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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #374 · v 8 · n 9 Saturday, September 17, 2011 |
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20 topics |
Welcome to issue #374 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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Posted on 07/16/2004 11:27:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Thanks!
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #374 Saturday, September 17, 2011 |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Visible Only From Above, Mystifying 'Nazca Lines' Discovered in Mideast |
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· 09/14/2011 10:09:47 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 44 replies · · LiveScience · · 14 Sept 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines -- ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru -- and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes... |
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| Mideast riddle: Strange stone structures caught on camera |
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· 09/17/2011 3:24:59 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 55 replies · · CBS · · September 15, 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
Giant stone structures in the Azraq Oasis in Jordan They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public. They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines -- ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru -- and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands. Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Dig therapy for injured soldiers on Salisbury Plain |
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· 09/13/2011 5:07:31 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · BBC News · · Thursday, September 8, 2011 · · unattributed · |
Injured soldiers from Gloucestershire-based 1st Battalion The Rifles, who have returned from front line duties in Afghanistan, are helping with an archaeological dig on Salisbury Plain. The project is designed to help them recover from battlefield injuries, including combat stress. |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Noah's Ark Found? Company Claims Commercial Satellite Has Picture Proof |
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· 04/26/2004 7:13:00 AM PDT · · Posted by Brett66 · · 87 replies · · 1,561+ views · · Space.com · · April 26, 2004 · · Space.com · |
Satellite photos of Mount Aratat, Turkey taken by commercial imaging satellite company Digital Globe released today are said to contain proof of the existence of the biblical Noah's Ark. The images, revealed at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (see right), are said to reveal a man-made structure at the site where the Bible states the vessel came to rest. The claim was made by Daniel P. McGivern, president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corporation, who according to a press release has been... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Forgotten archaeological gems: The ancient turquoise mines of South Sinai |
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· 09/11/2011 7:33:22 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Al-Masry Al-Youm · · Saturday, September 10, 2011 · · Fatma Keshk · |
Sinai is often referred to in Arabic as "Ard Al-Fayrouz" (the land of turquoise) after its ancient Egyptian name "Ta Mefkat" or "Khetyou Mefkat", which means turquoise terraces. Minerals were of great use in ancient times -- for making royal jewelry and divine offerings, and more importantly for mummy ornaments and amulets, encouraging pharaohs since the Early Dynastic Period (ca. 3050-2890 BC) to send mining expeditions to extract turquoise and copper from South Sinai. Wadi Maghara, Wadi Kharig, Bir Nasb and Serabit al-Khadem were among the premium mining spots in antiquity... The archaeological sites of Southern Sinai relay aspects of... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| National Geographic October Issue Includes Close-up of Beast/Sphinx Map of Middle East |
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· 09/13/2002 8:26:16 PM PDT · · Posted by Thinkin' Gal · · 71 replies · · 2,092+ views · · NGM · · October 2002 · · TG; KJB; misc. · · 13 September 2002 · · TG · |
Tonight I was admiring the sharp satellite topographical map of the Middle East included in the new October issue. Then I flipped it over to see what was printed on the other side. It is a typical map, but much more zoomed in than the usual ME maps. It is cropped almost in the same manner as the ME beast/sphinx map image which I have been posting here for a couple of years. The title of the NG map is "Heart of the Middle East". Click above map link for reference. Sinai ("thorny") = crownJordan = head and long neck... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Bulgarian Archaeology Finds Said to Rewrite History of Black Sea Sailing |
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· 09/14/2011 2:56:24 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · Novinite · · Monday, September 12, 2011 · · Sofia News Agency · |
Massive ancient stone anchors were found by divers participating in an archaeological expedition near the southern Bulgarian Black Sea town of Sozopol. The expedition, led by deputy director of Bulgaria's National Historical Museum Dr Ivan Hristov, found the precious artifacts west of the Sts. Cyricus and Julitta island. The 200-kg beautifully ornamented anchors have two holes in them -- one for the anchor rope and another one for a wooden stick. They were used for 150-200-ton ships that transported mainly wheat, but also dried and salted fish, skins, timber and metals from what now is Bulgaria's coast. The anchors' shape... |
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| Age of Sail | |
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| Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened? |
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· 09/08/2011 8:49:19 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · BBC · · September 8, 2011 · · Kate Dailey · |
Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took his crew of 129 men deep into the Arctic.In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Dingoes originated in China 18,000 years ago |
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· 09/13/2011 6:47:28 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 22 replies · · Australian Geographic · · 13 Sept 2011 · · Natalie Muller · |
The dingo came to Australia via southern China, and much earlier than previously thought, says new research. THE DINGO (Canis lupus dingo) first appeared in Australia's archaeological records in 3500-year-old rock paintings in the Pilbara region of WA, but the new evidence suggests they were roaming Australia long before that. DNA samples from domestic Asian dog species and the Australian dingo have shed light on how the iconic canine arrived on Australian soil. According to a study by an international research team, genetic data shows the dingo may have originated in southern China, travelling through mainland southeast Asia and Indonesia to... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Pictish beast intrigues Highland archaeologists |
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· 09/14/2011 11:42:04 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · · BBC · · September 14, 2011 · · Steven McKenzie · |
A Pictish symbol stone built into the wall of a Highland farm building has been recorded by archaeologists.The markings show a beast, crescent, comb and mirror. Archaeologist Cait McCullagh said it was a mystery how it had taken until this year for the stone to be officially recorded. She said it also suggested that more Pictish stones have still to be documented on the Black Isle where the beast was recorded. Ms McCullagh, the co-founder and director of Archaeology for Communities in the Highlands (Arch), said the symbol stones probably dated from the 5th to 7th centuries AD. She said... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Neanderthals ate shellfish 150,000 years ago: study |
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· 09/15/2011 7:42:53 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 51 replies · · http://www.physorg.com · · 09-15-2011 · · Staff · |
Neanderthal cavemen supped on shellfish on the Costa del Sol 150,000 years ago, punching a hole in the theory that modern humans alone ate brain-boosting seafood so long ago, a new study shows. The discovery in a cave near Torremolinos in southern Spain was about 100,000 years older than the previous earliest evidence of Neanderthals consuming seafood, scientists said. Researchers unearthed the evidence when examining stone tools and the remains of shells in the Bajondillo Cave, they said in a study published online in the Public Library of Science. There, they discovered many charred shellfish -- mostly mussel shells --... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Study reveals 'oldest jewellery' |
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· 06/22/2006 5:28:15 PM PDT · · Posted by Jedi Master Pikachu · · 7 replies · · 267+ views · · BBC · · June 22, 2006 · · Paul Rincon · |
The earliest known pieces of jewellery made by modern humans have been identified by scientists. The three shell beads are between 90,000 and 100,000 years old, according to an international research team. Two of the ancient beads come from Skhul Cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel. The other comes from the site of Oued Djebbana in Algeria. The finds, which pre-date other ancient examples by 25,000 years, are described in the US journal Science. The pea-sized items all have similar holes which would have allowed them to be strung together into a necklace or bracelet, the... |
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| Look Back in Amber | |
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| 'Dinofuzz' Found in Canadian Amber |
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· 09/15/2011 10:55:17 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 16 replies · · Sciencemag.org · · 9-15-2011 · · Sid Perkins · |
Fluffy structures trapped in thumbnail-sized bits of ancient amber may represent some of the earliest evolutionary experiments leading to feathers, according to a new study. These filaments of "dinofuzz" are so well preserved that they even provide hints of color, the researchers say. The oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, lived in what is now Germany about 150 million years ago, and the oldest known feathered dinosaur, Anchiornis huxleyi, lived in northeastern China between 151 million and 161 million years ago. Both creatures had modern-style feathers, each of which had a central shaft; barbs, which made up the feather's vane; and substructures called... |
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| Dinosaur | |
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| Newborn Dinosaur Discovered in Maryland |
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· 09/14/2011 8:49:08 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 13 replies · · Johns Hopkins · · 09/12/2011 · · Ray Stanford · |
Fossil of the baby nodosaur. No, this isn't Jurassic Park. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with help from an amateur fossil hunter in College Park, Md., have described the fossil of an armored dinosaur hatchling. It is the youngest nodosaur ever discovered, and a founder of a new genus and species that lived approximately 110 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous Era. Nodosaurs have been found in diverse locations worldwide, but they've rarely been found in the United States. The findings are published in the September 9 issue of the Journal of Paleontology. "Now we... |
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| Mammoth Told Me... | |
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| Woolly mammoth's secrets for shrugging off cold points toward new artificial blood for humans |
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· 09/14/2011 8:55:20 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 15 replies · · American Chemical Society · · September 14, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The blood from woolly mammoths -- those extinct elephant-like creatures that roamed the Earth in pre-historic times -- is helping scientists develop new blood products for modern medical procedures that involve reducing patients' body temperature. The report appears in ACS' journal Biochemistry. Chien Ho and colleagues note that woolly mammoth ancestors initially evolved in warm climates, where African and Asian elephants live now, but migrated to the cold regions of Eurasia 1.2 million -- 2.0 million years ago in the Pleistocene ice age. They adapted to their new environment by growing thick, "woolly" fur and smaller ears, which helped conserve heat, and possibly by... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Following Napoleon's trail on Elba |
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· 09/14/2011 3:41:18 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · · BBC · · September 14, 2011 · · Leif Pettersen · |
> Elba has been inhabited since the Iron Age. Ligurian tribes were followed by Etruscans and then Greeks. A rotating cast of residents, refugees and pirates made appearances in subsequent centuries including the Pax Romana, bands of North African raiders, the Spanish and Cosimo I de' Medici, who in the mid-16th Century founded and fortified the port town of Cosmopolis, today's Portoferraio. But none of these occupants did more in so little time as France's all time greatest military mastermind and badboy, Napoleon Bonaparte. Though the Emperor escaped less than a year after being "banished" to Elba (the penal equivalent... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Family: 400-Year-Old Painting Stolen By Nazis |
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· 09/10/2011 3:28:18 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 23 replies · · WFTV · · September 9, 2011 · |
A 400-year-old painting of Christ is at the center of an investigation. The painting is at a museum in Tallahassee, but it's believed to have been stolen from its original owners by Nazi soldiers. The grandchildren of a Jewish man claim the painting was stolen from their grandfather in the 1930s, and now they want it back. The CEO of the museum got a call from the U.S. district attorney about the artwork. "She had information that indicated that it had been alleged that there was a family who claimed to have prior ownership of the painting and it had... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| The First Palestinian State (2003 article, very relevant) |
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· 09/14/2011 6:39:07 PM PDT · · Posted by PRePublic · · 7 replies · · Americans for a Safe Israel · · December 9, 2003 · · E. Winston · |
Oh. You didn't know there was a First Palestinian State? It's not necessary to go back to 1964 when, with Egypt's help, Yassir Arafat formed up the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) --with the sole intent of engaging in Terror for the purpose of conquering the Jewish State, with the assistance of all the Arab/Muslim nations. Those goals of the PLO have NOT changed. (1) Arafat was elected Chairman of the PLO in 1969.But, Arafat and his... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| The Corruption of Science in America |
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· 09/13/2011 2:43:26 PM PDT · · Posted by ForGod'sSake · · 32 replies · · sott.net · · August 30, 2011 · · J. Marvin Herndon · |
Truth is the pillar of civilization. The word 'truth' occurs 224 times in the King James Version of the Holy Bible; witnesses testifying in American courts and before the United States Congress must swear to tell the truth; and, laws and civil codes require truth in advertising and in business practices, to list just a few examples. The purpose of science is to discover the true nature of Earth and Universe and to convey that knowledge truthfully to people everywhere. Science gives birth to technology that makes our lives easier and better. Science improves our health and enables us to... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Are Women Genetically Wired To Dislike Math & Science? |
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· 09/15/2011 8:54:32 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 57 replies · · YourTango · · 9/14/2011 · · Jessica Cruel · |
A study found that when it comes to career choices, men prefer things and women prefer people.If you thought it was sexist to assume that girls aren't good at science, maybe you should think again (though stereotypes are dangerous and there are certainly many, many exceptions). A recent study in the journal Hormones and Behavior found that genetics play a key role in the career choices we make. In short, men become astronauts and women prefer nursing because of our biological nature, not environmental factors. In our society, males are more likely to work in fields dealing with "things" like... |
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| end of digest #374 20110917 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #374 · v 8 · n 9 Saturday, September 17, 2011 |
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20 topics |
Welcome to issue #374 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #375 Saturday, September 24, 2011 |
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| Rome & Italy | |
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| Archaeologists uncover evidence of large ancient shipyard near Rome |
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· 09/22/2011 8:08:45 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · · U of Southampton · · September 22, 2011 · · Unknown · |
University of Southampton and British School at Rome (BSR) archaeologists, leading an international excavation of Portus -- the ancient port of Rome, believe they have discovered a large Roman shipyard. The team, working with the Italian Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, has uncovered the remains of a massive building close to the distinctive hexagonal basin or "harbour', at the centre of the port complex. University of Southampton Professor and Portus Project Director, Simon Keay comments, "At first we thought this large rectangular building was used as a warehouse, but our latest excavation has uncovered evidence that there may have been another,... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Dig reveals human skulls mounted on stakes (Sweden) |
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· 09/20/2011 7:55:48 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 36 replies · · The Local · · September 19, 2011 · · David Landes · |
Several human skulls found mounted on wooden stakes have been uncovered from a Stone Age lake bed in central Sweden in what is believed to be the first discovery of its kind anywhere in the world. "We found two skulls that still had wooden stakes sticking out of them through a whole at the base of the skull," archeologist Fredrik Hallgren, head of excavation with the Stiftelsen Kulturmiljövârd Mälardalen ("Cultural Preservation Society of Mälardalen') told The Local. The skulls and other artifacts, including bones of wild animals, were recovered at the Kanaljorden excavation site in the town of Motala in... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| A wild and woolly discovery: FSU scientist's Tibetan expedition ends with prehistoric find |
