[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #74 Saturday, December 17, 2005
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PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Ancient Humans Brought Bottle Gourds To The Americas From Asia
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/13/2005 11:12:17 AM PST · 36 replies · 646+ views Harvard University/Eureka Alert | 12-13-2005 | Steve Brandt Contact: Steve Bradt steve_bradt@harvard.edu 617-496-8070 Harvard University Ancient humans brought bottle gourds to the Americas from AsiaPlants widely used as containers arrived, already domesticated, some 10,000 years ago CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 13, 2005 -- Thick-skinned bottle gourds widely used as containers by prehistoric peoples were likely brought to the Americas some 10,000 years ago by individuals who arrived from Asia, according to a new genetic comparison of modern bottle gourds with gourds found at archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere. The finding solves a longstanding archaeological enigma by explaining how a domesticated variant of a species native to Africa ended...
Study Sheds Light On Early Migration (Americas)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/13/2005 10:47:40 AM PST · 42 replies · 727+ views The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | 12-13-2005 | Mike Toner Study sheds light on early migrationSkulls raise questions on first Americans By MIKE TONER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 12/13/05 A 10-year study of ancient human skulls from Brazil provides new evidence that two distinct populations of prehistoric people settled the Americas more than 12,000 years ago ó a finding that raises new questions about the identity and origins of the first Americans. Brazilian researchers say physical features of the skulls excavated from several limestone caves near Lagoa Santa in central Brazil differ sharply from the ancestors of today's Native Americans, who are thought to have migrated from Siberia to...
Stone Age Columbus
	Posted by ASA Vet On News/Activism 12/15/2005 7:19:43 AM PST · 22 replies · 749+ views BBC | Dec 15, 2005 | BBC programme summary Who were the first people in North America? From where did they come? How did they arrive? The prehistory of the Americas has been widely studied. Over 70 years a consensus became so established that dissenters felt uneasy challenging it. Yet in 2001, genetics, anthropology and a few shards of flint combined to overturn the accepted facts and to push back one of the greatest technological changes that the Americas have ever seen by over five millennia. The accepted version of the first Americans starts with a flint spearhead unearthed at Clovis, New Mexico, in 1933. Dated by the mammoth...
Skull Study Suggests at Least Two Groups Colonized America
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 12/15/2005 3:48:14 PM PST · 18 replies · 533+ views Sci-Tech Today | December 15, 2005 The 7,500- to 11,000-year-old remains suggest the oldest settlers of the Americas came from different genetic stock than more recent Native Americans. Modern Native Americans share traits with Mongoloid peoples of Mongolia, China, and Siberia, the researchers said. But they found dozens of skulls from Brazil appear much more similar to modern Australians, Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans. A Brazilian study involving a large collection of South American skulls suggests at least two distinct groups of early humans colonized the Americas. Anthropologists Walter Neves and Mark Hubbe of the University of Sao Paulo studied 81 skulls of early humans and found...
Prehistory and Origins
Not Out Of Africa But Regional Continuity
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/16/2005 11:03:02 AM PST · 17 replies · 392+ views The Bradshaw Foundation | Alan Thorne Not Out of Africa but regional continuityA challenging idea about Human Evolution by Alan Thorne Mungo Lady Mungo Lady was delivered to Alan Thorne in a small cheap suitcase in 1968 when he was 28 years old. Her burned and shattered bones were embedded in six blocks of calcified sand. The field researchers who dug her up in a parched no-man's-land in southeastern Australia suspected that shewas tens of thousands of years old. 600 Bone Chips Almost every day for the next six months, he painstakingly freed her remains from the sand with a dental drill, prizing out more than...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin
	Posted by RWR8189 On News/Activism 12/15/2005 10:05:07 PM PST · 187 replies · 2,647+ views Washington Post | December 16, 2005 | Rick Weiss Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife. The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Leaders...
Gene That Determines Skin Color Is Discovered, Scientists Report
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 12/16/2005 2:34:23 AM PST · 67 replies · 1,003+ views NY Times | December 16, 2005 | NICHOLAS WADE A gene that is responsible for the pale skin of Europeans and the dark skin of Africans has been discovered by scientists at Pennsylvania State University. The gene comes in two versions, one of which is found in 99 percent of Europeans and the other in 93 to 100 percent of Africans, the researchers report in today's issue of Science. The gene is unusual because with most human genes, different versions are generally shared, though one version may be more common in one race than another. One exception is the Duffy null allele, a version of a gene that prevents...
