Replies

Wow, another week without Egypt, and also a week without Greece.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #59
Saturday, September 3, 2005

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Chandler's Wobble Causes Earthquakes, Volcanism, El Nino, and Global Warming

Posted by IGBT
On News/Activism 01/18/2005 8:58:05 PM PST · 20 replies · 761+ views

Michael Wells Mandeville | 2004 | Michael Wells Mandeville
The exact location of the North and South Poles of the Earth's spin axis are constantly changing while the Earth's crust wobbles slightly around and over the poles in the 14 month and 6.5 year cycles of Chandler's Wobble. The eigth graphs in this story board demonstrate that peaks of seismic and volcanic activity come and go in accordance with these rhythms of Chandler's Wobble to produce the El Nino syndrome. The graphs also prove that the total amount of this activity has progressively increased during the last 50 years while the center of Chandler's Wobble has slowly drifted towards...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

Posted by cogitator
On General/Chat 01/06/2005 11:32:02 AM PST · 6 replies · 1,221+ views

Rochester Academy of Science | January 1998 | Paul Dudley
Considering that news is still dominated by the tsunami and its aftereffects (and aid and recovery efforts), my mind is still on that kind of topic. I recalled back during the days when the Chicxulub impact site was being identified as the main Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) event that the supporting evidence for the regional location was thick layers of ejecta at the K/T boundary found around the Caribbean. I checked for pictures and found a few; below is one of the best from Belize. Can you see the K/T boundary? Go to the linked article to read more about this image...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

Posted by cogitator
On News/Activism 01/06/2005 11:40:15 AM PST · 5 replies · 1,533+ views

Rochestery Academy of Science | January 1998 | Paul Dudley
Link post: the image and the thread (to discuss it) are below: Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

'Meteorite' Hits Girl

Posted by blam
On News/Activism 08/27/2002 11:50:09 AM PDT · 96 replies · 309+ views

BBC | 8-27-2002
Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK 'Meteorite' hits girl Siobhan Cowton: "I saw it fall from above roof height" The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot. Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky. This does not happen very often in Northallerton Siobhan Cowton Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel. The family now...

Rhythmic Submarine Volcanos And El El NiÒos

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/29/2005 1:37:32 PM PDT · 22 replies · 174+ views

Science Frontiers | September-October 1993 | William Corliss
The real cause of El Ninos is still obscure. However, the recent discovery of over 1,000 previously unmapped submarine volcanos rising from the seafloor in the eastern Pacific may lead to El Nino's source. The synchronous eruption of, say, 100 of these volcanos might warm the ocean around Easter Island a tad -- just enough to warm the atmosphere above a bit -- resulting in a shift of the high pressure area.

Ancient Rome

Battle for the books of Herculaneum (1 of finest libraries of the ancient world, covered in Lava)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/15/2005 11:30:07 PM PDT · 3 replies · 433+ views

Mimirabilis | 15 May 2005 | Peter Popham
Buried deep in the Villa dei Papiri, covered by the molten lava of Vesuvius, lies one of the finest libraries of the ancient world. But excavation may destroy more than it savesThey look like lumps of coal, and when the Swiss military engineer and his team who first explored the buried town of Herculaneum in the 18th century encountered them, that was how they were treated: as ancient rubbish, to be dumped in the sea. But before being hit by a cascade of molten volcanic rock at more than 400C (the so-called pyroclastic flow that inundated the town), these now-blackened...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

Iran's dam will sink tomb of Cyrus the Great

Posted by Cyrus the Great
On News/Activism 08/31/2005 4:05:02 PM PDT · 25 replies · 438+ views

Iranfocus | 8/31/05 | Iranfocus
Tehran, Iran, Aug. 31 ñ Iran is building a dam which once completed will destroy the 2,500-year-old historic ruins of tomb of the first Achaemenian king of ancient Persia. The Sayvand Dam being constructed in the central Fars province will inevitably cause river waters to submerge Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, and Pasargard, the site of the mausoleum of the first Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. The dam which is near completion is some eight kilometres from Pasargard and 50 kilometres from Persepolis, according to an official in Iran's Cultural Heritage Organisation. The dam is to start operation in...

India

Archaeologist stirs storm with 'ancient city' claim

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/04/2005 10:36:46 PM PDT · 7 replies · 482+ views

Bangladesh News | Monday March 28 2005
A professor of archaeology at the Jahangirnagar University has stirred a controversy with misleading claims about and unauthorised excavation at an archaeological site. Professor Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, who led the excavation of an 18 by 16 metre area at Owari-Bateshwar in Belabo upazila of Narsingdi, claimed in April 2004 that the excavation had led to the discovery of a road, a citadel and a raft of artefacts that dated back to 450BC. Sufi told the media that his findings indicated to the oldest civilisation to have been discovered so far, and would redefine the history of eastern India and substantiate...

Mesopotamia

Museum inquiry into 'smuggling' of ancient bowls

Posted by swilhelm73
On News/Activism 04/25/2005 2:51:58 PM PDT · 1 reply · 80+ views

timesonline | April 22, 2005 | Dalya Alberge
ONE of the world's leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East. University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt. The bowls were loaned to the university museum ó the Petrie ó by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world's finest collections of antiquities in private hands. The bowls, which were loaned for research and cataloguing, are being...

Polish and US Troops Saved Ancient Babylon - Says Defence Minister

Posted by Grzegorz 246
On News/Activism 01/18/2005 9:41:21 AM PST · 10 replies · 574+ views

Polskie Radio | 17.01.2005
Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said today that contrary to a report by the British Museum, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved the famous archaeological site for civilisation. A British Museum report published at the weekend said U.S. troops had caused "substantial damage" to the ancient city by setting up a military base amid the ruins in April 2003 after invading Iraq and toppling President Saddam Hussein. It also said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Amar: Bnei Menashe are descendants of ancient Israelites

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/04/2005 9:50:12 PM PDT · 1 reply · 269+ views

Haaretz | Fri., April 01, 2005 | Yair Sheleg
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization. The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews (IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe community and bringing them to Israel. The Bnei...

Archeologist is 'naked' and in your face (combines arch. & hipster's approach to explore Bible)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 09/02/2005 12:42:37 AM PDT · 9 replies · 357+ views

The Globe and Mail | Thursday, September 1, 2005 | MICHAEL POSNER
Simcha Jacobovici combines archeology and a hipster's approach to explore biblical stories, MICHAEL POSNER writesBy You've heard about The Naked Chef, of course: Britain's Jamie Oliver, who lays out the bare essentials of his culinary art in a popular TV series. And you may remember Naked City, a gritty black-and-white police drama from the sixties. But are you ready for The Naked Archaeologist? That would be Toronto documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, who has turned his personal passion for biblical archeology into a 26-part series for Vision Television (debuting Labour Day). Best known for Deadly Currents (a film about the Arab-Israeli...

British Isles

The Ferriby boats -- 1600BC

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:21:56 AM PDT · 10 replies · 186+ views

Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Southampton | Aug 13 1999 | J.S. Illsley
The Ferriby boats were first found in 1938, and two further boats were discovered in 1940 and 1963, all by E.V. Wright who has become the principal authority on them. All were buried in the thick and very difficult blue clay in the intertidal regions of North Humberside... The people who built these boats evidently lived in a wood rich society and were familiar with working large timbers on a gross scale (check with Frances on Stonehenge as a wooden building)... Nevertheless the quality of the joins and seams is very high, especially where the side strakes join the edges...

