[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #217 Saturday, September 13, 2008
Climate
Huge Ancient Lake Discovered in Russia
	09/10/2008 3:45:49 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 8 replies · 402+ views Live Science | Sep 9, 2008 | Andrea Thompson A huge ancient lake once dammed up by the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age has been found by geologists in Russia. Large glacial lakes were known to cover parts of Russia and North America during the Ice Age. One of the most well-known is Lake Agassiz, which covered portions of Canada and northern Minnesota more than 10,000 years ago. At the time it was the largest freshwater lake on the planet, with an area larger than all of the present-day Great Lakes combined, larger even than California. Last year, geologists found the remnants of a lake near...
Panspermia
Tracing Our Interstellar Relatives
	09/12/2008 6:29:45 PM PDT · Posted by LibWhacker · 9 replies · 165+ views Centauri Dreams | 9/12/08 The idea that life on Earth might have originated elsewhere, on Mars, for example, has gained currency in recent times as we've learned more about the transfer of materials between planets. Mars cooled before the Earth and may well have become habitable at a time when our planet was not. There seems nothing particularly outrageous in the idea that dormant bacteria inside chunks of the Martian surface, blasted into space by comet or asteroid impacts, might have crossed the interplanetary gulf and given rise to life here. But what of an interstellar origin for life on Earth? The odds on...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
New Work Shows Shawnee Lookout Site to Be Ancient Water Works, Not a Fort (Not full title)
	09/12/2008 10:02:02 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 14 replies · 296+ views University of Cincinnati | Sep 12, 2008 | Carey Hoffman The site known as Miami Fort is no fort at all, and it is also much larger than previously believed -- so large, in fact, that its berms stretch to almost six kilometers in length, making it twice as large as any other Native American earthworks in Ohio, and one of the largest in the nation. Those are discoveries made this summer by members of UC's Ohio Valley Archaeology Field School project, who spent weeks working at the site in Hamilton County's Shawnee Lookout park. What they found actually offers great insight into the cultural priorities of the Shawnee --...
Paleontology
Lucky break allowed dinosaurs to rule Earth: study
	09/11/2008 12:58:08 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 20 replies · 579+ views Reuters | Sep 11, 2008 | Will Dunham Thanks to a big stroke of luck 200 million years ago, dinosaurs beat out a fearsome group of creatures competing for the right to rule the Earth, scientists said on Thursday. Dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, and competed for 30 million years with a group of reptiles called crurotarsans, cousins of today's crocodiles that grew to huge sizes and looked a lot like dinosaurs.
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Nails around Tahluj ancient skeletons puzzle archaeologists [Iran]
	09/09/2008 7:52:01 PM PDT · Posted by BlackVeil · 7 replies · 326+ views Tehran Times | September 10, 2008 | Tehran Times Culture Desk The nails found around ancient skeletons at a newly discovered cemetery of Tahluj have puzzled the team of archaeologists working at the 3000-year-old site. The cemetery dating back early Islamic era was discovered during the rescue excavation, which has begun at the site near the village of Mirar-Kola in northern Iran in late August. The Tahluj site, home to several sites dating back from Iron Age to early Islamic era, will be completely submerged under water and mud when the Alborz Dam becomes operational. Tahluj is located in the Savadkuh region of Mazandaran Province. The team has discovered...
Greece
Persian Wars Battle at Thermopylae - 480 B.C.
	03/12/2007 2:54:43 PM PDT · Posted by freedom44 · 93 replies · 4,467+ views Ancient History | 3/12/07 | Ancient History What Was the Battle at Thermopylae?: Thermopylae was a pass that the Greeks tried unsuccessfully to defend in battle against the Persians led by Xerxes in 480 B.C.Although the Spartans who led the defense were all killed (and may have known in advance that they would be), their courage provided inspiration to the Greeks, many of whom otherwise might have willingly become part of the Persian Empire (the relevant verb is "medize" from the word Mede). The following year the Greeks did win battles agains the Persians. Persians Attack the Greeks at Thermopylae: Xerxes' fleet of Persian ships had sailed...
Does military history hold the key to Western ascendency?
	12/28/2002 7:04:13 PM PST · Posted by chasio649 · 35 replies · 397+ views http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/default.htm | 12/12/02 | Stephen Barton In a recent article in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman wrote that NATO is essentially irrelevant. It had been replaced by what he tongue-in-cheek calls NASTY: Nations Allied to Stop TYrants. NASTY is made up of what he calls three "like-minded English-speaking allies", America, Australia and Britain, with occasional French involvement. He claims "what these four countries have in common is that they are sea powers, with a tradition of fighting abroad, with ability to transport troops around the world and with mobile special forces that have an 'attitude'." All four nations, he notes enjoy playing either rugby or...
