Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #170
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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Prehistory and Origins
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Fragments of another skull unearthed at the Atapuerca site
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 10/16/2007 10:49:05 AM EDT · 13 replies
Typically Spanish | July 24, 2007 | m.p
Juan Luis Arsuaga, co-director of the excavations, announced on Tuesday that the discovery was made in the 'Sima de los Huesos, - 'The Pit of the Bones' and that the skull is that of a hominid female, probably in her teens. It's the sixteenth such find at the site, and is believed to be more than 500,000 years old. Another of the three Atapuerca co-directors, Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, has meanwhile said that a study of two fossilised human teeth also discovered at the dig will likely be published in an international scientific journal early next year. One of...
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Neandertal / Neanderthal
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Inconsistencies With Neanderthal Genomic DNA Sequences
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/15/2007 1:45:59 PM EDT · 37 replies
Science Daily | 10-14-2007 | Public Library of Science
Source: Public Library of Science Date: October 14, 2007 Inconsistencies With Neanderthal Genomic DNA Sequences Science Daily -- Were Neanderthals direct ancestors of contemporary humans or an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out? This is one of the enduring questions in human evolution as scientists explore the relationship of fossil groups, such as Neanderthals, with people alive today. Two recent papers describing the sequencing of Neanderthal nuclear DNA from fossil bone held promise for finally answering this question [1, 2]. However, the two studies came to very different conclusions regarding the ancestral role of Neanderthals. Jeffrey D. Wall and...
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Africa
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Early humans may have used makeup, seafood
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Posted by Pharmboy
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 2:22:47 PM EDT · 36 replies
AP Science via Yahoo! | 10-17-07 | SETH BORENSTEIN
In one of the earliest hints of "modern" living, humans 164,000 years ago put on primitive makeup and hit the seashore for steaming mussels, new archaeological finds show. Call it a beach party for early man. But it's a beach party thrown by people who weren't supposed to be advanced enough for this type of behavior. What was found in a cave in South Africa may change how scientists believe Homo sapiens marched into modernity. Instead of undergoing a revolution into modern living about 40,000 to 70,000 years ago, as commonly thought, man may have become modern in stuttering fits...
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ASU team detects earliest modern humans
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Posted by Boxen
On News/Activism 10/18/2007 11:17:11 AM EDT · 6 replies
ASU News | October 17, 2007 | Jodi Guyot, Carol Hughes
Evidence of early humans living on the coast in South Africa 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented, is being reported in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature. The international team of researchers reporting the findings include Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and three graduate students in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. "Our findings show that at 164,000 years ago in coastal South Africa humans expanded their diet to include shellfish and other marine resources, perhaps as a response to harsh environmental conditions," notes Marean,...
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Biology and Cryptobiology
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First Chimpanzee Fossils Cause Problems for Evolution
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Posted by truthfinder9
On News/Activism 02/15/2006 2:47:51 PM EST · 148 replies · 3,639+ views
reasons.org
First Chimpanzee Fossils Cause Problems for Evolution by Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.Where were you on September 1, 2005? Perhaps you missed the announcement of a scientific breakthrough: the influential journal Nature published the completed sequence of the chimpanzee genome.1This remarkable achievement received abundant publicity because it paved the way for biologists to conduct detailed genetic comparisons between humans and chimpanzees.2Unfortunately, the fanfare surrounding the chimpanzee genome overshadowed a more significant discovery. In the same issue, Nature published a report describing the first-ever chimpanzee fossils. This long-awaited scientific advance barely received notice because of the fascination with the chimpanzee genome....
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PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
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Ancient Mexican City Raises Questions About Mesoamerica's Mother Culture
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/14/2007 12:20:42 PM EDT · 43 replies
My San Antonio | Tracy L. Barnett
Ancient Mexican city raises questions about Mesoamerica's Mother Culture Web Posted: 10/11/2007 05:17 PM CDT Tracy L. Barnett Express-News Travel Editor TAMUIN, Mexico -- Deep in the Huastec jungle the enormous carved stone monolith stands, suspended over the pool of water where a team of archaeologists discovered it. A powerful woman stands at the center of the carving, flanked by two smaller decapitated women. A stream of liquid flows from the headless women toward the woman in the center. Altug S. Icilensu/Special to the Express-NewsThe leader salutes the musicians before beginning the Malinche, a traditional Huastec dance. The women on...