PRESERVED T. Rex Soft Tissue RECOVERED (Pic)
	Posted by wallcrawlr On News/Activism 03/24/2005 12:04:54 PM PST · 480 replies · 8,797+ views Star Tribune | 03.24.05 | Randolph Schmid WASHINGTON ó For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex. If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University. "We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising,'' she said in a telephone interview. But, she said, she does not know yet if scientists will be able...
Boy finds 5,000-year-old bison skull--Now called 'Bradford Bison'
	Posted by SJackson On News/Activism 12/11/2005 5:55:09 AM PST · 38 replies · 727+ views Capital Times | 12-11-05 | Mike Miller A Prairie du Sac youngster, exploring the Wisconsin River bottom because he couldn't play high-tech games, made the archeological find of the year in Wisconsin when he unearthed an ancient bison head and horns. "It is one of the best finds of the year, if not the best," state archeologist John Broihahn said of the find, which he determined was the head and horns of a Bison Occidentalis, at least 5,000 years old. And it is now officially known as the "Bradford Bison," in honor of Joshua Bradford, 7, who made the initial discovery. Josh was on an outing with...
British Isles
Tools Unlock Secrets Of Early Man
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/14/2005 2:26:31 PM PST · 23 replies · 484+ views BBC | 12-14-2005 | Mark Kinver Tools unlock secrets of early man By Mark Kinver Science reporter, BBC News website Researchers are confident the tools are 700,000 years old New research shows that early humans were living in Britain around 700,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists had previously thought. Using new dating techniques, scientists found that flint tools unearthed in Pakefield, Suffolk, were 200,000 years older than the previous oldest find. Humans were known to have lived in southern Europe 780,000 years ago but it was unclear when they moved north. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature. A team of scientists...
Humans in England May Go Back 700,000 Years
	Posted by aculeus On News/Activism 12/14/2005 5:03:07 PM PST · 29 replies · 469+ views Associated Press | December 14, 2005 | By THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) -- Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England. Scientists said Wednesday that 32 black flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps. Scientists had long held that humans had not migrated north from the relatively warm climates of the Mediterranean region until half a...
Humans in England May Go Back 700,000 Years
	Posted by Vaquero On News/Activism 12/15/2005 3:27:46 AM PST · 51 replies · 744+ views AP/YAHOO | 12/14/05 | THOMAS WAGNER Humans in England May Go Back 700,000 Years By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer Wed Dec 14, 2:04 PM ET LONDON - Ancient tools found in Britain show that humans lived in northern Europe 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, at a time when the climate was warm enough for lions, elephants and saber tooth tigers to also roam what is now England. ADVERTISEMENT Scientists said Wednesday that 32 black flint artifacts, found in river sediments in Pakefield in eastern England, date back 700,000 years and represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human presence north of the Alps. Scientists had...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Late Pleostocene Human Population Bottlenecks. . . (Toba)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/16/2005 11:33:44 AM PST · 31 replies · 803+ views The Bradshaw Foundation | 1998 | Stanley H. Ambrose Professor Stanley H. Ambrose Department of Anthropology, University Of Illinois, Urbana, USA Extract from "Journey of Human Evolution" [1998] 34, 623-651 The last glacial period was preceded by 1000 years of the coldest temperatures of the Late Pleistocene, apparently caused by the eruption of the Mount Toba volcano. The six year long volcanic winter and 1000-year-long instant Ice Age that followed Mount Toba's eruption may have decimated Modern Man's entire population. Genetic evidence suggests that Human population size fell to about 10,000 adults between 50 and 100 thousand years ago. The survivors from this global catastrophy would have found refuge...
Mysterious deep-space object raises questions on Solar System's origins
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/14/2005 10:12:29 AM PST · 36 replies · 355+ views PhysOrg | December 13, 2005 | AFP Astronomers working in Canada, France and the United States said they had found a small deep-space object, nicknamed Buffy, that challenges mainstream theories about the evolution of the Solar System. The rock lies in the Kuiper Belt, the name for the flock of objects beyond Neptune's orbit that are believed to be leftover rubble from the Solar System's building phase and are the source for many comets... Measuring between 500 and 1,000 kilometers (300 to 600 miles) across and taking about 440 years to make just one circuit of the Sun, Buffy is remarkable not for its size -- around...
