2002 | Johathan Duffy Thursday, 22 August, 2002, 06:03 GMT 07:03 UK Back from the dead: UK's new languageBy Jonathan Duffy,BBC News OnlineBritain is about to get a new official language. It dates back to the 9th Century and is hundreds of years older than modern English. But there's one problem - which version to use? The English language is far and away Britannia's greatest export. It is geographically the most widespread language on Earth and 40% of Europeans claim to know English as a foreign tongue. What does Cornish sound like? Click here to find out. At home however, things are rather different....
Ancient Coins Found At Construction Site in Shaanxi (China)
	Posted by Daralundy On General/Chat 04/11/2006 12:38:40 PM PDT · 6 replies · 63+ views China View | April 11, 2006 Ancient coins found at construction site in Shaanxi XI'AN, April 11 (Xinhua) -- One ton of ancient coins dating back about 900 years were unearthed Sunday at a construction site in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. The coins were found in a brick cellar about 6-7 meters underground when an excavator was working on the site in Pucheng County. The owner of the coins remained a mystery. A witness said the cellar was full of scattered coins and others bunched with rotten leather strips. Many coins are rusty. Some coins have been confirmed to belong to Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) while...
Asia
Artifacts In Ancient Chinese City Reveal Superb Technology
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/09/2006 5:10:51 PM PDT · 13 replies · 415+ views Epoch Times | 4-1-2006 Artifacts in Ancient Chinese City Reveal Superb TechnologySuperb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at site Epoch Times Staff Apr 01, 2006 A worker looks over an excavation site. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)In Lingjiatan, Hanshan County of Anhui Province in China, archaeologists have discovered a primitive tribal site that was inhabited 5,000 years ago. Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at the site. Archaeology professor Zhang Jingguo said there are still many mysteries in the Lingjiatan ruins waiting to be solved. The Lingjiatan ruins are located in Lingjiatan Village,...
Japan
Explosive Evidence Found In A 13th-Century Shipwreck Off The Coast Of Japan (Kublia Khan)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 01/17/2003 3:32:10 PM PST · 22 replies · 567+ views The Times (UK) | 1-17-2002 | Norman Hammond January 17, 2003 Explosive evidence found in a 13th-century shipwreck off the coast of Japan By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent JAPANESE underwater archaeologists have found evidence of the great invasion fleet sent by Kublai Khan in the 13th century, which tradition says was destroyed by a kamikaze or ìdivine wind" sent by the Emperor's deified ancestors to save Japan from its enemies. Only a small proportion of the force was Mongol, the evidence shows: the majority was drawn from conquered China, and used advanced weaponry including shrapnel-filled projectile bombs. The discovery, by Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for...
Central Asia
East-West Exchanges Began 5,000 Years Ago: Experts
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/18/2002 9:32:39 AM PST · 10 replies · 181+ views Hindustan Times | 12-18-2002 East-West exchanges began 5,000 years ago: Experts Press Trust of India Beijing, December 18 Contact between the East and West probably began more than 5,000 years ago - 3,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to Chinese archaeologists. New research on relics unearthed along the famous silk road, an ancient commercial route linking China and Central Asia, has lead to the conclusion, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. Li Shuicheng, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, said many people held that east-west exchanges started after the opening of the silk road over 2,000 years ago, but recent archaeological discoveries...
Australia and the Pacific
Ancient Celtic / Scottish Viking sites in New Zealand!(?)
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/11/2006 9:19:16 AM PDT · 9 replies · 113+ views The Little Doctors & Martin DoutrÈ? | October 2003 Remains of a typical Scottish/Celtic homestead. (from 12th Century New Zealand?) A modern native NZ Scottish/Celt surveys the ruins. Drystone walls have been pushed out and over. The typical hearthstone, the rock for the family's patron saint, the rock on which the dwellings protective God would have sat, and others are all still in traditional and recogniseable positions. Other such remains abound. This site is now difficult to reach by sea and little known. The original boat access is much changed and boat access is best achieved from an adjacent bay. It is also in the vicinity of a...
Who Built The Kaimanawa Wall?
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/10/2006 2:58:26 PM PDT · 12 replies · 108+ views Science Frontiers | Sep-Oct 1996 | William R. Corliss Some 30 kilometers south of Lake Taupo, in New Zealand, stands an enigmatic array of stone blocks. It "looks" like a wall; a human-built wall. It also "looks" old; perhaps 2,000 years old according to some... B. Brailsford, of Christchurch, has been the chief investigator of the Kaimanawa wall, aided by American D.H. Childress, and others. The stones that make up the wall are 4-ton blocks of ignimbrite, a soft volcanic rock that could have been easily dressed with stone tools. The wall is topped by a red beech tree 2.9 meters in circumference and over a meter of accumulated...
India
India's children of Israel find their roots
	Posted by swarthyguy On News/Activism 07/20/2002 11:47:58 PM PDT · 54 replies · 1,245+ views Timesof India | 7.21.02 | RASHMEE Z AHMED LONDON: More than 2,000 years after they first claimed to have set foot in India, the mystery of the world's most obscure Jewish community - the Marathi-speaking Bene Israel - may finally have been solved with genetic carbon-dating revealing they carry the unusual Moses gene that would make them, literally, the original children of Israel. Four years of DNA tests on the 4,000-strong Bene Israel, now mainly based in Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Ahmedabad, indicates they are probable descendants of a small group of hereditary Israelite priests or Cohanim, according to new results exclusively made available to the Sunday Times...
