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Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival. That's the assertion made by an international group of scientists in one of four related research papers, all appearing in the journal Science Open: Airbursts and Cratering Impacts. The papers are the latest results in the investigation of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, the idea that an anomalous cooling of the Earth almost 13 millennia ago...

Prof. Jennifer Bates and her coworkers, Kelly Wilcox Black and Prof. Kathleen Morrison... explore charred lumps from the site of Kadebakele, in southern India... The site dates from around 2,300 BCE to CE 1600 or so, but these data are from the Early Iron Age, about 800 BC. Charred lumps are usually seen as not identifiable, but using high-quality imaging, they were able to show that (some of) these are charred remains of dough or batter; these would have been used to make bread-like dishes. Comparing the data with experimental studies done another lab group, they identified two kinds of...

There's a weird trend going around, and it isn't a new TikTok dance, but rather food processing plants catching on fire. Since the beginning of this year, there have been a high number of food distributing and processing facilities catching on fire and creating massive damage. Why are so many food processing plants catching on fire? Social media and Twitter, in particular, are drawing attention to a trend occurring in numerous food processing plants — they are catching on fire. While some of them have been able to bounce back, others are stuck trying to rebuild and resume distributing goods,...

'The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia'War in Ukraine threatens to blow US food costs sky high. Experts say American shoppers will begin to see higher grocery bills as the war in Ukraine threatens global food supplies. President Biden said Thursday that a food shortage is "gonna be real" following the sanctions that were placed on Russia by the U.S. government as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine. "With regard to food shortage, yes we did talk about food shortages, and it's gonna be real," Biden said during a press conference at...

A new study reveals a shocking truth bomb that tens of millions of Americans are struggling to survive in Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ economy as inflation tears apart working poor households. Researchers from left-leaning Economic Policy Oxfam America, an anti-poverty advocacy group, published a study Tuesday titled “The crisis of low wages in the US” and found 31.9% of the US workforce, or about 51.9 million workers, are earning less than $15 an hour, equivalent to less than $31,200. “It’s shameful that at a time when many US companies are boasting record profits, some of the hardest working people in...

An out-of-touch academic, writing a column for Bloomberg Opinion, demonstrated just how out of touch the country's elites are as inflation hits every sector of the country. Instead of hiding the mess, or better yet, just not printing it, Bloomberg Opinion tweeted its existence out with a handy tip sheet: (tweets at link) Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300K. Here's how to deal: ➡️ Take the bus ➡️ Don’t buy in bulk ➡️ Try lentils instead of meat ➡️ Nobody said this would be fun Which was about as amateur-hour as it gets on the age-old topic...

An economics professor has a solution for the little people dealing with the country’s inflationary woes: Use mass transportation, eat more veggies instead of meat, and cut back on unnecessary care for your pets.In a Bloomberg.com op-ed, the New School’s Teresa Ghilarducci says these tips are a good idea for anyone making less than … $280,000 per year. “To deal with gas prices, it’s worth reconsidering public transportation if it’s an option where you live,” Ghilarducci says. After all, mass transport fares are up only 8 percent compared to 38 percent for gasoline. And don’t think about getting a new...

A BLOOMBERG Opinion piece is getting backlash after a 'tone-deaf' tweet saying that inflation 'stings most' for those making under $300K a year. "Nobody said this would be fun," the controversial tweet by Bloomberg Opinion reads, sparking thousands of people to react to the March 13 article by Teresa Ghilarducci. Ghilarducci makes suggestions in the piece like pivoting to vegetables in order to avoid inflated meat prices, and taking the bus to avoid inflated gas prices. "I expect those most affected will adjust to inflation in the classic way by shifting away from relatively expensive items toward close substitutes." The...

In a land flowing with milk and honey, what kinds of food made up the ancient Jewish diet? What did people eat and drink in Roman Palestine? Susan Weingarten guides readers through a menu of the first millennium C.E. in her article "Biblical Archaeology 101: The Ancient Diet of Roman Palestine," published in the March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although it is difficult to reconstruct the diet of the average person in Palestine during the Roman and Late Antique periods, Weingarten, as both a food historian and an archaeologist, is well equipped for the task. Using archaeological remains...

A well-preserved frescoed “fast food” counter is among the latest discoveries unearthed by archaeologists in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The 150 or so thermopolia, or snack bars, dotted across the city were mostly used by the poorer residents, who rarely had cooking facilities in their home, to grab a snack or drink. Typical menus included coarse bread with salty fish, baked cheese, lentils and spicy wine.

Many wheat farmers facing low prices have turned this year to other crops, including chickpeas and lentils, in hopes of turning a profit. This year’s wheat crop of 45.7 million acres (18.49 million hectares) is the smallest since 1919 and it comes after a 2016 crop that was the least profitable in 30 years. North Dakota, Montana and Nebraska are among the states with significantly fewer wheat acres. …

Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii's standard restaurants, says a new research into a non-elite section of the ancient Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. The study, which will be presented on Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Association Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, draws on a multi-year excavation in a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, said his team has spent more than a decade researching the life of the middle and...

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman...

A 4,000-year-old lentil seed unearthed in an archeological excavation has successfully sprouted after being planted. Project leader and Dumlupınar University archeology faculty Professor Nejat Bilgen said they found the seeds during an excavation undertaken last year in Kütahya province. Bilgen said a layer from the container in which they found the seeds was determined to be from the middle bronze age. He said his team found many seeds, but most had been burnt, adding that they had failed to make the others turn green before the recent success. The excavation team believes they found a silo because there were many...

Beetles, Lentils and Anchovies No, not some new dieting fad - what beetles, lentils and anchovies have in common is their value as indicators of ancient climate change. In a special issue of the journal Fisheries Research (Volume 87, November 2007), an international group of ecologists and historians have drawn upon archaeological material, tax accounts, church registers and monastic account books to present a picture of marine life in the North Sea from 7000 BC to the present. They found that warm-water species, including anchovy and black sea bream, once thrived around Britain’s shores – notably during the warm Atlantic...

A PLAN by a group of peace campaigners to travel by bus to Baghdad to offer themselves to Saddam Hussein as human shields has been threatened with collapse by the personal clashes, logistical chaos and the loss of their leader. One of the group’s three double-deckers has been abandoned in Italy with engine trouble and plans to travel through the Balkans were aborted as “too dangerous”. The head of the delegation, a former American marine, has been deported from Turkey for trying to enter the country with a “world citizen” passport after renouncing his United States citizenship. The second of...