Clipmarks | Pre-history Clips

Energy Versus Preservation in the West

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:02:16 GMT

clipped by: presohio

The dusty documentation of the Anasazi Indians a thousand years ago, from their pit houses and kivas to the observatories from which they charted the heavens, lies thick in the ground near here at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

Or so archaeologists believe. Less than a fifth of the park has been surveyed for artifacts because of limited federal money.

Much more definite is that a giant new project to drill for carbon dioxide is gathering steam on the park’s eastern flank. Miles of green pipe snake along the roadways, as trucks ply the dirt roads from a big gas compressor station. About 80 percent of the monument’s 164,000 acres is leased for energy development.

The consequences of energy exploration for wildlife and air quality have long been contentious in unspoiled corners of the West. But now with the urgent push for even more energy, there are new worries that history and prehistory — much of it still unexplored or unknown — could be lost.

Tags: preservation, ancient history, western us

The Long History of Birth Control

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:02:45 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.plannedparenthood.org

A History of Birth Control Methods

Contemporary studies show that, out of a list of eight reasons for having sex, having a baby is the least frequent motivator for most people (Hill, 1997). This seems to have been true for all people at all times. Ever since the dawn of history, women and men have wanted to be able to decide when and whether to have a child. Contraceptives have been used in one form or another for thousands of years throughout human history and even prehistory.

Many of the earliest methods of family planning were based on sexual behavior and are still used by millions of women and men around the world.

Continuous Abstinence

Outercourse

Withdrawal

Fertility Awareness-Based Methods

Lactational Amenorrhea Method

Barrier Methods

The Condom

The earliest known illustration of a man using a condom during sexual intercourse is painted on the wall of a cave in France. It is 12,000–15,000 years old

Female Condom and Vaginal Sponge

Hormonal Methods

Emergency Contraception

Permanent Methods

Tags: family planning, contraception

Artifacts and Human History

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:33:50 GMT

clipped by: melakatoday
clipper's remarks: Yet many other unearthed "out-of-place artifacts" create obvious contradictions to the conservative picture of antiquity. They don't fit the established pattern of prehistory, pointing back instead to the existence of advanced civilizations before any of the known ancient cultures came into being.

Clip Source: www.world-mysteries.com

For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science?

Plato

Official position of science presents the picture of the past in which humanity started from primitive beginnings, and steadily progressed upward in the development of culture and science. Most of the artifacts preserved in archaeological and geological records have been neatly arranged to fit this accepted linear view of our past.

Mesopotamian "Tree of Life"

The Olmec "Tree of Life" (Mesoamerican Cosmology).
The lineage founder, 2 Grass, is being born from a twisting World Tree. Detail from Selden Codex page 2. Source: FAMSI

Tags: artifacts

Ohio Prehistory Via Podcast Tours

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:28:01 GMT

clipped by: Staffer

Clip Source: www.chillicothegazette.com

Earthworks tours get easier with new podcasts

There now is a more interactive way to tour the 10 earthworks sites in southern Ohio, including some in Ross and Pike counties.

The Ohio Historical Society announced this week in connection with launching May as Ohio Tourism Month, it is unveiling the first in a series of driving tours of Ohio's earthworks, this one with a southern Ohio focus. The tour information can be downloaded online for a cost in the form of podcasts that can be taken with the tourists on their tour.

The self-guided interpretive tours for download include directions, maps and historical and archaeological site information. Audio tour information can be downloaded at www.ohiohistorytours.orgat a cost of 99 cents per site or $7 for all 10 purchased together. Video tours are available for $1.99 per site or $15 for all.

5000-year-old site discovered in Iran

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:33:25 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.tehrantimes.com

TEHRAN -- A broad site dating back to the third millennium BC was discovered during the latest excavations in Bampur region in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran.

“In the Bampur valley, there is an ancient site covered with sand mounds, which is as large as the Burnt City and may belong to a civilization as great as the civilization of that the city,” Mehdi Mortazavi, an archaeologist of the University of Sistan-Baluchestan, told the Persian service of CHN on Saturday.

