They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who made them -- or why? Until just recently, no one even knew how many there were. Now they are everywhere -- thousands -- no, hundreds of thousands of them! And the story they tell is the most important story of humanity. But it's one we might not be prepared to hear.
Something amazing has been discovered in an area of South Africa, about 150 miles inland, west of the port of Maputo. It is the remains of a huge metropolis that measures, in conservative estimates, about 1500 square miles. It's part of an even larger community that is about 10,000 square miles and appears to have been constructed -- are you ready -- from 160,000 to 200,000 BCE!
(more at link)They have always been there. People noticed them before. But no one could remember who... more
The ancient Nazca people, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru, literally fell with the trees they chopped down, new research has concluded. The Nazca caused their own collapse when they cleared their forests in order to make way for agriculture, thus exposing the landscape to wind and flood erosion.The ancient Nazca people, who once flourished in the valleys of south coastal Peru,... more
Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in part to the fate of a tree.
The landscape only became exposed to the catastrophic effects of that El Nino flood, once people had inadvertently crossed an ecological threshold
Dr David Beresford-Jones
University of Cambridge, UK.
The ancient Nazca people of Peru are famous for the lines they drew in the desert depicting strange animal forms.
A further mystery is what happened to this once great civilisation, which suddenly vanished 1,500 years ago.
Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in part to the fate of a tree.
Analysing plant remains they reveal how the destruction of forests containing the huarango tree crossed a tipping point, causing ecological collapse.
The team have published their findings in the journal of Latin American Antiquity.
This remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree was an important source of food, forage timber and fuel for the local people
Dr David Beresford-Jones
University of Cambridge, UK
"These were very special forests," says Dr David Beresford-Jones from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK who led the team.
The huarango tree (Prosopis pallida) is a unique tree with many qualities and played a vital role in the habitat, protecting the fragile desert ecosystem, the scientists say.
"It is the ecological keystone species in the desert zone enhancing soil fertility and moisture and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known," Dr Beresford-Jones says.
The tree was also a useful resource.
"This remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree was an important source of food, forage timber and fuel for the local people."
Researchers have previously found evidence that suggests the disappearance of the Nazca society was a due to catastrophic flooding event as a result of El Nino around 500 AD.
El Nino is a cyclical event that occurs as a result of a change in ocean temperatures that can cause a change in climate and severe flooding to the the west coast of South America.
The researchers have now found new evidence that suggests the society would not have been so easily destroyed if they had not cut down the forests around them.
An ancient Nasca canal crosses a desertified modern landscape in the lower Ica Valley, south coast Peru.
Analysing plant remains and pollen in soil 1.5m deep, the team was able to trace an important sequence of events which show the clearing of woodland for agriculture.
"At the bottom of the profile there is a lot of huarango pollen and little evidence of human impact," explains Dr Alex Chepstow-Lusty from the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima, Peru who also took part in the study.
"Then, at 80cm deep, maize pollen becomes common, showing the importance of this crop, suggesting a greater need for food and an increasing population," he says.
"It is now we notice a big impact on the huarangos and a major decrease in their pollen."
The landscape only became exposed to the catastrophic effects of that El Nino flood, once people had inadvertently crossed an ecological threshold
Dr David Beresford-Jones
University of Cambridge, UK
"Then suddenly corresponding with the El Nino event at AD 500 or shortly afterwards, the pollen is dominated by weeds in the family Chenopodiaceae, which are adapted to salty conditions and this landscape is now the desert seen today."
The Nazca are famous for creating complex line drawings that can only be seen from the air in the Nazca desert, Peru 400km south of Lima.
They were created between 500BC and 500AD and depict animals such as monkeys and whales as well as geometric figures several kilometres long.
As well as the lines, the Nazca also formed a sophisticated society, constructing complex irrigation systems for agriculture.
Continued at link...Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in... more
History fans flock to the site of the Battle of Bosworth to see where King Richard III was cut down as he yelled: "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
Each year thousands pose at the spot where he fell, to have pictures taken by a plaque that reads: "Richard, the last Plantagenet King of England, was slain here 22nd August, 1485."
But he wasn't, according to an exhaustive new study by a group of historians and archaeologists.
They reckon the battle, the decisive conflict that ended the Wars of the Roses and ushered in the Tudor era, was fought about two miles away from the site near Sutton Cheney, Leics.
For now the history experts are being coy about the right location, merely saying it is further to the south and west.
They do not want to give precise details because they fear treasure seekers will flock to the area and strip it of potentially valuable artefacts. The study of Bosworth battlefield was commissioned by officials at Leicestershire Council.