Oldest Bridge in Ireland

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:10:07 AM PDT · 12 replies · 199+ views

Archaeological Institute of America | May 6, 1998 | Ben Keene
Built in A.D. 804, the 533-foot-long, 17-foot-wide oak span supported a roadway leading to the nearby monastery and village of Clonmacnoise. The size of the bridge suggests technical know-how and a large, skilled workforce. It also indicates the area was more economically and politically advanced than previously assumed. An underwater team led by Aidan O'Sullivan found the remains in 1996 after reading about the bridge in twelfth-century Irish annals... a bronze liturgical basin decorated with ribbing and dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. About 12 inches across, the basin was badly damaged. It was possibly lost on the bridge...

Medieval Europe

Ancient Skeletons Were Siege Soldiers (Netherlands)

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/06/2005 12:34:22 AM PDT · 2 replies · 219+ views

Expatica | 3 May 2005
AMSTERDAM ó Nine skeletons found on 4 May last year in Maastricht are of Dutch origin and were probably members of the Staatse leger (State army), Maastricht City Council has revealed. Research by police and the municipal's archaeological service has indicated that the soldiers were killed and buried during a siege of Maastricht, either in 1592 (with Prince Maurits) or in 1594 or 1632 (with Prince Frederik Hendrik). The skeletons are currently being stored at the anatomy department of the Leiden University, but later this month they will be transferred to the archaeological department in Maastricht. The small cemetery was...

Crowds mark death of Braveheart

Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 09/01/2005 7:37:16 AM PDT · 16 replies · 785+ views

Islington Gazette | 8/31/05 | Islington Gazette
CROWDS of more than 1,000 flocked to Smithfield to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Scottish hero William Wallace - also known as Braveheart. The freedom fighter was hung, drawn and quartered outside the church of St Bartholomew the Great in 1305 after being betrayed by a Scottish knight in service to King Edward the First. His life story was famously given a Hollywood makeover by actor/director Mel Gibson in 1995 for the film Braveheart. But no national celebrations were planned to mark the 700th anniversary of his execution so author and historian David Ross, who wrote bestseller...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Discovery Of Ancient Indian Village Halts School Construction

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:17:29 AM PDT · 3 replies · 293+ views

WREG | 4/24/05 | Brian Kuebler
Desoto County, MS -- Archeologists are combing over 150 acres of land slated for three new Desoto County Schools. The state of Mississippi halted the construction of the schools after a tip call revealed the land should be marked for an archeological excavation. Preliminary findings proved the tip genuine when scientists found bone fragments, pottery shards and other evidence of a 1200 year old Indian village. The complete excavation process could take some time but a preliminary report will be sent to the state Monday at which point the government will decide whether or not to proceed with the plan....

New Structure Found at Ancient Ohio Site

Posted by Artemis Webb
On News/Activism 08/30/2005 7:52:19 PM PDT · 24 replies · 643+ views

AP | 08/30/2005 | none credited
OREGONIA, Ohio - Archaeologists say they have something new to study at Fort Ancient State Memorial. A previously unknown circular structure about 200 feet in diameter was detected recently during preliminary work for an erosion-control project at the site of 2,000-year-old earthworks, state authorities said. More study will be needed to determine whether the structure is an earthworks or the remains of a ditch that held a series of large posts or of some other kind of structure, state authorities said. "The reaction is 'Wow!'" Jack Blosser, Fort Ancient's site manager, said of the new find. Blosser said the last...

Prehistory and Origins

"Antibiotic" Beer Gave Ancient Africans Health Buzz

Posted by nickcarraway
On News/Activism 05/19/2005 6:57:43 PM PDT · 25 replies · 568+ views

National Geographic | May 16, 2005 | John Roach
Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa. George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River. The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the...

Biology and Cryptobiology

Carnegie scientists find muscular ancient mammal

Posted by Willie Green
On General/Chat 03/31/2005 1:51:05 PM PST · 5 replies · 105+ views

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Thursday, March 31, 2005 | Byron Spice
Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have discovered fossils of a mouse-size mammal that dug and burrowed in search of tasty insects during the Jurassic Age, 150 million years ago. The extinct species has been dubbed Popeye. Its tastes appeared to favor termites, not spinach as its cartoon namesake. But like the famous Sailor Man, this creature has massive forearms, an adaptation that helped it dig.

Paleoanthropology: Start Over? (Open ended storytelling pawned as science)

Posted by bondserv
On News/Activism 08/27/2005 9:08:20 AM PDT · 220 replies · 1,713+ views

Creation-Evolution Headlines | 8/22/05 | Creation-Evolution Headlines
Paleoanthropology: Start Over? -- 08/22/2005 -- The September issue of National Geographic, featuring the African continent, has arrived in homes. On page 1, Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post wrote about the quest for early man, asking, "Are we looking for bones in all the right places?" The bulk of the article describes the 'messy' story of human origins. It used to be clean-cut, he said, but no longer: Scientists are good at finding logical patterns and turning data into a coherent narrative. But the study of human origins is tricky: The bones tell a complicated story. The cast of...

Space radiation may select amino acids for life

Posted by LibWhacker
On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:16:24 PM PDT · 80 replies · 754+ views

New Scientist | 8/24/05 | Maggie McKee
Space radiation preferentially destroys specific forms of amino acids, the most realistic laboratory simulation to date has found. The work suggests the molecular building blocks that form the "left-handed" proteins used by life on Earth took shape in space, bolstering the case that they could have seeded life on other planets. Amino acids are molecules that come in mirror-image right- and left-handed forms. But all the naturally occurring proteins in organisms on Earth use the left-handed forms - a puzzle dubbed the "chirality problem". "A key question is when this chirality came into play," says Uwe Meierhenrich, a chemist at...

Texas Farmer Claims He Caught Legendary 'Chupacabra'

Posted by BurbankKarl
On General/Chat 08/25/2005 11:44:52 AM PDT · 85 replies · 2,896+ views

NBC | 8/25/05 | various
A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed. What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo. The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

America's Pristine Myth

Posted by Mobile Vulgus
On News/Activism 08/31/2005 7:32:03 PM PDT · 59 replies · 1,419+ views

Christian Science Monitor | Charles C. Mann
Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she'll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent's few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed. But in...

end of digest #59 20050903

This is the second weekly digest without any change to the ping lists. I think the GGG has hit a (temporary?) plateau.

Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #60
Saturday, September 10, 2005

Ancient Egypt

Egypt discovers ancient tomb

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:04:36 AM PDT · 5 replies · 118+ views

Xinhua | UPDATED: 17:46, August 31, 2005 | some commie drone
A joint Egyptian-US archaeological team has discovered a 5,000-year-old funerary complex in Upper Egypt, the Egyptian Gazette reported Wednesday. The tomb was found in the Kom al-Ahmer region near Edfu, some 97 km south of the famous ancient city Luxor on the west bank of the Nile... The tomb is believed to have belonged to one of the first rulers of the Greek city of Apollinopolis Magna, the ancient name of Edfu.