Why the West Has Won (and will) Freedom is the Ultimate Weapon
	05/14/2002 6:42:50 AM PDT · Posted by Valin · 16 replies · 183+ views gilder.com | Victor Davis Hanson Even the plight of enterprising killers can tell us something. In the summer of 401 B.C., 10,700 Greek hoplite soldiers-infantrymen, heavily armed with spear, shield and body armor-were hired by Cyrus the Younger to help press his claim to the Persian throne. The recruits were mostly battle-hardened veterans of the 27-year Peloponnesian War, mustered from throughout the Greek-speaking world. Many were murderous renegades and exiles. Both near-adolescents and the still-hale in late middle age enlisted for pay. Large numbers were unemployed and desperate for lucrative work as killers in the exhausted aftermath of the internecine war that had nearly ruined...
Why Western Soldiers Have Always Been Such Fierce Fighters
	12/09/2001 6:31:26 AM PST · Posted by cornelis · 33 replies · 555+ views NYT | December 1, 2001 | Edward Rothstein In 480 B.C., near Salamis off the coast of Greece, an armada of perhaps a thousand Persian ships attacked some 300 Greek vessels. This was, as the military historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson writes in this provocative book, "one of the most deadly battles in the entire history of naval warfare." Lured by a brilliant Greek strategy through the narrow straits, and rammed by Greek ships, hundreds of Persian vessels were sunk; more than 40,000 Persian soldiers were drowned ...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Olives and People, Past and Present
	09/09/2008 9:40:15 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 19 replies · 244+ views Archaeology | Monday, September 5, 2008 | interview of Anagnostis Agelarakis Hippocrates uses olive oil-based ointments for all kinds of uses and for treating trauma, scratches, wounds, and concussions that are not too deeply penetrating; it was considered to have healing power. In essence, it does because it contains the vital antioxidants scalene, flavonoids, and polyphenols at a minimum. Also, it has Omega components such as Omega 9, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, and traces of Vitamin C. It has Vitamin E, as well, which is in itself an antioxidant, so it has the ability to enhance and repair components of our skin. It is very important for our skin; our skin...
Diet and Cuisine
EU funds study of the origins of milk consumption in Europe
	09/09/2008 1:03:10 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 15 replies · 227+ views Cordis | Monday, September 8, 2008 | University of Uppsala, and Leche An EU-funded project coordinated by Uppsala University in Sweden will study the origins and significance of lactose tolerance in Europe. The project, called LECHE ('Lactase persistence and the early cultural history of Europe'), is a training network with 13 participating universities in Europe... Approximately 85% of adult northern Europeans are able to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk and other dairy products; however, in the rest of the world the ability to digest milk drops off sharply after infancy. In fact, as one moves south from Scandinavia, lactose tolerance in adulthood drops off. The persistence of lactase (the enzyme...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Few Clues About African Ancestry To Be Found In Mitochondrial DNA
	09/09/2008 12:34:57 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 344+ views ScienceDaily | October 14, 2006 | BioMed Central / Reuters Mitochondrial DNA may not hold the key to your origins after all. A study published in the open access journal BMC Biology reveals that fewer than 10% of African American mitochondrial DNA sequences analysed can be matched to mitochondrial DNA from one single African ethnic group. There has been a growing interest in the use of mitochondrial DNA to trace maternal ancestries, and several companies now offer to analyse individuals' mitochondrial DNA sequences to obtain information about their origins. The current study suggests that only one in nine African Americans may be able to find clues about where their ancestors...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Jews and Their DNA
	09/07/2008 9:41:27 AM PDT · Posted by Pharmboy · 26 replies · 692+ views Commentary Magazine | Sept, 2008 | Hillel Halkin Eight years ago, I published an article in these pages called "Wandering Jews -- and Their Genes" (September 2000). At the time I was working on a book about a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group in the northeast Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, many of whose members believe that they descend from the biblical tribe of Manasseh, and about a group of Judaizers among them known as the B'nei Menashe, over a thousand of whom live today in Israel as converts to Judaism. This led me to an interest in Jewish historical genetics, then a new discipline. Historical genetics itself was still a...