A spokesman said: "They found the site of the Battle of Bosworth in the last week.
"It's about two miles away - but at least it's still in Leicestershire."History fans flock to the site of the Battle of Bosworth to see where King Richard III... more
Archaeologists in Germany have made a number of sensational finds along a railway line under construction in eastern Germany -- Bronze Age treasures, burial sites and evidence of settlements dating back more than 7,000 years.
Archaeologists in the state of Saxony-Anhalt have uncovered 4,000-year-old skeletons and Bronze Age treasures in excavations along a railway line being built in eastern Germany.
Copper and amber jewellery and hundreds of dog's teeth with holes bored in them as well as small shell discs worn as decoration for clothing have been found in the remains of settlements and graves from various epochs along the planned high-speed railway line from the cities of Erfurt to Leipzig, the Saxony Anhalt Office for Monument Protection and Archaeology said in a statement.
Read and view more...Archaeologists in Germany have made a number of sensational finds along a railway line... more
Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.
Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.
The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.
Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas (interactive: Ardi's key features). As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.
Announced at joint press conferences in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the analysis of the Ardipithecus ramidus bones will be published in a collection of papers tomorrow in a special edition of the journal Science, along with an avalanche of supporting materials published online.
"This find is far more important than Lucy," said Alan Walker, a paleontologist from Pennsylvania State University who was not part of the research. "It shows that the last common ancestor with chimps didn't look like a chimp, or a human, or some funny thing in between."Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.
Scientists today announced the... more
A number of ancient Roman statues might lie beneath the turquoise waters of the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri in southern Italy, according to an underwater survey of the sea cave.
Dating to the 1st century A.D., the cave was used as a swimming pool by the Emperor Tiberius (42 B.C. - 37 A.D.), and the statues are probably depictions of sea gods.
"A preliminary underwater investigation has revealed several statue bases which might possibly hint to sculptures lying nearby," Rosalba Giugni, president of the environmentalist association, Marevivo, told Discovery News.
Carried out in collaboration with the archaeological superintendency of Pompeii, the Marevivo project aims at returning the Blue Grotto to its ancient glory by placing identical copies of Tiberius' statues where they originally stood.
Celebrated for the almost phosphorescent blue tones of the water and the mysterious silvery light flowing through fissures in the rocks, the Grotta Azzurra, as the cave is called in Italian, is one of the top attractions in Capri.
The island was the capital of the Roman empire between 27 and 37 A. D., when Tiberius made a permanent home there to take advantage of the mild climate and its seclusion.
Dividing his time among 12 villas and orgiastic feasts, the emperor used to bath in the almost hallucinogenic blue light of the cave, swimming among naked boys and girls.
The story goes that those who displeased him were thrown into the sea from a rock near his Villa Jovis. Perched 1,000 feet above the sea with Mount Vesuvius's cone in the distance, this was the most magnificent of his residences on the island.
The Blue Grotto might have been equally amazing. In 1964, archaeologists recovered three statues from the sea bottom. One sculpture depicts the sea good Neptune, while the other two statues each represented the Greek god Triton, who was the son of Poseidon (Neptune, for the Romans).
According to the archaeologists, the position of the Tritons' shoulders (the arms are missing) would suggest that the marine creatures were blowing into large seashells as if they were trumpets.
Triton was known to carry a twisted conch shell, on which he blew to calm or raise the waves.
The recovered sculptures confirmed an account by Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23 A.D. - 79 A.D.), who described the sea cave as populated by a Triton "playing on a shell."
Now on display at a museum in Anacapri, the three statues have provided a glimpse of the original setting of the Blue Grotto.
more at the link.A number of ancient Roman statues might lie beneath the turquoise waters of the Blue... more
The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found has been unearthed on farmland in Staffordshire by a metal detector enthusiast, archaeologists revealed today.
Terry Herbert, 55, from Burntwood, came across the huge treasure estimated to be worth more than £1 million as he searched a field near his home. The exact location of the discovery has not been disclosed but it is understood to be near the Lichfield border in South Staffordshire, in what was once the independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia.
Experts said that the collection of more than 1,500 military artefacts, including helmet, sword pommel and sword hilt ornaments possibly looted on the field of battle 1,400 years by a victorious warlord, may have belonged to Saxon royalty.
The hoard contains around 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, far bigger than previous finds such as the Snettisham hoards. Some of it was lying in the open on top of the ploughed field.The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found has been unearthed on farmland in... more
"This is just a fantastic find completely out of the blue," Roger Bland, who managed the cache's excavation, told The Associated Press. "It will make us rethink the Dark Ages."