Ancient Greece

Classics and War

Posted by Noumenon
On News/Activism 09/13/2002 11:27:20 PM PDT · 26 replies · 200+ views

Imprimis, Hillsdale College | February, 2002 | Victor Davis Hanson
Hey, Trev and Ev -- check this out. Dr. Hanson is one the few academics who do not promote an almost knee-jerk hatred of this country and principles upon which it was founded. In this lecture, he helps us to understand just how much we owe to our classical heritage -- the source and foundation of many of the ideas America's founders used to create the most free and prosperous nation the world has ever seen. Hanson says, In our ignorance, too many Americans have made the fatal mistake of assuming that our enemies are simply different from us,...

Ancient Rome

Rome (new HBO series)

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:52:54 AM PDT · 33 replies · 292+ views

HBO | August 2005 | some HBO shill
After eight years of war, Gaius Julius Caesar has finally completed his bloody conquest of Gaul. Just as he is prepared to celebrate a resounding victory and return to Rome with his army, he receives word that his daughter Julia has died in childbirth.

Ancient Europe

The Man in Salt, Salzwelten, Hallstatt, Austria

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/08/2005 10:10:50 PM PDT · 20 replies · 193+ views

Salinen Austria AG | by 2005 | staff

Asia

9000 Years Old Oriental Wine Found

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 9:02:03 AM PDT · 12 replies · 184+ views

The Epoch Times | August 30, 2005 | David James
An international team of researchers have discovered after chemical analyses, that organics absorbed and preserved in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Central China contained a beverage of rice, honey, and fruit made as early as 9,000 years ago... According to Dr. McGovern, the analysis of these liquids point to their being fermented and filtered rice or millet wines -- known as 'jiu' or 'chang' according to Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.

Sand-covered Huns city unearthed

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 10/12/2002 8:10:28 AM PDT · 4 replies · 106+ views

China Daily | 10-9-2002
Sand-covered Huns city unearthed! 10/08/2002 XI'AN: Chinese archaeologists recently discovered a unique, ancient city which has lain covered by desert sands for more than 1,000 years. It is the first ruined city of the Xiongnu (Huns) ever found, said Dai Yingxin, a well-known Chinese archaeologist. The Xiongnu was a nomadic ethnic group, who for 10 centuries were tremendously influential in northern China. The unearthed city occupies 1 square kilometre in Jingbian County, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adjacent to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the north of the country. It is believed that the city was built by more...

Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran

US forces should take a lesson from the Persian kings

Posted by freedom44
On News/Activism 09/06/2005 8:18:46 PM PDT · 12 replies · 344+ views

Guardian UK | 9-6-05 | Simon Tisdall
Present-day US fears about an Iranian-dominated super-state embracing southern Iraq and the Gulf have a basis in historical fact, according to an exhibition charting the exploits of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire, which opens at the British Museum on Friday. Cyrus and his successors, Xerxes and Darius, created the world's first superpower in 550BC, ruling territories from central Asia and the Indus valley to Arabia and north Africa. But the Persian kings appear to have had better luck in Iraq than President George Bush has had. Article continues When Persian forces overran Babylonia in 539BC, the inhabitants...

Let's Have Jerusalem

Is This The Palace of King David ? Archeologists Debate New Discovery

Posted by SirLinksalot
On News/Activism 09/09/2005 12:19:46 PM PDT · 21 replies · 815+ views

Haaretz.com | 9/8/2005 | Ran Shapira
A debate of biblical proportions By Ran Shapira The recently ended season of excavations at the top of the City of David slope was accompanied by much excitement. With every passing day, more and more parts of an enormous building were unearthed. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the archaeologist in charge of the site, believes this could be the palace King David built after conquering Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The discovery has stirred up the old argument among archaeologists as to whether the events described in the Bible in fact occurred, and in this context, the importance and greatness of David himself....

A stone tablet could be a relic of King Solomon's temple--or a clever forgery

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 04/29/2003 6:54:23 PM PDT · 8 replies · 192+ views

US News and World Report (Online) | Science & Technology 5/5/03 | By Betsy Carpenter
Science & Technology 5/5/03 Article of Faith A stone tablet could be a relic of King Solomon's temple--or a clever forgery By Betsy Carpenter Solomon's Temple was the glory of Jerusalem after its completion in the 10th century B.C. Fronted by colossal bronze columns, it was said to be built of hewn limestone. The nave was lined with fragrant cedar and held a massive golden table and altar. In an inner sanctuary guarded by gilded olive-wood doors, even the walls glistened with gold. The sole remaining testimony to this wondrous temple is the biblical account--and now, perhaps, a dark slab...

PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis

Ancient City in Remote Peruvian Jungle Is Plundered by Tomb Robbers, Explorer Says

Posted by Jet Jaguar
On General/Chat 09/04/2005 10:44:47 PM PDT · 9 replies · 150+ views

AP | Sep 4, 2005 | Monte Hayes
LIMA, Peru (AP) - An American explorer says an ancient metropolis discovered by his father in Peru's cloud forest six years ago has been plundered by tomb robbers. Sean Savoy, 32, who recently led an expedition to the Gran Saposoa ruins, said he was stunned to find a sculptured stone head had been ripped from a stone wall and tombs destroyed since he was there a year ago. "We encountered a site, previously unknown to us, but obviously to others, where over 50 cliffside tombs were destroyed. Not just sacked and looted, the tombs themselves destroyed. Torn apart with picks...

Scientists: Bison in Illinois earlier (aren't you relieved?)

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:17:31 AM PDT · 5 replies · 82+ views

South Carolina homepage (thestate.com) | Tue, Aug. 30, 2005 | Associated Press
The discovery of bison bones in Peoria County proves the animals were in Illinois about 1,700 years earlier than previously thought, according to scientists. Radiocarbon dating confirmed a group of eight bison died at a site along the Illinois River around 265 B.C., said Alan Harn, an archaeologist with Dickson Mounds Museum. Until the dating tests, scientists did not have evidence of bison in Illinois before 1450... Archaeologists also found two partial deer skeletons and two partial elk skeletons near the bison, Harn said.

Prehistory and Origins

Neanderthals and modern man shared a cave

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 6:58:02 AM PDT · 8 replies · 148+ views

Times Online | September 01, 2005 | Norman Hammond
Radiocarbon dates show that modern people camped in the Ch‚telperron cave, 25 miles northeast of Vichy, about 40,000 years ago, preceded and then followed by two episodes of Neanderthal occupancy... "We realised that these bones could be used for radiocarbon dating, a process not available when Delporte's excavations were carried out," said Professor Paul Mellars of Cambridge, who with Gravina and the Oxford dating specialist Christopher Bronk Ramsey publishes the evidence in the online edition of Nature today. "They give us the first unambiguous proof that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans overlapped for at least a thousand years in western...

Schizophrenia 'price for speech?'

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/03/2005 8:31:23 AM PDT · 26 replies · 243+ views

BBC | Saturday, 27 August 2005 | Caroline Ryan
Professor Tim Crow believes that the difference in the development of the human brain from the primate brain - which allows us to process thought and speech - is linked to why psychotic illnesses occur. The human brain has developed to have a strong regional bias, so each side of the brain performs certain roles - for example, speech is controlled by the left side of the brain. Professor Crow of the mental health charity Sane's Prince of Wales International Centre in Oxford, suggests the division boundaries between certain areas of the brain, particularly those which are concerned with language...