Khazars
Russian archaeologists find long-lost Jewish capital
	09/03/2008 9:26:26 AM PDT · Posted by Alouette · 43 replies · 1,086+ views AFP | Sept. 3, 2008 Russian archaeologists said Wednesday they had found the long-lost capital of the Khazar kingdom in southern Russia, a breakthrough for research on the ancient Jewish state. "This is a hugely important discovery," expedition organiser Dmitry Vasilyev told AFP by telephone from Astrakhan State University after returning from excavations near the village of Samosdelka, just north of the Caspian Sea. "We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period -- how the Khazars actually lived. We know very little about the Khazars -- about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture," he...
Asia
After millennia in India, lost tribe returns to Israel
	09/30/2006 2:42:52 PM PDT · Posted by Traianus · 41 replies · 1,638+ views Asia News | 09-30-2006 | Asia News The presumed descendents of the Bnei Menashe, one of the 10 lost biblical tribes mentioned in the Bible, are about to leave India after 2,700 years. They will reside in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Tel Aviv (AsiaNews/Agencies) -- A group of 218 people from a mountainous area of north-eastern India are about to be welcomed in Israel. These are the presumed descendents of the Bnei Menashe tribe, one of the 10 lost biblical tribes lost after the exodus from the Promised Land,...
Pages
Torturing History: Reason reviews Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage & Culture (with Davis's reply)
	07/12/2002 1:03:19 PM PDT · Posted by denydenydeny · 17 replies · 851+ views Reason | April 2002/July 2002 | Chris Bray/Victor Davis Hanson/Chris Bray You're in a crowded room, watching someone rail about some issue of politics or culture. He's loud, sloppy with facts. He's trashing his own position, discrediting the very thing that he believes. Which -- here's the problem -- is pretty much the same thing you happen to believe. He's a wrecking ball on legs, taking out the walls of his own house, and you live there too. So...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
The Carolina bays: Explaining a cosmic mystery, part one of three
	09/07/2008 6:57:55 PM PDT · Posted by baynut · 63 replies · 1,558+ views The Virginian-Pilot | September 7, 2008 | Dianne Tennant The morning began with a brief but vigorous argument - call it a discussion - in the hotel lobby. The breakfast table was loaded with road maps, Google Earth printouts and colorful elevation images intended to help the three researchers locate a curious landscape feature. They were hunting for slight depressions in the earth, dimples almost invisible at ground level but so striking from the air that, for a number of years, they captivated the entire country. Scientists in the mid-1900s devoted careers to their study, debated furiously in print, were celebrated, vilified, laughed at and honored,...
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Neanderthal Brains Grew Like Ours
	09/09/2008 8:40:07 AM PDT · Posted by decimon · 18 replies · 223+ views Live Science | Sep 8, 2008 | Neanderthal Brains Grew Like Ours Score one more for Neanderthals. A new study has found that Neanderthal brains grew at much the same rate as modern human brains do, knocking down the idea that they grew faster in a style considered more primitive.
Underwater Archaeology
Bronze Age mouse offers clues to royal shipwreck [ Ulu Burun wreck ]
	09/09/2008 12:31:13 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 13 replies · 272+ views New Scientist | Thursday, September 4, 2008 | unattributed Remains of a long dead house mouse have been found in the wreck of a Bronze Age royal ship. That makes it the earliest rodent stowaway ever recorded, and proof of how house mice spread around the world. Archaeologist Thomas Cucchi of the University of Durham, UK, identified a fragment of a mouse jaw in sediment from a ship that sank 3500 years ago off the coast of Turkey. The cargo of ebony, ivory, silver and gold - including a gold scarab with the name of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti - indicates it was a royal vessel. Because the cargo...
Moderate Islam
Afghans unearth 19-metre Buddha statue, relics
	09/08/2008 6:47:47 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 20 replies · 649+ views Reuters | 08 Sep 2008 | Sayed Salahuddin Archaeologists have discovered a 19-metre (62-foot) Buddha statue along with scores of other historical relics in central Afghanistan near the ruins of giant statues destroyed by the Islamist Taliban seven years ago. The team was searching for a giant sleeping Buddha believed to have been seen by a Chinese pilgrim centuries ago when it came upon the relics in the central province of Bamiyan, an official said on Monday. "In total, 89 relics such as coins, ceramics and a 19 meters statue have been unearthed," Mohammad Zia Afshar, adviser in the information and culture ministry, told Reuters. He said the...