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NAGPRA
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Native American Skull Found At Malibu Construction Site
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 5:24:12 PM EDT · 40 replies
Malibu Surfside News | 10-17-2007 | Anne Soble
Native American Skull Found at Malibu Construction Site -- State Native American Heritage Commission Initiates Process for Handling Find -- BY ANNE SOBLE A human skull unearthed at a construction site in the Paradise Cove mobile home park has been officially declared a prehistoric Native American find, and the wheels have been put in motion for the remains to be handled in accord with state law. Workers preparing the foundation for a new mobile home in the beachside complex discovered the skull during routine digging Monday at about 4 p.m. and contacted the sheriff's department. Capt. Ed Winter of the Operations...
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Ancient Europe
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Czech Archaeologists Find 7,000 Year-Old Unique Statue
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/19/2007 12:15:37 AM EDT · 17 replies
Xinhuanet | 10-19-2007 | China View
Czech archaeologists find 7,000 year-old unique statue www.chinaview.cn 2007-10-19 01:26:14 PRAGUE, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Czech Archaeologists have uncovered a part of a half-meter high statue of a woman nearly 7,000 years old in the country, which was called "a find of the century," the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) reported on Thursday. Experts from Brno's Masaryk University confirmed the unique character of the statue uncovered in Masovice, South Moravia area of the Czech republic, the paper said. The hollow legs and haunch of the female statue, made of ceramic, originate in 4,800 - 4,700 B.C., MfD wrote. Nothing similar...
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Asia
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Dynasty of Nomads: Rediscovering the forgotten Liao Empire
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 10/19/2007 9:27:43 AM EDT · 3 replies
Archaeology | November/December 2007 | Jake Hooker
The Liao Empire was once considered a minor state on the fringes of Chinese civilization. Chinese-language sources depicted the Khitan as barbarians; Western scholars, who hadn't seen much material evidence other than Liao pagodas, regarded the dynasty as esoteric. But discoveries in Inner Mongolia over the past three decades have prompted scholars to reconsider these views, and Liao society is now recognized as a sophisticated blend of Khitan and Chinese traditions... Scholars agree Liao rulers adapted Chinese customs and traditions over time. They governed the sedentary Chinese population with a civil bureaucracy modeled on the earlier Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907):...
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Greece
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Greece hoists Parthenon sculptures to new home
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Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 10/15/2007 7:34:55 PM EDT · 8 replies
Reuters | 10/14/07 | Renee Maltezou
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece on Sunday began moving the ancient sculptures from the temples of the Athens Acropolis to a new museum, designed specifically to prod the British Museum into returning its own prized collection of Parthenon marbles. Dozens of bystanders, some in tears, watched as three cranes relayed a massive stone slab from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon. It was carved with four youths leading bulls to sacrifice to the goddess Athena. "I am trembling, it touches my soul," said pensioner Pelagia Boulamatsi, 71, unable to hold back tears. "This is an ancient civilization that is the foundation of the world."...
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Let's Have Jerusalem
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Archaeology and the Propaganda War Against Israel
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Posted by Renfield
On News/Activism 10/15/2007 7:39:40 AM EDT · 13 replies
History News Network | 10-15-07 | Richard L. Cravats
Archeology and the Propaganda War Against Israel By Richard L. Cravatts In one of those ironies of questionable scholarship, just as a battle over a Barnard scholar's book about Israeli archeology had inflamed her application for tenure, heavy equipment was tearing away at the ancient crown of Jerusalem's 36-acre Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site. Nadia Abu El-Haj's book, Facts on the Ground: Archeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, originally a doctoral thesis, questions the historical existence of a Jewish link to Israel, and her provocative claims have caused her to become the center of a fractious debate about...
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Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
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Professor Says History's Best Known and Most Debated Star Proven
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Posted by AngieGal
On News/Activism 10/16/2007 11:14:43 PM EDT · 25 replies
ASSIST News Service | Tuesday, October 16, 2007 | Jeremy Reynalds
For centuries, historians, scientists and scholars have debated the existence of the Star of Bethlehem in the Biblical telling of Christ's birth. Now Texas lawyer and professor Rick Larson says he has proven the existence of this celebrated, yet debated, star. He sets forth his case in a documentary, "The Star of Bethlehem." "Historically, people have taken two positions on the Star," said Larson in a news release. "Either they believe the Star is true or they think it was made up by the early Church. I took a different approach in my research and treated the Star as a...
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Pandemics, Epidemics, Disease
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Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine (Lessons From The Black Death)
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/16/2007 3:58:12 PM EDT · 33 replies
Archaeology Magazine | 11/12-2007 | Heather Pringle
Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine Volume 60 Number 6, November/December 2007 by Heather Pringle Will a cemetery excavation establish a link between the Black Death and resistance to AIDS? Beneath Eindhoven's modern skin of brick and asphalt lie the bones of its medieval townspeople. Studying their DNA may reveal the origin of the genetic resistance to AIDS. (Courtesy Laurens Mulkens) From the start, Nico Arts sensed that the frail remains of a child buried in front of a medieval church altar had an important story to tell. Arts is the municipal archaeologist in Eindhoven, a prosperous industrial city in the southern...