Spears: Creators of Warfare? Spears Spawned Ancient Group Violence?

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/06/2005 9:15:30 AM PDT · 23 replies · 195+ views

Discovery News | August 25, 2005 | Jennifer Viegas
According to Raymond Kelly, who formulated the theory, there at least was a period without a lot of group violence from 1 million to 14,000 years ago, when the overall population was lower and groups were less rigidly structured... Spears empowered defenders because people who initiated violence were more likely to be killed than those they attacked. Kelly suggested it was better to be hiding in a bush or a foxhole with a spear than was to be running toward the foxhole or bush with a spear.

Biology and Cryptobiology

Dinosaurs may have been a fluffy lot ~~ now they tell us....

Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach
On General/Chat 09/06/2005 10:02:44 AM PDT · 57 replies · 506+ views

The Sunday Times | September 04, 2005 | Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
THE popular image of Tyrannosaurus rex and other killer dinosaurs may have to be changed as a scientific consensus emerges that many were covered with feathers. Most predatory dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurs and velociraptors have usually been depicted in museums, films and books as covered in a thick hide of dull brown or green skin. The impression was of a killer stripped of adornment in the name of hunting efficiency. This week, however, a leading expert on dinosaur evolution will tell the British Association, the principal conference of British scientists, that this image is wrong. Gareth Dyke, a palaeontologist of...

That's a Croc !

Posted by genefromjersey
On News/Activism 09/07/2005 4:17:22 AM PDT · 16 replies · 724+ views

The Morning Paper | 09/07/05 | vanity
That's a CROC !! A French-sponsored 12 member Peruvian exploration team has discovered the fossil remains of a 46 foot crocodile -- deep in the Amazon jungle. It is believed the entire Amazon Basin was once an inland sea -- stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, and inhabited by creatures such as this monster and a relatively demure and petite giant armadillo -- whose fossil was also found nearby. The crocodile fossil, which included skeleton, jaws, and very large teeth , indicates the creature may have had a head measuring four feet across ; and it probably weighed 'about 9 tons...

Tuberculosis appeared on Earth three million years ago

Posted by Perdogg
On News/Activism 08/23/2005 7:39:34 PM PDT · 43 replies · 643+ views

Pravda.ru | 08/22/05 | staff
Tuberculosis or consumption is much older than plague, typhus and malaria There are medicines for almost every illness in the XXI century. However, some diseases still can be neither prevented nor cured. It is not only AIDS and cancer, but tuberculosis as well. Although the problem of mass consumption is practically solved in developed countries, there is still Third World left. Meantime, on the whole this disease mows down three million people yearly. Scientists cannot help but be concerned with the origins of the virus and its possible treatment. Finally, French researchers went public with the results of their scientific...

Catastrophism and Astronomy

Cosmic Hole-in-One Captured Over Antarctica

Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/05/2005 9:36:19 PM PDT · 7 replies · 246+ views

RedNova | Monday, 5 September 2005, 20:43 CDT | staff / press release
What a powerful telescope had picked up as it stretched towards the night sky over Antarctica was the trail of dust left in the wake of the death of an asteroid... "What he didn't know at the time was that seven hours earlier an asteroid had crashed to Earth in another part of Antarctica, about 1500 kms west of Davis. The closest it got to human habitation was around 900 kms west of Japan's Syowa station," Dr Klekociuk said... Dr Klekociuk said that it was thought that the asteroid had come from what is known as the Aten group somewhere...

Mystery Bulge in Oregon Still Growing (100 square miles near Mt St. Hellens)

Posted by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
On News/Activism 09/07/2005 10:35:31 AM PDT · 89 replies · 3,153+ views

LiveScience.com
BEND, Ore. (AP) -- A recent survey of a bulge that covers about 100 square miles near the South Sister indicates the area is still growing, suggesting it could be another volcano in the making or a major shift of molten rock under the center of the Cascade Range. Recent eruptions at nearby Mount St. Helens in Washington state have rekindled interest in the annual Sisters survey and its findings. Oregon has four of the 18 most active volcanoes in the nation -- Mount Hood, Crater Lake, Newberry and South Sister. A recent U.S. Geological Survey report said monitoring is...

Vanished, Under Force of Time and an Inconstant Earth

Posted by afraidfortherepublic
On News/Activism 09/06/2005 11:55:52 AM PDT · 21 replies · 506+ views

New York Times | September 6, 2005 | DENNIS OVERBYE
Nothing lasts forever. Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher. Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean. "Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis,...

Sunken Civilizations
(about time, I hear you say?)

Very Detailed Update on the Undersea Discoveries off Cuba (Includes Photos!).

Posted by vannrox
On News/Activism 08/19/2002 6:52:42 PM PDT · 19 replies · 1,657+ views

The Morien Institute | May 28 2002 | Dr Paul Weinzweig
Exclusive Morien Institute interview with - Dr Paul Weinzweig - Advanced Digital Communications Havana, Cuba On May 28 2002 National Geographic News reported on the many recent discoveries underwater on the coastal shelves around the world. The story focussed on the recent discovery of megalithic ruins some 2,200 ft below sea level off the coast of Cuba, interviewing geologist, Manuel Iturralde, the Director of Research at Cuba's Natural History Museum. He is the Consulting Geologist for the Canadian exploration company, Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), based in Havana, Cuba, which discovered the megalithic formations It has been suggested that what...

Thoroughly Modern Miscellany

The Legend of Kilroy

Posted by Steve Newton
On General/Chat 09/04/2005 2:05:32 PM PDT · 10 replies · 239+ views

Thanks to Patrick A. Tillery | 2005 | Steve Newton
The old sergeant platoon was patrolling in an area they had never been before and one of the goon squad was quick to point out that 'Kilroy' had already been here. The age old sign of 'KILROY WAS HERE' was chalked onto the side of a burned out building.

Researchers to seek long-lost Alligator (Civil War Submarine)

Posted by wagglebee
On News/Activism 09/05/2005 11:33:09 AM PDT · 11 replies · 276+ views

The Virginian Pilot | 9/5/05 | DENISE WATSON BATTS
The hunt is on for the Alligator. Again. Beginning Friday, a second search will get under way for the Navy's first submarine. The Civil War-era vessel was lost off Cape Hatteras during a fierce storm in 1863. Researchers looked in the same vicinity last summer for six days but found nothing except a barge. This year's mission is scheduled for four days and will cover a smaller piece of ocean, about 30 miles off the coast. The effort is being undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the Navy's Office of Naval Research. Mike Overfield, chief scientist for...

end of digest #60 20050910

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #59 Saturday, September 3, 2005
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Chandler's Wobble Causes Earthquakes, Volcanism, El Nino, and Global Warming
	Posted by IGBT On News/Activism 01/18/2005 8:58:05 PM PST · 20 replies · 761+ views Michael Wells Mandeville \| 2004 \| Michael Wells Mandeville The exact location of the North and South Poles of the Earth's spin axis are constantly changing while the Earth's crust wobbles slightly around and over the poles in the 14 month and 6.5 year cycles of Chandler's Wobble. The eigth graphs in this story board demonstrate that peaks of seismic and volcanic activity come and go in accordance with these rhythms of Chandler's Wobble to produce the El Nino syndrome. The graphs also prove that the total amount of this activity has progressively increased during the last 50 years while the center of Chandler's Wobble has slowly drifted towards...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe
	Posted by cogitator On General/Chat 01/06/2005 11:32:02 AM PST · 6 replies · 1,221+ views Rochester Academy of Science \| January 1998 \| Paul Dudley Considering that news is still dominated by the tsunami and its aftereffects (and aid and recovery efforts), my mind is still on that kind of topic. I recalled back during the days when the Chicxulub impact site was being identified as the main Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) event that the supporting evidence for the regional location was thick layers of ejecta at the K/T boundary found around the Caribbean. I checked for pictures and found a few; below is one of the best from Belize. Can you see the K/T boundary? Go to the linked article to read more about this image...

Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe
	Posted by cogitator On News/Activism 01/06/2005 11:40:15 AM PST · 5 replies · 1,533+ views Rochestery Academy of Science \| January 1998 \| Paul Dudley Link post: the image and the thread (to discuss it) are below: Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

'Meteorite' Hits Girl
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 08/27/2002 11:50:09 AM PDT · 96 replies · 309+ views BBC \| 8-27-2002 Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UK 'Meteorite' hits girl Siobhan Cowton: "I saw it fall from above roof height" The odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot. Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky. This does not happen very often in Northallerton Siobhan Cowton Noticing it was "quite hot", she showed it to her father Niel. The family now...

Rhythmic Submarine Volcanos And El El NiÒos
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/29/2005 1:37:32 PM PDT · 22 replies · 174+ views Science Frontiers \| September-October 1993 \| William Corliss The real cause of El Ninos is still obscure. However, the recent discovery of over 1,000 previously unmapped submarine volcanos rising from the seafloor in the eastern Pacific may lead to El Nino's source. The synchronous eruption of, say, 100 of these volcanos might warm the ocean around Easter Island a tad -- just enough to warm the atmosphere above a bit -- resulting in a shift of the high pressure area.
Ancient Rome
Battle for the books of Herculaneum (1 of finest libraries of the ancient world, covered in Lava)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/15/2005 11:30:07 PM PDT · 3 replies · 433+ views Mimirabilis \| 15 May 2005 \| Peter Popham Buried deep in the Villa dei Papiri, covered by the molten lava of Vesuvius, lies one of the finest libraries of the ancient world. But excavation may destroy more than it savesThey look like lumps of coal, and when the Swiss military engineer and his team who first explored the buried town of Herculaneum in the 18th century encountered them, that was how they were treated: as ancient rubbish, to be dumped in the sea. But before being hit by a cascade of molten volcanic rock at more than 400C (the so-called pyroclastic flow that inundated the town), these now-blackened...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Iran's dam will sink tomb of Cyrus the Great
	Posted by Cyrus the Great On News/Activism 08/31/2005 4:05:02 PM PDT · 25 replies · 438+ views Iranfocus \| 8/31/05 \| Iranfocus Tehran, Iran, Aug. 31 ñ Iran is building a dam which once completed will destroy the 2,500-year-old historic ruins of tomb of the first Achaemenian king of ancient Persia. The Sayvand Dam being constructed in the central Fars province will inevitably cause river waters to submerge Persepolis, the capital of ancient Persia, and Pasargard, the site of the mausoleum of the first Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. The dam which is near completion is some eight kilometres from Pasargard and 50 kilometres from Persepolis, according to an official in Iran's Cultural Heritage Organisation. The dam is to start operation in...
India
Archaeologist stirs storm with 'ancient city' claim
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/04/2005 10:36:46 PM PDT · 7 replies · 482+ views Bangladesh News \| Monday March 28 2005 A professor of archaeology at the Jahangirnagar University has stirred a controversy with misleading claims about and unauthorised excavation at an archaeological site. Professor Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, who led the excavation of an 18 by 16 metre area at Owari-Bateshwar in Belabo upazila of Narsingdi, claimed in April 2004 that the excavation had led to the discovery of a road, a citadel and a raft of artefacts that dated back to 450BC. Sufi told the media that his findings indicated to the oldest civilisation to have been discovered so far, and would redefine the history of eastern India and substantiate...
Mesopotamia
Museum inquiry into 'smuggling' of ancient bowls
	Posted by swilhelm73 On News/Activism 04/25/2005 2:51:58 PM PDT · 1 reply · 80+ views timesonline \| April 22, 2005 \| Dalya Alberge ONE of the world's leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East. University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt. The bowls were loaned to the university museum ó the Petrie ó by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world's finest collections of antiquities in private hands. The bowls, which were loaned for research and cataloguing, are being...

Polish and US Troops Saved Ancient Babylon - Says Defence Minister
	Posted by Grzegorz 246 On News/Activism 01/18/2005 9:41:21 AM PST · 10 replies · 574+ views Polskie Radio \| 17.01.2005 Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said today that contrary to a report by the British Museum, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved the famous archaeological site for civilisation. A British Museum report published at the weekend said U.S. troops had caused "substantial damage" to the ancient city by setting up a military base amid the ruins in April 2003 after invading Iraq and toppling President Saddam Hussein. It also said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Amar: Bnei Menashe are descendants of ancient Israelites
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/04/2005 9:50:12 PM PDT · 1 reply · 269+ views Haaretz \| Fri., April 01, 2005 \| Yair Sheleg Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar decided on Wednesday to recognize the members of India's Bnei Menashe community as descendants of the ancient Israelites. Amar also decided to dispatch a team of rabbinical judges to India to convert the community members to Orthodox Jews. Such a conversion will enable their immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, without requiring the Interior Ministry's authorization. The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews (IFCJ), a group that raises money among evangelical Christians for Jewish causes, has undertaken to finance the process of converting the Bnei Menashe community and bringing them to Israel. The Bnei...

Archeologist is 'naked' and in your face (combines arch. & hipster's approach to explore Bible)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 09/02/2005 12:42:37 AM PDT · 9 replies · 357+ views The Globe and Mail \| Thursday, September 1, 2005 \| MICHAEL POSNER Simcha Jacobovici combines archeology and a hipster's approach to explore biblical stories, MICHAEL POSNER writesBy You've heard about The Naked Chef, of course: Britain's Jamie Oliver, who lays out the bare essentials of his culinary art in a popular TV series. And you may remember Naked City, a gritty black-and-white police drama from the sixties. But are you ready for The Naked Archaeologist? That would be Toronto documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, who has turned his personal passion for biblical archeology into a 26-part series for Vision Television (debuting Labour Day). Best known for Deadly Currents (a film about the Arab-Israeli...
British Isles
The Ferriby boats -- 1600BC
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:21:56 AM PDT · 10 replies · 186+ views Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Southampton \| Aug 13 1999 \| J.S. Illsley The Ferriby boats were first found in 1938, and two further boats were discovered in 1940 and 1963, all by E.V. Wright who has become the principal authority on them. All were buried in the thick and very difficult blue clay in the intertidal regions of North Humberside... The people who built these boats evidently lived in a wood rich society and were familiar with working large timbers on a gross scale (check with Frances on Stonehenge as a wooden building)... Nevertheless the quality of the joins and seams is very high, especially where the side strakes join the edges...