Africa
Shipwreck Adventurer's Fiction Revealed As True After 270 Years
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 10/14/2002 3:54:58 PM PDT · 16 replies · 223+ views The Guardian (UK) | 10-13-2002 | Robin McKie Shipwreck adventurer's fiction revealed as true after 270 years British writer of a stirring adventure tale is unmasked as its real hero Robin McKie Sunday October 13, 2002 The Observer An eighteenth-century adventure story involving slavery on a desert island, violent death and escape became the literary sensation of its day and has been pronounced by experts since as exciting stuff but utter fiction. Now a British archaeologist has discovered the startling truth about Robert Drury and the story of his escape from Madagascar. The experts were wrong. His fantastic, graphic tale of torture, enslavement, battles between rival tribes and...
Climate
Scientists Prepare to Excavate Black Sea
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 07/22/2003 7:13:41 PM PDT · 32 replies · 680+ views AP Science | 7-21-2003 | By RICHARD C. LEWIS, Associated Press Writer NARRAGANSETT, R.I. - In 1994, archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert rode around northern Turkey in a dirty white Toyota van looking for evidence of ancient civilizations around the Black Sea. Every time he and his team would ask locals for the whereabouts of centuries-old ruins, they'd get the same response. "Everyone kept pointing us to the sea," Hiebert recalled. Hiebert knows now why they did. After some preliminary trips, the University of Pennsylvania professor and other scientists will go on a first-ever effort to excavate ancient ships and a possible human settlement left mummified in the Black Sea's oxygen-free waters. Scientists hope...
Ancient Greece
Black Sea Starts to Yield a Rich Ancient History
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/12/2006 7:36:48 PM PDT · 1 reply · 1+ view Washington Post | Monday 20 January 2003 | Guy Gugliotta The ship had a cargo hold filled with ceramic jars, some -- and perhaps all -- of them filled with salt fish. It probably left from a seaport in what is now Turkey and sailed northwest through the Black Sea to the Crimea to pick up its load. Then, for unknown reasons, it sank in 275 feet of water off the present-day Bulgarian coast, coming softly to rest on a carpet of mud. Last week, archaeologists announced they had found the long-lost vessel. Sunk sometime between 490 B.C. and 280 B.C., it is the oldest wreck ever found in the...
Ancient Rome
Treasure myth inspires Cypriots to dig into past
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/14/2006 7:04:05 AM PDT · 3 replies · 44+ views Reuters | Fri Apr 14, 2006 | Michele Kambas ...residents of Tseri village in central Cyprus have begun excavating the 1,500-year-old tunnel and stairway. Antiquities officials say the stone structure is part of an ancient irrigation network. Residents romanticise, half jokingly, that it may lead to "Aphrodite's Golden Carriage" -- a euphemism for a hidden treasure dating from Roman times, between 58 BC and AD 330... Archaeologists date the structure to AD 500, which, by default, effectively debunks the Roman-era treasure theory. "Its just a cistern," says Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities.
The Phoenicians
The Marsala Punic Warship
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/13/2006 12:31:09 PM PDT · 4 replies · 97+ views Rˆmisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum | circa 1999 | Honor Frost Punta Scario is opposite to and only twenty minutes by sail from, the Egadi Islands which gave their name to the Roman naval victory that took place on the morning of March the 10th, 241 BC and ended the First Punic War. The wreck's contents, epigraphy and Carbon 14 determinations are consistent with this period, while circumstantial evidence points to a connection with the Battle itself. The Ship's architecture and contents show that it was not a merchantman, but some kind of hastily built auxiliary warship, possibly a Liburnian. After the Battle the wind had changed direction, so that by...
Mesopotamia
Iraq Antiquities Find Sparks Controversy
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/11/2006 1:23:44 PM PDT · 16 replies · 523+ views Science Now | 4-10-2006 | Sue Biggin - Andrew Lawler Iraq Antiquities Find Sparks Controversy By Sue Biggin and Andrew Lawler ScienceNOW Daily News 10 April 2006 TRIESTE, ITALY--Italian researchers in Iraq claim to have stumbled upon an important cache of ancient clay tablets in one of the world's oldest cities. But others dispute the claim, and Iraqi authorities say the scientists have been acting illegally. No archaeologist has been given permission to do excavations since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein. But last month, Italy's National Research Council announced that it had discovered some 500 rare tablets on the surface of Eridu, a desert site in...
British Isles
Burial Find Reveals Ancient Lives
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/10/2006 3:07:19 PM PDT · 12 replies · 401+ views BBC | 4-10-2006 | Greig Watson Burial find reveals ancient lives Greig Watson BBC News, Leicester A huge amount can be learnt from skeletal remains They are dust and dry bones. Hundreds of people, generation upon generation, reduced to neatly boxed scraps and splinters. But a team from the University of Leicester archaeology unit has a rare opportunity to tell us about the lives these people led. Work on the extension to a shopping centre in Leicester city centre unearthed the largest medieval parish cemetery outside London, containing more than 1,300 skeletons. As well as the sheer scale of the site, the significance lies in its...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Director posits proof of biblical Exodus
	Posted by timsbella On News/Activism 04/14/2006 5:58:16 AM PDT · 89 replies · 1,279+ views The Globe and Mail | 14 April 2006 | Michael Posner A provocative $4-million documentary by Toronto filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici claims to have found archeological evidence verifying the story of the biblical Exodus from Egypt, 3,500 years ago. Religious Jews consider the biblical account incontrovertible ó the foundation story of the creation of the nation of Israel. Indeed, they celebrated the Exodus Wednesday night and last night with the annual Passover recitation of the Haggadah. But among scholars, the question of if and when Moses led an estimated two million Israelite slaves out of pharaonic Egypt, miraculously crossed the Red Sea ahead of the pursuing Egyptian army and received the Ten...