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· 09/16/2011 8:51:02 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · Florida State University · · September 16, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Geochemistry Professor Yang Wang and an international team of researchers uncover oldest known species of woolly rhinoYang Wang is known for conducting complex research using highly sophisticated equipment. Yet the Florida State University geochemist also has spent days hiking through the remote outback of Tibet and camping in the foothills of the Himalayas -- all in the name of scientific discovery. Because of that unique mix of skills, Wang was chosen to take part in a team of researchers that uncovered the oldest prehistoric woolly rhino ever found. A paper describing the team's discovery was just published in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/),... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Unknown ocean bacteria create entirely new theories |
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· 09/16/2011 8:38:19 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 5 replies · · Uppsala University · · September 16, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The earth's most successful bacteria are found in the oceans and belong to the group SAR11. In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University provide an explanation for their success and at the same time call into question generally accepted theories about these bacteria. In their analysis they have also identified a rare and hitherto unknown relative of mitochondria, the power stations inside cells. The findings were published in two articles in the journals Molecular Biology and Evolution and PLoS One in the last week. "The huge amounts of DNA information now being produced from the oceans gives us a... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| NIH scientists find earliest known evidence of 1918 influenza pandemic (and more) |
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· 09/19/2011 12:37:08 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · NIH · · September 19, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Examination of lung tissue and other autopsy material from 68 American soldiers who died of respiratory infections in 1918 has revealed that the influenza virus that eventually killed 50 million people worldwide was circulating in the United States at least four months before the 1918 influenza reached pandemic levels that fall. The study, using tissues preserved since 1918, was led by Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers found proteins and genetic material from the 1918 influenza virus in specimens from 37 of... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| UCLA scientists find H1N1 flu virus prevalent in animals in Africa |
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· 09/23/2011 6:45:00 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 5 replies · · UCLA · · September 22, 2011 · · Unknown · |
UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. "I was amazed that virtually every pig in this village was exposed," said Thomas B. Smith, director of UCLA's Center for Tropical Research and the senior author of the research. "Africa is ground zero for a new pandemic. Many people are in poor health there, and disease can spread very rapidly without authorities knowing... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Researchers use genome sequences to peer into early human history |
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· 09/21/2011 1:18:05 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · Cornell Chronicle · · September 19, 2011 · · Krishna Ramanujan · |
Cornell researchers have developed new statistical methods based on the complete genome sequences of people alive today to shed light on events at the dawn of human history. They applied their methods to the genomes of individuals of East Asian, European, and western and southern African descent. They analyzed only six genomes, but made use of the fact that these genomes contain traces of genetic material from thousands of human ancestors, which have been assembled into new combinations over the millennia by genetic recombination. The main finding of the study, published Sept. 18 in Nature Genetics, is that the San,... |
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| A micro-RNA as a key regulator of learning and Alzheimer's disease |
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· 09/23/2011 8:22:09 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · · Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative · · September 23, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Scientists identify an RNA molecule as a potential target for new Alzheimer's therapies Göttingen, September 23rd, 2011. Proteins are the molecular machines of the cell. They transport materials, cleave products or transmit signals -- and for a long time, they have been a main focus of attention in molecular biology research. In the last two decades, however, another class of critically important molecules has emerged: small RNA molecules, including micro-RNAs. It is now well established that micro-RNAs play a key role in the regulation of cell function."A micro-RNA regulates the production of an estimated 300-400 proteins. This class of molecules... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Continents influenced human migration, spread of technology |
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· 09/19/2011 12:54:27 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 5 replies · · Brown University · · September 19, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Researchers at Brown University and Stanford University have pieced together ancient human migration in North and South America. Writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the authors find that technology spread more slowly in the Americas than in Eurasia. Population groups in the Americas have less frequent exchanges than groups that fanned out over Europe and Asia. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- How modern-day humans dispersed on the planet and the pace of civilization-changing technologies that accompanied their migrations are enduring mysteries. Scholars believe ancient peoples on Europe and Asia moved primarily along east-west routes, taking advantage of the relative... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Lock of hair pins down early migration of Aborigines |
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· 09/22/2011 7:36:33 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · · BBC · · September 22, 2011 · · Leila Battison · |
A lock of hair has helped scientists to piece together the genome of Australian Aborigines and rewrite the history of human dispersal around the world.DNA from the hair demonstrates that indigenous Aboriginal Australians were the first to separate from other modern humans, around 70,000 years ago. This challenges current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa. An international team of researchers published their findings in the journal Science. While the Aboriginal populations were trailblazing across Asia and into Australia, the remaining humans stayed around North Africa and the Middle East until 24,000 years ago. Only then did they... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Seaside Fortress Was a Final Stronghold of Early Islamic Power |
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· 09/15/2011 4:45:37 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · · American Friends Tel Aviv University · · September 15, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Ancient harbor at Yavneh-Yam was used for hostage exchange, says TAU researcherArchaeologists have long known that Yavneh-Yam, an archaeological site between the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast, was a functioning harbor from the second millennium B.C. until the Middle Ages. Now Tel Aviv University researchers have uncovered evidence to suggest that the site was one of the final strongholds of Early Islamic power in the region. According to Prof. Moshe Fischer of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures and head of the Yavneh-Yam dig, the recent discovery of a bath house from... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Evolution Needs to Evolve |
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· 09/16/2011 1:37:45 PM PDT · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 49 replies · · American Specator · · 09/16/2011 · · Hal G.P. Colebatch · |
Professor of Atheism Richard Dawkins grows increasingly shrill. His outbursts include the following, not very recent, but typical: It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that). You can, of course, make any point you like providing you don't care about first premises. One thing which evidently fails to enter Professor Dawkins' mental universe is the idea -- accepted by many scientists -- that the theory of evolution is broadly correct, but as an... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| Science and religion do mix |
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· 09/21/2011 9:41:11 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · · Rice University · · September 20, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Rice University study reveals only 15 percent of scientists at major research universities see religion and science always in conflictThroughout history, science and religion have appeared as being in perpetual conflict, but a new study by Rice University suggests that only a minority of scientists at major research universities see religion and science as requiring distinct boundaries. "When it comes to questions about the meaning of life, ways of understanding reality, origins of Earth and how life developed on it, many have seen religion and science as being at odds and even in irreconcilable conflict," said Rice sociologist Elaine Howard... |
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| Toothless Beavers | |
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| Officials say beaver teeth are 7 million years old |
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· 09/19/2011 2:00:08 PM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 43 replies · · Physorg · · 09-19-2011 · · Staff · |
The Bureau of Land Management says a fossil found by employees on federal land represents the earliest record of living beavers in North America. The pair of teeth was found on BLM land in northeast Oregon. The Albany Democrat-Herald reports the teeth come from the Rattlesnake Formation and are 7 to 7.3 million years old. The BLM says the earliest beavers were found in Germany 10 to 12 million years ago and the animals spread across Asia, eventually crossing the Bering Land Bridge to North America. The previous earliest known records of living beavers in North America, from about 5... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Poe Museum Nevermore? |
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· 09/14/2011 12:52:29 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 30 replies · · Reuters · · Tue Sep 13, 2011 · · Jason Tomassini · |
Of all the U.S. cities that claim a connection to the troubled author Edgar Allan Poe, Baltimore likes to think its case is strongest. Poe's family is from Baltimore, his literary career began in the city, he died a mysterious death at a Baltimore hospital and his body was buried here in 1849. But the city may soon lose a key physical connection to Poe. The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, where the writer lived for four years in the early 1800s, is in danger of closing next year, due to budget cutbacks by the city. "Everyone is tightening... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| New analysis suggests Civil War took bigger toll than previously estimated |
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· 09/21/2011 12:54:16 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 67 replies · · Binghamton University · · September 21, 2011 · · Unknown · |
BINGHAMTON, NY -- The Civil War -- already considered the deadliest conflict in American history -- in fact took a toll far more severe than previously estimated. That's what a new analysis of census data by Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker reveals. Hacker says the war's dead numbered about 750,000, an estimate that's 20 percent higher than the commonly cited figure of 620,000. His findings will be published in December in the journal Civil War History. "The traditional estimate has become iconic," Hacker says. "It's been quoted for the last hundred years or more. If you go with that... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Hitler's Atlantic Wall: Should France preserve it? |
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· 09/13/2011 7:10:36 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 21 replies · · BBC · · September 12, 2011 · · Hugh Schofield · |
Sections of Hitler's Atlantic Wall are being restored by French enthusiasts. But should the Nazi fortification be fully embraced as part of the country's heritage?Along 800 miles (1,287km) of French coast lie some of the most substantial and evocative vestiges of war-time Europe. The so-called Atlantic Wall --Hitler's defensive system against an expected Allied attack --stretched all the way from the Spanish border to Scandinavia. Inevitably, it was in France that the most extensive building took place. Today there are still thousands of blockhouses, barracks and gun emplacements visible along the French shore. But in France there has... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Jackie O: MLK Was Terrible, FDR a Phony |
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· 09/17/2011 6:05:50 AM PDT · · Posted by VU4G10 · · 95 replies · · New American · · 091711 · · Cort Kirkwood · |
The truth is out. The leading lady of liberal America between 1960 and her death in 1994, the standard setter of au courant women with her pillbox hats, bouffant hairstyle, and jet-set friends, the Guinevere to Camelot's King Arthur himself, didn't much care for lesbians and Martin Luther King and other leftist world leaders. The tapes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (shown as a young First Lady, left) are out, as The New American reported, and their first installment weeks ago revealed that she thought Vice President Lyndon Johnson, the most prodigious and successful election thief in American history, had a... |
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| end of digest #375 20110924 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #375 · v 8 · n 10 Saturday, September 24, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #375 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #376 Saturday, October 1, 2011 |
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| Africa | |
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| Preserved flesh of 2-million-year-old human ancestor found? |
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· 09/26/2011 7:20:26 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 56 replies · · Popular Archaeology · · Wednesday, September 21, 2011 · · Dan McLerran · |
His jaw must have dropped when he examined the material before him. It was a rare find. So rare, in fact, that, if what he was looking at was really what he thought it could be, it would be the first and only evidence of soft body tissue from an early hominin ever discovered.......soft tissue from an early (possible) pre-human ancestor nearly 2 million years old. The find was part of the remains uncovered by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand and his colleagues when they discovered fossils of Australopithecus sediba, a possible precursor to our earliest... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Many roads lead to Asia (Denisovans, migrations, etc.) |
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· 09/26/2011 2:55:29 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · · Max-Planck-Gesellschaft · · September 26, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Contrary to what was previously assumed, modern humans may have populated Asia in more than 1 migration waveThe discovery by Russian archaeologists of the remains of an extinct prehistoric human during the excavation of Denisova Cave in Southern Siberia in 2008 was nothing short of a scientific sensation. The sequencing of the nuclear genome taken from an over 30,000-year-old finger bone revealed that Denisova man was neither a Neanderthal nor modern human, but a new form of hominin. Minute traces of the Denisova genome are still found in some individuals living today. The comparisons of the DNA of modern humans... |
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| Corsica | |
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| 9000-year-old multiple burial uncovered in Corsica |
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· 09/26/2011 7:51:51 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · Stone Pages · · Tuesday, September 20, 2011 · · Edited from L'Express.fr, Le Figaro · |
The exceptional discovery of burials about 9,000 years old -- probably containing the oldest human remains ever found in Corsica (France) -- will allow a better understanding of the history of early settlement of the island and of the Mediterranean. On a hill near the village of Sollacaro, Southern Corsica, nestled under a huge ball-shaped block of eroded granite which served as a shelter for prehistoric peoples, the location has been excavated by a team of archaeologists from several French universities, assisted by a Danish colleague... Having uncovered the bones of four or five adults, a teenager, and a baby... |
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| Ice Cold Malta | |
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| New look for Ggantija temples |
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· 09/26/2011 6:53:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Stone Pages · · September 24, 2011 · · Malta Independent · |
The Ggantija Temples are the most popular heritage site in Malta, and a lot of work has gone into restoring their structural integrity... The new project incorporates two new lightweight walkways which will now take visitors straight into the heart of the temples. The project also includes an interactive digital and virtual tour of Ggantija. The Temples have also been decked out with an environmental monitoring station which measures exposure to environmental elements and the site has been made safer with the installation of a remote security system... Thanks to the construction of two walkways inside Ggantija, visitors will have... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Lost city found in Turkey: It is older than Troy |
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· 09/27/2011 6:16:07 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · · National Turk · · Monday, September 26, 2011 · · unattributed · |
A group of scientists and archeologists from Canakkale (Dardanelles) University have found traces of a lost city, older than famed Troy, now buried under the waters of Dardanelles strait. Led by associate professor Rustem Aslan, the archeology team made a surface survey in the vicinity of Erenkoy, Canakkale on the shore. The team has found ceramics and pottery, what led them to ponder a mound could be nearby. A research on the found pottery showed that the items belonged to an 7000 years old ancient city. The team has intensified the research and discovered first signs of the lost city... |
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| Greece | |
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| Rain unearths unknown Mycenaean cemetery |
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· 09/26/2011 7:08:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 15 replies · · Athens News · · Thursday, September 15, 2011 · · AMNA · |