Oldest Bridge in Ireland
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 08/28/2005 5:10:07 AM PDT · 12 replies · 199+ views Archaeological Institute of America \| May 6, 1998 \| Ben Keene Built in A.D. 804, the 533-foot-long, 17-foot-wide oak span supported a roadway leading to the nearby monastery and village of Clonmacnoise. The size of the bridge suggests technical know-how and a large, skilled workforce. It also indicates the area was more economically and politically advanced than previously assumed. An underwater team led by Aidan O'Sullivan found the remains in 1996 after reading about the bridge in twelfth-century Irish annals... a bronze liturgical basin decorated with ribbing and dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. About 12 inches across, the basin was badly damaged. It was possibly lost on the bridge...
Medieval Europe
Ancient Skeletons Were Siege Soldiers (Netherlands)
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/06/2005 12:34:22 AM PDT · 2 replies · 219+ views Expatica \| 3 May 2005 AMSTERDAM ó Nine skeletons found on 4 May last year in Maastricht are of Dutch origin and were probably members of the Staatse leger (State army), Maastricht City Council has revealed. Research by police and the municipal's archaeological service has indicated that the soldiers were killed and buried during a siege of Maastricht, either in 1592 (with Prince Maurits) or in 1594 or 1632 (with Prince Frederik Hendrik). The skeletons are currently being stored at the anatomy department of the Leiden University, but later this month they will be transferred to the archaeological department in Maastricht. The small cemetery was...

Crowds mark death of Braveheart
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 09/01/2005 7:37:16 AM PDT · 16 replies · 785+ views Islington Gazette \| 8/31/05 \| Islington Gazette CROWDS of more than 1,000 flocked to Smithfield to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Scottish hero William Wallace - also known as Braveheart. The freedom fighter was hung, drawn and quartered outside the church of St Bartholomew the Great in 1305 after being betrayed by a Scottish knight in service to King Edward the First. His life story was famously given a Hollywood makeover by actor/director Mel Gibson in 1995 for the film Braveheart. But no national celebrations were planned to mark the 700th anniversary of his execution so author and historian David Ross, who wrote bestseller...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Discovery Of Ancient Indian Village Halts School Construction
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 04/26/2005 12:17:29 AM PDT · 3 replies · 293+ views WREG \| 4/24/05 \| Brian Kuebler Desoto County, MS -- Archeologists are combing over 150 acres of land slated for three new Desoto County Schools. The state of Mississippi halted the construction of the schools after a tip call revealed the land should be marked for an archeological excavation. Preliminary findings proved the tip genuine when scientists found bone fragments, pottery shards and other evidence of a 1200 year old Indian village. The complete excavation process could take some time but a preliminary report will be sent to the state Monday at which point the government will decide whether or not to proceed with the plan....

New Structure Found at Ancient Ohio Site
	Posted by Artemis Webb On News/Activism 08/30/2005 7:52:19 PM PDT · 24 replies · 643+ views AP \| 08/30/2005 \| none credited OREGONIA, Ohio - Archaeologists say they have something new to study at Fort Ancient State Memorial. A previously unknown circular structure about 200 feet in diameter was detected recently during preliminary work for an erosion-control project at the site of 2,000-year-old earthworks, state authorities said. More study will be needed to determine whether the structure is an earthworks or the remains of a ditch that held a series of large posts or of some other kind of structure, state authorities said. "The reaction is 'Wow!'" Jack Blosser, Fort Ancient's site manager, said of the new find. Blosser said the last...
Prehistory and Origins
"Antibiotic" Beer Gave Ancient Africans Health Buzz
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 05/19/2005 6:57:43 PM PDT · 25 replies · 568+ views National Geographic \| May 16, 2005 \| John Roach Humans have been downing beer for millennia. In certain instances, some drinkers got an extra dose of medicine, according to an analysis of Nubian bones from Sudan in North Africa. George Armelagos is an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than two decades, he and his colleagues have studied bones dated to between A.D. 350 and 550 from Nubia, an ancient kingdom south of ancient Egypt along the Nile River. The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Carnegie scientists find muscular ancient mammal
	Posted by Willie Green On General/Chat 03/31/2005 1:51:05 PM PST · 5 replies · 105+ views The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette \| Thursday, March 31, 2005 \| Byron Spice Scientists at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have discovered fossils of a mouse-size mammal that dug and burrowed in search of tasty insects during the Jurassic Age, 150 million years ago. The extinct species has been dubbed Popeye. Its tastes appeared to favor termites, not spinach as its cartoon namesake. But like the famous Sailor Man, this creature has massive forearms, an adaptation that helped it dig.

Paleoanthropology: Start Over? (Open ended storytelling pawned as science)
	Posted by bondserv On News/Activism 08/27/2005 9:08:20 AM PDT · 220 replies · 1,713+ views Creation-Evolution Headlines \| 8/22/05 \| Creation-Evolution Headlines Paleoanthropology: Start Over? -- 08/22/2005 -- The September issue of National Geographic, featuring the African continent, has arrived in homes. On page 1, Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post wrote about the quest for early man, asking, "Are we looking for bones in all the right places?" The bulk of the article describes the 'messy' story of human origins. It used to be clean-cut, he said, but no longer: Scientists are good at finding logical patterns and turning data into a coherent narrative. But the study of human origins is tricky: The bones tell a complicated story. The cast of...

Space radiation may select amino acids for life
	Posted by LibWhacker On News/Activism 08/24/2005 10:16:24 PM PDT · 80 replies · 754+ views New Scientist \| 8/24/05 \| Maggie McKee Space radiation preferentially destroys specific forms of amino acids, the most realistic laboratory simulation to date has found. The work suggests the molecular building blocks that form the "left-handed" proteins used by life on Earth took shape in space, bolstering the case that they could have seeded life on other planets. Amino acids are molecules that come in mirror-image right- and left-handed forms. But all the naturally occurring proteins in organisms on Earth use the left-handed forms - a puzzle dubbed the "chirality problem". "A key question is when this chirality came into play," says Uwe Meierhenrich, a chemist at...

Texas Farmer Claims He Caught Legendary 'Chupacabra'
	Posted by BurbankKarl On General/Chat 08/25/2005 11:44:52 AM PDT · 85 replies · 2,896+ views NBC \| 8/25/05 \| various A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. COLEMAN, Texas -- A Texas farmer may have found what some would call a "chupacabra," a legendary animal known for sucking the blood out of goats. Reggie Lagow set a trap last week after a number of his chickens and turkeys were killed. What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo. The mystery animal has been sent to Texas Parks and Wildlife in hopes of determining what...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
America's Pristine Myth
	Posted by Mobile Vulgus On News/Activism 08/31/2005 7:32:03 PM PDT · 59 replies · 1,419+ views Christian Science Monitor \| Charles C. Mann Next week my daughter will go back to elementary school, and I will be faced with a choice. At some point the curriculum will cover the environment, and she'll be taught that before Europeans settled the Americas the Indians lived so lightly on the land that for all practical purposes the hemisphere was a wilderness. The forests and plains, the teacher will explain, were crowded with bison, beaver, and deer; the rivers, with fish; flights of passenger pigeons darkened the skies. The continent's few inhabitants walked beneath an endless forest of tall trees that had never been disturbed. But in...
end of digest #59 20050903