Longer Perspectives
Alphamummy - The most controversial women ever
	09/09/2008 12:17:47 AM PDT · Posted by bruinbirdman · 15 replies · 397+ views The Times | 9/9/2008 The 20 most controversial women in history It's disgraceful what passes for controversy these days. From the media storm created last week, you would think Sarah Palin was the first moose-shooting anti-abortionist to ever take the world stage. Come to think of it, she probably is. But to really get tongues wagging back in the day you had to have a reputation for incest, torture, murder and stealing from the destitute. Here, the top women leaders with reputations for raising hackles. 1. Messalina (c17-48) If a man is successfully promiscuous, he's regarded as a bit of a chap. A woman...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Jack the Ripper revealed at last -- by great-grandson of cop who tracked him down
	09/08/2008 7:05:43 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 42 replies · 2,938+ views East London Advertiser | 05 Sep 2008 | Mike Brooks The Jack the Ripper "industry' got a boost on the 120th anniversary of his first acknowledged murder. The great-grandson of the police chief in charge of the 1888 Whitechapel Murders arrived at the Ripper exhibition at the Museum in Docklands in East London -- just before the 120th anniversary of the murder Mary Ann Nichols, a prostitute known as "Polly,' believed by many to be his first victim. He arrived with evidence from his Victorian ancestor revealing the Ripper's true identity. Jack the Ripper was never caught and his identity has remained a mystery for 120 years, feeding a whole "industry' that...
Cold War One
Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits Spying for Soviets
	09/11/2008 3:45:45 PM PDT · Posted by RKV · 94 replies · 1,851+ views New York Times | 11 Sep 2008 | Sam Roberts Ever since he was tried and convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on espionage charges in 1951, Morton Sobell has maintained his innocence. A U.S. Marshal escorted Morton Sobell, left, to Federal Court in New York in March of 1951. Until now. In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Sobell, who served nearly 19 years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy. And he implicated his fellow defendant, Julius Rosenberg, in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets vital classified military information and what the American government claimed was the...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Encore for a Stradivarius
	09/08/2008 5:17:29 PM PDT · Posted by Diana in Wisconsin · 32 replies · 617+ views JSOnline | September 6, 2008 | Tom Strini (Violinist welcomes loan with strings) The e-mail came to Frank Almond from out of the blue. It said, basically: I have a Stradivarius violin. Want to see it? Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and a violinist with an international career, knew from long experience that most alleged Strads turn out to be knockoffs. But he had a hunch about this one. He called Stefan Hersh, his Chicago violin dealer and occasional performing colleague, and shared what he'd been told of the instrument. The story sounded plausible to Hersh. In May, Almond and Hersh met the owner in the...
end of digest #217 20080913

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #217 20080913 · Saturday, September 13, 2008 · 24 topics · 2081297 to 813575 · 683 members ·
	Saturday Sep 13 2008 v 5 n 9 view this issue	Welcome to the 217th issue. A mere 24 topics. Seems like it was a too-fast week. I soaked in the tub each day, and read a book I've had for at least five years. I'd post a review on Amazon, but I don't think that site is worth a bleep. I didn't switch shifts, but of course management didn't bother to tell me it wasn't going to happen, I had to call around. Just before leaving tonight, my relief said something that suggests that my actual start date for the day shift will be on Monday -- yet no one has told me this. These are more reasons why I say I need a new job. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #218 Saturday, September 20, 2008
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Large Reservoir Of Mitochondrial DNA Mutations Identified In Humans
	09/19/2008 8:21:43 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 1 replies ScienceDaily | August 12, 2008 | adapted from Virginia Tech release Researchers at the University of Newcastle, England, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech in the United States have revealed a large reservoir of mitochondrial DNA mutations present in the general population. Clinical analysis of blood samples from almost 3,000 infants born in north Cumbria, England, showed that at least 1 in 200 individuals in the general public harbor mitochondrial DNA mutations that may lead to disease.... Mutations in mitochondrial DNA inherited from the mother may cause mitochondrial diseases that include muscle weakness, diabetes, stroke, heart failure, or epilepsy. In almost all mitochondrial diseases caused by mutant mitochondrial DNA,...
Prehistory and Origins
Malaysian archaeologists find complete Neolithic skeletons: report
	09/19/2008 7:26:18 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies PhysOrg | September 19, 2008 | AFP Archaeologists have found two groups of complete Neolithic human remains in peninsular Malaysia and on Borneo island that may better explain prehistoric human life, reports said Friday... the remains are more than 3,000 years old and were found within two months of each other, in prehistoric burial grounds surrounded by ceremonial beads, pottery, shells and animal bones... The first set of remains found in a mangrove swamp on the island of Pulau Kalumpang off northern Perak state consists of three Mongoloid males aged between 15 and 35 years old... The second set were of seven males and a female found...