Ancient Greece
Hill Near Evros Holds Story Of Plotinopolis
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/10/2005 12:03:58 PM PST · 6 replies · 149+ views Kathimeri | 12-10-2005 Hill near Evros holds story of PlotinopolisDig suggests ancient settlement Part of a building excavated at Plotinopolis, the city founded by Trajan to honor his wife Plotina. Mathaios Koutsoumanis of the 19th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities will discuss the excavation on Monday. Ever since the 1960s, the site where the hill of Aghia Petra rises between the Evros and Erythrpotamos rivers has been identified with the city of Plotinopolis. The Roman Emperor Trajan (AD 98-117) founded the city 2 kilometers from the Evros in honor of his wife Plotina. In 1965, soldiers digging a trench in the area...
Asia
Ancient Chinese may have worn necklaces 20,000 years ago
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/14/2005 9:48:13 AM PST · 8 replies · 110+ views www.chinaview.cn | 12-14-2005 | Xinhua News Agency Pei told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently when attending a national conference on archaeology here that the ostrich eggshell pieces, found in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region innorthwest China, were the most exquisite adornments of the paleolithic age in China and showed that the ancient Chinese had appreciation of beauty as early as 20,000 years ago... The ostrich eggshells have been spotted at the Shuidonggou relics site about 20 km east of Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia. And most of them were excavated in the same stratum. Archaeologists said the site might be a necklace processing place... The climate in northern...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Oldest Temple and Brazier of the Iron Age Discovered in Qom
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/14/2005 9:53:15 AM PST · 9 replies · 135+ views Cultural Heritage News Agency | 12-14-2005 | staff Qoli Darvish historical tepe (hill) is one of the most important historical sites in the Central Plateau belonging to the Iron Age, located on the way of Qom-Jamkaran highway. The construction of this highway resulted in the destruction of more than 40 hectare of the 50 hectare area of Qoli Darvish Tepe; and the height of the hill was reduced to 6 meters while once it was more than 30 meters high. Archaeological excavations in Qoli Darvish historical site indicate that residency in Qom dates back to fourth millennium BC. "After studying the upper layers of Qoli Darvish Tepe, some...
Mesopotamia
Archaeologists Unearth a War Zone 5,500 Years Old
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 12/16/2005 2:51:40 AM PST · 99 replies · 1,901+ views NY Times | December 16, 2005 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD University of Chicago Architectural remains in Syria from the fourth millennium B.C. Those at lower left were excavated in 2001, and those at top center this year. The location is said to be the oldest known excavated site of a large battle. In the ruins of an ancient city in northeastern Syria, archaeologists have uncovered what they say is substantial evidence of a fierce battle fought there in about 3500 B.C. The archaeologists, who announced the find yesterday, described it as the oldest known excavated site of large-scale organized warfare. It was a clash of northern and southern cultures...
Ancient Citadel Shows Scars Of Mass Warfare (Mesopotamia - 3500BC)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/16/2005 8:34:38 AM PST · 11 replies · 520+ views New Scientist | 12-16-2005 | Will Knight Ancient citadel shows scars of mass warfare 11:42 16 December 2005 NewScientist.com news service Will Knight The shattered remains of a 5500-year-old citadel that stood on the modern-day border between Syria and Iraq provide some of the oldest evidence for organised and bloody warfare. The Mesopotamian settlement lies in Hamoukar, on the northernmost tip of Syria, 8 kilometres from the Iraqi border. In 3500 BC the 13-hectare development was subjected to a devastating attack, its edifices crumbling beneath a crushing hail of bullet-shaped projectiles. The evidence of the destruction was uncovered in October and November 2005 by an expedition coordinated...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Last allied witness of WWI Christmas truce dies
	Posted by SmoothTalker On News/Activism 11/21/2005 8:49:17 AM PST · 47 replies · 1,607+ views Yahoo News | 11/21/05 | By Peter Graff LONDON (Reuters) - The last known surviving allied veteran of the Christmas Truce that saw German and British soldiers shake hands between the trenches in World War One died Monday at 109, his parish priest said. Alfred Anderson was the oldest man in Scotland and the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war. "I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence," he was quoted as saying in the Observer newspaper last year, describing the day-long Christmas Truce of 1914, which began spontaneously when German soldiers sang carols in the trenches, and British soldiers responded in English. "All I'd...
