Free Republic

While the development of agriculture is often associated with the Fertile Crescent, past research has shown that farming actually developed independently at different times and places around the world, including Africa, the Americas, and eastern Asia. New evidence from a cave in southern Uzbekistan continues to show that the advent and spread of agricultural technology is more complicated than originally thought, according to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. Recent archaeological work in Toda Cave uncovered evidence that the region's inhabitants were already engaging in sophisticated harvesting practices 9,200 years ago. Wear patterns on stone tools...

Discovered within the darkness of Petralona Cave, this remarkable skull - which belongs to an archaic species of human - is notable for the fact that it has a stalagmite growing directly through it. Initially found in 1960 and often referred to as "Petralona Man", this intriguing specimen has long left paleoanthropologist's scratching their heads. A recent study has concluded that it is neither Neanderthal nor human, leaving a question mark over exactly which species of archaic human ancestor it actually belonged to. The 'Petralona Man' skull. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 NadinaThe skull is also now believed to date...

Country music artist Spencer Hatcher, his father Michael Hatcher, and Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson addressed the violent murder of Spencer's mother, Holly Hatcher, a beloved teacher and the death of the man responsible for the crime. In a joint video statement, Hutcheson and the Hatcher family shared a timeline of events leading up to the violent attack that claimed the life of 62-year-old Holly, and left her 65-year-old husband, Michael, injured. The suspect, identified as Kevin Moses Walker, 41, of Pikesville, Maryland, was killed during the incident after Michael Hatcher retrieved a handgun from his vehicle and fired a...

In an unprecedented move, a significant change has been made to the long-standing status quo at the Cave of the Patriarchs: authority over the site has been transferred from the Palestinian-run Hebron Municipality to the Kiryat Arba-Hebron Religious Council by the Civil Administration, in order to conduct structural upgrades at the compound.In an unprecedented move, Israel has significantly altered the long-standing status quo at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, transferring authority from the Palestinian-run Hebron Municipality to the Kiryat Arba-Hebron Religious Council. The decision, executed by the Civil Administration, aims to enable major structural upgrades at the holy...

Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) predicted Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In” that President Donald Trump would “cave” on implementing tariffs in the next couple of weeks. When asked about tariffs, Schiff said, “I’m very concerned. I was at one of California’s ports just a week or so ago, and they were talking about the real declines in traffic they’re seeing into the port, which they can see across the horizon, because you can see when ships leave from overseas, when they’re going to arrive, you can see the falloff in cargo containers. I think they’re expecting within the next couple of...

The guidance also includes exclusions for other electronic devices and components, including semiconductors, solar cells, flat panel TV displays, flash drives, memory cards and solid-state drives used for storing data.

A study team led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) says that a 7,000-year-old weapon kit consisting of two bowstrings believed to be the oldest ever found in Europe and a set of three wood arrows discovered in the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada, reveals an “unprecedented degree of precision and technical mastery” in their construction. When describing the complexity of the bowstrings, which were woven together from the tendons of three different animal species, Raquel Piqué, a researcher in the Department of Prehistory of the UAB and coordinator of the study, said that “this...

In southern Spain’s Cave of the Bats, starting almost 10,000 years ago, people buried their dead with stunningly crafted baskets that wouldn’t shame the finest arts and crafts markets today.Armed with elaborate baskets made of the tough local grass, the first to bury their loved ones at Cueva de los Murciélagos were hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic (at the tail end of the Ice Age). That activity then ceased for about 2,000 years, at which point a new population appeared in the cave: early farmers of the Neolithic, who interred their dead with a different type of woven-ware – and sandals...

(Israel Antiquities Authority/YouTube) Israeli researchers made a rare find during a survey of a Dead Sea cave: Four perfectly preserved Roman swords thought to have been used in battle 1,900 years ago. The swords were likely "booty" hidden by rebels from an opposing faction, who would have been in danger if they were caught carrying the Roman weapons, Eitan Klein, one of the directors of the Judean Desert Survey Project who worked on the dig, said in a statement. Four Roman-era swords, their wooden and leather hilts and scabbards and steel blades exquisitely preserved after 1,900 years in a desert...

...First, the human fossils cannot be directly dated, since the site is a world heritage area and the fossils are protected by Laotian laws.Second, there are very few animal bones and no suitable cave decorations, either of which might be used for dating.And third, the entrance of the site is wide and steep. This means any charcoal found in the cave, which is useful for dating, may well have come from outside—so it has little relation to the age of the sediment inside.This means the backbone of the timeline must be established by the dating of the sediment itself using...