Asia
Out of Africa: Scientists find earliest evidence yet of human presence in Northeast Asia [ 2004 ]
	09/19/2008 8:14:53 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 4 replies Eurekalert | September 29, 2004 | Elizabeth Malone Early humans lived in northern China about 1.66 million years ago, according to research reported in the journal Nature this week. The finding suggests humans -- characterized by their making and use of stone tools -- inhabited upper Asia almost 340,000 years before previous estimates placed them there, surviving in a pretty hostile environment. The research team, including Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, reports the results of excavating four layers of sediments at Majuangou in north China. All the layers contained indisputable stone tools apparently made by early humans, known to researchers as "hominins."
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Photo In The News: DNA-Based Neanderthal Face Unveiled
	09/19/2008 7:20:56 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 32 replies National Geographic News | September 17, 2008 | David Braun
Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us?
	09/18/2008 10:51:17 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies Discovery News | September 9, 2008 | Jennifer Viegas Most notably among the new studies is what researchers say is the first ever direct evidence that a woolly mammoth was brought down by Neanderthal weapons. Margherita Mussi and Paola Villa made the connection after studying a 60,000 to 40,000-year-old mammoth skeleton unearthed near Neanderthal stone tool artifacts at a site called Asolo in northeastern Italy. The discoveries are described in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science. Villa, a curator of paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News that other evidence suggests Neanderthals hunted the giant mammals, but not as directly. At the English...
British Isles
Discovery of ancient axes delights experts[UK][400K BC]
	09/18/2008 7:30:37 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 16 replies Western Daily Press | 18 Sep 2008 | Western Daily Press They may only look like a couple of sharp rocks, but 400,000 years ago these stones may well have been used as axes to butcher woolly rhinos. Archaeologists were celebrating the find of the two rare huge hand axes found in a gravel pit at a Somerset quarry. Dr Laura Basell, Professor Tony Brown and Dr Phil Toms could not believe their luck when they spotted the pair at Bardon Aggregates' quarry at Chard Junction. And it is thought that the quality of the workmanship indicates it was not our own species wielding the deadly hand axes back in the...
Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy
Stone-age pilgrims trekked hundreds of miles to attend feast [ Stonehenge ]
	09/15/2008 9:08:27 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 12 replies · 256+ views Guardian | September 11, 2008 | James Randerson Stone age people drove animals hundreds of miles to a site close to Stonehenge to be slaughtered for ritual feasts, according to scientists who have examined the chemical signatures of animal remains buried there... Durrington Walls is a stone-age village containing the remains of numerous cattle and pigs which are thought to have been buried there after successive ritual feasts. The site is two miles north east of Stonehenge and dates from around 3000 BC, 500 years before the first stones were erected... The evidence points to groups of people driving animals from as far away as Wales for the...
Agriculture and Animal Husbandry
Research pushes back history of crop development 10,000 years
	09/19/2008 7:17:04 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 8 replies PhysOrg | September 19, 2008 | University of Warwick Until recently researchers say the story of the origin of agriculture was one of a relatively sudden appearance of plant cultivation in the Near East around 10,000 years ago spreading quickly into Europe and dovetailing conveniently with ideas about how quickly language and population genes spread from the Near East to Europe. Initially, genetics appeared to support this idea but now cracks are beginning to appear in the evidence underpinning that model. Now a team led by Dr Robin Allaby from the University of Warwick have developed a new mathematical model that shows how plant agriculture actually began much earlier...
Diet and Cuisine
Chianti: Secret to Long Life, Says Ancient Recipe
	09/18/2008 11:03:38 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies Discovery News | September 15, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi The elixir of life may be a concoction of honey, cherries and secret herbs infused in a full Chianti wine, according to a centuries-old recipe discovered in one of Italy's oldest pharmacies. The 18th century-old recipe was discovered in an old manuscript found among the shelves of a pharmacy in Asciano near Sienna dating back to 1715. "My ancestors left several manuscripts with formulas for digestive drinks, but this one struck me because of its ingredients. I knew it had strong scientific basis," said pharmacist Giovanni De Munari, who found the old recipe from behind a small shelf in his...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
How Lager Yeasts Came in from the Cold, Twice
	09/18/2008 11:16:22 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 11 replies New Scientist | September 10, 2008 | Andy Coghlan Yeast strains used today to brew lager have two genetic ancestors, not one as previously thought. The discovery may explain the origins of the two major categories of lager today, described in the trade as the "Saaz" beers such as Pilsner and Budweiser, and the "Frohberg" beers such as Orangeboom and Heineken. It turns out that both probably owe their origins to laws in 16th-century Bavaria that banned brewing in the summer because scorching heat ruined the ale that was brewed before the emergence of lager. Forced to produce their beer in the winter, brewers accidentally created conditions favouring the...