According to Mortazavi, the site measures 1x1.5 kilometer.

“I feel sure that there are a large number of sites like this here. Such sites may even exist in nearby regions like Saravan,” he stated.

Twenty sites -- mostly prehistoric -- have been discovered by the archaeologists of the University of Sistan-Baluchestan over the past few years.

Tags: archaeology, iran, prehistory, burnt city

Two Distinct Wooly Mammoth Groups Discovered

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:25:40 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Woolly one and woolly two

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Scientists, lead by Stephan C. Schuster of Penn State University, extracted DNA from frozen mammoth hair samples found throughout a large swath of northern Siberia, in an attempt to paint a new picture of the ancient and long lost animals. What they found was that, unlike previously believed, there were two distinct groups of the mammoths, or “clades”.

"The population was split into two groups, then one of the groups died out 45,000 years ago, long before the first humans began to appear in the region," said Schuster. The team also found that individual wooly mammoths seem to have been relatively closely related to one another, having a very low genetic diversity.

Tags: prehistory

Little arrow that rewrites history books

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:25:15 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.pretorianews.co.za

Two researchers from Wits University believe that what they have discovered is a 60 000-year-old arrow that was fired from the earliest known bow. Their discovery has pushed back the origins of bow-and-arrow technology by 20 000 years.

The bow, probably made of wood and long since decayed, was used at a time when Neanderthals in Europe were using large spears in duels with woolly mammoths and other large prehistoric game.

The bone arrow, just 5cm long, was excavated by Wadley at the Sibudu cave, near the coastal town of Ballito in KwaZulu Natal, two years ago.

It's mystery who the people were who fashioned the arrow.

Also at this time, humankind was leaving an ever-increasing archaeological record of the first inklings of modern human behaviour. They were burying the dead, using coloured pigments and wearing jewellery.

"This at a time a few thousand years before they walked out of Africa, to become the ancestors of all humans," said Backwell.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, south africa, prehistory, arrow, science

Solving the mystery of Nazca Lines

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:00:10 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.dailyindia.com

Washington, May 23: Two British archaeologists are trying to solve the mystery of the Nazca Lines in Peru by locating and measuring the lines with high-precision GPS, photographing the distribution of 1,500-year old pottery, and working out the chronological sequence of overlying lines and designs.

Funded by the Anglo-Peruvian Cultural Association in Lima, their research hopes to unlock the purpose of the dazzling but confusing array of desert drawings.

Professor Ruggles and Dr Saunders agree with other experts that some lines were pathways across the desert, others had a more religious significance, while some appear associated with desert scars caused by flash-floods, and are probably linked to the veneration of water.

According to Dr Saunders, "Identifying which lines came first, whether they were spiritual or functional, and exactly how they were used during a thousand years of prehistory is a great challenge."

Tags: archaeology, south america, peru, nazca, mystery

Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?

Thu, 22 May 2008 15:37:15 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The intro to a very readable article. I like the reference to multiverse.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Key Concepts

The basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet we perceive time to move in one direction only—toward the future. Why?
To account for it, we have to delve into the prehistory of the universe, to a time before the big bang. Our universe may be part of a much larger multiverse, which as a whole is time-symmetric. Time may run backward in other universes.

The universe does not look right. That may seem like a strange thing to say, given that cosmologists have very little standard for comparison. How do we know what the universe is supposed to look like? Nevertheless, over the years we have developed a strong intuition for what counts as “natural”—and the universe we see does not qualify.

Tags: astronomy, space, universes, time

Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes

Wed, 21 May 2008 20:47:09 GMT

clipped by: ekorstanje
clipper's remarks: Long article but worth the read.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?

One of the most basic facts of life is that the future looks different from the past. But on a grand cosmological scale, they may look the same

The basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet we perceive time to move in one direction only—toward the future. Why?