İnkaya Cave, located within the borders of Bahadırlı village in the Çan district, was found during the Muğla and Çanakkale Provinces Survey conducted in 2016 under the direction of İsmail Özer, a lecturer at Ankara University, Department of Paleoanthropology...During the excavations carried out last year, the Middle Paleolithic period workshop part of the cave was unearthed... humans from the Middle Paleolithic Period resided in the region for extended periods due to the availability of flint raw material and water resources.“Evidence of the Paleolithic era in Çanakkale was previously limited. Through our research, it became evident that Çanakkale is actually one...

If the claims are true, the behavior by Homo naledi—a baffling, small-brained member of the human family tree—would pre-date the earliest known burials by at least 100,000 years. An extinct human species that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago may have deliberately buried its dead and carved meaningful symbols deep in a South African cave—advanced behaviors generally deemed unique to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens. If confirmed, the burials would be the earliest yet known by at least 100,000 years. The claims, made today in two research papers uploaded to the preprint server bioRxiv, were also announced by paleoanthropologist...

President Joe Biden caved to Republicans and signaled that he could accept some reforms in a potential debt ceiling deal after months of refusing to negotiate any spending cuts or reforms. White House and congressional staffers have wrangled over the details of a potential debt ceiling deal. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who previously warned that the deadline was June 1 to pressure Congress, said she was hopeful about a deal.

For months now, the Democrats have been attacking the Republicans, accusing them of attempting to cause the U.S. to default on its financial obligations. Meanwhile, the GOP has insisted they aren’t going to cave on the debt limit but also says they are looking for cuts to address Washington D.C.’s exorbitant spending. That has become the rallying cry that has gotten conservatives behind House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But, behind the scenes, there appears to be very little progress on actually finding a path forward on this. McCarthy hasn’t spoken with or negotiated with President Joe Biden in months, and the...

Part of the adventure in luring your friends out to the high desert terrain in Northern California, where a valley floor spills from the northern backside of Mount Shasta, is that precious moment when they look at you as though you’ve led them into danger. Having discovered Pluto’s Cave from a map, I was prepared for some sagebrush whacking. What I wasn’t prepared for was that reaching the trailhead required navigating a maze of dusty roads. The cave is considered an easy hike — no serious spelunking experience necessary — and located less than 20 minutes from Interstate 5. Pluto’s...

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has caved to outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and will allow the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include the highly controversial media cartel bill the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News. (Snip) The JCPA, essentially a transfer of wealth from Silicon Valley to the discredited and distrusted corporate legacy media, is highly controversial. Beyond the financial payouts to media companies, they will be able to form a “joint negotiating entity” — a cartel, immune from antitrust law — to negotiate...

In Herzliya in Israel, people have begun a petition to try to save a modern-day hermit from being thrown out of his unusual dwelling, built in a cave on the coast. Nisim spent months living by the sea without a home, but then defied the humidity, salt and waves to build a Gaudi-like structure, which has been a local attraction for nearly 50 years. But now the authorities want him to leave, saying he built without permission and is harming the environment. Nisim insists he will not leave his life’s work until he dies.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) on Wednesday signaled his preparation to cave to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) effort to retain control of the House amid statewide redistricting. Parson’s communications director, Kelli Jones, tweeted a threatening message to the Republican-controlled legislature that is internally debating whether to give Pelosi an extra House district to flaunt in the midterms. Establishment state Republican senators have filibustered the GOP favorable maps since Tuesday.

We all followed the events of the cave rescue. We think we know what happened. But we don’t. “The Rescue”, by directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, has peered behind the heroic narrative that was cultivated at the time of the Chiang Rai Tham Luang cave rescue in July 2018. 13 young men – 12 teenagers and their 24 year old soccer coach – rode their bikes to the Tham Luang Caves in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand, for a quick excursion following training of the Mu Pa (wild boars) team. It was Saturday, June 23, 2018. Following torrential monsoonal...

240 rescuers...from at least eight teams across the U.K. brought up the 40-year-old man on a stretcher Monday to the entrance of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, also known as the Cave of the Black Spring, 54 hours after he fell. “The caver was very unlucky here. He’s an experienced caver, a fit caver. And it was a matter of putting his foot in the wrong place,” said Peter Francis, the spokesman for the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team. “He wasn’t in a dangerous part of the cave, it’s just something moved from under him.” The cave system is located...