Bland said the hoard was unearthed in what was once Mercia, one of five main Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and is thought to date to 675-725 AD.
A total of 1,345 items have been examined by experts and and 56 lumps of earth were found to contain metal artifacts detected by an X-ray machine, meaning the total will likely rise to about 1,500.
"I think wealth of this kind must have belonged to a king but we cannot say that for absolute certain," Bland said."This is just a fantastic find completely out of the blue," Roger Bland, who managed... more
This story takes us to the ancient city of Troy, where the remains of a man and women believed to have died in 1.200 B.C., have been found. A German professor said their time of death matched the dates of the legendary war chronicled by Homer.
According to a professor who was leading the excavation, the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age.
"If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a mote. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying," Pernicka told Reuters in a telephone interview.
BUT WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Well, the discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than previously thought.This story takes us to the ancient city of Troy, where the remains of a man and women... more
Photographs, paintings, graphic arts, and archeological findings document the design, originally planned by Mussolini, for the opening of the road in Rome that connects the Colosseum to Piazza VeneziaPhotographs, paintings, graphic arts, and archeological findings document the design,... more
Archeologists unearthed 16,000 year-old mother goddess figurine during excavations in Direkli Cave in the southern province of Kahramanmaras.
Gazi University Archeology Department lecturer Cevdet Merih Erek told A.A on Monday that the excavations in Direkli Cave, 65 km away from Kahramanmaras, started on July 15.
Noting that it was the third cave excavation of Turkey, Erek said that the clay mother goddess figurine they found was 16,000 years old.
Erek said that the figurine showed that the social status of women was very important 16,000 years ago.
Erek noted that the oldest fired clay god or goddess figurines
--unearthed in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Near East-- were made in 5,000 BC. He added that experts believed that the clay was used earliest in that period, however, the goddess figurine showed that this method was older than thought.Archeologists unearthed 16,000 year-old mother goddess figurine during excavations in... more
Remnants of a former building and artifacts dating back more than 200 years have been uncovered beneath the foundations of New College on the University of Georgia’s North Campus, allowing a glimpse into a long-lost chapter of UGA history. Workers unearthed the finds in the midst of a $3 million renovation to update the building and restore its look to an approximation of what it looked like when it was built in 1822.
Among the other artifacts found are a handmade spoon, wrought iron nails, blown-glass bottles, glazed cookware and an instrument that resembles a modern fire poker. The crew also found a pottery bowl that dates from Georgia’s late prehistoric Lamar period (1350-1600 A.D.) But the finds don’t end there.
Being an Archeology Major here at UGA is awesome right now. We spend class time work'n the dirt.Remnants of a former building and artifacts dating back more than 200 years have been... more
Ancient, 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave show that fashion in footwear is nothing new and, in fact, is much older than anyone thought. Scientists said that high-tech dating procedures indicate that the shoes are at least 2,000 years older than previously believed.
The shoes were found 40 years ago in the Arnold Research Cave in Missouri, but, due to the mixing of deposits around the shoes at the dig site, researchers were unable to assign an age to them.
Michael O’Brien of the University of Missouri and colleagues at Louisiana State University used an accelerator mass spectrometer to carbon-date the shoes. It dated the oldest shoes at up to 8,300 years old, the researchers reported in a study published in the journal Science.
“I was surprised,” O’Brien said. “I would have guessed 3,000 but not 8,000. I thought it was so outrageous that I took a second sample.”
Most of the shoes were made with fibrous plants that could be woven into a tough fabric used for the top, bottom and sides of the footwear. O’Brien said the most common material was from a yucca-like plant called rattlesnake master. The leaves were dried and shaped into cording that was woven like modern-day espadrilles.
Both sandal and slip-on styles were found There were also comfort innovations. The moccasins were cushioned with grass that functioned “like a Dr. Scholl’s foot pad,” said O’Brien.
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” he said. “Some of these shoes you would swear were made in a Mexican market.”
The shoes were also very durable, he said. Of 35 samples recovered, 20 were complete or nearly complete. Even though the shoes spanned thousands of years, O’Brien said the basic craftsmanship was about the same.
“They did not invent something flimsy that then got better over time,” said O’Brien. “The earliest shoe is every bit as well-made and as complex as those from later on.”
‘They wore the heck out of these things’
O’Brien said the variety of styles and differences in details suggests that there may have been concessions to style or fashion. “There was no ornamentation or color that we know about, but my guess is that these shoes were very stylish for the time,” he said. “We know that people then were wearing jewelry,” and that it was likely that such artistic interest carried over into the footgear.