To account for it, we have to delve into the prehistory of the universe, to a time before the big bang. Our universe may be part of a much larger multiverse, which as a whole is time-symmetric. Time may run backward in other universes.

Tags: time

85,000-year-old finery recovered in Moroccan cave

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:09:31 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.dailystar.com.lb

Archaeologists have uncovered shells used for finery by prehistoric communities 85,000 years ago in a cave in eastern Morocco, the country's heritage institute said Tuesday.

A research team, led by archaeology and heritage institute (INSAP) member Abdel-Jalil Bouzouggar and Oxford University's Nick Barton, found the 20 perforated shells in a cave near Taforalt between March and April this year.

According to a statement from the Moroccan Ministry for Culture, the shells are the type prehistoric people would have worn.

"This discovery shows that the making and use of objects of finery is very anchored in the traditions of Morocco's prehistoric people," said Bouzouggar, in whose opinion the country is the original center of artistic and symbolic creation.

Objects of finery discovered in Morocco are "now considered to be even more ancient than those discovered in Algeria, South Africa and in Palestine," said the Culture Ministry.

Tags: archaeology, prehistory, morocco

Flesh-Eating Insect Gnawed on Dino Bones

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:24:31 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Things don't change much. Beetles biting dinosaurs, ankle biters annoying us.

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Beetles Chomped Here

May 8, 2008 -- New findings explain why most dinosaur skeletons exhibit pits, grooves, furrows and even entire gnawed-off sections: Flesh- and bone-eating insects were the culprits.

The evidence comes from dinosaur bones that were buried under soft mud 148 million years ago after a nearby river overflowed. Utah's Western Paleontological Laboratories recovered the bones and turned them over to Brigham Young University scientists, who recently pieced together what happened.

Precise recreations of dinosaur-era events are rare, but the scientists now know the following: A Camptosaurus adolescent dinosaur died in what is now Wyoming, lying down for its final rest. Flying low over a floodplain a few days later, dermestid beetles used their antennae to detect the odor of the decaying carcass, where they laid their larvae that consumed the dinosaur's bones.

Tags: nature, pre-history

Ancient Seaweed Tells of Earliest Americans

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:12:52 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

May 8, 2008 -- Remains of meals that included seaweed are helping confirm the date of a settlement in southern Chile that may offer the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas.

Researchers date the seaweed found at Monte Verde to more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the well-studied Clovis culture.

And the report comes just a month after other scientists announced they had found coprolites â€“ fossilized human feces -- dating to about 14,000 years ago in a cave in Oregon.

Taken together, the finds move back evidence of people in the Americas by a millennium or more, with settlements in northern and southern coastal areas.

Tags: archaeology, chile, america, prehistory, science

Turkish site a Neolithic 'supernova'

Fri, 02 May 2008 17:50:55 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: The archaeological discoveries in Gobeklitepe - Turkey, continues to stun the archaeology world. The site is dated to 9,500 BCE.

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

Klaus Schmidt, a member of the German Archaeological Institute, has found in Turkey a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable. "This place is a supernova," said Mr. Schmidt. "Within a minute of first seeing it, I knew I had two choices: go away and tell nobody, or spend the rest of my life working here."

The stone circles of Gobekli Tepe are his workplace since 1994.

Dated at about 9500 BCE, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.

"Everybody used to think only complex, hierarchical civilizations could build such monumental sites and that they only came about with the invention of agriculture," said Ian Hodder, a Stanford University anthropology professor who has directed digs at Catalhoyuk,

"Gobekli changes everything. It's elaborate, it's complex, and it is pre-agricultural. That fact alone makes the site one of the most important archaeological finds in a very long time."

Tags: archaeology, prehistory, neolithic, turkey, klaus schmidt, science

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:22:18 GMT

clipped by: rmowery
clipper's remarks: At the rate we are going, perhaps it will happen again?

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.

"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."

Tags: prehistory, humans, dna, survival