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2013-05-22 13:38:04 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Origins of Human Culture Linked to Rapid Climate Change
Rapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the Middle Stone Age, sparked surges in cultural innovation in early modern human populations, according to new research.
The research, published this month in Nature Communications, was conducted by a team of scientists from Cardiff University's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Barcelona.
The scientists studied a marine sediment core off the coast of South Africa and reconstructed terrestrial climate variability over the last 100,000 years.
Dr Martin Ziegler, Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: "We found that South Africa experienced rapid climate transitions toward wetter conditions at times when the Northern Hemisphere experienced... more »

2013-05-22 12:51:37 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

2013-05-22 12:02:16 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Geography was always one of my weaker subjects. Seems legit though.

2013-05-21 14:01:10 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Apple pies in progress!

2013-05-21 00:50:06 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Fossil Brain Teaser: New Study Reveals Patterns of Dinosaur
Brain Development
A new study conducted at the University of Bristol and published online today in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology sheds light on how the brain and inner ear developed in dinosaurs.
Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, together with Tom Hübner from the Niedersächsische Landesmuseum in Hannover, Germany, picked the brains of 150 million year old dinosaurs.
The two palaeontologists studied different fossils of the Jurassic dinosaur Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki: a very young (juvenile) individual of approximately three years of age and a fully grown specimen of more than 12 years of age.
Stephan Lautenschlager, lead author of the paper, said: "The two different growth stages of Dysalotosaurus provided a unique opportunity to study their brain, and how itd... more »

2013-05-20 17:57:38 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 11 +1s)

May 20, 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas ... Wikipedia - ""Theatre of the World") is considered to be the first true modern atlas. Written by Abraham Ortelius and originally printed on May 20, 1570, in Antwerp, it consisted of a collection of uniform map sheets and sustaining text bound to form a book for which copper printing plates were specifically engraved. The Ortelius atlas is sometimes referred to as the summary of sixteenth-century cartography. ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrum_Orbis_Terrarum

2013-05-20 17:57:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

May 20, 1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas ... Wikipedia - ""Theatre of the World") is considered to be the first true modern atlas. Written by Abraham Ortelius and originally printed on May 20, 1570, in Antwerp, it consisted of a collection of uniform map sheets and sustaining text bound to form a book for which copper printing plates were specifically engraved. The Ortelius atlas is sometimes referred to as the summary of sixteenth-century cartography. ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatrum_Orbis_Terrarum

2013-05-20 17:09:28 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Coins key to rewriting the history of Australia
Copper coins and a 70-year-old map with an "x" may lead to a discovery that could rewrite Australia's history.

Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the United States, plans an expedition in July that has stirred the archaeological community.

The scientist wants to revisit the location where five coins were found in the Northern Territory in 1944 that have proven to be 1000 years old, opening up the possibility that seafarers from distant countries might have landed in Australia much earlier than believed.

In 1944 during World War II, after Japanese bombers had attacked Darwin two years earlier, the Wessel Islands - an uninhabited group of islands off Australia's north coast - had become a strategic position to help protect the mainland.
... more »

2013-05-20 16:49:15 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Ancient Ivory: Metal traces on Phoenician artifacts show long-gone
paint and gold
Ancient ivory carvings made by Phoenician artists some 3,000 years ago have long hidden a secret, even while being openly displayed in museums around the world: The sculptures were originally painted with colorful pigments, and some were decorated with gold.
Researchers based in France and Germany report chemical analyses showing that 8th-century B.C. Phoenician ivory artifacts bear metal traces that are invisible to the naked eye (Anal. Chem. 2013, DOI: 10.1021/ac4006167).
These metals are found in pigments commonly used in antiquity, such as the copper-based pigment Egyptian blue or the iron-based pigment hematite. The metals are not normally in ivory nor in the soil where the artifacts were long buried, explains Ina Reiche, a chemist at the Laboratory of Molecular & Structural... more »

2013-05-20 16:39:54 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

A team of scientists managed to re-create conditions of life on Earth 3 billion years ago and"revived" a function of RNA that may have subsided after the rise of DNA.