Arrests Won't Stop Looting Of Antiquities (op-ed)
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/13/2006 7:39:34 AM PDT · 4 replies · 45+ views Jewish Week | Thursday, April 13, 2006 | Hershel Shanks Eshel's prosecution reflects a movement within the academic community, especially in the United States, to fight looting by ignoring the loot ó forbidding it from being bought, exhibited in a museum or published. The idea is that this will stop, or at least reduce, looting, but it is universally agreed that looting is worse than ever. This approach has had absolutely no effect on looting; it has simply driven the trade in looted antiquities underground. Instead of looted antiquities from the West Bank coming into Israel, they now go through Jordan into private collections in East Asia. And the scholarly...
Ancient Europe
Researchers trawl the origins of sea fishing in Northern Europe
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/13/2006 7:34:45 AM PDT · 11 replies · 63+ views Innovations Report | April 13 2006 | James Barrett et al Dr James Barrett, of the University of York's Department of Archaeology, who is co-ordinating the project, has pinpointed the century between 950AD and 1050AD as the critical period when this fisheries revolution took place. By studying fish bones from archaeological sites such as York, Gent in Belgium, Ribe in Denmark, Schleswig in Germany and Gdansk in Poland, the researchers hope to establish what long-term impact this rapid switch to intensive sea fisheries had on medieval trading patterns... Dried cod was traded from the Arctic in the Middle Ages and, around 1000AD, trade routes opened up across the Viking world to...
Neanderthals Were Not Stupid, Just A Bit Anti-Social
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/10/2006 2:45:19 PM PDT · 66 replies · 1,068+ views Scotsman | 4-10-2006 | Ian Johnson Neanderthals were not stupid, just a bit anti-social IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT "CRUDE, boorish and slow- witted" - even dictionaries give Neanderthals a hard time. But our prehistoric cousins were in reality just as smart as we are and did not die out as a result of a lack of brain power, according to a new archaeological study. Until now, the leading theory of why the Neanderthals disappeared has been that a lack of intelligence meant they were less efficient hunters. But a team of US archaeologists believe they met their evolutionary end because of a failure to maintain social...
Prehistory and Origins
Unearthing The Lost Peking Man
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/09/2006 5:22:11 PM PDT · 12 replies · 366+ views The Standard | 4-10-2006 Unearthing the lost Peking Man After years of searching, a new initiative aims to trace these historic missing fossils, says Ching-Ching Ni Monday, April 10, 2006 After years of searching, a new initiative aims to trace these historic missing fossils, says Ching-Ching Ni It's a mystery that has baffled the world for more than half a century. Whatever happened to the fossils of the prehistoric human ancestor known as Peking Man? Their discovery in the late 1920s and 1930s in limestone caves on the outskirts of Beijing, then called Peking in the West, was one of the 20th century's greatest...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
The Stone Pages are BACK!
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/11/2006 11:32:17 AM PDT · 18 replies · 219+ views Stone Pages | Last updated: 3 April 2006 | Paola Arosio & Diego Meozzi Over the last 14 years we have personally visited and photographed all 529 archÊological sites you will find in these pages (117 in the six national sections and 412 in our Tours section), creating the first Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites, online since February 1996
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Leaking Earth could run dry
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/12/2006 10:01:52 AM PDT · 80 replies · 533+ views BBC | Wednesday, September 8, 1999 Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology have calculated that about 1.12 billion tonnes of water leaks into the Earth each year. Although a lot of water also moves in the other direction, not enough comes to the surface to balance what is lost. Eventually, lead researcher Shigenori Maruyama and his colleagues believe, all of it will disappear... His figures, which he describes as conservative, suggest the leakage has caused sea levels to drop by around 600 metres in the last 750 million years. This trend has been largely obscured in the geological record by shorter-term variations in sea levels.
Medieval Wilding
A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the World
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 02/13/2003 1:47:34 PM PST · 16 replies · 418+ views NY Times | February 11, 2003 | By NICHOLAS WADE February 11, 2003 A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the WorldBy NICHOLAS WADE remarkable living legacy of the Mongol empire has been discovered by geneticists in a survey of human populations from the Caucasus to China. They find that as many as 8 percent of the men dwelling in the confines of the former Mongol empire bear Y chromosomes that seem characteristic of the Mongol ruling house. If so, some 16 million men, or half a percent of the world's male population, can probably claim descent from Genghis Khan. The finding seems to be the first proof, on...
Genghis Khan: Father To Millions
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 06/22/2004 9:49:06 AM PDT · 146 replies · 1,664+ views Discovery News | 6-22-2004 | Rossella Lorenzi Genghis Khan: Father to Millions? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Newshttp://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs Statue of the Mongol Emperor June 22, 2004 óGenghis Khan left a legacy shared by 16 million people alive today, according to a book by a Oxford geneticist who identified the Mongol emperor as the most successful alpha male in human history. Regarded by the Mongolians as the father of their nation, Genghis Khan was born around 1162. A military and political genius, he united the tribes of Mongolia and conquered half of the known world with a cavalry riding on grass-fed ponies. By the time Genghis died in 1227,...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Seeking Ancestry in DNA Ties Uncovered by Tests
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 04/12/2006 3:07:14 AM PDT · 37 replies · 777+ views NY Times | April 12, 2006 | AMY HARMON Alan Moldawer's adopted twins, Matt and Andrew, had always thought of themselves as white. But when it came time for them to apply to college last year, Mr. Moldawer thought it might be worth investigating the origins of their slightly tan-tinted skin, with a new DNA kit that he had heard could determine an individual's genetic ancestry. The results, designating the boys 9 percent Native American and 11 percent northern African, arrived too late for the admissions process. But Mr. Moldawer, a business executive in Silver Spring, Md., says they could be useful in obtaining financial aid. "Naturally when you're...