Only the moccasins were made of leather, and O’Brien said it is likely that the cave dwellers did not use leather for shoes much earlier than that. The style and construction of the Missouri shoes are similar to specimens unearthed from a nearby site in the Ozark Mountains but are different from shoes found in caves in Kentucky. They are also very different from shoes constructed by the Anasazi people who inhabited Southwest deserts.
Footwear got hard use among the prehistoric Americans. They had to walk most places since there were no horses. They had to hunt or gather all of their food and to haul water back to the cave — all jobs that took much walking. “Many of the shoes wore down exactly the way that our shoes do — the ball of the foot and the heel,” said O’Brien. “In some instances there were repairs where they wove fiber back into them. Other shoes were just tossed, but they wore the heck out of these things.”
"A woman’s 8 1/2 foot size," he said, appears to be much like that of modern humans. There is no way to tell if wearers of the ancient shoes were male or female, but the average length was about 10 1/2 inches — about an 8 1/2 in modern American women’s sizes.
“That suggests that these people fell within the size range of people today,” he said. The cave, which is in a bluff not far from the Missouri River, was a spectacular home by the standards of the time.
“It was really perfect,” said O’Brien. “A great place to live.” O’Brien said that people lived there for hundreds of generations, leaving layer after layer of debris: bone and stone tools, animal bones, char from campfires and even some human remains.Ancient, 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave show that fashion in footwear... more
"Ancient fossilised, spider-like species have been imaged in 3D using thousands of X-ray scans and imaging software.
The two species, Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, lived 300 million years ago but are closely related to modern spiders.
The 3D images show that C. hindi grasped at prey with its front legs and E. prestivicii had defensive spikes on its back.
The results are published in the journal Biology Letters.
The 3D images were obtained by using a computed tomography scanner - a device that can take X-ray images from many angles.
"Our models almost bring these ancient creatures back to life and it's really exciting to be able to look at them in such detail," said Imperial College London researcher Russel Garwood, lead author on the research.
"Our study helps build a picture of what was happening during this period early in the history of life on land."
The technique could be used to return to fossils that have already been analysed by conventional means, the researchers said.From the BBC website:
"Ancient fossilised, spider-like species have been imaged in... more
An Ionia County family has a new houseguest -- a 10,000-year-old mastodon.
Rich and Annette Schneider of Portland, near Lansing, just wanted to dig a new pond in their yard, but stumbled across bones of a mastodon, including a leg, rib, tusk, and more.
more in the link...An Ionia County family has a new houseguest -- a 10,000-year-old mastodon.
Rich and... more
New video game teaches players about Blackbeard and pirate facts. Players of “Blackbeard’s Escape” take on the role of a junior archaeologist who uses a pneumatic chisel to clean shipwreck-recovered objects, and also visits the time period when the recovered item was in use. The game is based on the work of state archaeologists, who have been working in the Beaufort Inlet since 1996 to excavate and study what is thought to be the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge. Check it out from the link in this story.New video game teaches players about Blackbeard and pirate facts. Players of... more
Archaeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found -- flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago.
The find suggests just how integral artistic expression may be to human existence: Music apparently flourished even in prehistoric days when mere survival was a full-time endeavor.
The instruments were found in a cave, amid bones from bears and mammoths and flakes of flint from a Stone Age tool shop.
The discovery is the latest in a string of archaeological finds -- including a sculpted female nude that reveal that early modern humans had a sophisticated cultural and artistic life.Archaeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments... more
A flute carved more than 35,000 years ago has been unearthed in Germany and scientists believe it is the world's oldest musical instrument.
The vulture-bone flute was found in the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.
It dates back to the time when early modern humans began settling in Europe, which suggests that they had a creative culture and were socially cohesive.
Experts also say this might explain why they survived, while neanderthals - who were more isolated - became extinct.A flute carved more than 35,000 years ago has been unearthed in Germany and scientists... more
"An ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave dating back to Roman times, has been found under a road being built for the 2012 British Olympics.
Archaeologists, who have only just begun excavating the site, say they do not yet know who the bones might belong to.
"We think that these dismembered bodies are likely to be native Iron Age Britons. The question is -- how did they die and who killed them," said dig head, David Score, of Oxford Archaeology.
"Were they fighting amongst themselves? Were they executed by the Romans? Did they die in a battle with the Romans?
"The exciting scenario for us possibly is that there were skirmishes with the invading Romans and that's how they ended up chopped up in a pit," he told Reuters."
This is pretty damn interesting. I love finding pieces of ancient history that reveals just a bit more of how people lived so long ago."An ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave... more