2013-05-20 16:10:32 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

.New Epoch Dawning, Say Scientists
Evolutionists have long suggested that modern humans are, at least in part, a product of millions of years of evolutionary adaptation to changing environments across the globe. Now a broad body of scholars and scientists are saying that the roles have been reversed -- that humans have become, rather than the acted upon, the instigators of environmental change, with likely dire implications if steps are not taken to address the shifts. No issue reflects this more, they maintain, than humankind's critical relationship with water.  
Paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and a variety of other scientists have engaged themselves for decades in researching the internal and external mechanisms of human evolution, a key element of which has been the impact of the environment -- climatological, geological, and biological -- on humans over 3 - 4 million years.... more »

2013-05-19 17:33:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Ice Age Giants, BBC 19th May

This is looking quite impressive, with a nice mix of CGI actual fossil remains and the usual talking contextualisation by go-to-person Prof. Alice Roberts (Time Team, Origins of Us, Prehistoric Autopsy).

If you have access to the BBC, the first episode airs tonight. If not, I suppose it will soon be avalaible through other sources ;-)

2013-05-19 02:53:33 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

Saxon skeletons unearthed near Stonehenge
Archaeologists have discovered six pagan Saxon skeletons dating back over 1,000 years on a housing development site just a few miles from Stonehenge.
The discoveries, which also include round barrows dating back to the Bronze Age 4,000 years ago, were unearthed at a redundant brownfield development site in Amesbury, Wiltshire, which is also famous for the Amesbury Archer – an early Bronze Age man found buried among arrowheads.

The remains are thought to be those of adolescent to mature males and females. Five skeletons were arrayed around a small circular ditch, with the grave of a sixth skeleton in the centre. Two lots of beads, a shale bracelet and other grave goods were also found, which suggest the findings are Pagan.

The site is now being excavated for other artefacts by Wessex Archaeology, led by Phil Harding, known forh... more »

2013-05-19 02:40:12 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how
agriculture emerged
Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region. They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture -- before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.
Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.

Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in... more »

2013-05-19 01:23:39 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

Isle of Iona may be ancient burial site
An archaeological survey on the famous Scots isle of Iona – where St Columba landed 1450 years ago to spread Christianity in Scotland – has shown signs of ancient burials.

This is the first geophysical investigation to be undertaken away from the core focus of the Columban monastic enclosure and the Benedictine Abbey.

The surveys were carried out on National Trust for Scotland land on the island by Dr Sue Ovenden and Alastair Wilson of Rose Geophysical Consultants.

The pair examined two areas in the fields to the south of the village - one close to the current village hall and south of the Nunnery and the other at Martyr’s Bay.

The area close to the village hall seems to show features of recent or natural origin which will be excavated later this year.

However, the more interesting result camefrom ... more »

2013-05-19 01:04:30 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Ok so John Hurt?
Also why are my eyes watering? Sudden allergies must be it.
Also also I hate you Moffat.

2013-05-19 00:02:58 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Exactly!!
Don’t bring back the mammoth, scientist warns
They can … but they shouldn’t.
That’s the message from  Alice Roberts, a clinical anatomist, TV personality and professor of public engagement in science at England’s University of Birmingham. While advancements in science have made it possible to bring animals back from the dead, Roberts recently argued, it might not be morally right to do so.
"I would prefer the emphasis to be on saving existing animals under threat of extinction rather than trying to resurrect their long-extinct cousins,” Roberts said, according to a story at International Business Times.
The ethical issues surrounding “de-extinction” of a species were on debate during a March panel at the National Geographic Society.
Speakers include Chris Anderson, curator of the TED Conference talk series, Australian paleontologistMichael Archer a... more »

2013-05-18 23:40:27 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

New study suggests specific gene groups common in both dogs and humans evolved together

"Researchers from the University of Chicago and several international institutions found that several groups of genes in humans and dogs—including those related to diet and digestion, neurological processes, and disease—have been evolving in parallel for thousands of years."