Five box-shaped Mycenaean era tombs were unearthed in Soha, near Vaskina village, some ten kilometers northwest of Leonidio, by recent heavy rainfall. The most impressive of the funerary gifts found in the graves were several clay sympotic vases. According to archaeologists, the finds dating back to the 14th century BC. A recovery excavation was conducted by the 38th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Ancient luxury residence of rich family found in Izmir |
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· 09/27/2011 6:11:57 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Hurriyet · · Wednesday, September 28 2011 · · Anatolian News Agency · |
A luxurious house with plenty of rooms, a restroom and a kitchen, believed to pertain to a rich family, is found in Izmir. It islocated by the side of a newly-discovered Roman road. A luxury residence dating back about 2,000 years to the Roman era has been discovered in the Aegean province of Izmir. Located in the ancient city of Smyrna, the 400-square-meter residence has many rooms, including a bathroom and kitchen... It is the first time that a residence has been found in the central part of the city since excavation started three years ago, said Ersoy. The residence,... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Archeological Sites in Ancient City of Apamea Vandalized and Pillaged |
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· 09/26/2011 6:59:48 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · SANA · · Tuesday, September 20, 2011 · · H. Sabbagh · |
Several archeological sites in the ancient city of Apamea were vandalized and pillaged by groups taking advantage of the events in Syria to excavate secretly, dig randomly and steal artifacts in secret, damaging several finds including a mosaic and the crown of a column in the middle of the city. Head of Hama Archeology Department Abdelkader Firzat called on locals to report those who commit such acts of vandalism and robbery, adding that Apamea became a target for such crimes due to its wealth of historical periods and its large size. He pointed out that secret excavations and random digging... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| More Than 7,200 Indian Jews to Immigrate to Israel |
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· 09/27/2011 3:42:53 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 37 replies · · Times of India · · Sep 27, 2011 · |
The Israeli government is expected to approve the long awaited 'aliyah' (immigration) of more than 7,200 Indian Jews from the north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram in the coming weeks, a media report said. The decision to allow the last members of the "lost" Bnei Menashe tribe to immigrate to Israel is being greeted with excitement by local Evangelical Christian groups, who view it as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and who have pledged financial support for the move, 'The Jerusalem Post' daily reported. The ministerial committee on immigration and absorption, headed by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, decided, about three months... |
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| Dead Sea Scrolls | |
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| 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls go online |
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· 09/26/2011 2:45:30 PM PDT · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 23 replies · · AP · · 26/9/11 · · Matti Friedman · |
JERUSALEM -- Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls went online for the first time on Monday in a project launched by Israel's national museum and web giant Google. The appearance of five of the most important Dead Sea scrolls on the Internet is part of a broader attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts -- who were once criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars -- to make them available to anyone with a computer. See msnbc.com's... |
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| Google makes 5 Dead Sea Scrolls searchable |
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· 09/27/2011 2:18:25 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 13 replies · · cnn blog · · September 26, 2011 · |
Jerusalem (CNN) ‚Ä" In a perfect blending of 21st-century advances with the cutting-edge technology of an earlier age, starting this week internet users can, for the first time, use Google search and scanning technology to examine five manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Google and the Israel Museum unveiled the project Monday in Jerusalem with the launch of a museum website that allows users to interact with the ancient texts in a way impossible just a few years ago."You have the capability with high-resolution definition to look at the scrolls in a comfortable setting - to enlarge them, to magnify... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Mohammed shows face at the Met |
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· 09/25/2011 2:48:35 PM PDT · · Posted by ConservativeStatement · · 19 replies · · New York Post · · September 25, 2011 · · Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein · |
The Met is no longer non-prophet. After at least an eight-year absence, images of Mohammed will return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the renovated Islamic galleries reopen in November. The controversial depictions have not been seen in years, and there was some doubt about whether they would resurface when a $50 million renovation of the gallery space is completed. |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Texas Drought Turns Weekend Warriors Into Looters of Artifacts, Fossils |
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· 09/30/2011 4:35:12 PM PDT · · Posted by BenLurkin · · 25 replies · · www.thepostgame · · Friday, September 30, 2011 8:15 am · · Ben Maller · |
When the weather is right, Lake Whitney State Park in Texas is a wonderful place for outdoor weekend athletes to get their fix. From boating, fishing, scuba diving and water skiing, the lake offers it all. But with Texas locked in a record setting drought, the sinking water levels have turned the lake into something Indiana Jones would love. Texans have recently uncovered 8,000-year-old secrets, reports WFAA Dallas. Both fossils and Native American tools have turned up at Lake Whitney. You have to go back at least 20 years since anyone has seen the formerly remote underwater caverns that have... |
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| The Mayans | |
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| Bowls of Fingers, Baby Victims, More Found in Maya Tomb |
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· 09/25/2011 6:27:22 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 59 replies · · National Geographic · · 7-21-2010 · · John Roach · |
Reeking of decay and packed with bowls of human fingers, a partly burned baby, and gem-studded teeth -- among other artifacts -- a newfound Maya king's tomb sounds like an overripe episode of Tales From the Crypt. But the tightly sealed, 1,600-year-old burial chamber, found under a jungle-covered Guatemalan pyramid, is as rich with archaeological gold as it is with oddities, say researchers who announced the discovery Friday. "This thing was like Fort Knox," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who led the excavation in the ancient, overgrown Maya town of El Zotz. Alternating layers of flat stones and mud preserved human bones, wood... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Mamma Maya! 2,000-year-old skeleton of Queen discovered among treasures in rodent-infested tomb |
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· 09/25/2011 6:49:19 AM PDT · · Posted by csvset · · 17 replies · · Daily Mail · · 25 sep 2011 · · Daily Mail Reporter · |
The skeleton of a Maya Queen -- with her head mysteriously placed between two bowls -- is just one of the treasures found in a 2,000-year-old rodent-infested tomb. Priceless jade gorgets, beads, and ceremonial knives were also discovered in the cavern -- which was found underneath a younger 1,300-year-old tomb which also contained a body -- in the Guatemalan ruins of Nakum. The two royal burials are the first to be discovered at the site, which was once a densely packed Maya centre. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Shipwreck of SS Gairsoppa discovered with £155m silver haul onboard |
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· 09/27/2011 6:09:43 PM PDT · · DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 14 replies · · Telegraph UK · · September 26, 2011 · |
The SS Gairsoppa was carrying seven million ounces of silver, worth around £155 million at today's prices. The 412 foot steel-hulled ship was torpedoed while in the service of the Ministry of War Transport. Odyssey Marine Exploration said it had confirmed the identity and location of the shipwreck site, nearly 4,700 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic, about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland in international waters. The company said in a statement: "Contemporary research and official documents indicate that the ship was carrying £600,000 (1941 value) or seven million total ounces of silver, including over three... |
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| The Framers | |
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| In Brief: American History [Book review of Constitution's Signers] |
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· 09/24/2011 7:50:42 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 7 replies · · Wall St Journal · · 9-24-11 · · Charles S. Dameron · |
Mark Twain's aphorism that "there is no distinctly native American criminal class -- except Congress" sums up a long-standing national contempt for public servants. Generally the Founding Fathers are exempt from such derision, making it tempting to believe that America's first politicians were of a more pristine character than our present-day scalawags. Not so, suggest Denise Kiernan and Joseph D'Agnese in "Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution," which offers brief vignettes of all 39 signatories to the nation's founding document and shows that for every great name there were at least... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| X-ray reveals hidden Goya painting (Joseph Napoleon?) |
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· 09/23/2011 8:54:55 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · BBC · · September 22, 2011 · · Unknown · |
A previously unknown painting by Francisco de Goya has been found hidden underneath one of his masterpieces, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced.The unfinished work was discovered underneath Goya's Portrait Of Don Ramon Satue, using a new X-ray technique. It is thought to depict a French general, and may even portray Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, Joseph. The Rijksmuseum says the Spanish master may have covered up the portrait for political reasons. Joseph Bonaparte was briefly King Of Spain, from 1808-1813. When the Napoleonic army was driven out and Ferdinand VII restored to the throne, Goya, who retained the painting, would have... |
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| end of digest #376 20111001 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #376 · v 8 · n 12 Saturday, October 1, 2011 |
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16 topics |
Welcome to issue #376 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #377 Saturday, October 8, 2011 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Stone-age toddlers had art lessons, study says |
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· 10/08/2011 9:33:08 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Guardian UK · · Thursday 29 September 2011 · · Caroline Davies · |
Research on Dordogne cave art shows children learned to finger-paint in palaeolithic age, approximately 13,000 years ago -- Archaeologists at one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France, the complex of caverns at Rouffignac in the Dordogne known as the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths, have discovered that children were actively helped to express themselves through finger fluting -- running fingers over soft red clay to produce decorative crisscrossing lines, zig-zags and swirls. The stunning drawings, including 158 depictions of mammoths, 28 bisons, 15 horses, 12 goats, 10 woolly rhinoceroses, four human figures and one bear, form just... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Archaeologist argues world's oldest temples were not temples at all |
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· 10/07/2011 2:07:06 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · University of Chicago Press Journals · · October 6, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Ancient structures uncovered in Turkey and thought to be the world's oldest temples may not have been strictly religious buildings after all, according to an article in the October issue of Current Anthropology. Archaeologist Ted Banning of the University of Toronto argues that the buildings found at Göbekli Tepe may have been houses for people, not...gods. The buildings at Göbekli, a hilltop just outside of the Turkish city of Urfa, were found in 1995 by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute and colleagues from the Sanliurfa Museum in Turkey. The oldest of the structures at the site are immense... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| How two little ducks could transform our understanding of Stonehenge |
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· 10/06/2011 8:38:54 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · Daily Mail · · Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 · · Gavin Allen · |
The most significant artifacts uncovered are two carved ducks, the first of their kind to be found in Britain and the oldest figurines ever hewn from the UK. The ducks were likely, say the team, to be a result of the Bronze Age tradition of carving animal figurines which were then thrown into water as offerings. But while the ducks date back to 700BC, a ceremonial dagger was also found which originated around 1400BC. However, another item which Jacques initially believed was a cow's tooth was revealed by radiocarbon dating to date back to around 6250BC, some 3,000 years before... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Aboriginal Stonehenge: Stargazing in ancient Australia |
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· 10/07/2011 4:12:22 PM PDT · · Posted by FritzG · · 5 replies · · BBC · · 05 Oct 2011 · · Stephanie Hegarty · |
An egg-shaped ring of standing stones in Australia could prove to be older than Britain's Stonehenge -- and it may show that ancient Aboriginal cultures had a deep understanding of the movements of the stars. Fifty metres wide and containing more than 100 basalt boulders, the site of Wurdi Youang in Victoria was noted by European settlers two centuries ago, and charted by archaeologists in 1977, but only now is its purpose being rediscovered. It is thought the site was built by the Wadda Wurrung people -- the traditional inhabitants of the area. All understanding of the rocks' significance... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Comet's water 'like that of Earth's oceans' |
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· 10/05/2011 6:41:44 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 39 replies · · BBC · · October 5, 2011 · · Jason Palmer · |
Comet Hartley 2 contains water more like that found on Earth than prior comets seem to have, researchers say. A study using the Herschel space telescope aimed to measure the quantity of deuterium, a rare type of hydrogen, present in the comet's water. The comet had just half the amount of deuterium seen in comets. The result, published in Nature, hints at the idea that much of the Earth's water could have initially came from cometary impacts. Just a few million years after its formation, the early Earth was rocky and dry; something must have brought the water that covers... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Rock spiral found in Dingle could date back to Bronze Age |
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· 10/08/2011 9:23:54 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Irish Times · · Tuesday, September 27, 2011 · · Anne Lucey · |
A rock bearing what is believed to be a rare piece of art dating back to the Bronze Age has been discovered on an outcrop alongside a medieval pilgrim route in west Kerry. The discovery two weeks ago of "a perfect spiral" on a rock off the main Cos·n na Naomh on the Dingle peninsula, is being assessed by county archaeologist Michael Connolly. Measuring 19.5cm, it was found by local man Colm Bambury between Cill MhicÈadair and Baile an Lochaigh near the foot of Mount Brandon. The area is dotted with standing stones, Ogham and beehive huts and other monuments... |
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| Greece | |
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| Pavlopetri: A window on to Bronze Age suburban life (impressive CGI images) |
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· 10/08/2011 7:38:17 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 15 replies · · BBC · · October 7, 2011 · · Dr Jon Henderson · |
Semi-detached houses with gardens, clothes drying in the courtyards, walls and well-made streets -- Pavlopetri epitomises the suburban way of life. Except that it's a Bronze Age port, submerged for millennia off the south-east coast of Greece. This summer it became the first underwater city to be fully digitally mapped and recorded in three dimensions, and then brought back to life with computer graphics. The result shows how much it has in common with port cities of today -- Liverpool, London, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo or Shanghai -- despite the fact that its heyday was 4,000 years ago. Covering an... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Study tracks mutations causing CDA II back to the Roman Empire |
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· 10/07/2011 1:33:32 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · · IDIBAPS · · October 7, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The study, led by the ENERCA member professor Achille Iolascon, was recently published in the American Journal of Hematology Many of you might know that Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type II (CDA II) is a rare blood disorder, due to a failure in final part of erythropoiesis. What will surprise you is the fact that some mutations responsible for the disease can be tracked 3.000 years back. A study led by the ENERCA member Prof. Achille Iolascon, from CEINGE Advanced Biotechnologies (Naples, Italy) and the University of Naples Federico II, analyzes two mutations (E109K and R14W) of the SEC23B gene and... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Rome's Christian past revealed by 3-D imaging |
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· 10/03/2011 9:05:45 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 5 replies · · cna · · October 3, 2011 · · David Kerr and Alan Holdren · |
Rome's Lateran Baptistery. Credit: Anthony Majanlahti (CC BY 2.0) Rome, Italy, Oct 3, 2011 / 07:46 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A remarkable Vatican-Swedish project is providing a new 3-D insight into Christian Rome's architectural history. "It's what we call building archaeology," Olof Brandt of the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archaeology explained to CNA. He is currently working on a 3-D study of Rome's Lateran Baptistery, situated next to the Cathedral of St. John Lateran. "That's the archeology of existing structures, which is about reading the traces of the past in the existing walls of a building." Brandt points out the... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Litcham Cryptogram: a medieval mystery |