Ancient Egypt
Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt
	Posted by jmc1969 On News/Activism 04/03/2006 4:05:26 PM PDT · 77 replies · 1,581+ views AFP | April 3 2006 A fatwa issued by Egypt's top religious authority, which forbids the display of statues has art-lovers fearing it, could be used by Islamic extremists as an excuse to destroy Egypt's historical heritage. Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country's top Islamic jurist, issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet). Many fear the edict could prod Islamic fundamentalists to attack Egypt's thousands of ancient and pharaonic statues on show at tourist sites across the country. "We don't rule out that someone will...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Digging Starts On 'Europe's First Pyramids' In Bosnia
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/14/2006 2:00:42 PM PDT · 15 replies · 204+ views Metimes | 4-14-2006 Digging starts on 'Europe's first pyramids' in Bosnia April 14, 2006 VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Excavation work started on Friday on what a Bosnian explorer claims to be Europe's first pyramids in an area north of Sarajevo. A team of experts started digging at the site of a 3.8-kilometer (2.3-mile) tunnel believed to lead to one of the two structures resembling pyramids, about 30 kilometers from the Bosnian capital. As residents of the nearby town of Visoko eagerly watched, digging also began on one of ten 20-by-50 meter (65-by-165 foot) wells on the lower slopes of a hill. Last year explorer...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
A fascinating new look at America before Columbus
	Posted by Between the Lines On News/Activism 08/17/2005 11:43:12 AM PDT · 137 replies · 2,761+ views The Charlotte Observer | Aug. 14, 2005 | CHARLES MATTHEWS 1491: New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus By Charles C. Mann. Knopf. 480 pages. $30. Charles C. Mann's engagingly written, utterly absorbing "1491" tells us what scientists have recently learned about the American civilizations that vanished with the arrival of Columbus. Most of what we were taught about them may be wrong. For example, I thought of North America before Columbus as sparsely settled by people who had little impact on their environment: a place with great herds of buffalo like the ones that rumble through movies like "Dances With Wolves," where migrating flocks of passenger pigeons darkened the...
The Myth of the Passive Indian - Was America before Columbus just a ìcontinent of patsies"?
	Posted by neverdem On News/Activism 04/13/2006 1:27:46 PM PDT · 67 replies · 1,625+ views Reason | April 2006 | Amy H. Sturgis 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 465 pages, $30 In 1950 the anthropologist Allan R. Holmberg published his classic text Nomads of the Longbow, a study of the Bolivian natives known as the SirionÛ. Holmberg had lived with the Indians and studied their habits for two years. His assessment, which generations of scholars took as gospel and applied to other indigenous groups, was that the SirionÛ were an unimpressive people who had existed for thousands of years without innovation or progress. He claimed the SirionÛ had no real history...
Terms Of Enstrangement (Anthropology)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/08/2006 11:39:32 AM PDT · 27 replies · 458+ views Discover Magazine | 11-1994 | James Shreeve Terms of Estrangement Race is small but volatile word. It lacks a clear definition or scientific purpose. Yet it persists. Not only in the lingo of the streets but in the language of the laboratory. By James Shreeve DISCOVER Vol. 15 No. 11 | November 1994 | Anthropology In 1984, Norm Sauer, a forensic anthropologist at Michigan State University, received a call from the state police. Somebody had found a body in the woods. The decomposed corpse displayed the typical mute profile of an unknown homicide victim: no clothing, no personal possessions at the scene, not even enough soft tissue...
Iraq Accuses U.S. of Damaging Ancient City
	Posted by SUSSA On News/Activism 03/30/2006 10:51:36 PM PST · 15 replies · 446+ views LAS VEGAS SUN | 3/30/06 | AP BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - American forces are damaging the ancient city of Kish and must withdraw from the 5,000-year-old archaeological site, an Iraqi ministry said Thursday. The Ministry of State for Tourism and Antiquities Affairs said U.S. forces had set up a camp in Kish, near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. In a statement, the ministry said the U.S. military was preventing anyone from entering this important archaeological site to assess the damage, which was not specified. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
end of digest #91 20060415

[SunkenCiv]

Quite a bit of nautical / undersea archaeology stuff this week, also a bunch of Blasts from the Past, including a few which have been in past digests (probably) but had a little keyword failure at some point. An hour or so early, because I wish to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Filed my tax forms today, finally.

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #91 20060415

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #92 Saturday, April 22, 2006
Oh So Mysteriouso
Indiana Jones of the Balkans and the mystery of a hidden pyramid
	Posted by MadIvan On News/Activism 04/15/2006 5:35:41 AM EDT · 17 replies · 721+ views The Times | April 15, 2006 | Nick Hawton DRIVE 20 miles northwest of Sarajevo through the mountains of central Bosnia and you enter the broad Visoko valley, dissected by the meandering Bosna River. Beyond the river sits the town of Visoko, watched over by its minarets. And beyond Visoko rises an extraordinary triangular hill, 700ft (213m) high and looking for all the world like an ancient pyramid.Some say that is precisely what it is ó a huge pyramid built perhaps 12,000 years ago by an unknown civilisation. And yesterday they set out to prove it. In the spring sunshine, watched by crowds of locals, journalists and the contestants...