(http://bit.ly/11CrMqt)
#dogs  

2013-05-18 23:35:07 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

This happened in March apparently
NASA records giant explosion on moon as boulder crashes at
56,000 mph
The moon has a new hole on its surface thanks to a boulder that slammed into it in March, creating the biggest explosion scientists have seen on the moon since they started monitoring it.
The meteorite crashed on March 17, slamming into the lunar surface at a mind-boggling 56,000 mph and creating a new crater 65 feet wide. The crash sparked a bright flash of light that would have been visible to anyone looking at the moon at the time with the naked eye, NASA scientists say.
"On March 17, 2013, an object about the size of a small boulder hit the lunar surface in Mare Imbrium," Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before." [The... more »

2013-05-17 11:45:49 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

I bet my Italian friends are happy at this news :)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/16/184553890/no-more-smuggling-many-cured-italian-meats-coming-to-america?utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130516

2013-05-17 00:56:13 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Viking-era coins unearthed by Danish teenager
PanARMENIAN.Net - Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins, AP reported.
Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark.
Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark.
Stokbro Larsen, who often explores with his detector, said he is often laughed at because friends find him "a bit nerdy."
Moesgaard said Thursday, May 16 that it was the first time since 1939 that so many Viking-era coins have been found, calling them "another important piece in the puzzle" of history.

2013-05-17 00:54:17 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

2013-05-17 00:36:44 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 9 +1s)

Neanderthal culture: Old masters
The earliest known cave paintings fuel arguments about whether Neanderthals were the mental equals of modern humans.
In a damp Spanish cave, Alistair Pike applies a small grinder to the world's oldest known paintings. Every few minutes, the dentist-drill sound stops and Pike, an archaeologist from the University of Southampton, UK, stands aside so that a party of tourists can admire the simple artwork — hazy red disks, stencilled handprints, the outlines of bison — daubed on the cave wall tens of thousands of years ago. He hopes that the visitors won't notice the small scuff marks he has left.

In fact, Pike's grinder — and the scalpel that he wields to scrape off tiny samples — is doing no harm to the actual paintings, and he is working with the full approval of the Spanish authorities. Pike is after the crust of calcite thathas bui... more »

2013-05-17 00:16:58 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

25 million year old ape found

The genes of living primates tell us that the ape lineage, which includes humans, diverged from the Old World monkeys such as baboons and macaques during the late Oligocene period, between 25 and 30 million years ago. But fossils from both groups only date back to 20 million years ago. Now, a team of paleontologists have found two new species in Tanzania’s Rukwa Rift Basin that help to fill this gap in the fossil record.

Monkeys and apes live in forests, which is unfortunate for paleontologists. Because a forest environment is not conducive to fossilization, especially for comparatively small and fragile species like monkeys.
That means the fossil record for monkeys is not as good as one would hope.

But these two new finds, both dating to the same period 25,2 million years ago, are helping to fill in the gaps.

2013-05-16 14:48:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Light cast on lifestyle and diet of first New Zealanders

"“By examining ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes present in bone collagen we were able to estimate individuals’ broad dietary makeup over a 10-20 year period prior to death. Our analysis of strontium isotopes in teeth allowed us to distinguish between people growing up in geologically different landscapes,” says Dr Rebecca Kinaston, who conducted the isotope analyses on the bones and teeth."

"The new isotopic analysis of bone collagen and teeth suggests that members of this first group shared similar diets and childhood origins, while individuals in Groups 2 and 3 displayed highly variable diets and spent their childhood in geologically different areas to Group 1."