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· 10/07/2011 7:08:54 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Past Horizons · · Wednesday, October 5, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The initial survey work soon proved that the Litcham Cryptogram was by no means he only inscription to be found in the church. Within a matter of days the survey had identified over fifty individual images and inscriptions etched into the soft stone pillars of the church. "Almost every pillar was covered with inscriptions", continued Matthew, "and it was clear that there had once been many more. However, our attention kept coming back to the Litcham Cryptogram". The inscription was etched far deeper into the pillar than much of the surrounding graffiti and it is supposed that this is what... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| The Aramaic Language is Being Resurrected in Israel |
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· 10/01/2011 3:31:36 PM PDT · · Posted by marshmallow · · 30 replies · · Vatican Insider · · 9/24/11 · · Marco Tosatti · |
Two television channels have been involved in initiatives to bring to life, once again, the language that Jesus and his contemporaries spoke. Today, it is spoken by 400 thousand people throughout the world. Two Israeli television channels are trying to see to it that Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his contemporaries in that region of the Roman Empire, will once again become a living language and not just be an almost extinct curiosity for scholars of Semitic languages to study. "Suroyo TV" and "Suryoyo TV" offer an endless supply of material for online discussion by fans so they can... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| An Egyptian Jew in Exile: An Interview with Bat Ye'or |
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· 10/01/2011 8:18:55 AM PDT · · Posted by ventanax5 · · 13 replies · · New English Review · · Jerry Gordan · |
I first encountered Gis√‹le Littman, better known as "Bat Ye'or," through her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam while browsing through a Judaica section of a Barnes & Noble book store in Westport, Connecticut in 1985. Reading it opened my mind to the historical evidence of the subjugated treatment of Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims under shari'a in the wake of Islamic Jihad over conquered lands. Her book threw into considerable doubt the then fashionable medievalist commentary that Jews and Christians had been well treated in Al Andaluz, Muslim Spain and in the far reaches of the Caliphate... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| 358-yr-old Taj Mahal 'in the danger of collapsing within 5 years |
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· 10/05/2011 7:04:46 AM PDT · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 48 replies · · Economic Times · · 10/05/11 · |
LONDON: The Taj Mahal will collapse within five years unless urgent action is taken to fix its rotting foundations, campaigners warn. The 358-year-old marble mausoleum is India's most famous tourist attraction, bringing four million visitors a year to the northern city of Agra. But the river crucial to its survival is being blighted by pollution, industry and deforestation. Campaigners believe the foundations have become brittle and are disintegrating. Cracks appeared last year in parts of the tomb, and the four minarets, which surround... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group |
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· 10/06/2011 5:45:10 PM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 32 replies · · National Geographic · · 9-30-2011 · · Sabrina Valle · |
It's long been rumored that an ancient, isolated people in what's now northern Mexico ate their own kind, in the hopes that they'd be able to eat corn later. Now an analysis of more than three dozen bones bearing evidence of boiling and defleshing confirms that the Xiximes people were in fact cannibals, archaeologists say. The Xiximes believed that ingesting the bodies and souls of their enemies and using the cleaned bones in rituals would guarantee the fertility of the grain harvest, according to historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries... |
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| The Mayans | |
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| University of Colorado Boulder team discovers ancient road at Maya village buried by volcanic ash 1,400 years ago |
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· 10/05/2011 4:45:30 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 3 replies · · U of Colorado Boulder · · October 5, 2011 · · Unknown · |
A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash. The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren... |
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| Climate | |
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| What lessons from history's climate shifts? |
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· 10/06/2011 12:51:54 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · BBC · · October 6, 2011 · · Richard Black · |
Earlier this week, the journal Proceeedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study on climate change that is at the same time scary, comforting, insightful and a statement of the obvious.To be more accurate, I should probably say that the paper is capable of being interpreted in all of those ways, rather than risk implying that the authors intended to do more than run the numbers and see what popped up. What they're talking about is climate change in Europe, specifically between 1500 and 1800 AD -- a period that encompasses the so-called Little Ice Age. It... |
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| Glaciography | |
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| Long-Lost Lake Offers Clues to Climate Change (Younger Dryas) |
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· 10/05/2011 4:33:36 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · University of Cincinnati · · October 5, 2011 · · Greg Hand · |
Not long ago, geologically speaking, a now-vanished lake covered a huge expanse of today's Canadian prairie. As big as Hudson Bay, the lake was fed by melting glaciers as they receded at the end of the last ice age. At its largest, Glacial Lake Agassiz, as it is known, covered most of the Canadian province of Manitoba, plus a good part of western Ontario. A southern arm straddled the Minnesota-North Dakota border. Not far from the ancient shore of Lake Agassiz, University of Cincinnati Professor of Geology Thomas Lowell will present a paper about the lake to the Geological Society... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Pitt biologists find 'surprising' number of unknown viruses in sewage |
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· 10/05/2011 4:59:23 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · · University of Pittsburgh · · October 5, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Researchers developed new computational tools to characterize viruses; published this week in mBioThough viruses are the most abundant life form on Earth, our knowledge of the viral universe is limited to a tiny fraction of the viruses that likely exist. In a paper published this week in the online journal mBio, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Barcelona found that raw sewage is home to thousands of novel, undiscovered viruses, some of which could relate to human health. There are roughly 1.8 million species of organisms on our planet, and each... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Revolutionary War battlefield of Saratoga to be excavated |
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· 10/04/2011 9:00:38 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 61 replies · · gadling.com · · Oct 3rd 2011 · · Sean McLachlan · |
One of the most important battlefields of the Revolutionary War is going to be excavated by archaeologists ahead of an EPA cleanup. Back in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, General Electric dumped polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River near Saratoga, New York. The dumping was banned in 1977 due to risks to public health, and the EPA has ordered GE to dredge up the affected silt from the river. Dredging destroys archaeological sites, though, and has already damaged Fort Edward, a British fort in the area dating to the mid 18th century. Archaeologists are working to excavate the stretch... |
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| The Framers | |
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| UN Slavery Memorial Design Competition Launched |
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· 10/01/2011 9:20:40 AM PDT · · Posted by Iron Munro · · 61 replies · · Voice of America · · September 30, 2001 · · Joe DeCapua · |
The United Nations Friday announced an international competition to design a memorial honoring the victims of slavery. It's estimated that over 500 years, more than 18 million people were abducted from Africa and forced into slavery in the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. The sculpture will be located at U.N. headquarters in New York. Its official name is The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honor of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. "The issue of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade stands out still today as a crime against humanity -- one of the first... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Donor asks failed slavery museum to return artifacts |
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· 10/01/2011 2:38:37 PM PDT · · Posted by csvset · · 18 replies · · The Virginian-Pilot · · September 30, 2011 · · Linda McNatt · |
SUFFOLK A slave's collar, circa 1856, valued at $16,500. A first edition copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1853, valued at $6,000. A slave's leg shackle, with an estimated value of $1,380. Therbia Parker figures he donated about $75,000 worth of slavery artifacts to the United States National Slavery Museum in 2004. Even before the museum, which never opened, filed for bankruptcy this month, Parker had been trying to reach former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, the museum's founder, to get his artifacts back. "Not just me, but other people donated artifacts, donated money," he said. "Like a thief in the night,... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| FDR at War: How Expanded Power, National Debt, Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America |
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· 10/02/2011 2:04:15 PM PDT · · Posted by lbryce · · 2 replies · · Amazon · · October 2, 2011 · · Burton W. Jr. Folsom, Anita Folsom · |
(Full Title) FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America Release Date:October 11, 2011 Reviews:"FDR Goes to War is a page-turning tour de force --- and a scholarly one, at that --- of the politics and economics of America's involvement in WWII. Be prepared to rethink much of what you think you know about FDR, the war, and the post-Depression U.S. economy." ---Don Bordreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University "In New Deal or Raw Deal? Burt Folsom exposed FDR's failed policies during the Great Depression.... |
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| Pages | |
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| What Are You Reading Now? -- My Quarterly Survey |
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· 10/03/2011 7:39:10 AM PDT · · Posted by MplsSteve · · 124 replies · · · |
Hi everyone! It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" survey. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the most well-read of those of us on the 'Net. I like to get a feel as to what everyone is reading right now. It can be anything -- a technical journal, a NY Times best seller, a class work of fiction, a trashy pulp novel. In short, it can be anything. Please do not respond to this thread by posting "I'm reading this thread" -- or any variation thereof. It became really unfunny a long time... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Scientist finds 100 million-year-old bee |
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· 10/30/2006 8:19:35 AM PST · · Posted by presidio9 · · 42 replies · · 433+ views · · Associated Press · · 10/30/06 · |
A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found. "I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before," said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University. The bee is about 40 million years older than previously found bees. The discovery of the ancient bee may help explain the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants during that time. Poinar found the bee in amber from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Many researchers buy... |
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| end of digest #377 20111008 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #377 · v 8 · n 13 Saturday, October 8, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #377 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #378 Saturday, October 15, 2011 |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Prehistoric Teen Girl's Grave Found Near Henge |
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· 10/10/2011 4:28:43 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 48 replies · · Discovery News · · Thursday, October 6, 2011 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
Four to five thousand years ago, a wealthy teenage girl was laid to rest in a grave at what archaeologists believe is a newly found henge in Kent, England. The discovery of the 17-year-old's grave -- along with a unique prehistoric pot inside of a ringed ditch near two other women -- strengthens the idea that important death-related rituals took place at many of these mysterious ancient monuments when they were first erected. "What is becoming clear is that with a series of major excavations in Kent linked to road and rail works, and new aerial photography, there are many... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Do survey results show a massive prehistoric monument under the water of the Stenness Loch? |
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· 10/10/2011 7:11:54 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 28 replies · · Orkneyjar · · Monday, October 3, 2011 · · Sigurd Towrie · |
The preliminary remote sensing results of the loch bed around the Ring of Brodgar (visible at the top of the picture, centre). The large, circular 'anomaly' is boxed in white. (Images: The Rising Tide project) |
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| Take Your Pict | |
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| Dig team find proof there were Picts on the Brough of Deerness before the Vikings |
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· 10/12/2011 4:10:14 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 51 replies · · Orkneyjar · · Thursday, August 11, 2011 · · Sigurd Towrie · |
One of the most significant discoveries of this year's dig is conclusive evidence that the earliest viking houses, thought to date from around AD900, were preceded by a Pictish settlement. Previously -- excavations were carried out in 2008 and 2009 -- a number of Pictish artefacts had been found on the site, but there was no actual proof that the Picts lived there... One question that has yet to be answered though, is what happened in the transition between the Pict and the viking villages, and, as yet, no evidence has been found of an integration between the two. "In... |
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| Climate | |
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| Columbus blamed for Little Ice Age |
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· 10/13/2011 2:17:57 PM PDT · · Posted by afraidfortherepublic · · 114 replies · · ScienceNews · · 10-22-11 · · Devin Powell · |
Depopulation of Americas may have cooled climate MINNEAPOLIS -- By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and the other explorers who followed may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe's climate for centuries. The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, diminishing the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooling climate, says Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford University. "We have a massive reforestation event that's sequestering carbon -- coincident... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Figures Found During Mural Restoration in Mexico |
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· 10/10/2011 3:25:25 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 17 replies · · Latin American Herald Tribune · · Monday, October 10,2011 · · EFE · |
Mexican experts have discovered some small, previously hidden figures in a Mayan mural while carrying out restoration work on it, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said. Figures representing the heads of three men were found during the treatment being given to the Murals of Bonampak at the like-named archaeological site, located in the Lacandona jungle in the southern state of Chiapas, that dates back to the year 790 A.D. Further information about the diminutive figures has not yet come to light, the INAH said. At the same time, the iconography of two images painted on the upper... |
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| The Mayans | |
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| Any Freepers an expert in Mayan artifacts? |
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· 10/09/2011 7:15:04 PM PDT · · Posted by big bad easter bunny · · 62 replies · |
I have come across a piece which looks like a Mayan death mask, anyone know much about this type of possible artifact? |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Ancient Greek farmers found buried with livestock: Report |
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· 10/10/2011 4:40:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Straits Times · · Friday, October 7, 2011 · · AFP · |
Archaeologists in northern Greece have found a rare group of ancient graves where farmers were interred with their livestock, a Greek daily reported on Friday. At least 11 adults and 16 farm animals were found buried together near the town of Mavropigi in the northern region of Macedonia, some 21km from the city of Kozani, Ethnos daily said. The men, women and a child lay alongside horses, oxen, dogs and a pig in two rows of graves, the area's head archaeologist told the newspaper. 'It is the first time that this strange custom is found at such a scale, and... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| New technologies challenge old ideas about early hominid diets |
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· 10/13/2011 1:41:09 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 5 replies · · University of Colorado at Boulder · · October 13, 2011 · · Unknown · |
New assessments by researchers using the latest high-tech tools to study the diets of early hominids are challenging long-held assumptions about what our ancestors ate, says a study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Arkansas. By analyzing microscopic pits and scratches on hominid teeth, as well as stable isotopes of carbon found in teeth, researchers are getting a very different picture of the diet habitats of early hominids than that painted by the physical structure of the skull, jawbones and teeth. While some early hominids sported powerful jaws and large molars -- including Paranthropus boisei, dubbed... |