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #60 Saturday, September 10, 2005
Ancient Egypt
Egypt discovers ancient tomb
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:04:36 AM PDT · 5 replies · 118+ views Xinhua \| UPDATED: 17:46, August 31, 2005 \| some commie drone A joint Egyptian-US archaeological team has discovered a 5,000-year-old funerary complex in Upper Egypt, the Egyptian Gazette reported Wednesday. The tomb was found in the Kom al-Ahmer region near Edfu, some 97 km south of the famous ancient city Luxor on the west bank of the Nile... The tomb is believed to have belonged to one of the first rulers of the Greek city of Apollinopolis Magna, the ancient name of Edfu.
Ancient Greece
Classics and War
	Posted by Noumenon On News/Activism 09/13/2002 11:27:20 PM PDT · 26 replies · 200+ views Imprimis, Hillsdale College \| February, 2002 \| Victor Davis Hanson Hey, Trev and Ev -- check this out. Dr. Hanson is one the few academics who do not promote an almost knee-jerk hatred of this country and principles upon which it was founded. In this lecture, he helps us to understand just how much we owe to our classical heritage -- the source and foundation of many of the ideas America's founders used to create the most free and prosperous nation the world has ever seen. Hanson says, In our ignorance, too many Americans have made the fatal mistake of assuming that our enemies are simply different from us,...
Ancient Rome
Rome (new HBO series)
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:52:54 AM PDT · 33 replies · 292+ views HBO \| August 2005 \| some HBO shill After eight years of war, Gaius Julius Caesar has finally completed his bloody conquest of Gaul. Just as he is prepared to celebrate a resounding victory and return to Rome with his army, he receives word that his daughter Julia has died in childbirth.
Ancient Europe
The Man in Salt, Salzwelten, Hallstatt, Austria
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/08/2005 10:10:50 PM PDT · 20 replies · 193+ views Salinen Austria AG \| by 2005 \| staff
Asia
9000 Years Old Oriental Wine Found
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 9:02:03 AM PDT · 12 replies · 184+ views The Epoch Times \| August 30, 2005 \| David James An international team of researchers have discovered after chemical analyses, that organics absorbed and preserved in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Central China contained a beverage of rice, honey, and fruit made as early as 9,000 years ago... According to Dr. McGovern, the analysis of these liquids point to their being fermented and filtered rice or millet wines -- known as 'jiu' or 'chang' according to Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions.

Sand-covered Huns city unearthed
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 10/12/2002 8:10:28 AM PDT · 4 replies · 106+ views China Daily \| 10-9-2002 Sand-covered Huns city unearthed! 10/08/2002 XI'AN: Chinese archaeologists recently discovered a unique, ancient city which has lain covered by desert sands for more than 1,000 years. It is the first ruined city of the Xiongnu (Huns) ever found, said Dai Yingxin, a well-known Chinese archaeologist. The Xiongnu was a nomadic ethnic group, who for 10 centuries were tremendously influential in northern China. The unearthed city occupies 1 square kilometre in Jingbian County, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adjacent to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the north of the country. It is believed that the city was built by more...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
US forces should take a lesson from the Persian kings
	Posted by freedom44 On News/Activism 09/06/2005 8:18:46 PM PDT · 12 replies · 344+ views Guardian UK \| 9-6-05 \| Simon Tisdall Present-day US fears about an Iranian-dominated super-state embracing southern Iraq and the Gulf have a basis in historical fact, according to an exhibition charting the exploits of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire, which opens at the British Museum on Friday. Cyrus and his successors, Xerxes and Darius, created the world's first superpower in 550BC, ruling territories from central Asia and the Indus valley to Arabia and north Africa. But the Persian kings appear to have had better luck in Iraq than President George Bush has had. Article continues When Persian forces overran Babylonia in 539BC, the inhabitants...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Is This The Palace of King David ? Archeologists Debate New Discovery
	Posted by SirLinksalot On News/Activism 09/09/2005 12:19:46 PM PDT · 21 replies · 815+ views Haaretz.com \| 9/8/2005 \| Ran Shapira A debate of biblical proportions By Ran Shapira The recently ended season of excavations at the top of the City of David slope was accompanied by much excitement. With every passing day, more and more parts of an enormous building were unearthed. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the archaeologist in charge of the site, believes this could be the palace King David built after conquering Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The discovery has stirred up the old argument among archaeologists as to whether the events described in the Bible in fact occurred, and in this context, the importance and greatness of David himself....

A stone tablet could be a relic of King Solomon's temple--or a clever forgery
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 04/29/2003 6:54:23 PM PDT · 8 replies · 192+ views US News and World Report (Online) \| Science & Technology 5/5/03 \| By Betsy Carpenter Science & Technology 5/5/03 Article of Faith A stone tablet could be a relic of King Solomon's temple--or a clever forgery By Betsy Carpenter Solomon's Temple was the glory of Jerusalem after its completion in the 10th century B.C. Fronted by colossal bronze columns, it was said to be built of hewn limestone. The nave was lined with fragrant cedar and held a massive golden table and altar. In an inner sanctuary guarded by gilded olive-wood doors, even the walls glistened with gold. The sole remaining testimony to this wondrous temple is the biblical account--and now, perhaps, a dark slab...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Ancient City in Remote Peruvian Jungle Is Plundered by Tomb Robbers, Explorer Says
	Posted by Jet Jaguar On General/Chat 09/04/2005 10:44:47 PM PDT · 9 replies · 150+ views AP \| Sep 4, 2005 \| Monte Hayes LIMA, Peru (AP) - An American explorer says an ancient metropolis discovered by his father in Peru's cloud forest six years ago has been plundered by tomb robbers. Sean Savoy, 32, who recently led an expedition to the Gran Saposoa ruins, said he was stunned to find a sculptured stone head had been ripped from a stone wall and tombs destroyed since he was there a year ago. "We encountered a site, previously unknown to us, but obviously to others, where over 50 cliffside tombs were destroyed. Not just sacked and looted, the tombs themselves destroyed. Torn apart with picks...

Scientists: Bison in Illinois earlier (aren't you relieved?)
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 7:17:31 AM PDT · 5 replies · 82+ views South Carolina homepage (thestate.com) \| Tue, Aug. 30, 2005 \| Associated Press The discovery of bison bones in Peoria County proves the animals were in Illinois about 1,700 years earlier than previously thought, according to scientists. Radiocarbon dating confirmed a group of eight bison died at a site along the Illinois River around 265 B.C., said Alan Harn, an archaeologist with Dickson Mounds Museum. Until the dating tests, scientists did not have evidence of bison in Illinois before 1450... Archaeologists also found two partial deer skeletons and two partial elk skeletons near the bison, Harn said.
Prehistory and Origins
Neanderthals and modern man shared a cave
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 6:58:02 AM PDT · 8 replies · 148+ views Times Online \| September 01, 2005 \| Norman Hammond Radiocarbon dates show that modern people camped in the Ch‚telperron cave, 25 miles northeast of Vichy, about 40,000 years ago, preceded and then followed by two episodes of Neanderthal occupancy... "We realised that these bones could be used for radiocarbon dating, a process not available when Delporte's excavations were carried out," said Professor Paul Mellars of Cambridge, who with Gravina and the Oxford dating specialist Christopher Bronk Ramsey publishes the evidence in the online edition of Nature today. "They give us the first unambiguous proof that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans overlapped for at least a thousand years in western...