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Middle Ages and Renaissance
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Robin Hood's Prison? Sheriff's Dungeon Found At Nottingham Gaol
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 5:33:00 PM EDT · 31 replies
24 Hour Museum | 10-17-2007 | Caroline lewis
ROBIN HOOD'S PRISON? SHERIFF'S DUNGEON FOUND AT NOTTINGHAM GAOL By Caroline Lewis 17/10/2007 New evidence has been discovered that the medieval caves under Nottingham's Galleries of Justice museum were once used by the Sheriff of Nottingham as a prison. The dark dungeon cells would have been in use when the Sheriff resided at the Shire Hall and County Gaol. "It is an exciting discovery," said Tim Desmond, Chief Executive at the Galleries. "The cave has always been known as the 'Sheriff's Dungeon', but until...
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British Isles
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Just What Did The Mary Rose Tell Us?
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/14/2007 7:03:20 PM EDT · 20 replies
BBC | 10-14-2007 | Finlo Rohrer
Just what did the Mary Rose tell us? By Finlo Rohrer BBC News Magazine The Mary Rose in dry dock The raising of the Mary Rose in 1982 was greeted with feverish excitement, but what has this landmark find actually told us in the 25 years since? At the tail end of 1982 it seemed like you couldn't switch on Newsround without seeing something to do with Mary Rose. Our fascination with the ship that met a sticky end while firing at a French invasion fleet in 1545 has flared at times in the years since. It is almost a...
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Ancient Autopsies
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Time Changes Modern Human's Face
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 01/25/2006 11:52:48 AM EST · 130 replies · 7,422+ views
BBC | 1-25-2006 | Rebecca Morelle
Time changes modern human's face By Rebecca Morelle BBC News science reporter Our ancestors had more prominent features but lower foreheads Researchers have found that the shape of the human skull has changed significantly over the past 650 years. Modern people possess less prominent features but higher foreheads than our medieval ancestors. Writing in the British Dental Journal, the team took careful measurements of groups of skulls spanning across 30 generations. The scientists said the differences between past and present skull shapes were "striking". Plague victimsThe team used radiographic films of skulls to record extensive measurements taken by a computer....
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Scotland Yet
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Earliest Scots Braved Ice Age Conditions
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Posted by Renfield
On General/Chat 10/18/2007 6:57:59 AM EDT · 28 replies
Discovery.com | 10-05-07 | Jennifer Viegas
Oct. 5, 2007 -- During the last ice age, Scotland was likely a desolate place covered by glaciers, but new evidence suggests intrepid settlers braved the elements by establishing a community there as early as 13,000 years ago. The determination, published in the latest British Archaeology, further suggests the earliest Scots shared a common ancestor with the first Norwegians, meaning that some people of Scottish descent could be distantly related to modern Norwegians. "So often we hear that conditions in Scotland during the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic would have prohibited human settlements because the landscape was cold and icy,...
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Agriculture
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First Farmers Wanted Clothes, Not Food
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/18/2007 11:47:45 PM EDT · 38 replies
The Discovery Channel | 10-15-2007 | Anna Sellah
First Farmers Wanted Clothes, Not Food Anna Sellah, ABC Science Online Oct. 15, 2007 -- People turned to farming to grow fiber for clothing, and not to provide food, says one researcher who challenges conventional ideas about the origins of agriculture.The Original Crop Ian Gilligan, a postgraduate researcher from the Australian National University, says his theory also explains why Aboriginal Australians were not generally farmers. Gilligan says they did not need fiber for clothing, so had no reason to grow crops like cotton. He argues his case in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. "Conventional...
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Nuts To You
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Fossilized cashew nuts reveal Europe was important route between Africa and South America
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Posted by decimon
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 2:53:45 PM EDT · 17 replies
Eureka Alert | October 17, 2007 | Unknown
Cashew nut fossils have been identified in 47-million year old lake sediment in Germany, revealing that the cashew genus Anacardium was once distributed in Europe, remote from its modern "native" distribution in Central and South America. It was previously proposed that Anacardium and its African sister genus, Fegimanra, diverged from their common ancestor when the landmasses of Africa and South America separated. However, groundbreaking new data in the October issue of the International Journal of Plant Sciences indicate that Europe may be an important biogeographic link between Africa and the New World. "The occurrence of cashews in both Europe and...
