Clipmarks | amgumen's achaeology collection

Dig pinpoints Stonehenge origins

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:09:35 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Archaeologists have pinpointed the construction of Stonehenge to 2300 BC - a key step to discovering how and why the mysterious temple was built.

The radiocarbon date is said to be the most accurate yet and means the ring's original bluestones were put up 300 years later than previously thought.

Mineral analysis indicates that the original circle of bluestones was transported to the plain from a site 240km (150 miles) away, in the Preseli hills

Professors Darvill and Wainwright believe that Stonehenge was a centre of healing - a "Neolithic Lourdes", to which the sick and injured travelled from far and wide, to be healed by the powers of the bluestones.

They note that "an abnormal number" of the corpses found in tombs nearby Stonehenge display signs of serious physical injury and disease.

And analysis of teeth recovered from graves show that "around half" of the corpses were from people who were "not native to the Stonehenge area".

Ike Helps Uncover Mystery Vessel on Ala. Coast

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:02:32 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

People look over the wreck of a wooden ship uncovered by Hurricane Ike on a beach on Fort Morgan Road in Fort Morgan, Ala., Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008. Archeologists say the wreck could be that of a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. Credit: AP Photo/Press-Register, Guy Busby.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

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.

The wrecked ship is 136.9 feet long and 25 feet wide, according to Mike Bailey, site curator at Fort Morgan, who examined it this week. The Monticello was listed in shipping records as 136 feet long, McLean told the Press-Register of Mobile.

Meanwhile, curious beach-goers have been drawn to the remains of the wooden hull filled with rusted iron fittings. Fort Morgan was used by Confederate soldiers as Union forces attacked in 1864 during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

Russian Digging

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:18:44 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: englishrussia.com

Just taking a step to any village outskirts and digging a few feet deep inside the soil would reveal tons of the things laying there since World War II. Almost all the territory of Western Russia was a battlefield so if you ever go to Russia you don’t need to pay a visit to an antique store, you can start digging at any place and get your part of loot.

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:54:50 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plaza

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

Like medieval European and ancient Greek towns, those forming the Amazonian urban landscape were surrounded by large walls. These were composed of earthworks, the remains of which have survived.

Each community had an identical road, always pointing north-east to south-west, which are connected to a central plaza

Evidence was found of dams and artificial ponds

The people who once lived in the settlements are thought to have been wiped out by European colonists and the diseases they brought with them.

Pre-Incan female Wari mummy unearthed in Peru

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:54:09 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Besides the female mummy, the tomb contained the remains of two other adults and a child. It is the first intact Wari burial site discovered at Huaca Pucllana in the capital Lima, and researchers believe it dates from about 700 AD.

The Wari people lived and ruled in what is now Peru for some 500 years, between 600 AD and 1100 AD. Their capital was near modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes, but they traveled widely and are known for their extensive network of roads.

When in good condition, Wari tombs can be identified by the ceramic and textile offerings placed around the dead.

Small children were often sacrificed and it is common to find their bodies alongside adult ones. The child discovered with the adult mummies at Huaca Pucllana was likely sacrificed.

The discovery at Huaca Pucllana confirms the Wari people buried their dead in what is now Lima and offers a more complete picture of how burials were done

Neanderthals were very capable technicians

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:50:54 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Early stone tools developed by our species Homo sapiens were no more sophisticated than those used by our extinct relatives the Neanderthals.

Neanderthal tools were just as efficient as those made by our ancestors

The findings cast doubt on suggestions that more advanced stone technologies gave modern humans a competitive edge over the Neanderthals.

In some respects, the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were even more efficient than the blades adopted by modern humans.

The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) appear in the fossil record about 400,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, and displaced the Neanderthals after spreading into Europe about 40,000 years ago.

The last known evidence of Neanderthals comes from Gibraltar and is dated to between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago.

Neanderthals (l) were different from our species (r), but not inferior

When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different'

Roman temple found under church

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:25:40 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a Roman temple beneath the foundations of a church.

The building, which dates to the second century AD, was found during an excavation at Zippori, the capital of Galilee during the Roman period.

Coins depict a temple to Roman gods Zeus and Tyche

The columns of one building were probably destroyed in a quake

The first archaeological digs there were begun by an American team in 1930.

The site is one of the most important for mosaics in the eastern Roman empire. More than 40 mosaics have been found dating from the 3rd to 5th Centuries AD.

Neanderthal Mysteries

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:31:22 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: I am less sure they were wiped out as I have seen people who look like this. (Usually wearing suits)

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Strands of DNA recovered from the fossilised leg bone of a Neanderthal have shed light on the fragility of the ancient population and pinpointed when they first split from what were to become modern humans. The 38,000-year-old bone was unearthed in a cave in Vindija in Croatia, and has since become part of a landmark project to read the entire genetic sequence of an ancient human ancestor, a feat scientists believe will help reveal how modern humans evolved into the world's dominant species.

Theories of what drove the Neanderthals to extinction range from an inability to adapt to a quickly changing environment, to genocide by early humans. The species is though to have died out in Europe around 30,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of early humans.

Comparing the Neanderthal genome with the human genetic sequence should highlight subtle genetic differences, such as genes for improved brain capacity and other traits that underpin what it means to be human.

Tags: neanderthal genome

Ancient Greek "Computer" Deciphered

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:08:24 GMT

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Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was recovered more than a century ago in the wreckage of a ship that sank off the tiny island of Antikythera, north of Crete. Earlier research showed that the device was probably built between 140 and 100 B.C.

Only now, applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, have experts been able to decipher inscriptions and reconstruct functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The latest research has revealed details of dials on the instrument's back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar.

In the journal report, the team led by the mathematician and filmmaker Tony Freeth of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, in Cardiff, Wales, said the month names "are unexpectedly of Corinthian origin," which suggested "a heritage going back to Archimedes."

Clay tablet holds clue to asteroid mystery

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:07:41 GMT

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Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

British scientists have deciphered a mysterious ancient clay tablet and believe they have solved a riddle over a giant asteroid impact more than 5,000 years ago.

Geologists have long puzzled over the shape of the land close to the town of Köfels in the Austrian Alps, but were unable to prove it had been caused by an asteroid.

Now researchers say their translation of symbols on a star map from an ancient civilisation includes notes on a mile-wide asteroid that later hit Earth - which could have caused tens of thousands of deaths.

The circular clay tablet was discovered 150 years ago by Sir Austen Henry Layard, a leading Victorian archaeologist, in the remains of the royal palace at Nineveh, capital of ancient Assyria, in what is now Iraq.

its symbols include a note of the trajectory of a large object travelling across the constellation of Pisces which, to within one degree, is consistent with an impact at Köfels.

asteroid left no crater because it clipped a mountain and turned into a firebal

Tags: impact, archaeology

Fossil find is oldest European yet

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:04:41 GMT

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Clip Source: www.nature.com

Spanish jawbone is earliest human remains from Western Europe.

Spanish palaeontologists have dug up the remains of a 1.2-million-year-old humanlike inhabitant of Western Europe. The fossil find shows that members of our genus, Homo , colonized this region far earlier than many experts had thought.

The new discovery gives weight to the theory that Homo reached Europe not long after leaving Africa almost 2 million years ago. The oldest known hominin fossils outside Africa are aged at around 1.7 million years, and come from Dmanisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The Dmanisi fossils belong to Homo erectus , the prodigious species that experts believe set off eastwards from Africa and went on to colonize much of Asia. The new fossil adds credence to the idea that, after reaching Asia, some of these travellers doubled back and headed west into Europe

The newly discovered individual's petite jaw suggests she was probably female.

Tags: archaeology