Schizophrenia 'price for speech?'
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/03/2005 8:31:23 AM PDT · 26 replies · 243+ views BBC \| Saturday, 27 August 2005 \| Caroline Ryan Professor Tim Crow believes that the difference in the development of the human brain from the primate brain - which allows us to process thought and speech - is linked to why psychotic illnesses occur. The human brain has developed to have a strong regional bias, so each side of the brain performs certain roles - for example, speech is controlled by the left side of the brain. Professor Crow of the mental health charity Sane's Prince of Wales International Centre in Oxford, suggests the division boundaries between certain areas of the brain, particularly those which are concerned with language...

Spears: Creators of Warfare? Spears Spawned Ancient Group Violence?
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/06/2005 9:15:30 AM PDT · 23 replies · 195+ views Discovery News \| August 25, 2005 \| Jennifer Viegas According to Raymond Kelly, who formulated the theory, there at least was a period without a lot of group violence from 1 million to 14,000 years ago, when the overall population was lower and groups were less rigidly structured... Spears empowered defenders because people who initiated violence were more likely to be killed than those they attacked. Kelly suggested it was better to be hiding in a bush or a foxhole with a spear than was to be running toward the foxhole or bush with a spear.
Biology and Cryptobiology
Dinosaurs may have been a fluffy lot ~~ now they tell us....
	Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach On General/Chat 09/06/2005 10:02:44 AM PDT · 57 replies · 506+ views The Sunday Times \| September 04, 2005 \| Jonathan Leake, Science Editor THE popular image of Tyrannosaurus rex and other killer dinosaurs may have to be changed as a scientific consensus emerges that many were covered with feathers. Most predatory dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurs and velociraptors have usually been depicted in museums, films and books as covered in a thick hide of dull brown or green skin. The impression was of a killer stripped of adornment in the name of hunting efficiency. This week, however, a leading expert on dinosaur evolution will tell the British Association, the principal conference of British scientists, that this image is wrong. Gareth Dyke, a palaeontologist of...

That's a Croc !
	Posted by genefromjersey On News/Activism 09/07/2005 4:17:22 AM PDT · 16 replies · 724+ views The Morning Paper \| 09/07/05 \| vanity That's a CROC !! A French-sponsored 12 member Peruvian exploration team has discovered the fossil remains of a 46 foot crocodile -- deep in the Amazon jungle. It is believed the entire Amazon Basin was once an inland sea -- stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, and inhabited by creatures such as this monster and a relatively demure and petite giant armadillo -- whose fossil was also found nearby. The crocodile fossil, which included skeleton, jaws, and very large teeth , indicates the creature may have had a head measuring four feet across ; and it probably weighed 'about 9 tons...

Tuberculosis appeared on Earth three million years ago
	Posted by Perdogg On News/Activism 08/23/2005 7:39:34 PM PDT · 43 replies · 643+ views Pravda.ru \| 08/22/05 \| staff Tuberculosis or consumption is much older than plague, typhus and malaria There are medicines for almost every illness in the XXI century. However, some diseases still can be neither prevented nor cured. It is not only AIDS and cancer, but tuberculosis as well. Although the problem of mass consumption is practically solved in developed countries, there is still Third World left. Meantime, on the whole this disease mows down three million people yearly. Scientists cannot help but be concerned with the origins of the virus and its possible treatment. Finally, French researchers went public with the results of their scientific...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Cosmic Hole-in-One Captured Over Antarctica
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 09/05/2005 9:36:19 PM PDT · 7 replies · 246+ views RedNova \| Monday, 5 September 2005, 20:43 CDT \| staff / press release What a powerful telescope had picked up as it stretched towards the night sky over Antarctica was the trail of dust left in the wake of the death of an asteroid... "What he didn't know at the time was that seven hours earlier an asteroid had crashed to Earth in another part of Antarctica, about 1500 kms west of Davis. The closest it got to human habitation was around 900 kms west of Japan's Syowa station," Dr Klekociuk said... Dr Klekociuk said that it was thought that the asteroid had come from what is known as the Aten group somewhere...

Mystery Bulge in Oregon Still Growing (100 square miles near Mt St. Hellens)
	Posted by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget On News/Activism 09/07/2005 10:35:31 AM PDT · 89 replies · 3,153+ views LiveScience.com BEND, Ore. (AP) -- A recent survey of a bulge that covers about 100 square miles near the South Sister indicates the area is still growing, suggesting it could be another volcano in the making or a major shift of molten rock under the center of the Cascade Range. Recent eruptions at nearby Mount St. Helens in Washington state have rekindled interest in the annual Sisters survey and its findings. Oregon has four of the 18 most active volcanoes in the nation -- Mount Hood, Crater Lake, Newberry and South Sister. A recent U.S. Geological Survey report said monitoring is...

Vanished, Under Force of Time and an Inconstant Earth
	Posted by afraidfortherepublic On News/Activism 09/06/2005 11:55:52 AM PDT · 21 replies · 506+ views New York Times \| September 6, 2005 \| DENNIS OVERBYE Nothing lasts forever. Just ask Ozymandias, or Nate Fisher. Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean. "Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis,...
Sunken Civilizations (about time, I hear you say?)
Very Detailed Update on the Undersea Discoveries off Cuba (Includes Photos!).
	Posted by vannrox On News/Activism 08/19/2002 6:52:42 PM PDT · 19 replies · 1,657+ views The Morien Institute \| May 28 2002 \| Dr Paul Weinzweig Exclusive Morien Institute interview with - Dr Paul Weinzweig - Advanced Digital Communications Havana, Cuba On May 28 2002 National Geographic News reported on the many recent discoveries underwater on the coastal shelves around the world. The story focussed on the recent discovery of megalithic ruins some 2,200 ft below sea level off the coast of Cuba, interviewing geologist, Manuel Iturralde, the Director of Research at Cuba's Natural History Museum. He is the Consulting Geologist for the Canadian exploration company, Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), based in Havana, Cuba, which discovered the megalithic formations It has been suggested that what...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
The Legend of Kilroy
	Posted by Steve Newton On General/Chat 09/04/2005 2:05:32 PM PDT · 10 replies · 239+ views Thanks to Patrick A. Tillery \| 2005 \| Steve Newton The old sergeant platoon was patrolling in an area they had never been before and one of the goon squad was quick to point out that 'Kilroy' had already been here. The age old sign of 'KILROY WAS HERE' was chalked onto the side of a burned out building.

Researchers to seek long-lost Alligator (Civil War Submarine)
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 09/05/2005 11:33:09 AM PDT · 11 replies · 276+ views The Virginian Pilot \| 9/5/05 \| DENISE WATSON BATTS The hunt is on for the Alligator. Again. Beginning Friday, a second search will get under way for the Navy's first submarine. The Civil War-era vessel was lost off Cape Hatteras during a fierce storm in 1863. Researchers looked in the same vicinity last summer for six days but found nothing except a barge. This year's mission is scheduled for four days and will cover a smaller piece of ocean, about 30 miles off the coast. The effort is being undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the Navy's Office of Naval Research. Mike Overfield, chief scientist for...
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