Anatolia
Defences at Troy reveal larger town [ news finally reaches UK ]
	09/19/2008 7:36:25 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies Times o' London | September 19, 2008 | Normand Hammond Ancient Troy was much bigger than previously thought, and may have housed as many as 10,000 people, new excavations have revealed. The lower town, in which most of the population would have lived, may have been as large as 40 hectares (100 acres), according to Professor Ernst Pernicka... Excavations by the late Manfred Korfmann showed that this Troy was just the citadel and that a much larger lower town lay south of it enclosed by a rock-cut ditch (The Times, February 25, 2002). Professor Pernicka's continuation of Korfmann's work has confirmed the substantial nature of this defensive work, which was...
Greece
First Greek Mummy Once Led Privileged Life
	09/17/2008 10:13:39 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 5 replies · 212+ views Discovery News | August 8, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi Dating to 300 A.D., when the Romans ruled Greece, the partially mummified remains belong to a middle-aged woman. Her Roman-type marble sarcophagus was unearthed in 1962 during archaeological excavations in the eastern cemetery of Thessaloniki, which was used from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine Periods for burials and other rituals. Wrapped in bandages and covered with a gold-embroidered purple silk cloth, the woman lay on a wooden pallet... [from page 2] Although there are no written accounts describing the practice of mummification in ancient Greece, it is known that the Greeks were familiar with the extraction of essential oils and...
Rome and Italy
How the barbarians drove Romans to build Venice
	09/17/2008 10:08:24 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 9 replies · 433+ views The Times | September 17, 2008 | Richard Owen in Rome The hidden ruins of an ancient lagoon city that was the ancestor of Venice have been unearthed by scientists using satellite imaging. The outlines are clearly visible about three feet below the earth in what is now open countryside... Paolo Mozzi, a researcher at the University of Padua geography department, said high-definition satellite photographs had revealed the ruins of an extensive town much closer to present day Venice at Altino -- known in Roman times as Altinum -- a little more than seven miles north of the city, close to Marco Polo airport... The newly identified ruins include streets, palaces,...
Epigraphy and Language
Coin found by Wrexham pensioner is 2,000 years old[UK]
	09/16/2008 6:39:52 AM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 18 replies · 712+ views Evening Leader | 16 Sep 2008 | Evening Leader A ROMAN coin unearthed by a Wrexham metal detecting enthusiast has been confirmed as one of the oldest ever found in Wales. Retired butcher Roy Page, 69, of Coedpoeth, found the detailed 2,000-year-old coin on a farm near St Asaph when he went on a search there with the Mold-based Historical Search Society earlier this year. Roy gave the tiny silver coin, which depicts two horses being driven by a man on a chariot, to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), who have recently confirmed the specific date that it was made. It is believed to have been brought over some...
India
A Strategic Advance on Europe [ from 2002, chess in 5th century Europe ]
	09/14/2008 9:37:31 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies · 169+ views Discover Vol. 23 No. 11 | November 2002 | Jocelyn Selim A two-inch-tall ivory chess piece, part of an ancient set, suggests that traders brought the game to Europe at least five centuries earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists led by Richard Hodges of Britain's East Anglia University excavated the game piece (right) from the remains of a fifth-century port city on the Albanian coast. Chess had probably originated as a war-strategy training game in India by the third century A.D., but it took ages to reach Europe, historians traditionally believed. "A number of chess pieces, found from Scotland down to southern Italy, date to around the 12th century, so it...
One Hump or Two?
Million-year-old camel bone unearthed in Syria (unknown tiny species of camel family)
	09/13/2008 1:03:48 PM PDT · Posted by NormsRevenge · 16 replies · 239+ views AP on Yahoo | 9/13/08 | AP DAMASCUS, Syria -- Scientists have unearthed a camel jawbone in the Syrian desert that they think may be a previously unknown tiny species of the animal and say dates back a million years.