Experts Find Evidence of Bosnia Pyramid
	Posted by Flavius On News/Activism 04/20/2006 12:14:14 AM EDT · 17 replies · 451+ views Yahoo News & AP | April 19, 2006 | AMEL EMRIC VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Researchers in Bosnia on Wednesday unearthed the first solid evidence that an ancient pyramid lies hidden beneath a massive hill ó a series of geometrically cut stone slabs that could form part of the structure's sloping surface. ADVERTISEMENT click here Archaeologists and other experts began digging into the sides of the mysterious hill near the central Bosnian town of Visoko last week. On Wednesday, the digging revealed large stone blocks on one side that the leader of the team believes are the outer layer of the pyramid. "These are the first uncovered walls of the pyramid," said...
Researchers Find Possible Evidence of Bosnian Pyramid(europe has a pyramid)
	Posted by Halfmanhalfamazing On News/Activism 04/20/2006 10:21:24 PM EDT · 12 replies · 347+ views Fox Researchers on Wednesday unearthed geometrically cut stone slabs that they said could form part of the sloping surface of what they believe is an ancient pyramid lying beneath a huge hill.
Ancient Greece
Bringing the secrets of Antigoneia to light
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/15/2006 10:14:22 PM EDT · 4 replies · 97+ views Kathimerini | Iota Sykka A team of Greek and Albanian archaeologists are cooperating on a three-year excavation project in Epirus, northwestern Greece... Joint research is being carried out at ancient Antigoneia under the supervision of the institute, headed by Muzafer Korkuti, and the 12th Ephorate, headed by Constantinos Zachos... Albanian archaeologist Dhimosten Budina identified the city on a 35-hectare site at roughly 600 meters altitude, with walls 4 kilometers long. The identification was made on the basis of bronze ballots bearing the inscription "ANTIGONEON" on a Hellenistic-era house... Zachos said the impressive tomb, which contained fragments of jars, a glass vase, loom weights, a...
Ancient Rome
Ancient Roman holiday villa found
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/15/2006 10:16:33 PM EDT · 6 replies · 87+ views ANSA | April 14 2006 The remains of the luxury residence turned up recently in Torvaianica, a coastal resort south of Rome... Historians knew from written sources that the villa of Titus Flavius Claudanius and Titus Flavius Sallustius was somewhere in the area but the precise location had long been forgotten... It covers about a hectare and includes a large area given over to relaxation, including a gymnasium, hot and cold baths and various swimming pools.
Ancient Egypt
Nile releases city's deep history [ Rhakotis and Alexandria ]
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/21/2006 11:50:42 AM EDT · 13 replies · 81+ views New Scientist | 22 April 2006 | unattributed Alexander wasn't quite so great after all. Sure, he conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks, but he didn't found the Egyptian city of Alexandria - he just rebranded it. It now seems that this part of the Nile has been settled for at least 4500 years, pre-dating Alexander's arrival by a good two millennia. Alain VÈron from the Paul CÈzanne University in Aix-en-Provence, France, and colleagues made the discovery by measuring the variations in lead concentration in a mud core from Alexandria's ancient harbour. They determined how lead levels had changed over time by carbon-dating seashells...
Africa
Slow death of Africa's Lake Chad
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/16/2006 5:29:22 PM EDT · 16 replies · 272+ views BBC News | Friday, 14 April 2006 | Andrew Bomford Lake Chad, which once straddled the borders of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, has shrunk by an estimated 95% since the mid 1960s, due to the growth of agriculture and declining rainfall. Image: Unep
Out Of Africa
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 10/08/2001 7:51:53 PM EDT · 3 replies · 444+ views Science News Magazine | 9-29-2001 | Sid Perkins Out Of AfricaDust, the Thermostat How tiny airborne particles manipulate global climate Sid Perkins On April 15, 1998, Mongolia's Gobi Desert lay between an area of low atmospheric pressure on the eastern end of the country and a zone of high pressure to the west. As swift winds rushed across the desert floor, they lofted sand and dust into the heart of a storm system racing southward into China. During the next 2 days, a yellow, muddy, acidic rain fell in a wide swath that covered Beijing and the Korean peninsula. On April 16, 1998, a strong storm system passing ...
Climate
Ice Disappearing from Kilimanjaro? Let me guess. It's the all the pollution. NOT
	Posted by Yzerman On News/Activism 10/18/2002 5:29:24 PM EDT · 11 replies · 199+ views MSNBC ASSOCIATED PRESS | Oct. 17th, 2002 | ASSOCIATED PRESS Snows of Kilimanjaro gone by 2020? Researchers trace past and future of famed African ice fields The picture on the left shows Mount Kilimanjaro as seen from the space shuttle in November 1990. The picture on the right was taken by a shuttle crew in December 2000. The pictures show the retreat of glaciers over the course of a decade. ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 ó The snow cap of Mount Kilimanjaro, famed in literature and beloved by tourists, first formed some 11,000 years ago but will be gone in two decades, according to researchers who say the ice fields...