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| Africa | |
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| 100,000-year-old ochre toolkit and workshop discovered in South Africa |
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· 10/13/2011 11:32:56 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 10 replies · · http://www.physorg.com · · 13 Oct 2011 · · Provided by University of the Witwatersrand · |
An ochre-rich mixture, possibly used for decoration, painting and skin protection 100,000 years ago, and stored in two abalone shells, was discovered at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, South Africa. "Ochre may have been applied with symbolic intent as decoration on bodies and clothing during the Middle Stone Age," says Professor Christopher Henshilwood from the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who together with his international team discovered a processing workshop in 2008 where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced. The findings will be published in the journal Science tomorrow. The two coeval, spatially associated... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israeli cave: World's first factory? |
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· 10/10/2011 5:01:27 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · Jerusalem Post · · Tuesday, October 4, 2011 · · David Rosenberg · |
In a cave not far from where thousands of Israelis work in hi-tech companies in the Afek Industrial Zone, their Paleolithic ancestors were engaged in some of their own cutting-edge innovation and manufacturing. Indeed, the people who produced the thousands of knives and other tools in Qassem Cave between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago may have been the world's first industrial workers, says Ran Barkai, who with two other Tel Aviv University archeologists, Ron Shimelmitz and Avi Gopher, has been excavating the site. Their findings, based on the examination of more than 19,000 stone implements produced and used by the... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| The shifting face of a 200-million-year-old mystery |
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· 10/14/2011 6:33:24 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 26 replies · · BBC · · October 13, 2011 · · Jason Palmer · |
Five times in the last half a billion years, tremendous, global-scale extinctions have wiped out a significant fraction of life on Earth -- and each of them presents a grand puzzle. The most recent and the most familiar is the extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs -- between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, about 65 million years ago. But before that, 205 million years ago, was the "End-Triassic Event" -- it set the stage for the Jurassic Period, which saw the rise to prominence of the dinosaurs. Just what happened that killed off half the species on the planet, though,... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Giant Kraken Lair Discovered |
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· 10/10/2011 6:55:25 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 53 replies · · Geological Society of America · · October 10, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Boulder, CO, USA -- Long before whales, the oceans of Earth were roamed by a very different kind of air-breathing leviathan. Snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs larger than school buses swam at the top of the Triassic Period ocean food chain, or so it seemed before Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark McMenamin took a look at some of their remains in Nevada. Now he thinks there was an even larger and more cunning sea monster that preyed on ichthyosaurs: a kraken of such mythological proportions it would have sent Captain Nemo running for dry land. McMenamin will be presenting the results of his... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Terrestrial biodiversity recovered faster after Permo-Triassic extinction than previously believed |
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· 10/10/2011 7:01:06 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 17 replies · · University of Rhode Island · · October 10, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Results contradict several theories for cause of extinctionKINGSTON, R.I. -- October 10, 2011 -- While the cause of the mass extinction that occurred between the Permian and Triassic periods is still uncertain, two University of Rhode Island researchers collected data that show that terrestrial biodiversity recovered much faster than previously thought, potentially contradicting several theories for the cause of the extinction. David Fastovsky, URI professor of geosciences, and graduate student David Tarailo found that terrestrial biodiversity recovered in about 5 million years, compared to the 15- to 30-million year recovery period that earlier studies had estimated. The recovery period in... |
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| Central Asia | |
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| Tiny Drone Reveals Ancient Royal Burial Sites [ Scythians ] |
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· 10/11/2011 3:31:47 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · LiveScience · · October 7, 2011 · · Charles Choi · |
Tuekta is in the Altai Mountains where Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia come together. Researchers there have discovered burial mounds 2,300 to 2,800 years old and up to 250 feet (76 meters) wide. These burial mounds, called "kurgans," probably belonged to chiefs or princes among the Scythians, a nomadic people known for their horsemanship, who once had a rich, powerful empire. Excavations of some of these have revealed extraordinary treasures of gold and other artifacts well-preserved by permafrost. Nearly 200 burial mounds were discovered in Tuekta, situated along the River Ursul. The site's heart appears to once have been a... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Deadly Black Death bug hasn't changed, but we have |
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· 10/12/2011 6:26:05 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 46 replies · · Associated Press · · October 12, 2011 · · Seth Borenstein · |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists have cracked the genetic code of the Black Death, one of history's worst plagues, and found that its modern day bacterial descendants haven't changed much over 600 years. Luckily, we have. > In devastating the population, it changed the human immune system, basically wiping out people who couldn't deal with the disease and leaving the stronger to survive, said study co-author Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Ontario. > |
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| Black death DNA unravelled (Genetic code of 'mother' of deadly bubonic plague reassembled) |
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· 10/13/2011 1:35:49 PM PDT · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 16 replies · · The Telegraph · · 10/12/2011 · |
Scientists used the degraded strands to reconstruct the entire genetic code of the deadly bacterium. It is the first time experts have succeeded in drafting the genome of an ancient pathogen, or disease-causing agent. The researchers found that a specific strain of the plague bug Yersinia pestis caused the pandemic that killed 100 million Europeans -- between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the total population -- in just five years between 1347 and 1351. They also learned that the strain is the "mother" of all modern bubonic plague bacteria. "Every outbreak across the globe today stems from... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| DNA Used In Attempt To Solve Christian Mystery |
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· 07/21/2003 3:49:04 PM PDT · · Posted by blam · · 6 replies · · 207+ views · · The Guardian (UK) · · 7-21-2003 · · Tim Radford · |
DNA used in attempt to solve Christian mystery Tim Radford, science editor Monday July 21, 2003 The Guardian (UK) A full-page miniature in the Canterbury Gospels manuscript. Photograph: Corpus Christi Genetic fingerprinting might soon clear up an ancient Christian mystery -- the origins of medieval parchments and even the Canterbury Gospels, thought to have arrived in Britain in 579AD. Cambridge scientists plan to study DNA in parchments prepared from animal skins to trace where they came from. With a £52,000 grant from the arts and humanities research board, Christopher Howe, a Cambridge biochemist, and Christopher de Hamel of Corpus Christi... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Invisible Scribes of Medieval Literature Revealed |
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· 10/15/2011 9:05:37 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · Past Horizons · · Thursday, October 13, 2011 · · unattributed · |
Scholars led by Professor Linne Mooney in the Department of English and Related Literature and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, carried out research aimed at identifying the scribes who made the first copies of works by major authors of the 14th and early 15th centuries, including Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland. The project has launched a new freely-accessible website www.medievalscribes.com, created by the University of Sheffield's HRI, which illustrates each medieval or early modern manuscript of writings by five major Middle English authors: Chaucer, Langland, John Gower, John Trevisa and Thomas Hoccleve. Professor Mooney said:... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| In search of the real Dracula (Squeamish?) |
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· 10/12/2011 8:40:59 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 27 replies · · BBC · · Leif Pettersen · |
Long before Bram Stoker's literary Dracula sparked a century-long, global obsession with vampires -- both the torturing and tortured variety -- a lavishly mustachioed Wallachian prince by the name of Vlad Dracula (r 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476) was making a name for himself by heroically repelling successive waves of Ottoman invaders. > However, Dracula famously earned the post-mortem moniker ... (impaler) from his preferred form of execution: skewering. A wooden stake was carefully driven through the victim's buttocks, emerging just below the shoulders. This diabolical method ingeniously (ie, cruelly) spared all the vital organs, meaning that the now writhing victim... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Hard-Headed Idealist [Book review of short Madison bio] |
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· 10/13/2011 10:52:25 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 5 replies · · Wall St Journal · · OCTOBER 13, 2011 · · Review by ARAM BAKSHIAN JR. · |
The man who drafted the Bill of Rights later helped Thomas Jefferson conduct a back-channel propaganda war.. Yes, George Washington was the father of our country, but who fathered its politics? Certainly not Washington, who detested the very notion of partisanship and did his best to govern as First Magistrate, above the interests of "faction." His successor, the honest but hyper-irascible John Adams, was temperamentally incapable of cold political calculation, one reason that he was so vulnerable to attack during his single presidential term. Thomas Jefferson, who cultivated an above-the-fray, nonpolitical persona, had a keen private appreciation of... |
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| Early America | |
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| Once a host to presidents, historic Bucksport inn up for auction |
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· 10/12/2011 11:17:09 AM PDT · · Posted by ConservativeStatement · · 3 replies · · Bangor Daily News · · October 10, 2011 · · Kevin Miller · |
BUCKSPORT, Maine -- A 230-year-old Bucksport landmark that has hosted presidents, arctic explorers and other famous figures but has sat lifeless for the better part of a decade is about to go on the auction block. The Jed Prouty Inn, as the building is still known, is a 17-bedroom former hotel that has anchored Bucksport's Main Street in one form or another since about 1780. Now the financial firm that acquired the building after the last business closed nearly eight years ago is hoping a buyer will emerge during an online auction held Tuesday through Thursday. Bidding will start at... |
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| end of digest #378 20111015 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #378 · v 8 · n 14 Saturday, October 15, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #378 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #379 Saturday, October 22, 2011 |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Hollywood Dishonors the Bard [ review of stupid Roland Emmerich movie ] |
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· 10/18/2011 6:50:16 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · New York Times · · October 16, 2011 · · James Shapiro · |
Roland Emmerich's film "Anonymous," which opens next week, "presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare's plays." That's according to the lesson plans that Sony Pictures has been distributing to literature and history teachers in the hope of convincing students that Shakespeare was a fraud. A documentary by First Folio Pictures (of which Mr. Emmerich is president) will also be part of this campaign. So much for "Hey, it's just a movie!" The case for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, dates from 1920, when J. Thomas Looney, an English writer who loathed... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Finding Archimedes in the Shadows |
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· 10/18/2011 4:54:46 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · New York Times · · October 16, 2011n · · Edward Rothstein · |
Baltimore --- "The Archimedes Palimpsest" could well be the title of a Robert Ludlum thriller, though its plot's esoteric arcana might also be useful for Dan Brown in his next variation on "The Da Vinci Code." It features a third-century B.C. Greek mathematician (Archimedes) known for his playful brilliance; his lost writings, discovered more than a hundred years ago in an Istanbul convent; and various episodes involving plunder, pilferage and puzzling forgeries. The saga includes a monastery in the Judaean desert, a Jewish book dealer trying to flee Paris as the Nazis closed in, a French freedom fighter and an... |
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| The Etruscans | |
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| Ancient Etruscan childbirth image is first for western art |
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· 10/19/2011 9:01:38 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 31 replies · · Southern Methodist University · · Unknown · |
An archaeological excavation at Poggio Colla, the site of a 2,700-year-old Etruscan settlement in Italy's Mugello Valley, has turned up a surprising and unique find: two images of a woman giving birth to a child. Researchers from the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project, which oversees the Poggio Colla excavation site some 20 miles northeast of Florence, discovered the images on a small fragment from a ceramic vessel that is more than 2,600 years old. The images show the head and shoulders of a baby emerging from a mother represented with her knees raised and her face shown in profile, one arm... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Megalith Builders, Red Paint People and Algonquins |
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· 10/21/2011 5:35:24 PM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 14 replies · · Frontiers of Anthropology · · 3-17-2011 · |
...Hearing that the entire language group including the Algonquins (and the others more generically called Algonkians) is most closely related to Old World languages with a Megalithic connection was revealing to me because the peoples with the Algonquin-related languages are also ones that are otherwise compared to Western Europeans.... ~~~snip~~~ ...The book Men Out Of Asia by Harold Gladwin(mcGraw Hill, 1947) was also written when a more racist view of Physical Anthropology was the norm, and the book hypothesizes a series of different movements of people into America (Gladwin assumes via the Bering Straits)Gladwin's second migration dating from 15000 to... |
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| Navigation | |
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| The Seaweed Trail: Peopling the Americas |
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· 10/17/2011 1:55:09 PM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 12 replies · · Past Horizons · · 10-12-2011 · · Keith Davis · |
Mapmakers once thought the earth was flat. Astronomers used to believe the sun circled the earth. As late as the 1990s, archaeologists were convinced that the original American settlers crossed a land bridge from Asia into Alaska, found daylight between the glaciers, and gradually followed it south. According to what had been orthodox thinking, that happened about 12,000 years ago. "Suppose it were true," says Jack Rossen, associate professor and chair of the Department of anthropology. "Suppose you could find a corridor through a mile-high wall of ice and follow it for a thousand miles. What would you eat? Popsicles?"... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Happy Leif Erikson Day! |
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· 10/09/2011 4:20:34 AM PDT · · Posted by Lonesome in Massachussets · · 26 replies · · Eiriks Saga Rau'a · · Snorri Sturluson · |
1. kafli -- Óleifur hét herkonungur er kalla'ur var Óleifur hvíti. Hann var son Ingjalds konungs Helgasonar, Ólafssonar, Gu'rö'arsonar, Hálfdanarsonar hvítbeins Upplendingakonungs. |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial discovery 'a first' |
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· 10/18/2011 7:18:46 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 12 replies · · BBC · · October 18, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The UK mainland's first fully intact Viking boat burial site has been uncovered in the north-west Highlands, archaeologists have said.The site, at Ardnamurchan, is thought to be more than 1,000 years old. Artefacts buried alongside the Viking in his boat suggest he was a high-ranking warrior. Archaeologist Dr Hannah Cobb said the "artefacts and preservation make this one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain". Dr Cobb, from the University of Manchester, a co-director of the project, said: "This is a very exciting find." She has been excavating artefacts in Ardnamurchan for six years. |
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| Video: Viking ship found in Scottish Highlands |
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· 10/20/2011 9:42:40 AM PDT · · Posted by smokingfrog · · 23 replies · · youtube · · 19 Oct 2011 · · telegraphtv · |
Archaeologists discover remains of a man buried in a Viking boat-burial site in the Scottish Highlands. |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| Ancient Greek Ships Carried More Than Just Wine |
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· 10/16/2011 7:46:09 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · · Nature · · Friday, October 14, 2011 · · Jo Marchant · |