Last survivor of 'Christmas truce' tells of his sorrow (1914 - 1942 - 2004)
	Posted by Truth666 On News/Activism 12/24/2004 3:03:46 AM PST · 19 replies · 1,776+ views observer | Sunday December 19, 2004 | Lorna Martin, Scotland editor The First World War's horrors still move us but one man recalls his moment of peace amid the bloodshed The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: 'Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht'. To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. 'Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.' It was just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, 90 years ago on Saturday, and...
New Study Identifies Louse-Borne Diseases That Ravaged Napoleon's Army
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/15/2005 5:32:37 PM PST · 20 replies · 401+ views Science Daily | 12-15-2005 : Infectious Diseases Society of America Date: 2005-12-15 New Study Identifies Louse-borne Diseases That Ravaged Napoleon's Army Using dental pulp extracted from the teeth of soldiers who died during Napoleonís disastrous retreat through Russia in 1812, a new study finds DNA evidence that epidemic typhus and trench fever ran rampant among the French Grand Army. The study, published in the Jan. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, identifies the specific species of louse-borne pathogens that were a major cause of death among the remains of the retreating army. Napoleon marched into Russia in the summer...
Army archaeologists discovering history at Fort Drum
	Posted by xcamel On News/Activism 12/10/2005 5:29:36 PM PST · 21 replies · 535+ views AP | December 10, 2005 | WILLIAM KATES FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- Building for the future at the U.S. Army's Fort Drum is helping unveil the past. The newest discovery at the northern New York Army post is a prehistoric boat-building site near what would have been the shoreline of Glacial Lake Iroquois. A team of Fort Drum archaeologists surveying a wooded hillside near where the Army is putting a new National Guard training site unearthed an unusual looking stone tool. With the help of a U.S. Marine archaeologist, the team was able to identify it as a triangular-pointed reamer, a typical prehistoric boat-building tool. They also found...
Holland Gets It's Sunken Treasure Back
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/12/2005 4:10:57 PM PST · 14 replies · 410+ views The Age | 12-13-2005 | David Keys Holland gets its sunken treasure back By David Keys, Age Correspondent, London December 13, 2005 Ingots lost at sea 266 years ago have been recovered from a wreck in the English Channel. The DUTCH Government has started taking possession of tens of thousands of dollars worth of silver bullion that it last saw 266 years ago. The silver had been on a Dutch East India Co. ship that vanished in a storm in the English Channel in 1739. Although wreckage was found at the time on Britain's south coast, nobody knew precisely where it had sunk. The disaster meant that...
end of digest #74 20051217

[SunkenCiv]

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Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #74 20051217

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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #75 Saturday, December 24, 2005
Australia and the Pacific
Revealed: The Runners Of 20,000BC
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/21/2005 10:49:12 AM PST · 23 replies · 658+ views SMH | 12-22-2005 | Deborah Smith Revealed: the runners of 20,000BC Email Print Normal font Large font By Deborah Smith Science Editor December 22, 2005 Steps back in time Ö the prints in Mungo National Park. Photo: Michael Amendolia, with traditional landowners' permission HUNDREDS of human footprints dating back to about 20,000BC - the oldest in Australia and the largest collection of its kind in the world - have been discovered in Mungo National Park in western NSW. They were left by children, adolescents and adults at the height of the last ice age as they ran and walked across a moist clay area near the...
Ice Age Footprints Said Found in Outback
	Posted by wallcrawlr On General/Chat 12/21/2005 6:48:42 PM PST · 7 replies · 96+ views AP | 10.21.05 CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Hundreds of human footprints dating back to the last Ice Age have been found in the remote Australian Outback, an official and media reported Thursday. The 457 footprints found in Mungo National Park in western New South Wales state is the largest collection of its kind in the world and the oldest in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported. The prints were made in moist clay near the Willandra Lakes 19,000 to 23,000 years ago, the newspaper reported ahead of archeologists' report on the find to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution. State...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Americas Settled by Two Groups of Early Humans, Study Says (Ward Churchill Deeply Saddened)
	Posted by add925 On News/Activism 12/19/2005 8:36:37 AM PST · 10 replies · 742+ views National Geographic | 12/12/05 | Brian Handwerk At least two distinct groups of early humans colonized the Americas, a new study says, reviving the debate about who the first Americans were and when they arrived. Anthropologists Walter Neves and Mark Hubbe studied 81 skulls of early humans from South America and found them to be different from both modern and ancient Native Americans. The 7,500- to 11,000-year-old remains suggest that the oldest settlers of the Americas came from different genetic stock than more recent Native Americans. Modern Native Americans share traits with Mongoloid peoples of Mongolia, China, and Siberia, the researchers say. But Neves and Hubbe found...