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Helix, Make Mine a Double
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Genetic ancestral testing cannot deliver on its promise, study warns
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Posted by decimon
On News/Activism 10/18/2007 5:40:58 PM EDT · 37 replies
University of California - Berkely | October 18, 2007 | Unknown
Berkeley -- For many Americans, the potential to track one's DNA to a specific country, region or tribe with a take-home kit is highly alluring. But while the popularity of genetic ancestry testing is rising - particularly among African Americans - the technology is flawed and could spawn unwelcome societal consequences, according to researchers from several institutions nationwide, including the University of California, Berkeley. "Because race has such profound social, political and economic consequences, we should be wary of allowing the concept to be redefined in a way that obscures its historical roots and disconnects from its cultural and socioeconomic...
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Slightly Silly
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Scientists: Appendix protects good germs
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Posted by neverdem
On News/Activism 10/06/2007 12:40:57 AM EDT · 48 replies · 1,070+ views
San Luis Obispo Tribune | Oct. 05, 2007 | SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week. For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function, surgeons removed them routinely, and people live fine without them. And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000...
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Extremely Silly
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'Black people are less intelligent than whites', claims DNA pioneer (James Watson)
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Posted by TigerLikesRooster
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 4:36:52 AM EDT · 452 replies
Daily Mail | 10/17/07
'Black people are less intelligent than whites', claims DNA pioneer One of the world's most eminent scientists is at the centre of a row after claiming black people are less intelligent than whites. James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has drawn condemnation for comments made ahead of his arrival in Britain tomorrow for a speaking tour. Dr Watson, who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times. The 79-year-old geneticist said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect...
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Nobel Scientist Condemned For 'Racist' Claims
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/17/2007 1:20:53 PM EDT · 183 replies
The Telegraph (UK) | 10-17-2007 | Stephen Adams
Nobel scientist condemned for 'racist' claims By Stephen Adams Last Updated: 2:48pm BST 17/10/2007 Nobel Prize winning scientist Dr James Watson has been heavily criticised for making "racist" comments after he said Africans were not as intelligent as Europeans. Dr Watson is no stranger to controversy Dr Watson, who helped unravel the structure of DNA with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, was roundly condemned for saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not...
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Oh So Mysteriouso
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Raiders Of The Faux Ark
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 10/16/2007 3:34:53 PM EDT · 30 replies
Archaeology Magazine | 10-10-2007 | Eric Cline
Raiders of the Faux Ark October 10, 2007 by Eric H. Cline Biblical archeology is too important to leave to crackpots and ideologues. It's time to fight back. This editorial was first published in the Boston Globe on September 30, 2007, and is republished here with their kind permission. Eric Cline at Megiddo (Courtesy Eric Cline) Noah's Ark. The Ark of the Covenant. The Garden of Eden. Sodom and Gomorrah. The Exodus. The Lost Tomb of Jesus. All have been "found" in the last 10 years, including one within the past six months. The discoverers: a former SWAT team member;...
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Navigation
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450- Year Old Shipwreck Found In Florida Artifacts Reveal More About Florida's Spanish Past
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Posted by rdl6989
On News/Activism 10/12/2007 12:04:14 PM EDT · 8 replies · 917+ views
ABC News | 10-12-2007 | GARRY MITCHELL
In 1559, a hurricane plunged as many as seven Spanish sailing vessels to the bottom of Pensacola Bay, hampering explorer Don Tristan de Luna's attempt to colonize this section of the Florida Panhandle. Almost 500 years later and 15 years after the first ship was found, another has been discovered, helping archaeologists unlock secrets to Florida's Spanish past. The colony at the site of present-day Pensacola was abandoned in 1561, and no trace of it has been found on land. Teams of University of West Florida archaeology students last summer discovered what they thought was the shipwreck, picking up pieces...
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Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
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Dive Team Discovers 1800s-Era Steamboat At Bottom Of Lake
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Posted by stainlessbanner
On News/Activism 10/16/2007 10:45:52 PM EDT · 6 replies
local6 | 16-October-2007
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- A sheriff's dive team discovered what is believed to be a late-1800s era steamboat at the bottom of a Central Florida lake during a training exercise last month. The Lake County sheriff's dive team found the boat at the bottom of Lake Minneola in the lake's southwest corner in Clermont while training with side-scan sonar, which they recently acquired. The sonar is a piece of equipment that is dragged by a boat and projects images of the underwater environment. After seeing an image of the boat, which appeared to be about 18 feet long, dive team...
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end of digest #170 20071020
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