A DNA analysis of ancient storage jars suggests that Greek sailors traded a wide range of foods --- not just wine, as many historians have assumed. The study, in press at the Journal of Archaeological Science1, finds evidence in nine jars taken from Mediterranean shipwrecks of vegetables, herbs and nuts. The researchers say DNA testing of underwater artefacts from different time periods could help to reveal how such complex markets developed across the Mediterranean. Archaeologist Brendan Foley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts and geneticist Maria Hansson of Lund University, Sweden, retrieved DNA from nine amphorae --- the... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Biggest haul of Roman gold in Britain could have been found |
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· 10/17/2011 3:10:32 PM PDT · · DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 8 replies · · Telegraph · · 10-16-11 · |
Britain's biggest haul of Roman gold, worth millions of pounds, could have been found in Worcestershire by a treasure hunter. Details of the treasure remained sketchy and the identity of the lucky metal detecting enthusiast has not been revealed. But it is understood Worcestershire County Council and the county coroner have been informed because of the potential archaeological significance. The treasure, found at Bredon Hill, the site of an Iron Age fort in Worcestershire, is already being compared with the Staffordshire Hoard, the country's biggest ever find of Anglo Saxon gold. It netted lucky Terry and local farmer Fred Johnson... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Staffordshire Gold Hoard (More Saxon Treasure) |
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· 10/20/2011 4:33:14 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 14 replies · · National Geographic · · 11-2011 · · Caroline Alexander · |
One day, or perhaps one night, in the late seventh century an unknown party traveled along an old Roman road that cut across an uninhabited heath fringed by forest in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Possibly they were soldiers, or then again maybe thieves --- the remote area would remain notorious for highwaymen for centuries --- but at any rate they were not casual travelers. Stepping off the road near the rise of a small ridge, they dug a pit and buried a stash of treasure in the ground. For 1,300 years the treasure lay undisturbed, and eventually the landscape evolved from forest clearing... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Face-to-face with an ancient human (Norway - 7,500 YO) |
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· 10/20/2011 7:35:10 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 27 replies · · University of Stavanger · · October 20, 2011 · · Text: Karen Anne Okstad · · Translation: Rolf Gooderham · |
A reconstruction based on the skull of Norway's best-preserved Stone Age skeleton makes it possible to study the features of a boy who lived outside Stavanger 7 500 years ago."It is hoped that this reconstruction is a good likeness and that, if someone who knew him in life had been presented with this restoration, they would hopefully have recognised the face", says Jenny Barber, an MSc student at the University of Dundee in Scotland. She has scientifically rebuilt the face of the strong and stocky Viste Boy, who lived in the Vistehola cave near Stavanger, so that people can now... |
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| Forensics put a face to stone age boy's remains |
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· 10/21/2011 10:29:14 AM PDT · · Posted by Winstons Julia · · 21 replies · · History · · 10/21/11 · · Staff · |
Earlier studies of the Viste Boy's remains and artifacts from Vistehola suggested that the Stone Age youth died at the age of 15 around 5500 B.C. He stood at just 4 feet tall, lived in a clan with 10 to 15 members and ate a fish-heavy diet. Experts also speculated that the teen had a sickly constitution and died prematurely as a result. |
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| Oëtzi the Iceman | |
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| Iceman stories begin arriving! |
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· 10/18/2011 10:34:58 AM PDT · · Posted by FritzG · · 18 replies · · Dienekes' Anthropology Blog · · 17 Oct 2011 · · Dienekes · |
The National Geographic has info, a teaser for an October 26 Nova special: The genetic results add both information and intrigue. From his genes, we now know that the Iceman had brown hair and brown eyes and that he was probably lactose intolerant and thus could not digest milk --- somewhat ironic, given theories that he was a shepherd. Not surprisingly, he is more related to people living in southern Europe today than to those in North Africa or the Middle East, with close connections to geographically isolated modern populations in Sardinia, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula. The DNA analysis also revealed... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Archaeologists find blade production earlier than originally thought |
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· 10/17/2011 8:23:34 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 54 replies · · http://www.physorg.com · · 17 OCT 2011 · · Tel Aviv University · |
Archaeology has long associated advanced blade production with the Upper Palaeolithic period, about 30,000-40,000 years ago, linked with the emergence of Homo Sapiens and cultural features such as cave art. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have uncovered evidence which shows that "modern" blade production was also an element of Amudian industry during the late Lower Paleolithic period, 200,000-400,000 years ago as part of the Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex, a geographically limited group of hominins who lived in modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Prof. Avi Gopher, Dr. Ran Barkai and Dr. Ron Shimelmitz of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient... |
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| CSI: PreClovis | |
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| Hunters present in North America 800 years earlier than previously thought: DNA analysis |
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· 10/20/2011 12:18:28 PM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 41 replies · · http://www.physorg.com · · 20 OCT 2011 · · Provided by Texas A&M University · |
The tip of a bone point fragment found embedded in a mastodon rib from an archaeological site in Washington state shows that hunters were present in North America at least 800 years before Clovis, confirming that the first inhabitants arrived earlier to North America than previously thought, says a team of researchers led by a Texas A&M University archaeologist. Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Colorado, Washington and Denmark believe the find at the Manis site in Washington demonstrates that humans were... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Knife Lake: Rewriting prehistory |
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· 10/16/2011 7:14:05 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · Past Horizons · · Saturday, October 8, 2011 · · unattributed (David Connolly?) · |
Knife Lake straddles the border between Canada and Minnesota, with Quetoco Provincial Park to the north, and the famous Boundary Waters on the U.S. side. Professor Mark Muniz of St. Cloud State and fellow researches have been digging around there, and what they have found is fairly amazing if their dating holds up. The Ojibwe name for what the glaciers carved from the earth is Mookomaan Zaaga'igan, while the French fur traders called it Lac des Couteaux, or Lake of Knives. Stone tools found in this area may date from 11,000 to 12,500 years ago, which would indicate that the... |
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| Mesopotamia | |
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| The story behind the world's oldest museum, built by a Babylonian princess 2,500 years ago |
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· 10/16/2011 8:26:39 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · io9 · · May 25, 2011 · · Alasdair Wilkins · |
In 1925, archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a curious collection of artifacts while excavating a Babylonian palace. They were from many different times and places, and yet they were neatly organized and even labeled. Woolley had discovered the world's first museum. It's easy to forget that ancient peoples also studied history - Babylonians who lived 2,500 years ago were able to look back on millennia of previous human experience. That's part of what makes the museum of Princess Ennigaldi so remarkable. Her collection contained wonders and artifacts as ancient to her as the fall of the Roman Empire is to us.... |
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| The Silk Road | |
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| Restored ancient citadel in western Afghanistan is symbol of hope in nation beset by war |
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· 10/17/2011 6:11:40 PM PDT · · Posted by Pan_Yan · · 9 replies · · AP via Washington Post · · Monday, October 17, 11:54 AM · |
HERAT, Afghanistan --- In the 1970s, tourists traveled to western Afghanistan to climb on the ruins of an ancient citadel, a fortress resembling a sandcastle that has stood overlooking the city of Herat for thousands of years. The citadel was crumbling then, but today the newly restored structure, dating back to the days of Alexander the Great, is a hopeful sign of progress in a country beset by war. Hundreds of Afghan craftsmen worked to restore the ruins' past glory with help from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and about $2.4 million from the U.S. and German governments. The... |
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| Warring States | |
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| West Asian Bead Found in Anhui's Ancient Tomb |
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· 10/17/2011 6:49:12 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · An Hui News · · October 12, 2011 · · Zheng Weiling · |
A West Asian dragonfly-eye-shaped bead was found in a 2,000-odd-year Chinese tomb in Dangtu, Anhui province, indicating noblemen living in China's Warring States period (475 BC-221BC) were exposed to West Asian civilization. Excavated from the roughly 400-sqm tomb were more than 40 cultural relics, of which most were potteries and celadon wares. Judging from those possessions, the occupant is expected to be an aristocrat of Yue, one of the seven major countries in the Warring States period, archaeologists said. The most eye-catching burial object is a glass bead resembling a dragonfly eye in appearance. Such kind of jewellery was made... |
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| Central Asia | |
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| Mysterious tombs discovered on Pamirs Plateau [ interior of China ] |
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· 10/16/2011 7:42:27 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Xinhua · · Wednesday, October 12, 2011 · · unattributed · |
Chinese archaeologists have discovered an unidentified cluster of tombs on the Pamirs Plateau, unveiling a new mystery on the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road. Eights tombs, each two meters in diameter, were arranged on a 100-meter-long and 50-meter-wide terrace, with lines of black stones and lines of white stones stretching alongside like rays, according to the archaeology team with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that found the tombs in Xinjiang's Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, a border region neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan, in October. "The tombs are peculiar. No similar ones had been detected before on the Pamirs Plateau,... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Manchu Language Dying Out |
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· 10/15/2011 10:32:36 PM PDT · · Posted by Cronos · · 26 replies · · mongolianhistory.blogspot.com · · 2007 · · David Lague · |
Meng Shujing with her grandson, Shi Junguang, and great-grandson, Shi Yaobin, in their hometown of Sanjiazi.China's Manchu speakers struggle to save language By David Lague Published: International Herald Tribune,March 13, 2007 SANJIAZI, China: Seated cross- legged in her farmhouse on the kang, a brick sleeping platform warmed by a fire below, Meng Shujing lifted her chin and sang a lullaby in Manchu, softly but clearly. After several verses, the 82-year-old widow stopped, her eyes shining. "Baby, please fall asleep quickly," she said, translating a few lines of the song into Chinese. "Once you fall asleep, Mama can go to work.... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Nelson Sunk by PC Raiding Party (No heros for us, we're British.) |
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· 05/22/2005 3:55:32 PM PDT · · Posted by quidnunc · · 45 replies · · 827+ views · · The Sunday Times · · May 22, 2005 · · Andrew Porter · |
Admiral Nelson saw off the mighty Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar but 200 years on, he has been sunk by a wave of political correctness. Organisers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between "a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet" not British and French/Spanish forces. Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed. Even the official literature has been toned down. It describes the re-enactment not as the battle of Trafalgar but simply as "an early 19th-century sea battle".... |
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| Early America | |
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| Andrew Jackson: Tea Party President (Hmmm... maybe) |
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· 10/08/2011 9:20:10 AM PDT · · Posted by MontaniSemperLiberi · · 24 replies · · spectator · · October 8th, 2011 · · Robert W. Merry · |
BACK in the late 1990s, William Kristol and David Brooks, then colleagues at the Weekly Standard, fostered a boomlet of a movement called "national greatness conservatism," the central tenet of which seemed to be that the country didn't rise to sufficient grandeur to satisfy their national aspirations. That was the Clinton era, remember, when the Gross Domestic Product was expanding at an average 3.5 percent a year, and unemployment hovered around 4 percent. Federal coffers were overflowing with cash, and the national debt was actually shrinking. The world was relatively stable, America's global position seemed secure, and young U.S. soldiers... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Research team suggests European Little Ice Age came about due to reforestation in New World |
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· 10/17/2011 6:43:48 AM PDT · · Posted by Red Badger · · 88 replies · · http://www.physorg.com · · 14 Oct 2011 · · Bob Yirka · |
A team comprised of geological and environmental science researchers from Stanford University has been studying the impact that early European exploration had on the New World and have found evidence that they say suggests the European cold period from 1500 to 1750, commonly known as the Little Ice Age, was due to the rapid decline in native human populations shortly after early explorers arrived. Following up on their paper published in 2008, the team has now brought their findings before the Geological Society of America. The researchers say that the population decrease, which came about due to the introduction of... |
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| Columbus' Arrival Linked to Carbon Dioxide Drop |
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· 10/21/2011 11:02:39 AM PDT · · Posted by MoJoWork_n · · 47 replies · · Science News · · November 5, 2011 · · Devin Powell · |
By sailing to the New World, Christopher Columbus and other explorers who followed him may have set off a chain of events that cooled Europe's climate. The European conquest of the Americas decimated the people living there, leaving large areas of cleared land untended. Trees that filled in this territory pulled billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Stanford University geochemist Richard Nevle reported October 11 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting. Such carbon dioxide removal could have diminished the heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere and cooled the climate, Nevil and his colleagues have previously reported.... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| "Christopher Columbus was the first ZIONIST " |
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· 10/18/2011 4:19:54 AM PDT · · Posted by moneyrunner · · 4 replies · · The Virginian · · 10/18/2011 · · Moneyrunner · |
Someone leaked a batch of emails that have been exchanged by leaders of the Occupy Wall Street group. I've only dipped into them briefly, but some are pretty entertaining. This thread reminded me of my days as a leftist, and the difficulty of accommodating the diverse and sometimes inconsistent varieties of left-wing crackpotism. Christopher Columbus was the first ZIONIST ===don't you guys get it? The same colonial narrative -- genocide. We must endorse the Declaration of First Nation Peoples, in solidarity, for the plight of all people of color. Cesar and Bahareh, i agree -- this is most urgent. This exchange strikes me as... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Bombings, beheadings? Stats show a peaceful world |
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· 10/22/2011 3:43:04 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · Associated Press · · October 22, 2011 · · Seth Borenstein · |
> --- The number of people killed in battle --- calculated per 100,000 population --- has dropped by 1,000-fold over the centuries as civilizations evolved. Before there were organized countries, battles killed on average more than 500 out of every 100,000 people. In 19th century France, it was 70. In the 20th century with two world wars and a few genocides, it was 60. Now battlefield deaths are down to three-tenths of a person per 100,000. --- The rate of genocide deaths per world population was 1,400 times higher in 1942 than in 2008. --- There were fewer than 20... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Witnesses to a catastrophe |
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· 10/19/2011 8:52:05 PM PDT · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 8 replies · · Irish Times · · 20 Oct 2011 · · Dick Ahlstrom · |
A forgotten Famine burial site inside the grounds of a former workhouse in Kilkenny has yielded the remains of nearly 1,000 people, and a wealth of knowledge about how they lived and how they died. AN GORTA M"R, the Great Hunger, was a time of terrible human drama as Ireland's poor struggled to survive the ravages of famine and disease. The chance discovery of a Famine-period burial ground in Kilkenny city now helps to tell their story,... Some one million people died and were buried as conditions and finance allowed, with the poorest ending up in burial grounds used by... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Rowing for their lives: The poignant photographs of the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic |
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· 10/19/2011 12:04:29 PM PDT · · Posted by alexmai · · 78 replies · · DailyMail · |
Astonishing unseen photographs of the aftermath of the Titanic disaster have emerged after 99 years. The black and white pictures show an iceberg at the site of the tragedy - and may even be the one that sunk the luxury liner. Another image shows two lifeboats packed full of survivors rowing for safety following the 1912 disaster in which 1,517 people died. Survivors from the Titanic are pictured here rowing towards rescue ship the Carpathia in what appear to be relatively calm seas Danger ahead: Taken from a rescue vessel, this photograph shows an iceberg in the distance - perhaps... |