Let's Have Jerusalem
Galilee Drought Uncovers Oldest Village In The World
	09/24/2001 1:40:07 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 96 replies · 998+ views Sunday Times (UK) | 9-23-2001 | Dina Shiloh Israeli archeologists have found what could be the world's oldest village on the dried-out bed of the Sea of Galilee. The settlement, dating back 20,000 years, came to light in one of the worst droughts in recent years. Thousands of items including huts, tools and fireplaces found at Ohalo, on the southwestern shore, give a unique insight into the semi-nomadic people who lived there towards the end of the early Stone Age. "We found what every researcher dreams of finding," said Dani Nadel, ...
Climate
Sahara dried out slowly, not abruptly: study
	05/08/2008 2:12:41 PM PDT · Posted by suthener · 20 replies · 603+ views Reuters | Thu May 8, 2008 2:10pm EDT | Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes. And there are now signs of a tiny shift back towards greener conditions in parts of the Sahara, apparently because of OSLO (Reuters) - The once-green Sahara turned to desert over thousands of years rather than in an abrupt shift as previously believed, according to a study on Thursday that may help understanding of future climate changes. And there are now signs of a...
Graves Found From Sahara's Green Period
	09/15/2008 4:21:39 PM PDT · Posted by Fred Nerks · 51 replies · 733+ views New York Times Science | August 15, 2008 | By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD When Paul C. Sereno went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green. The first traces of pottery, stone tools and human skeletons were discovered eight years ago at a site in the southern Sahara, in Niger. After preliminary research, Dr. Sereno, a University of Chicago scientist who had previously uncovered remains of the dinosaur Nigersaurus there, organized an international team of archaeologists to investigate what had...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Solving a 10,000-year-old mystery
	09/17/2008 10:33:47 PM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 10 replies Columbus Dispatch | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 | Kevin Mayhood Among the stag moose remains Bob Glotzhober is studying is this fossilized jaw bone. The teeth indicate that the animal was probably 4 or 5 years old... In August, Tyler Underwood was digging clay in Medina County when he unearthed remains of a stag moose, a mammal that became extinct 10,000 years ago. In all, 34 pieces were recovered. Most of the other stag-moose remains found in Ohio consist of one or two bones... a humerus, a long forelimb bone... [has] a hole on one side and grooves on the other... "If we can show the marks on this bone...
Paleontology
Pigs ruled the world 260 million years ago: Study
	09/17/2008 1:54:57 PM PDT · Posted by decimon · 70 replies · 518+ views Newspost Online | Sep 17, 2008 | Unknown Scientists from Leeds University have discovered that the world was ruled by pig-like creatures for a million years. The "Age of the Porcine" occurred around 260 million years ago - when the creatures called lystrosaurs were the few survivors of a mass extinction. Nearly 95 pct of the living species were destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions leaving behind pigs in a "golden age" of no predators. They had Earth's abundant plant-life all to themselves. "We can only speculate on how lystrosaurs survived while the rest died. Perhaps its ability to burrow and hibernate protected it from the worst...
High Hopes
Scientists discover 120 million year-old ant
	09/16/2008 10:05:02 AM PDT · Posted by null and void · 36 replies · 867+ views Reuters | Tue Sep 16, 2008 11:48am EDT | Reporting by Josie Cox, Editing by Mark Trevelyan BERLIN (Reuters) - German biologists have discovered a new species of ant they believe is the oldest on the planet, dating back around 120 million years. Researchers from Karlsruhe's Natural History Museum found the 3-millimeter-long (0.118 inch) insect in the Amazon rainforest in 2007, and hope it will shed light on the early evolution of ants. "It's by far the most spectacular find of my 26-year career," said museum biologist Manfred Verhaagh on Tuesday. A new species of Martialis heureka, a blind, subterranean, predatory ant, in an undated photo. German biologists have discovered a new species of ant they believe...
Strange 'Ant From Mars' Discovered in Amazon Rainforest
	09/16/2008 9:12:42 PM PDT · Posted by Justice Department · 25 replies · 709+ views foxnews | September 16, 2008 A newly discovered species of a blind, subterranean predator -- dubbed the "Ant from Mars" -- is likely a descendant of one of the very first ants to evolve on Earth, a new study finds.