Global Warming: Medieval Era Hotter than Today
	Posted by Francohio On News/Activism 04/06/2003 2:04:51 PM EDT · 62 replies · 947+ views The London Telegraph | 06/04/2003) | Robert Matthews Middle Ages were warmer than today, say scientistsBy Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent (Filed: 06/04/2003) Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages. From the outset of the global warming debate in the late 1980s, environmentalists have said that temperatures are rising higher and faster than ever before, leading some scientists to conclude that greenhouse gases from cars and power stations are causing these "record-breaking" global temperatures. Last year, scientists working for the UK Climate Impacts Programme said that global temperatures were...
Scientists blame sun for global warming (February 13, 1998)
	Posted by george76 On General/Chat 04/07/2006 3:09:17 PM EDT · 120 replies · 2,263+ views BBC News | Climatologists and astronomers Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth. Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow. The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem. Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak...
Asia
Beheaded Skeletons Replay War History (China - 221BC)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/19/2006 5:51:20 PM EDT · 6 replies · 233+ views People's Daily | 4-19-2006 Beheaded skeletons replay war history Chinese archaeologists have unearthed some 30 beheaded skeletons dating back more than 2,000 years in central China's Henan Province, a cradle of the Chinese civilization. The skeletons were obviously warriors, the tallest of whom was at least 1.85 meters, said Sun Xinmin, head of the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archeology. The human remains were found scattered in a pit in the city of Xinzheng, adjacent to a major battlefield where State Qin overthrew State Han toward the end of the Warring States Period (475 to 221 BC), said Sun. He and his...
Let's Have Jerusalem
The Jesus Dynasty
	Posted by Swordmaker On Religion 04/08/2006 3:42:35 AM EDT · 20 replies · 341+ views ABC News Home | 4/7/2006 | Excerpt from JAmes D. Tabor book The Jesus Dynasty Excerpt: 'The Jesus Dynasty' by James D. Tabor New Book Challenges Christian Philosophy April 7, 2006 -- James Tabor is the chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His book challenges many of the beliefs that Christians hold dear, maintaining that Jesus is neither the son of God nor the son of Joseph but most likely the child of a Roman soldier named Pantera. Jesus, Tabor maintains, became the head of the household when Joseph died and looked after his six half-brothers and sisters. When Jesus died, his brother James took over...
Kabbalist Blesses Jones to Uncover Holy Lost Ark
	Posted by STD On Religion 05/19/2005 12:59:26 AM EDT · 32 replies · 653+ views Israel Newswire | May 18, '05 | Jones Exclusive: Kabbalist Blesses Jones to Uncover Holy Lost Ark 23:39 May 18, '05 / 9 Iyar 5765 An unnamed Kabbalist has granted blessing to famed archeologist Dr. Vendyl Jones, to uncover the Holy Ark of the Covenant. Jones plans to excavate the Lost Ark by the Tisha BíAv Fast this summer.
Epigraphy and Language
The incomparable, illum. 8th century, celtic Lindisfarne Gospels (eye-popping pics.)
	Posted by yankeedame On Religion 01/14/2006 12:02:04 PM EST · 33 replies · 571+ views "Throught their long history as a brotherhood -- even while they were casting about for a permanent -- the monks (of Saint Cuthbert,Northumberland) continued a Celtric tradition of making exquidite manuscriptes, including amonth their triumphs one masterpiece that is esteemed the most precious book in the United Kingdom. Produced on Holy Island (a sandy spit of land off the Northumberland coast)in the seventh century by illustrators and calligraphers as a tribute Cuthbert, the incomparable folio known as the Lindisfarne Gospels lay open on the altar of the saint's tomb for six humdred years...." "Patience & Fortitude" by Nicholas Basbanes,2001. Gospel...
Ancient Europe
Shetland's past comes to life amid the ruins
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 04/18/2006 1:29:09 AM EDT · 9 replies · 83+ views The Scotsman | Tuesday, 18th April 2006 | Caroline Wickham-Jones The people of Jarlshof threw garbage into dumps from before 2500 BC but, although their waste was unwanted, their refuse has been anything but rubbish for archaeologists investigating their lives. We know that the Stone Age settlers lived in small circular stone houses, that they tilled crops, kept cattle and sheep, and harvested the sea for fish and whales, seals and shellfish. They also made tools - some finely decorated - from stone, pottery and bone... In the 19th century the site was visited by Sir Walter Scott who christened the ruined hall "Jarlshof", and the name has stuck since....