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| Not-so-Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Spain: Franco's remains may be exhumed [ valiant fight to stay dead ] |
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· 10/21/2011 12:16:50 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · · ADNKronos · · October 10, 2011 · · AKI · |
Spain may dig up the remains of late Fascist dictator Francisco Franco to move them from a sprawling mausoleum to a cemetery, according to a local news report. A commission of experts hired by the Spanish government is reviewing options on how to deal with the Valley of the Fallen, the burial place near Madrid where Franco is buried and is a controversial pilgrimage destination for Fascist sympathizers. Franco died in 1975 after emerging as the victor in the three-year Spanish Civil War which ended in 1939. The Valley of the Fallen holds the remains of more than 30,000 people.... |
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| Geology & Pareidolia | |
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| 4,000 years of history crashes to the ground |
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· 10/17/2011 6:46:42 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 39 replies · · Western Telegraph · · Thursday 13th October 2011 · · unattributed · |
An ancient monument has crashed to the ground after standing for more than 4,000 years as an important landmark. The famous standing stone at Bedd Morris, on Newport mountain, was snapped over the weekend, toppling over and crushing a nearby fence. Archaeologist Professor Geoffrey Wainwright, an expert who has worked on several sites in the Preselis, plans to play an active role in getting the stone reinstated. He said: "It's a tragedy, the stone has snapped and it's a real mess. "It's an important landscape feature and an important archaeological site and it must be put back as soon as... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Perfect fossil could be most complete dinosaur ever |
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· 10/16/2011 7:07:25 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 68 replies · · New Scientists · · 13 October 2011 · · Jeff Hecht · |
Dinosaur fossils don't come much more impressive than this. With 98 per cent of its skeleton preserved, this young predatory theropod from southern Germany may be the most complete dinosaur ever found. Oliver Rauhut, curator of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, announced the find yesterday. Although Chinese bird and dinosaur fossils are famed for delicate details such as their feathers, they don't match this 72-centimetre-long theropod in terms of clarity and completeness of preservation. The young dinosaur has been dated at 135 million years old, putting it in the early Cretaceous, but it has yet... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Albino Cyclops Shark Is Real, Experts Say |
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· 10/18/2011 10:02:27 AM PDT · · Posted by presidio9 · · 20 replies · · Fox News/Livescience · · October 18, 2011 · · Stephanie Pappas · |
In this world of Photoshop and online scams, it pays to have a hearty dose of skepticism at reports of something strange --- including an albino fetal shark with one eye smack in the middle of its nose like a Cyclops. But the Cyclops shark, sliced from the belly of a pregnant mama dusky shark caught by a commercial fisherman in the Gulf of California earlier this summer, is by all reports the real thing. Shark researchers have examined the preserved creature and found that its single eye is made of functional optical tissue, they said last week. It's unlikely,... |
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| Ribetting News | |
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| Dozen New Frogs, Plus Three 'Extinct' Ones, Found [Mug shots of innocents living in the shadows] |
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· 09/19/2011 9:10:02 AM PDT · · Posted by fight_truth_decay · · 19 replies · · Discovery News · · Mon Sep 19, 2011 08:35 AM ET · · Jennifer Viegas · |
All of the found and re-discovered species belong to the Night frog group, genus Nyctibatrachus. Thanks go to S.D. Biju, an amphibian biologist at the University of Delhi, and his team for tirelessly scouring the wildlife rich Western Ghats region, and performing DNA testing of the frogs. Biju and his colleagues over the years have discovered an astounding number of new frog species, 45. That number is likely to increase. Animal discoveries, however, often come with serious concern, since many of these species are few and far between and are desperately needing conservation help. At present, 32 percent of the... |
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| end of digest #379 20111022 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #379 · v 8 · n 15 Saturday, October 22, 2011 |
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21 topics |
Welcome to issue #379 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #380 Saturday, October 29, 2011 |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Astronomers discover complex organic matter in the universe |
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· 10/26/2011 11:05:29 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 46 replies · · U of Hong Kong · |
In today's issue of the journal Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars. Prof. Sun Kwok and Dr. Yong Zhang of the University of Hong Kong show that an organic substance commonly found throughout the Universe contains a mixture of aromatic (ring-like) and aliphatic (chain-like) components. The compounds are so complex that their chemical structures resemble those of coal and petroleum. Since coal and oil are remnants of ancient life, this type of... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Gene Regulation And The Difference Between Human Beings And Chimpanzees |
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· 10/27/2011 5:49:24 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 23 replies · · Science 2.0 · |
When the DNA sequences of Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes were sequenced, the difference between the sequences of coding genes was smaller than expected based on the phenotypic differences between both species. If not the coding genes, then what is responsible for these dissimilarities? In the words of the authors of a new study that took a look at this question: Although humans and chimpanzees have accumulated significant differences in a number of phenotypic traits since diverging from a common ancestor about six to eight million years ago, their genomes are more than 98.5% identical at protein-coding loci. Since this... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Solving the Mysteries of Short-Legged Neandertals |
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· 10/29/2011 2:43:28 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · · Science News · |
"Studies looking at limb length have always concluded that a shorter limb, including in Neandertals, leads to less efficiency of movement, because they had to take more steps to go a given distance," says lead author Ryan Higgins, graduate student in the Johns Hopkins Center of Functional Anatomy and Evolution. "But the other studies only looked at flat land. Our study suggests that the Neandertals' steps were not less efficient than modern humans in the sloped, mountainous environment where they lived." Neandertals, who lived from 40,000 to 200,000 years ago in Europe and Western Asia, mostly during very cold periods,... |
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| Diet & Cuisine | |
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| Ancient cooking pots reveal gradual transition to agriculture |
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· 10/24/2011 4:43:41 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · · U of York · |
Humans may have undergone a gradual rather than an abrupt transition from fishing, hunting and gathering to farming, according to a new study of ancient pottery. Researchers at the University of York and the University of Bradford analysed cooking residues preserved in 133 ceramic vessels from the Western Baltic regions of Northern Europe to establish whether these residues were from terrestrial, marine or freshwater organisms. The research led by Oliver Craig (York) and Carl Heron (Bradford) included an international team of archaeologists from The Heritage Agency of Denmark, The National Museum of Denmark, Moesgard Museum (Denmark), Christian-Albrechts-Universitat, Kiel (Germany) and... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| From the Cave to the Kennel |
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· 10/29/2011 6:12:54 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 15 replies · · Wall St Journal · |
What the evolutionary history of the dog tells us about another animal: ourselves. From a cave in France, a new picture has emerged of canines as our prehistoric soulmates. Chauvet Cave in southern France houses the oldest representational paintings ever discovered. Created some 32,000 years ago, the 400-plus images of large grazing animals and the predators who hunted them form a multi-chambered Paleolithic bestiary. Many scholars believe that these paintings mark the emergence of a recognizably modern human consciousness. We feel that we know their creators, even though they are from a time and place as alien as another planet. |
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| Oëtzi the Iceman | |
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| Iceman Autopsy |
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· 10/29/2011 4:22:00 AM PDT · · Posted by Renfield · · 30 replies · · National Geographic · |
Shortly after 6 p.m. on a drizzling, dreary November day in 2010, two men dressed in green surgical scrubs opened the door of the Iceman's chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. They slid the frozen body onto a stainless steel gurney. One of the men was a young scientist named Marco Samadelli. Normally, it was his job to keep the famous Neolithic mummy frozen under the precise conditions that had preserved it for 5,300 years, following an attack that had left the Iceman dead, high on a nearby mountain. On this day, however, Samadelli had... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| News from Finds at the Minoan Palace of Zakros |
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· 10/29/2011 5:41:31 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Greek Reporter · |
Minoan civilisation, Zakros Palace in particular, are the focus of the 11th International Cretological Congress on October 21-27 in Rethymnon, one of the three big cities on the island. The Minoan Zakros Palace, located on the eastern part of the island, is one of the four Minoan palaces -- the others are Knossos, Festos and Malia -- uncovered by archaeological excavations last century. The palace spans 4,500 square metres (one fifth of the area of the Palace of Knossos) and was the religious and administrative centre for a settlement that spanned 8,000 square metres. The palace has two main structures,... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Lost Roman camp that protected against Germanic hordes found |
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· 10/28/2011 8:48:42 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · · Telegraph UK · |
German archaeologists have unearthed "sensational" evidence of a lost Roman camp that formed a vital part of the frontier protecting Rome's empire against the Germanic hordes. Historians believe the camp, once home to an estimated 1,000 legionaries and located on the River Lippe near the town of Olfen, may well have been served as a key base for the Roman General Drusus, who waged a long and bloody war against the tribes that once inhabited what is now western Germany. The find comes 100 years after the discovery of a bronze Roman helmet near Olfen indicated the presence of ancient... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Fort find adds to potted history of Romans' boozing |
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· 10/28/2011 9:08:07 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · Shields Gazette · |
The "spectacular" discovery of ancient pottery has revealed how the Romans wined and dined here in South Tyneside almost 2,000 years ago. And far from sampling the delights of our local brews, it seems they still preferred to ship wines from the Mediterranean to their northern outpost. Several pieces of a 3ft-tall wine jug have been found during an excavation just outside Arbeia Roman Fort. The pottery will be stuck together to recreate the metre-high jug, which would have contained numerous litres of wine when it was imported to the fort between AD 250 and AD 350. ...archaeologist Nick Hodgson...... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Roman-era couple held hands for 1,500 years |
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· 10/25/2011 4:42:32 PM PDT · · Posted by SJackson · · 21 replies · · MSNBC/Discovery · |
Archaeologists believe the pair was buried in a position of mutual adoration The skeletal remains of a Roman-era couple reveal the pair has been holding hands for 1,500 years. Italian archaeologists say the man and woman were buried at the same time between the 5th and 6th century A.D. in central-northern Italy. Wearing a bronze ring, the woman is positioned so she appears to be gazing at her male partner. "We believe that they were originally buried with their faces staring into each other. The position of the man's vertebrae suggests that his head rolled after death," Donato Labate, the... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| The find of a lifetime: Treasure hunter digs up 200-piece haul of Viking jewellery and coins |
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· 10/28/2011 9:00:44 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · Daily Mail · |
Treasure trove: Darren Webster uncovered a 1,000-year-old casket containing 200 pieces of silver jewellery, coins, hacksilver and ingots while using his metal detector in Cumbria... Brian Randall, chairman of the Lune Valley Metal Detecting Club, said: 'We are all thrilled for Darren and wish it was us. 'No one goes out looking for hoards but it's very nice if you do find one.' ...Oxford University anthropology lecturer, Stephen Oppenheimer, said big hoards such as this paint a new picture of what Vikings were doing in England... Local archaeologist Steve Dickinson, of Ulverston, said the hoard was 'extremely important nationally'. He... |
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| Farty Shades of Green | |
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| Linn Duchaill: Ireland's unlikely Viking capital |
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· 10/24/2011 9:42:21 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · · BBC · |
A windswept barley field just south of Dundalk seems an unlikely spot for Ireland's capital. But if things had been different, Annagassan near Castlebellingham might have been the principal city on the island of Ireland. Twelve hundred years ago it was the site of Linn Duchaill, one of the first Viking settlements, which rivalled Dublin in size and importance. Folklore said it was there, but all traces of it had disappeared, until a group of archaeologists and local historians set out to prove its existence. Extensive field research and test digs have now done that. What they found was a huge... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| 13th century Mongolian wreckage discovered off Japanese seabed [Kublai Khan's lost fleet?] |
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· 10/28/2011 8:45:17 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · Telegraph UK · |
The vessel is the first of its kind to have been discovered relatively intact and dates from a series of attempts by Kublai Khan, emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, to subjugate Japan between 1274 and 1281. Researchers have previously only been able to recover anchor stones and cannonballs from the scattered wrecks of the Mongol fleets and they believe that this latest find will shed new light on the maritime technology of the day. The warship was located with ultrasonic equipment about 3 feet beneath the seabed at a depth of 75 feet. The archeological team, from Okinawa's University of... |
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| Age of Sail | |
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| Sir Francis Drake's final fleet 'discovered off the coast of Panama' |
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· 10/24/2011 5:04:43 PM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 15 replies · · London Telegraph · |
His burial at sea in full armour and in a lead casket was designed to ensure that no one -- but especially the Spanish -- would find his body. Now, more than 400 years after Sir Francis Drake's death in the Caribbean, the great seafarer's watery grave may be close to being discovered. A team of treasure hunters led by an American former basketball team owner claims to have discovered two ships from Drake's fleet lying on the seabed off the coast of Panama. The 195-ton Elizabeth and 50-ton Delight were scuttled shortly after the naval hero's death from dysentery,... |
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| Climate | |
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| Team Says Arctic Ice Shelf Broke Up Before (1400AD to exact) |
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· 10/25/2011 3:53:10 PM PDT · · Posted by Dallas59 · · 37 replies · · Physorg · |
Now however, new research by a team from UniversitÈ Laval in Canada, led by Dermot Antoniadesa, have found, after studying sedimentary material on the bottom of the Disraeli Fiord, created by backup from an ice shelf in Northern Canada, that it experienced a major fracture that resulted in an overall reduction of the ice shelf some 1,400 years ago. Which means this isn't the first time that the shelf ice has melted and broken apart. The team has published the results of its survey in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Archaeologist Claims 12,000-Year-Old Solstice Site in Clarke County[VA] |
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· 10/23/2011 6:16:29 PM PDT · · Posted by FritzG · · 12 replies · · Clarke Daily News · |
Bear's Den Rock has captured the attention of travelers in the northern Shenandoah Valley since colonial times and for thousands of years before by the indigenous people who hunted and fished in the region. Now, a local archaeologist believes that the prominent outcrop just south of Virginia's Route 7 in Clarke County is a part of a larger 12,000 year old celestial calendar used by Native Americans to mark the changing of the seasons. Archaeologist Jack Hranicky believes that a 12,000-year-old solstice site has been discovered in Clarke County, Virginia"Although archaeological sites have been discovered across the United States, there's... |
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| Pages | |
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| Strange tales from the Royal Society (now online) |
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· 10/27/2011 7:14:32 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 15 replies · · BBC · |
The world's oldest scientific academy, the Royal Society, has made its historical journal, which includes about 60,000 scientific papers, permanently free to access online.The plague, the Great Fire of London and even the imprisonment of its editor - just a few of the early setbacks that hit the Royal Society's early editions of the Philosophical Transactions. But against the odds the publication, which first appeared in 1665, survived. Its archives offer a fascinating window on the history of scientific progress over the last few centuries. Nestling amongst illustrious papers by Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are some undiscovered gems from... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Possible WWII submarine wreck found in PNG |