“"Interestingly, Group 1 individuals showed a dietary trend similar to that identified in prehistoricindivid... more »

2013-05-16 14:06:33 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Billion-Year-Old Water Could Hold Clues to Life On Earth and Mars
A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life.
This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life. Not just that, but the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the Red Planet's surface.
The findings, published in Nature today, may force us to rethink which parts of our planet are fit for life, and could reveal clues about how microbes evolve in isolation.
Researchers from the universities of Manchester, Lancaster, Toronto and McMaster analysed water pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada.
They found... more »

2013-05-16 13:25:56 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

Brain Structure, Not the Frontal Lobe, Responsible for Advanced
Human Intelligence, Say Evolutionist Researchers
Using phylogenetic or 'evolutionary family tree' techniques, Professor Robert Barton from the Department of Anthropology at Durham University analyzed data developed from previous animal and human studies to examine the speed at which evolutionary biological change in the brain occurred. His results could be a game-changer when it comes to understanding how the brains of our distant ancient ancestors changed during the course of human evolution. He and his research colleagues at Durham and Reading universities have concluded that, contrary to popular scholarly conception, the frontal lobes of the brain did not evolve comparatively faster than their primate cousins after the human lineage split from the chimpanzee lineage about 5-7 million years ago. It was actually... more »

2013-05-16 13:11:38 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

We bought a new laptop over the weekend with shiny new windows 8. First impression of Win8 was "What the heck is this? If I wanted apps I would have bought a tablet." Second impression was "Why are you downloading several gigs of updates? I didn't tell you to do that." By the time I got rid of all the "apps" and "permanently" switched it to desktop I was ready to install Ubuntu 13.04 and only see windows again next year when I needed to install Turbo Tax. Turns out to my dismay I can't dual boot with 8 because of UEFI and secure boot. On this particular machine I can't seem to turn off secure boot. But I can turn off UEFI if I want to erase windows and just use Ubuntu. I suppose I should have done some research first.
Decisions decisions.  Maybe I'll find a way to do it this weekend. 

2013-05-16 12:56:01 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

For a tourism destination this seems a bit short sighted.
Ancient Mayan pyramid destroyed for road fill
A Mayan pyramid that has stood for 2,300 years in Belize has been reduced to rubble, apparently to make fill for roads.
Local media in the Central American country of 334,000 people report the temple at the Noh Mul site in northern Belize was largely torn down by backhoes and bulldozers last week.
"This is one of the worst that I have seen in my entire 25 years of archaeology in Belize," John Morris, an archaeologist with the country's Institute of Archaeology, told local channel 7NewsBelize. "We can't salvage what has happened out here -- it is an incredible display of ignorance."
The institute's director, Jaime Awe, called the destruction "one of the worse set of blows I have felt philosophically and professionally."... more »

2013-05-16 12:48:27 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Prehistoric ear bones could lead to evolutionary answers
The tiniest bones in the human body – the bones of the middle ear – could provide huge clues about our evolution and the development of modern-day humans, according to a study by a team of researchers that include a Texas A&M University anthropologist.
Darryl de Ruiter, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Binghamton University (the State University of New York) and researchers from Spain and Italy have published their work in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science).
The team examined the skull of a hominin believed to be about 1.9 million years old and found in a cave called Swartkrans, in South Africa. Of particular interest to the team were bones found in the middle ear, especially one called the malleus. It and the other ear bones –the i... more »

2013-05-16 12:37:22 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Mysterious Minoans Were European, DNA Finds
The Minoans, the builders of Europe's first advanced civilization, really were European, new research suggests.

The conclusion, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications, was drawn by comparing DNA from 4,000-year-old Minoan skeletons with genetic material from people living throughout Europe and Africa in the past and today.

"We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European," said study co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, a human geneticist at the University of Washington. "They were very similar to Neolithic Europeans and very similar to present day-Cretans," residents of the Mediterranean island of Crete.

While that may sound intuitive, the findings challenge a long-held theory that the ancient Minoans came from Egypt.
... more »

2013-05-16 12:23:46 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 13 +1s)

Log-boat found in Boyne could be 5,000 years old
AN ancient log-boat – which could be thousands of years old – has been discovered in the banks of the river Boyne.
An initial examination by underwater archaeologist Karl Brady suggests it could be very rare because, unlike other log-boats found here, it has oval shapes on the upper edge which could have held oars.