The Vikings
Kimmirut site suggests early European contact [ Vikings ]
	09/15/2008 8:58:05 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 3 replies · 211+ views Nunatsiaq News | September 12, 2008 | Jane George Vikings - or perhaps other Europeans - may have set up housekeeping and traded with Inuit 1,000 years ago near today's community of Kimmirut. That's the picture of the past emerging from ancient artifacts found near Kimmirut, where someone collected Arctic hare fur and spun the fur into yarn and someone else carved notches into a wooden stick to record trading transactions. Dorset Inuit probably didn't make the yarn and tally sticks because yarn and wood weren't part of Inuit culture at that time, said Patricia Sutherland, an archeologist with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Other artifacts from the area,...
Clovis Superhunters
'Macho' ancient hunters may have relied on rabbits [ Clovis ]
	09/17/2008 10:04:45 AM PDT · Posted by SunkenCiv · 18 replies · 355+ views Columbus Dispatch | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 | Bradley T. Lepper Clovis points are the hallmark of one of America's earliest cultures: the Paleoindians. Since archaeologists found Clovis points lodged in the skeleton of a mammoth, they have viewed Paleoindians as big-game hunters par excellence... This macho view of Paleoindian prehistory has prevailed even though surprisingly little evidence exists to support it. In a study published in the October issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, Kent State University archaeologist Mark Seeman and several co-researchers wrote of Paleoindian stone tools from the Nobles Pond site in Stark County. They reported the discovery of blood residue on eight Clovis points. Four were...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon
	09/19/2008 4:43:17 AM PDT · Posted by Renfield · 12 replies BBC News | 8-28-08 A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports. The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but in fact shows traces of extensive human activity. Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plazas....
Early America
How in the world did coin land in Latham?[NY]
	09/17/2008 8:50:58 PM PDT · Posted by BGHater · 21 replies Times Union | 16 Sep 2008 | JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST Dig at 19th-century tavern site reveals possible link to China -- Digging through 200-year-old trash heaps isn't always glamorous. But a small Asian coin uncovered behind a 19th-century Latham tavern turned a routine archaeological survey into an international puzzle. The copper alloy coin was unearthed as archaeologists combed through the soil behind the old Ebenezer Hills Jr. house. The one-time way station on a busy turnpike between Albany and Schenectady (now Route 7) was the equivalent of a Thruway rest stop when the trip between the two cities could take a day. Last month, the Albany County Airport Authority...
Early America
Ike Uncovers Mystery Civil War-Era Shipwreck
	09/19/2008 4:23:26 PM PDT · Posted by metmom · 15 replies FOXNews.com | Friday, September 19, 2008 | Associated Press FORT MORGAN, Ala. , Texas -- When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery -- a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969. Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed trying to get past the U.S. Navy and into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.
World War Eleven
A Chat w/WW II Vet
	09/15/2008 6:13:36 AM PDT · Posted by 7thson · 34 replies · 411+ views My wife and I went to a Republican fund-raiser this weekend - a wine-tasting party. At our table an eldery couple sat down - both in their late 80's. The man was a WW II vet. Joked that he joined the army in 1940 only for one year and ended up getting out in 1946. Was in the Normandy invasion all the way to Germany. Was part of the group that liberated Dachau. Swore up and down that Patton was the greatest general ever. Had some good conversation with both he and his wife.
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
Check out this amazing ad!!! 12 Decades of English History in 2 minutes.
	09/15/2008 11:25:40 AM PDT · Posted by C19fan · 24 replies · 867+ views http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/our-ads/ | 9/15/08 | Me What an amazing ad from UK bakery Hovis. A little boy taking a loaf home goes through 120 years of British history, the bakery is celebrating its 120 anniversary. What a great scene of the Tommies marching off to Flanders and a Spitfire.
Longer Perspectives
I, Obama
	09/12/2008 2:10:24 PM PDT · Posted by Congressman Billybob · 50 replies · 1,343+ views Special to FreeRepublic | 12 Sept 2008 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob) Remember the PBS series special on the Roman Emperor, Claudius? The title, which captured the style of his governance, "I, Claudius." It was a 13-part series on Masterpiece Theater. How many of you saw it? Let's not always see the same hands. Well, almost all of you remember some of the history of the Roman Emperors. They ranged from mad and murderous, like Nero, to rational and effective, like Augustine. Hold that thought, and we'll get to today's subject. A good friend, Duncan Parham, is a man of eclectic interests. One of those is rare coins. Last weekend he showed...
Moderate Islam
Did Muhammad Ever Really Live?
	09/19/2008 5:25:25 AM PDT · Posted by Perdogg · 29 replies Spiegel (Germany) | 9/18/2008 A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived. Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the debate and the historical person of the Prophet.
end of digest #218 20080920