Free Republic 3rd Qtr 2025 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $45,380
56%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 56%!! Thank you all very much!! God bless.

Keyword: isotopicanalysis

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Lock of Hair May Change Knowledge About Inca Recordkeeping

    08/28/2025 6:21:33 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 17 replies
    Archaeology Magazine ^ | August 20, 2025 | editors / unattributed
    Science reports that recent analysis of an Inca recordkeeping device in the collection of the University of St. Andrews is upending what archaeologists previously thought about the pre-Columbian South American civilization. Hundreds of years ago, the Incas developed a unique system, using knotted cords known as khipus to record information such as dates, numbers, and transactions. These were typically made from long strands of llama or alpaca hair. It had been thought that the job of creating and maintaining these complicated tools was held by highly educated and elite administrative men who were among Inca society's upper echelon. A new...
  • Dog burial as common ritual in Neolithic populations of north-eastern Iberian Peninsula

    02/17/2019 5:04:54 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 13 replies
    Eurekalert ^ | Valentine's Day 2019 | Bibiana Bonmatí, University of Barcelona
    Coinciding with the Pit Grave culture (4200-3600 years before our era), coming from Southern Europe, the Neolithic communities of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula started a ceremonial activity related to the sacrifice and burial of dogs. The high amount of cases that are recorded in Catalonia suggests it was a general practice and it proves the tight relationship between humans and these animals, which, apart from being buried next to them, were fed a similar diet to humans'... The study analyses the remains of twenty-six dogs found in funerary structures from four sites and necropolises of the Barcelona region, and has...
  • The Nitrogen The Vikings Left Behind

    09/11/2006 2:55:50 PM PDT · by blam · 25 replies · 914+ views
    New Scientist ^ | 9-11-2006
    nitrogen the Vikings left behind 11 September 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. Discovering ancient settlements is often rather hit and miss, but the odds would be improved with a bit of chemical analysis. Plants growing over old sites of human habitation have a different chemistry from their neighbours, and these differences can reveal the location buried ruins. Plants mostly take in nitrogen from the soil as the isotope nitrogen-14, with just a dash of nitrogen-15. Plants growing above archaeological sites in Greenland, however, seem to have absorbed a larger dose of nitrogen-15. Rob Commisso and Erle Nelson from...