Ancient Agriculture
Early Farmers Took Time To Tame Wheat
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/20/2006 4:33:04 PM EDT · 9 replies · 306+ views Science News | 4-20-2006 | Bruce Bower Week of April 15, 2006; Vol. 169, No. 15 , p. 237 Early farmers took time to tame wheat Bruce Bower Domesticated varieties of wheat emerged gradually in the prehistoric Near East over a roughly 3,000-year span, a new investigation suggests. CULTIVATED FINDS. Microscopic analysis of wheat grains such as these from a 6,500-year-old Syrian site revealed clues to plant domestication in prehistoric times. Willcox/CNRS Ken-ichi Tanno of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan, and George Willcox of the National Center for Scientific Research in Berrias, France, examined 804 wheat-ear remnants recovered at four ancient villages...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Japanese Researchers Find New Giant Picture On Peru's Nazca Plateau
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/20/2006 6:07:33 PM EDT · 33 replies · 1,439+ views Mainichi | 4-20-2006 Japanese researchers find new giant picture on Peru's Nazca Plateau The new Nazca Plateau image discovered by the research team from Yamagata University. (Photo courtesy of Yamagata University)A new giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for giant patterns that can be seen from the air, has been discovered by a team of Japanese researchers. The image is 65 meters long, and appears to be an animal with horns. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Tale Of (King) Arthur Points To Comet Catastrophe
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/21/2006 7:39:40 PM EDT · 58 replies · 966+ views The Times | 9-9-2000 | Nick Nuttall TALE OF ARTHUR POINTS TO COMET CATASTROPHE From The Times, 9 September 2000 http://www.the-times.co.uk BY NICK NUTTALL Arthur: myth links him to fire from the sky THE story of the death of King Arthur and its references to a wasteland may have been inspired by the apocalyptic effects of a giant comet bombarding the Earth in AD540, leading to the Dark Ages, a British scientist said yesterday. The impacts filled the atmosphere with dust and debris; a long winter began. Crops failed, and there was famine, Dr Mike Baillie of Queen's University, Belfast, told the British Association for the Advancement...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Dig Finds Long-Term Use At Hell's Half Acre (6,000BC)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/17/2006 5:45:58 PM EDT · 12 replies · 547+ views Billings Gazette | 4-17-2006 | AP Dig finds long-term use at Hell's Half AcreSite was home to Indians at least 1,200 years ago By The Associated Press CASPER, Wyo. -- A preliminary report on an archaeological dig says Hell's Half Acre, west of Casper, was home to prehistoric American Indians at least 1,200 years ago, and perhaps as long as 8,000 years ago. John Albanese, chairman of the Natrona County Historic Preservation Society, told Natrona County commissioners on Thursday that archaeological evidence shows Indians were hunting bison at Hell's Half Acre between 1,200 and 3,000 years ago, and that some evidence appeared to be much older....
Mammoth meals helped early tribes thrive
	Posted by george76 On News/Activism 04/17/2006 10:13:44 PM EDT · 46 replies · 731+ views The Times | April 18, 2006 | Mark Henderson REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study. Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game. In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago. Further south, where the terrain...
Sabre-tooths and Hominids
	Posted by Sabertooth On News/Activism 11/22/2002 5:18:45 PM EST · 44 replies · 2,578+ views Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana | Alfonso Arribas & Paul Palmqvist On the Ecological Connection Between Sabre-tooths and Hominids: Faunal Dispersal Events in the Lower Pleistocene and a Review of the Evidence for the First Human Arrival in Europe †Alfonso ArribasMuseo Geominero, Instituto TecnolÛgico Geominero de EspaÒa. RÌos Rosas, 23. 28003 Madrid, Spain.Paul PalmqvistDepartamento de GeologÌa y EcologÌa (¡rea de PaleontologÌa), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de M·laga. 29071 M·laga, Spain. A reconstruction of a community of the large mammals of the Grecian Pleistocene .African Species in the Lower Pleistocene of Europe ÖThe sabre-tooth genus Megantereon shares much in common with Smilodon, and both genera form the tribe Smilodontini. The earliest...
Prehistory and Origins
Impossibly Old America?
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/18/2006 3:24:02 PM EDT · 48 replies · 1,372+ views Archaeology Magazine | 4-18-2006 | Mike Toner Impossibly Old America? Volume 59 Number 3, May/June 2006 by Mike Toner New sites and controversial theories fuel the debate over the origins of America's first people. Archaeologist Al Goodyear believes people were at South Carolina's Topper site 50,000 years ago. (Mike Toner) Al Goodyear's renowned barbecued pig is roasting on the grill a mile away, but the 200 professional and amateur archaeologists peering into the steep-walled pit where he's standing have other things on their minds. Goodyear, director of the University of South Carolina's Allendale Paleoindian Expedition, is explaining why he thinks people were here--on the banks of the...
'Oldest Sculpture' Found In Morocco (400K Years Old)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 05/23/2003 8:52:37 AM EDT · 114 replies · 655+ views BBC | 5-23-2003 | Paul Rincon 'Oldest sculpture' found in Morocco By Paul Rincon BBC Science A 400,000-year-old stone object unearthed in Morocco could be the world's oldest attempt at sculpture. The figurine was found 15 metres below ground That is the claim of a prehistoric art specialist who says the ancient rock bears clear signs of modification by humans. The object, which is around six centimetres in length, is shaped like a human figure, with grooves that suggest a neck, arms and legs. On its surface are flakes of a red substance that could be remnants of paint. The object was found 15 metres below...
Multiregionalism / Replacement
Java Man's First Tools
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/21/2006 2:14:50 PM EDT · 74 replies · 849+ views Science Magazine | 3-26-2006 | Richard Stone Java Man's First Tools Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early "Java Man" has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found--until now. At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found...
African cousins behind extinction of Indians 70,000 years ago!
	Posted by CarrotAndStick On News/Activism 11/06/2005 4:00:32 AM EST · 45 replies · 881+ views New Kerala.com & ANI | 05 Nov 2005 Washington : Scientists have said that that the arrival of modern humans from Africa to South Asia some 70,000 years ago may have led to the extermination of the native populations. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have said that the arrival of Homo sapiens in regions like India and other parts of South Asia had most probably led to conflicts and competition between the Homo sapiens and the indigenous hominids (Homo heidelbergensis), leading to the latterís extinction over the years. ìWhile the precise explanations for the demise of the archaic populations is not yet obvious, it is abundantly clear...