The boat was found by Christy Finglas, a member of the Boyne Fishermen's Rescue and Recovery Service (BFRRS), near Drogheda, Co Louth, as they were doing one of their regular operations to remove shopping trolleys from the Boyne.

Christy was working with Michael Hodgins as they checked the river for the trolleys, which are regularly thrown into the Boyne where it flows through Drogheda town centre.

2013-05-16 12:12:51 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Unique workshop of Palaeolithic hunters discovered in Silesia
More than a thousand flint tools and waste generated on during their treatment were discovered near Pietrowice Wielkie (Silesia) by archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Wrocław - told PAP head researcher Dr. Andrzej Wiśniewski.
The flint workshops, remains of which were found by archaeologists, had been used by Neanderthals. The researchers are waiting for more detailed information on the site dating. The workshop is certainly more than 45 thousand years old.
 
"Tools were made by a specific canon of Neanderthals living in Central Europe. These items have a cutting edge on both sides, they are bifacial" - said Dr. Wiśniewski.
 
Tools, including bifaces and asymmetric blades, are made of siliceous rocks, commonly called flint. According to head researcher, Neanderthalsmade... more »

2013-05-14 11:39:22 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

"The new Ghost in the Shell: Arise series is essentially Motoko Begins" http://feedly.com/k/17n4w0N

2013-05-13 18:06:32 (6 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

2 new diseases could both spark global outbreaks
LONDON (AP) — Two respiratory viruses in different parts of the world have captured the attention of global health officials — a novel coronavirus in the Middle East and a new bird flu spreading in China.

Last week, the coronavirus related to SARS spread to France, where one patient who probably caught the disease in Dubai infected his hospital roommate. Officials are now trying to track down everyone who went on a tour group holiday to Dubai with the first patient as well as all contacts of the second patient. Since it was first spotted last year, the new coronavirus has infected 34 people, killing 18 of them. Nearly all had some connection to the Middle East.

The World Health Organization, however, says there is no reason to think the virus is restricted to the Middle East and has advised health officials worldwide toclo... more »

2013-05-13 17:13:52 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Family tree of all known snake and lizard groups mapped
A George Washington University biologist and a team of researchers have created the first large-scale evolutionary family tree for every snake and lizard around the globe.
The findings were recently published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Alex Pyron, the Robert F. Griggs Assistant Professor of Biology in GW's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, along with researchers from the City University of New York and Arizona State University, detail the cataloging of 4,161 species of snakes and lizards, or squamates.

"Squamates include all lizards and snakes found throughout the globe, including around 9,500 species on every continent except Antarctica, and found in most oceans," said Dr. Pyron. "This is everything from cobras to garter snakes to tiny geckos to the Komodo Dragon to the Gila Monster.... more »

2013-05-13 16:54:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

3D reconstruction of medieval Nieszawa
In 2012, precise location of medieval town Nieszawa was determined. And that's without sinking a shovel into the ground, with the use of non-invasive methods. Now, a professional, 3D reconstruction of the settlement has been prepared for everyone to see on YouTube.
Animation authors are Jakub Zakrzewski and Stanisław Rzeźnik, who created a preliminary reconstruction of the medieval Nieszawa in collaboration with Piotrand Wroniecki and Michał Pisz, and with archaeological and historical consultation with Lidia Grzeszkiewicz-Kotlewska and Leszek Kotlewski, dr. Jerzy Sikora and Dariusz Osiński.
 
Today’s Nieszawa is a small town situated on the west bank of the Vistula River, 30 km upstream from Toruń. Its history dates back to the thirteenth century, when it was given to the Teutonic Order by Konrad I Mazowiecki in 1228 (today smalltown Ma... more »

2013-05-13 16:33:56 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Cadmus Fighting the Dragon
Front of a black-figure amphora from Euboea, Greece (ca 560 - 550 BC)
After Zeus kidnapped Europa, her brother, the Phoenician prince Cadmus, was sent out by his father to bring her back. He didn't find her, so he never returned. In his travels he had a lot of adventures, like killing the water-dragon that protected the Castilian Spring. After killing the dragon, he sowed a dragon's teeth, from which there sprang a race of armed men called Spartoi.