An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas
	Posted by Lessismore On News/Activism 12/17/2005 7:56:15 AM PST · 13 replies · 275+ views PNAS | 2005-12-13 | David L. Erickson , Bruce D. Smith , Andrew C. Clarke, Daniel H. Sandweiss, and Noreen Tuross New genetic and archaeological approaches have substantially improved our understanding of the transition to agriculture, a major turning point in human history that began 10,000-5,000 years ago with the independent domestication of plants and animals in eight world regions. In the Americas, however, understanding the initial domestication of New World species has long been complicated by the early presence of an African enigma, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Indigenous to Africa, it reached East Asia by 9,000-8,000 before present (B.P.) and had a broad New World distribution by 8,000 B.P. Here we integrate genetic and archaeological approaches to address a...
Mexican Indians Preserve Epic Endurance Race
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/17/2005 12:12:25 PM PST · 14 replies · 262+ views Boston Globe | 12-15-2005 | Tim Gaynor Mexican Indians preserve epic endurance race By Tim Gaynor | December 15, 2005 CEROCAHUI, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's Tarahumara Indians are struggling to preserve one of the world's toughest endurance contests: a race of up to 100 miles over flinty mountain tracks while kicking a ball. The tribe calls itself the "Raramuri," which in its language means "foot runner," and its men take to the trails of northwest Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains every few weeks in flimsy sandals for a 24-hour-long foot race that would make marathon runners shiver. Their bizarre long-distance game, dubbed the "carrera de bola" or "ball...
Prehistory and Origins
Civilisation Has Left Its Mark On Our Genes
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/19/2005 2:52:15 PM PST · 50 replies · 672+ views New Scientist | 12-19-2005 | Bob Holmes Civilisation has left its mark on our genes 22:00 19 December 2005 From New Scientist Print Edition Bob Holmes Darwin's fingerprints can be found all over the human genome. A detailed look at human DNA has shown that a significant percentage of our genes have been shaped by natural selection in the past 50,000 years, probably in response to aspects of modern human culture such as the emergence of agriculture and the shift towards living in densely populated settlements. One way to look for genes that have recently been changed by natural selection is to study mutations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms...
Study Traces Egyptians' Stone-Age Roots
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/20/2005 10:27:54 AM PST · 30 replies · 515+ views World Science | 12-17-2005 Study traces Egyptians' stone-age roots Dec. 17, 2005 Special to World Science Some 64 centuries ago, a prehistoric people of obscure origins farmed an area along Egypt's Nile River. Barely out of the Stone Age, they produced simple but well-made pottery, jewelry and stone tools, and carefully buried their dead with ritual objects in apparent preparation for an afterlife. These items often included doll-like female figurines with exaggerated sexual features, thought to possibly symbolize rebirth. Details from a tomb painting from Hierakonpolis, from prehistoric Egypt's Naqada culture. A new study suggests the Naqada people, the earlier Badarians and the later...
Ancient Egypt
A Mystery, Locked in Timeless Embrace
	Posted by Pharmboy On News/Activism 12/20/2005 3:29:30 AM PST · 56 replies · 1,510+ views NY Times | December 20, 2005 | JOHN NOBLE WILFORD When Egyptologists entered the tomb for the first time more than four decades ago, they expected to be surprised. Explorers of newly exposed tombs always expect that, and this time they were not disappointed - they were confounded. snip.... There, carved in stone, were the images of two men embracing. Their names were inscribed above: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Though not of the nobility, they were highly esteemed in the palace as the chief manicurists of the king, sometime from 2380 to 2320 B.C., in the time known as the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Grooming the king was an...