New evidence we all have the same ancestors Cal student's discovery should resolve dispute
	Posted by Phil V. On News/Activism 03/22/2002 5:24:28 AM EST · 35 replies · 795+ views San Francisco Chronicle | Thursday, March 21, 2002 | David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor <p>Fossil hunters say they have found the strongest evidence yet that mankind's direct ancestors were members of a single unique species of skilled tool-using creatures who thrived a million years ago across much of the world from China and Java to Africa and Europe.</p>
Theory on origins of man gets genetic overhaul
	Posted by johnandrhonda On News/Activism 03/07/2002 6:27:07 AM EST · 35 replies · 436+ views USA Today newspaper | March 7, 2002 | Dan Vergano Theory on origin of man gets genetic overhaul By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY Modern man evolved from a mixture of ancient African immigrants and primitive humans elsewhere, suggests a genetic analysis released today that raises new questions about long-held theories of human origins. For decades, archaeologists, paleontologists and genetics experts have argued about the evolution of modern man. While the various disciplines had remained divided, the weight of genetic studies had recently favored the "Out of Africa" theory. It says modern-looking humans originated in Africa and spread worldwide about 100,000 years ago, slowly replacing Neanderthals and other evolutionary dead-end humans ...
New Out-Of-Africa Theory Unveiled
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 02/27/2002 7:56:58 PM EST · 95 replies · 617+ views Discovery News | 2-25-2002 | Larry O'Hanlon New Out-of-Africa Theory Unveiled By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News Leaving the Mother Country Feb. 25 ó The human family just got even smaller. Everyone outside of Africa ó Asians, Europeans, Native Americans, Southeast Asians, Australian Aborigines, etc. ó came from the same small band of humans that left the mother continent some 80,000 years ago by way of Ethiopia, according to a new theory unveiled Monday by geneticists and DNA detectives. "No, we haven't found the bones of the original Eve," said DNA tracker Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University in a press teleconference. Instead, researchers have followed the trail of ...
Ancient Navigation
When In Vietnam, Build Boats As The Romans Do
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/21/2006 2:03:33 PM EDT · 25 replies · 787+ views Science Magazine | 3-26-2006 | Richard Stone When in Vietnam, Build Boats as the Romans Do Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA In December 2004, researchers drained a canal in northern Vietnam in search of ancient textiles from graves. They found that and a whole lot more. Protruding from the canal bank at Dong Xa was a 2000-year-old log boat that had been used as a coffin. After a closer look at the woodwork, archaeologists Peter Bellwood and Judith Cameron of Australia National University in Canberra and their colleagues were astounded to find that the method for fitting planks to hull matched that...
Erectus Ahoy (Stone Age Voyages)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 10/22/2003 3:28:49 PM EDT · 29 replies · 311+ views Science News | 10-22-2003 | Bruce Bower Erectus AhoyPrehistoric seafaring floats into view Bruce Bower As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open sea. Their destination: the Stone Age, by way of a roughly 18-mile crossing to the neighboring island of Lombok. Project director Robert G. Bednarik, one of the assembled paddlers, knew that a challenging trip lay ahead, even discounting any time travel. Local fishing crews had told him...
Graves Of The Pacific's First Seafarers Revealed
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/21/2006 2:26:39 PM EDT · 6 replies · 283+ views Science Magazine | 3-26-2006 | Richard Stone Graves of the Pacific's First Seafarers Revealed Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA Little is known about the Lapita peoples, the first settlers of the Western Pacific, other than their ubiquitous calling card: red pottery fragments with intricate designs. But in what's being hailed as one of the most dramatic finds in years, researchers at the meeting offered a glimpse of the first-known early Lapita cemetery. "This is the closest we're going to get to the first Polynesians," says archaeologist Matthew Spriggs of Australia National University (ANU) in Canberra, a member of the excavation team. Face...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
First Knights Templar Discovered
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 04/17/2006 5:34:31 PM EDT · 122 replies · 3,407+ views Daily Telegraph (UK) | 4-10-2006 First Knights Templar are discovered April 10, 2006 LONDON: The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel. British historian Tom Asbridge yesterday hailed the find as the first provable example of actual Knights Templar. The remains were found beneath the ruined walls of Jacob's Ford, an overthrown castle dating back to the Crusades, which had been lost for centuries. They can be dated to the exact day -- August 29, 1179 -- that they were killed by...
British Isles
A moving picture postcard
	Posted by kiriath_jearim On General/Chat 04/18/2006 1:27:56 PM EDT · 3 replies · 40+ views BBC | 4/18/06 | Simon Ford A moving picture postcard By Simon Ford Executive producer, The Lost World of Friese-Greene In 1926, pioneering film-maker Claude Friese-Greene travelled from Land's End to John O'Groats. His unique film - one of the first in colour - reveals not only how life has changed, but what remains unaltered. Britain between the world wars enjoyed a golden age, yet it is a period typically captured in monochrome. But a recently restored film from the British Film Institute's vaults puts the colour back into this bygone age. The Open Road was made by Claude Friese-Greene in 1926 to showcase his new...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Profile: Victor Davis Hanson. USA needs a dose of ancient Greece's warrior culture
	Posted by TheWillardHotel On News/Activism 05/26/2003 10:31:17 AM EDT · 134 replies · 951+ views The Boston Globe | 5/25/2003 | Laura Secor <p>VICTOR DAVIS HANSON leads a double life. A fifth-generation raisin farmer in California's fertile Central Valley, Hanson is also a historian of ancient Greece, a lyrical defender of American agrarianism, and a prolific contributor to conservative opinion magazines. His columns so caught the fancy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that he has enjoyed audiences with both. It's hard to say which is stranger: that a raisin farmer should exert such influence, or that a classics scholar should.</p>
end of digest #92 20060422