2013-05-13 16:29:46 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

Thanks +Jacob Mosekilde for this find!
Molecular Evidence of Yersinia pestis in Europe
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=209400642373375763716.0004cba98d2466c563bfa&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.661943,7.954102&spn=8.97162,15.015564&t=m&source=embed

2013-05-13 06:52:45 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Justinianic Plague Was Caused by Bacterium Yersinia Pestis, DNA of
Skeletal Remains Shows
Ancient DNA analyses of skeletal remains of plague victims from the 6th century AD provide information about the phylogeny and the place of origin of this pandemic.
From the several pandemics generally called 'pestilences' three are historically recognized as due to plague, but only for the third pandemic of the 19th-21st centuries AD there were microbiological evidences that the causing agent was the bacterium Yersinia pestis. "For a long time scholars from different disciplines have intensively discussed about the actual etiological agents of the past pandemics. Only ancient DNA analyses carried out on skeletal remains of plague victims could finally conclude the debate," said Dr. Barbara Bramanti of the Palaeogenetics Group at the Institute of Anthropology at Johannes... more »

2013-05-13 06:06:01 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Linear A
Linear A is a writing system yet to be deciphered, thus we don't know which language underlies it. It was found in tablets in Crete (Minoan civilization) and it was used from 1800 BC to 1400 BC.

2013-05-11 00:53:01 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 13 +1s)

Plague Helped Bring Down Roman Empire
Plague may have helped finish off the Roman Empire, researchers now reveal.
Plague is a fatal disease so infamous that it has become synonymous with any dangerous, widespread contagion. It was linked to one of the first known examples of biological warfare, when Mongols catapulted plague victims into cities.
The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, has been linked with at least two of the most devastating pandemics in recorded history. One, the Great Plague, which lasted from the 14th to 17th centuries, included the infamous epidemic known as the Black Death, which may have killed nearly two-thirds of Europe in the mid-1300s. Another, the Modern Plague, struck around the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, beginning in China in the mid-1800s and spreading to Africa, the Americas, Australia, Europe and other parts of Asia.
Although... more »

2013-05-11 00:48:39 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

The Elephant's Tomb in Carmona may have been a temple to the
god Mithras
The so-called Elephant's Tomb in the Roman necropolis of Carmona (Seville, Spain) was not always used for burials. The original structure of the building and a window through which the sun shines directly in the equinoxes suggest that it was a temple of Mithraism, an unofficial religion in the Roman Empire. The position of Taurus and Scorpio during the equinoxes gives force to the theory.

The Carmona necropolis (Spain) is a collection of funeral structures from between the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. One of these is known as the Elephant's Tomb because a statue in the shape of an elephant was found in the interior of the structure.

The origin and function of the construction have been the subject of much debate. Archaeologists from the University of Pablo de... more »

2013-05-10 14:48:23 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Did inflexibilty in prey selection contribute to the extinction of the big cats on the mammoth steppe?

Stable isotope ratios measured in fossils can be used to reconstruct an animal's diet. A new paper finds that extinct Pleistocene big cats living on the mammoth steppe maintained a very limited diet consisting almost entirely of caribou, while other large extant predators of the Mammoth steppe alive today such as bears and wolves preyed on many different prey types.