Ancient Europe
New Studies Show Fourth Salt Man Is 2000 Years Old
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/23/2005 10:31:43 AM PST · 10 replies · 606+ views Mehr News | 12-23-2005 New studies show Fourth Salt Man is 2000 years old TEHRAN, Dec. 23 (MNA) -- The most recent studies on the Fourth Salt Man indicate that the body is 2000 years old, the director of the Chehrabad Studies Center announced on Friday. Recent radiography and CAT scans of the body indicate that the Fourth Salt Man was 15 or 16 years old at the time of death, Abolfazl Ali added. Discovered in the Hamzehlu Salt Mine in early March 2005, the Fourth Salt Man is the most intact of the ìsalt menî discovered in the mine, which is located near...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Germany To Reopen 6,800-Year-Old Mystery Circle
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/21/2005 11:02:02 AM PST · 33 replies · 878+ views Expatica | 12-20-2005 Germany to reopen 6,800-year-old mystery circle 20 December 2005 BERLIN - At the winter solstice this week, Germany is to open a replica of a mysterious wooden circle that is believed to be a temple of the sun built by a lost culture 6,800 years ago. The circle of posts, in a flat river plain at Goseck south of Berlin, has mystified scientists since its discovery in 1991 by an archaeologist studying the landscape from the air. An excavation found post holes and what may be the remains of ritual fires. Goseck has been dubbed the German Stonehenge, though it...
Maeshowe Winter Solstice As Viewed By Neolithic Man (Scotland)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/17/2005 11:52:34 AM PST · 18 replies · 425+ views The Scotsman | 12-15-2005 | Caroline Wickham-Jones Maeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic man CAROLINE WICKHAM-JONESMaeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic manMaeshowe is managed by Historic Scotland. Picture: Charles Tait Photographic THE GREAT mound of Maeshowe has dominated the skyline of Orkney for almost 5,000 years. It is a spectacular sight and a visit to the chambered tomb provides one of the highlights for visitors to the Orkney islands. Today, as we stoop to enter and walk down the low 11 metre passage to the chamber with its massive stonework, we are reminded of the ingenuity of those original builders. Its apparent uniformity masks a...
Ancient Rome and Italy
Romans May Have Learned From Chinese Great Wall: Archaeologists
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/20/2005 9:59:10 AM PST · 33 replies · 819+ views People's Daily Online/Xinhua | 12-20-2005 Romans may have learned from Chinese Great Wall: archaeologists The construction of the Roman Limes was quite possibly influenced by the concept of the Great Wall in China, though the two great buildings of the world are far away from each other, said archaeologists and historians. Although there is no evidence that the two constructions had any direct connections, indirect influence from the Great Wall on the Roman Limes is certain, said Visy Zsolt, a professor with the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Pecs in Hungary. Visy made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua...
Asia
Stones indicate earlier Christian link? (Possible Christians in China in 1st Century AD)
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 12/22/2005 6:01:19 PM PST · 52 replies · 1,025+ views China Daily | 12/22/05 | Wang Shanshan One day in a spring, an elderly man walked alone on a stone road lined by young willows in Xuzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province. At the end of the road was a museum that few people have heard of. A Chinese theology professor says the first Christmas is depicted in the stone relief from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220). In the picture above a woman and a man are sitting around what looks like a manger, with allegedly "the three wise men" approaching from the left side, holding gifts, "the shepherd" following them, and "the assassins" queued...
2,800 Year Old Treasures Brought To Light (Zhou Dynasty)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/19/2005 11:37:37 AM PST · 3 replies · 58+ views Peoples Daily Online | 12-18-2005 2,800-year-old treasures brought to light Great archaeological progress has been made in the excavation of the large-scale ruins and the tombs of noble lords of the Zhou Dynasty (771-221 BC) in Liangdai Village of Hancheng, Shaanxi Province as learned from the Shaanxi Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology on Sunday in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, reports the overseas edition of People's Daily on December 19. Great quantities of various treasures with a history of more than 2,800 years have been discovered through the initial excavation of the three large graves and one chariot and horse pit. They include...
Biology and Cryptobiology
New study expands understanding of the role of RNA editing in gene control
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/23/2005 10:10:38 AM PST · 2 replies · 7+ views Wistar Institute via EurekAlert | 23-Dec-2005 | Marion Wyce For many years, scientists thought gene activity was relatively straightforward: Genes were transcribed into messenger RNA, which was processed and translated into the proteins of the body... [A] more nuanced understanding of the total genetic system has steadily accumulated... Most recently, scientists have discovered an extensive family of small molecules called microRNAs, or miRNAs, that appear to target and inactivate particular messenger RNAs. This targeted gene silencing is now seen as one of the body's primary strategies for regulating its genome.
Extinct mammoth DNA decoded
	Posted by planetesimal On News/Activism 12/18/2005 9:21:33 PM PST · 48 replies · 811+ views BBC News | Sunday, 18 December 2005 | Helen Briggs Scientists have pieced together part of the genetic recipe of the extinct woolly mammoth. The 5,000 DNA letters spell out the genetic code of its mitochondria, the structures in the cell that generate energy. The research, published in the online edition of Nature, gives an insight into the elephant family tree. It shows that the mammoth was most closely related to the Asian rather than the African elephant. The three groups split from a common ancestor about six million years ago, with Asian elephants and mammoths diverging about half a million years later. "We have finally resolved the phylogeny of...
Decoding of Mammoth Genome Might Lead to Resurrection
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/19/2005 12:02:45 PM PST · 19 replies · 172+ views LiveScience | 19 December 2005 | Robert Roy Britt A team led by Hendrik Poinar at McMaster University unlocked secrets of the creature's nuclear DNA by working with a well-preserved 27,000-year-old specimen from Siberia. Colleagues at Penn State sequenced 1 percent of the genome in a few hours and say they expect to finish the whole genome in about a year if funding is provided... "While we can now retrieve the entire genome of the woolly mammoth, that does not mean we can put together the genome into organized chromosomes in a nuclear membrane with all the functional apparatus needed for life," said Ross MacPhee, a researcher at the...
Scientists Find Cache of Dodo Bird Bones
	Posted by NormsRevenge On General/Chat 12/23/2005 5:46:51 PM PST · 6 replies · 66+ views AP on Yahoo | 12/23/05 | Toby Sterling - ap AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Scientists said Friday they found a major cache of bones and likely complete skeletons of the long-extinct Dodo bird, which could help them learn more about the lost creature's physique and habits. The find is significant because no complete skeleton of a single Dodo bird has ever been retrieved from a controlled archaeological site in Mauritius. The last known stuffed bird was destroyed in a 1755 fire at a museum in Oxford, England, leaving only partial skeletons and drawings of the bird to go on. The bird was native to Mauritius when no humans lived there but...
British Isles
Devon Treasure Hunters Strike Rich Seam (Viking Gold)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/19/2005 11:27:36 AM PST · 24 replies · 1,083+ views The Telegraph (UK) | 12-17-2005 | Western Daily Press Devon treasure hunters strike a rich seam 12/17/2005 12:33:49 AM EST WESTERN DAILY PRESS This is the hoard of treasure dug up around Devon - and it's set to earn a windfall for the metal detector enthusiasts who found it. The Viking gold ingot, silver gilt dress hook, silver huntsman's whistle and medieval gold and sapphire ring have all been officially declared treasure and have become the property of the Crown. The finders will now be rewarded for handing over the items at 'market value', which has yet to be decided. The Viking cast gold ingot, found in Wembury, was...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Discovery Of Ancient Stucco Decorations In Khuzestan
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/18/2005 11:24:15 AM PST · 11 replies · 170+ views CHN | 12-18-2005 Discovery of Ancient Stucco Decorations in Khuzestan The latest archaeological excavations in the historical city of Shooshtar led to the discovery of the first stucco decoration in the ancient times. Tehran, 18 December 2005 (CHN) -- Archaeological excavations resulted in the discovery of 2000-year-old stucco decoration on a wall belonging to the end of the Parthian and beginning of the Sassanid era in the historical city of Shooshtar in Khuzestan province. Archaeologists believe that the moldings should have belonged to the aristocrats of Dastva city. A part of a stucco decorated window belonging to 2000 years ago had also been...
Mesopotamia
Artifacts found at ancient city ("This was 'Shock and Awe' in the Fourth Millennium BC.")