2013-05-10 13:29:09 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

The role of the humble fig in human culture
Figs and fig trees are familiar to a wide cross-section of human society, both as a common food and for their spiritual importance. What is less well understood is the global nature of this association between figs and humans, which is maintained across species, continents and societies. This relationship is explored by David Wilson of Ecology and Heritage Partners and Anna Wilson from the University of Melbourne in Australia in a paper published in the Springer journal Human Ecology. Using examples from around the world, the authors show that figs are a vital resource for humans, no matter which species are present in a region.
It is well known that figs are a recurring theme in religion: it is the first fruit tree mentioned in the Bible, and some traditions believe that it was the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. It was the tree under... more »

2013-05-10 13:18:13 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Kenyan fossils yield earliest evidence of hunting
Human ancestors living in East Africa 2 million years ago weren’t a steak-and-potatoes crowd. But they had a serious hankering for gazelle meat and antelope brains, fossils discovered in Kenya indicate.
Three sets of butchered animal bones unearthed at Kenya’s Kanjera South site provide the earliest evidence of both long-term hunting and targeted scavenging by a member of the human evolutionary family, anthropologist Joseph Ferraro of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and his colleagues conclude.

An early member of the Homo genus, perhaps Homo erectus, hunted small animals and scavenged predators’ leftovers of larger creatures, researchers report April 25 in PLOS ONE. Along with hunting relatively small game such as gazelles, these hominids scavenged the heads of antelope and wildebeests, apparently to add a side of fatty,nutri... more »

2013-05-10 12:03:00 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Face of 5,000 year old Maltese woman revealed
Malta's megalithic temples are slowly revealing secrets about a population that was clever, artistic, creative and talented with an eye for detail and a taste for the delicate and the exotic.
Heritage Malta this evening surprised guests at the Malta Fashion Week with an exhibition entitled Jewellery through the times showing that Malta's first residents were not the aggressive, dirty individuals with unkempt hair which most imagine them to have been.

The exhibition was followed by a fashion show of replica prehistoric jewellery, which preceded the main highlight: changing the misconception related to the image of prehistoric people by means of a unique reconstruction.

The items featured in the fashion show were replicas of objects worn by individuals who lived on the Maltese islands some 5600 years ago. The... more »

2013-05-10 00:56:26 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 10 +1s)

Sago-type palms were major plant food prior to rice cultivation in China
Before rice cultivation became prevalent, ancient populations on the southern coast of China likely relied on sago palms as staple plant foods, according to research published May 8 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Xiaoyan Yang and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China.
Little is known about prehistoric diets of those who lived in southern subtropical China, as the acidic soils and humid climate of the region cause poor preservation of plant remains. Though literature and archaeological discoveries have suggested that roots and tubers were the staple foods in this region, no direct evidence has so far been found.
In this study, researchers analyzed starch granules recovered from Neolithic stone tools used approximately 3,350-2,470 BC, and found these to resemble starches typically... more »

2013-05-10 00:30:27 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

New excavations to find lost Pictish kingdom
ARCHAEOLOGISTS are planning a major dig to uncover one of the lost Kingdoms of the ancient Picts, the tribe of legendary warriors whose empire stretched from Fife to the Moray Firth before they mysteriously vanished from history.

Until recently historians had believed that Fortriu - one of the most powerful Kingdoms of the “painted people” - had been based in Perthshire.

But recent research has now placed the Pictish stronghold much further north to the Moray Firth area.

And it was revealed today that a team of archaeologists from Aberdeen University are to embark on a series of excavations on the Tarbat peninsula in Ross-shire where archaeologists have already uncovered evidence of the only Pictish monastic settlement found in Scotland to date.

A spokesman for Aberdeen University said: “The newproje... more »

2013-05-09 00:52:05 (4 comments, 5 reshares, 11 +1s)

New device can extract human DNA with full genetic data in minutes
Take a swab of saliva from your mouth and within minutes your DNA could be ready for analysis and genome sequencing with the help of a new device.
University of Washington engineers and NanoFacture (http://nano-facture.com/), a Bellevue, Wash., company, have created a device that can extract human DNA from fluid samples in a simpler, more efficient and environmentally friendly way than conventional methods.

The device will give hospitals and research labs a much easier way to separate DNA from human fluid samples, which will help with genome sequencing, disease diagnosis and forensic investigations.

"It's very complex to extract DNA," said Jae-Hyun Chung, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering who led the research. "When you think of the current procedure, the equivalent... more »