	Posted by nickcarraway On News/Activism 12/21/2005 9:41:34 PM PST · 10 replies · 424+ views Middle East Times | December 17, 2005 CHICAGO, IL, USA -- US and Syrian researchers say that a battle destroyed one of the world's earliest cities in Mesopotamia, at around 3500 BC but artifacts are left behind. The University of Chicago and Syria's Department of Antiquities say that the discovery provides the earliest evidence for large-scale organized warfare in the Mesopotamian world. "The whole area of our most recent excavation was a war zone," said Clemens Reichel, of the University of Chicago. Reichel was the co-director of the Syrian-American Archaeological Expedition to Hamoukar, an ancient site in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, in October and November....
Let's Have Jerusalem
Ancient Marib Discoveries Marvel Of World (Yemen)
	Posted by blam On News/Activism 12/18/2005 10:56:55 AM PST · 26 replies · 525+ views Yemen Observer | 12-17-2005 | Zaid Al-Alaya's Ancient Marib Discoveries Marvel of the World By Zaid Al-Alaya'a Dec 17, 2005 - Vol. VIII Issue 49 SANA'A- An ancient inscription shedding light on battles over 2300 years ago has been unearthed by a German archeological expedition at the temple of Al-Maqa in Surwah, Marib Governorate. The important archeological discovery reveals new information on the era of the King of Sheba, Yas'a Imar Watar bin Yakreb, and the military expedition he undertook. The inscription shows that King Yas'a, who ruled Yemen in the 4th century BC, made several military expeditions, just as his predecessor King Kurb Ail Watur bin...
Iraq: Irbil's Kurds live on a hill of undiscovered treasures
	Posted by robowombat On News/Activism 12/16/2005 10:21:54 AM PST · 5 replies · 373+ views Radio Free Europe | 12-13-05 Iraq: Irbil's Kurds live on a hill of undiscovered treasures Source: Radio Free Europe (12-13-05) The kidnapping of a German archeologist in late November highlighted both the historical wealth of Iraq and the perils of exploring that history. In much of the country, archeologists have all but abandoned their work because of security concerns. But officials in Kurdish-administered northern Iraq say the region is secure enough for excavations. The region is rich in potential sites, and only a fraction of them have been researched. One of the most dramatic is in the heart of Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Secret 16th century synagogue found
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 12/22/2005 6:08:34 PM PST · 27 replies · 1,073+ views Jerusalem Post | 12/21/05 | AP Few people ever knew, but the murky medieval alleyways of this Atlantic port city once provided cover for a persecuted minority that risked being burnt at the stake. In the 16th century, an unremarkable thick-walled granite house that still stands in a row of narrow, small-roomed buildings along a cobbled street held a dangerous secret. At the back of the house, steep steps lead down to a warren of alleys ideal for conspiratorial comings and goings that helped keep an outlawed religious ceremony hidden. Four centuries later, the secret of the clandestine synagogue is out. The mystery began unraveling...
Scientist's quest to solve Ripper case (Jack the Ripper)
	Posted by wagglebee On News/Activism 12/17/2005 12:33:45 PM PST · 58 replies · 1,043+ views icLanarkshire | 12/15/05 | Emily Henderson A SCIENTIST from Blantyre is playing a key part in solving one of the world's most famous mysteries ... the identity of serial killer Jack the Ripper. Last week, Professor Ian Findlay (39), who grew up in Station Road, and now works in Australia, was in London to test traces of saliva on stamps attached to letters sent to police at the time they were trying to catch the notorious murderer. Ian has developed DNA identification technology called Cell-Track ID at Brisbane forensic laboratory, Gribbles Molecular Science, which can extract and compile a DNA fingerprint from a single cell or...
Archaeology Odyssey To Become Part of Biblical Archaeology Review -- Suspends Separate Publication
	Posted by SunkenCiv On General/Chat 12/20/2005 10:16:14 PM PST · 1 reply Biblical Archaeology Society | Susan Laden, President, and Hershel Shanks, Editor ...since the launching of Archaeology Odyssey, the magazine industry has changed. It will no longer support separate magazines for such closely related subjects. The Biblical Archaeology Society is a charitable organization forever trying to make ends meet. People are now getting more and more information on the internet, rather than from pieces of paper like magazines and newspapers. Advertisers know this, so advertising in print media is way down. And postage is way upówith a very substantial increase promised for next year. Every other expense you can think of has also increased, sometimes dramatically.... All Archaeology Odyssey subscribers will now...
end of digest #75 20051224