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· 10/27/2011 5:05:35 AM PDT · · Posted by naturalman1975 · · 15 replies · · news.com.au · |
The Royal Australian Navy is investigating an uncharted wreck in Papua New Guinea, believed to be a submarine, discovered in a joint operation with the New Zealand Navy. |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Computer scientist cracks mysterious 'Copiale Cipher' |
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· 10/25/2011 6:44:24 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · · U of Southern California · |
Translation expert turning insights and computing power on other coded messagesThe manuscript seems straight out of fiction: a strange handwritten message in abstract symbols and Roman letters meticulously covering 105 yellowing pages, hidden in the depths of an academic archive. Now, more than three centuries after it was devised, the 75,000-character "Copiale Cipher" has finally been broken. The mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, reveals the rituals and political leanings of a 18th-century secret society in Germany. The rituals detailed in the document indicate the secret society had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology, though it... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Berlin Restaurant Caters to Modern Cavemen |
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· 10/25/2011 3:36:42 PM PDT · · Posted by Cardhu · · 64 replies · · Der Spiegel · |
No cheese, bread or sugar are available at a recently opened Berlin eatery. In fact, guests are served dishes made only of ingredients that would have been available to their hunter-gatherer ancestors. The Stone Age fare is prepared by adherents of the Paleolithic movement, who say their restaurant is the first of its kind in Europe. The restaurant menu shows a stereotypical image of modern humanity's forbearer, the jutting profile of a hirsute caveman. Inside, diners eat at candle-lit tables with a contemporary cave painting hanging in the background. These hints aside, Berlin's Sauvage restaurant looks similar to many of... |
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| end of digest #380 20111029 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #380 · v 8 · n 16 Saturday, October 29, 2011 |
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Welcome to issue #380 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #381 Saturday, November 05, 2011 |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Icelandic rocks could have steered Vikings |
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· 11/01/2011 · · 8:00:07 PM PDT · · by decimon · · 19 replies · · BBC · · November 1, 2011 · · Jennifer Carpenter · |
Vikings used rocks from Iceland to navigate the high seas, suggests a new study. In Norse legends, sunstones are said to have guided seafarers to North America. Now an international team of scientists report in the journal the Proceedings of the Royal Society A that the Icelandic spars behave like mythical sunstones and polarise light. By holding the stones aloft, voyaging Vikings could have used them to find the sun in the sky. The Vikings were skilled navigators and travelled thousand of kilometres between Northern Europe and North America. But without a magnetic compass, which was not invented until the... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israeli archaeologists: tiny Christian relic found |
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· 10/30/2011 · · 1:11:49 PM PDT · · by markomalley · · 38 replies · · AP/Yahoo · · 30 Oct 2011 · · Matti Friedman · |
A tiny, exquisitely made box found on an excavated street in Jerusalem is a token of Christian faith from 1,400 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday. The box, carved from the bone of a cow, horse or camel, decorated with a cross on the lid and measuring only 0.8 inches by 0.6 inches (2 centimeter by 1.5 centimeter), was likely carried by a Christian believer around the end of the 6th century A.D, according to Yana Tchekhanovets of the Israel Antiquities Authority, one of the directors of the dig where the box was found. When the lid is removed, the... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Early humans' route out of Africa 'confirmed' |
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· 11/02/2011 · · 7:32:23 PM PDT · · by decimon · · 31 replies · · BBC · · November 2, 2011 · |
A six-year effort to map the genetic patterns of humankind appears to confirm that early people first left Africa by crossing into Arabia. Ancestors of modern people in Europe, Asia and Oceania migrated along a southern route, not a nothern route through Egypt as some had supposed. The results from the Genographic Project are published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. It suggests an important role for South Asia in the peopling of the world. The ancestors of present-day non-African people left their ancestral homeland some 70,000 years ago. The researchers found that Indian populations had more genetic diversity... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| 'Sabre-toothed squirrel': First known mammalian skull from Late Cretaceous ... |
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· 11/03/2011 · · 1:42:52 PM PDT · · by Red Badger · · 29 replies · · PhysOrg · · November 03, 2011 · · U of Louisville · |
Paleontologist Guillermo Rougier, Ph.D., professor of anatomical sciences and neurobiology at the University of Louisville, and his team have reported their discovery of two skulls from the first known mammal of the early Late Cretaceous period of South America. The fossils break a roughly 60 million-year gap in the currently known mammalian record of the continent and provide new clues on the early evolution of mammals. Details of their find will be published Nov. 3 in Nature. Co-authors are Sebastian Apestegula of Argentina's Universidad Maim√›nides and doctoral student Leandro C. Gaetano. The new critter, named "Cronopio dentiacutus" by the paleontologists,... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| Did Dinosaurs Flirt? |
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· 11/04/2011 · · 3:28:50 PM PDT · · by Winstons Julia · · 30 replies · · History · · 11/4/11 · · staff · |
Oviraptor tails were also extremely muscular, and, according to fossil impressions, had a fan of feathers at the end. In Persons' view, oviraptors could very well have used their muscular, flexible tails to wave their feathers in order to impress potential mates, just as peacocks use their magnificent jewel-toned feathers in courtship displays today. |
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| Dinosaur-Bird Flap Ruffles Feathers |
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· 10/11/2005 · · 4:07:11 AM PDT · · by mlc9852 · · 329 replies · · 11,486+ views · · Yahoo!News · · October 10, 2005 · · E.J. Mundell · |
(HealthDay News) -- Head to the American Museum of Natural History's Web site, and you'll see the major draw this fall is a splashy exhibit on dinosaurs. And not just any dinosaurs, but two-legged carnivorous, feathered "theropods" like the 30-inch-tall Bambiraptor -- somewhat less cuddly than its namesake. The heyday of the theropods, which included scaly terrors like T. rex and velociraptor, stretched from the late Triassic (220 million years ago) to the late Cretaceous (65 million years ago) periods. |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Astronomers Discover Complex Organic Matter Exists Throughout the Universe |
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· 10/30/2011 · · 5:42:26 PM PDT · · by Flavius · · 18 replies · · science daily · · 10/26/11 · · science daily · |
Astronomers report in the journal Nature that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars. |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Scientific consensus fails again: Start of "Anthropocene" pushed back to Late Pleistocene,...... |
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· 11/03/2011 · · 9:59:14 PM PDT · · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 12 replies · · watts up with that? · · November 2, 2011 · · by David Middleton · |
Seattle (AP) -- It's not unusual for an archaeologist to get stuck in the past, but Carl Gustafson may be the only one consumed by events on the Olympic Peninsula in 1977. That summer, while sifting through earth in Sequim, the young Gustafson uncovered something extraordinary -- a mastodon bone with a shaft jammed in it. This appeared to be a weapon that had been thrust into the beast's ribs, a sign that humans had been around and hunting far earlier than anyone suspected.Unfortunately for Gustafson, few scientists agreed. He was challenging orthodoxy with... |
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| Mammoth Told Me... | |
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| How Mammoths Lost The Extinction Lottery |
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· 11/04/2011 · · 7:25:31 PM PDT · · by SunkenCiv · · 34 replies · · Nature · · November 2, 2011 · · Ewen Callaway · |
Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos and other large animals driven to extinction since the last ice age each succumbed to a different lethal mix of circumstances... Researchers who studied the fate of six species of 'megafauna' over the past 50,000 years found that climate change and habitat loss were involved in many of the extinctions, with humans playing a part in some cases but not others. But there was no clear pattern to explain why the animals died off, and it proved impossible to predict from habitat or genetic diversity which species would go extinct and which would survive. "It almost... |
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| Climate | |
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| UA scientists find evidence of Roman period megadrought (in US, not Rome) |
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· 11/04/2011 · · 4:02:52 PM PDT · · by decimon · · 19 replies · · University of Arizona · · November 4, 2011 · |
A new study at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research has revealed a previously unknown multi-decade drought period in the second century A.D.Almost nine hundred years ago, in the mid-12th century, the southwestern U.S. was in the middle of a multi-decade megadrought. It was the most recent extended period of severe drought known for this region. But it was not the first. The second century A.D. saw an extended dry period of more than 100 years characterized by a multi-decade drought lasting nearly 50 years, says a new study from scientists at the University of Arizona. UA geoscientists... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Rome, Sweet Rome: Could a Single Marine Unit Destroy the Roman Empire? |
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· 11/02/2011 · · 8:30:47 PM PDT · · by DogByte6RER · · 175 replies · · Popular Mechanics · · October 31, 2011 · · Alyson Sheppard · |
It was a hypothetical question that became a long online discussion and now a movie in development: Could a small group of heavily armed modern-day Marines take down the Roman Empire at its height? We talked about the debate with James Erwin, the man who scored a movie writing contract based on his online response, and ran the ideas by Roman history expert Adrian Goldsworthy. James Erwin was browsing reddit.com on his lunch break when a thread piqued his interest. A user called The_Quiet_Earth had posed the question:... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Conquistador Was Deep in U.S.: "Stunning" Jewelry Find Redraws Route? |
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· 11/04/2011 · · 4:45:15 AM PDT · · by Renfield · · 51 replies · · National Geographic · · 11-1-2011 · · Ker Than · |
Under a former Native American village in Georgia, deep inside what's now the U.S., archaeologists say they've found 16th-century jewelry and other Spanish artifacts. The discovery suggests an expedition led by conquistador Hernando de Soto ventured far off its presumed course -- which took the men from Florida to Missouri -- and engaged in ceremonies in a thatched, pyramid-like temple. The discovery could redraw the map of de Soto's 1539-41 march into North America, where he hoped to replicate Spain's overthrow of the Inca Empire in South America. There, the conquistador had served at the side of leader Francisco Pizarro... |
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| Africa | |
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| Experts shed light on David Livingstone massacre diary |
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· 11/02/2011 · · 6:11:39 AM PDT · · by decimon · · 6 replies · · BBC · · November 1, 2011 · |
A diary written 140 years ago by Scots explorer David Livingstone can now be read for the first time after experts shed new light on the badly-faded text. Scientists used spectral imaging to recover the account of the massacre of 400 slaves, which had been written on old newspaper with makeshift ink. The manuscript, written in central Africa, deteriorated rapidly and is now virtually invisible to the naked eye. It has gone on show at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. An international team of experts took part in the 18-month project to uncover Livingstone's personal account of the... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Was Jack the Ripper a prominent London abortionist? Well, maybe |
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· 11/03/2011 · · 9:45:21 PM PDT · · by ReformationFan · · 17 replies · · LifeSiteNews · · 11-3-11 · · John Jalsevac · |
It's one of the most notorious unsolved mysteries in history: who was Jack the Ripper, the Victorian serial killer who surgically disemboweled five prostitutes in the fall of 1888? According to claims that are currently getting a great deal of media attention in Britain, he may be none other than prominent surgeon Sir John Williams -- who, in addition to serving as Queen Victoria's surgeon in London, was also a well-known abortionist. In a new book, Sir John's great-great-great-great nephew, Tony Williams, presents evidence for Sir John's guilt, including his discovery of a six-inch surgical knife among his ancestor's possessions... |
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| end of digest #381 20111105 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #382 Saturday, November 12, 2011 |
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| Africa | |
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| Fall of Gaddafi opens a new era for the Sahara's lost civilisation [ Garamantes ] |
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· 11/06/2011 4:30:31 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · · Guardian UK · · Saturday, November 5, 2011 · · Peter Beaumont · |
researchers into the Garamantes --- a "lost" Saharan civilisation that flourished long before the Islamic era --- are hoping that Libya's new government can restore the warrior culture, mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories, to its rightful place in Libya's history. For while the impressive Roman ruins at Sabratha and Leptis Magna --- both world heritage sites --- are rightly famous, Libya's other cultural heritage, one that coexisted with its Roman settlers, has been largely forgotten. It has been prompted by new research --- including through the use of satellite imaging --- which suggests that the Garamantes built more extensively... |
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| Lost Civilization Discovered in Sahara Desert |
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· 11/08/2011 5:37:12 PM PST · · Posted by Pan_Yan · · 26 replies · · Fox News · · November 08, 2011 · · LiveScience · |
New evidence of a lost civilization in an area of the Sahara in Libya has emerged from images taken by satellites. Using satellites and air photographs to identify the remains in one of the most inhospitable parts of the desert, a team from the University of Leicester in England has discovered more than 100 fortified farms and villages with castle-like structures and several towns, most dating between AD 1 to 500. "It is like someone coming to England and suddenly discovering all the medieval castles. These settlements had been unremarked and unrecorded under the Gadhafi regime," said project leader David... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Homo sapiens arrived earlier in Europe than previously known |
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· 11/02/2011 11:38:28 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 37 replies · · University of Vienna · · November 2, 2011 · |
Virtual anthropology allows new identification of first modern humans -- Members of our species (Homo sapiens) arrived in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought. At this conclusion a team of researchers, led by the Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, arrived after re-analyses of two ancient deciduous teeth. These teeth were discovered 1964 in the "Grotta del Cavallo", a prehistoric cave in southern Italy. Since their discovery they have been attributed to Neanderthals, but this new study suggests they belong to anatomically modern humans. Chronometric analysis, carried out by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, shows that... |
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| Couldn't Drag Me Away | |
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| Prehistoric Cave Paintings of Horses Were Spot-On, Say Scientists |
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· 11/08/2011 6:42:22 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · Popular Archaeology · · Monday, November 07, 2011 · · unattributed · |
Long thought by many as possible abstract or symbolic expressions as opposed to representations of real animals, the famous paleolithic horse paintings found in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet in France likely reflect what the prehistoric humans actually saw in their natural environment, suggests researchers who conducted a recent DNA study. To reach this conclusion, scientists constituting an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, USA, Spain, Russia and Mexico genotyped and analyzed nine coat-color types in 31 pre-domestic (wild) horses dating as far back as 35,000 years ago from bone specimens in 15 different locations spread across... |
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| PICTURES: Prehistoric European Cave Artists Were Female |
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· 06/30/2009 7:34:59 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 34 replies · · 1,303+ views · · nationalgeographic · · June 16, 2009 · |
Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave, hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural. For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago. Until recently, most scientists assumed these prehistoric handprints were male. But "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Dean Snow said of European cave art. By measuring and analyzing the Pech Merle hand stencils, Snow found that... |
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| Climate | |
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| Humans ventured as far as Torquay more than 40,000 years ago [ Kents Cavern, Devon ] |
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· 11/06/2011 4:23:51 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 29 replies · · Guardian UK · · Wednesday, November 2, 2011 · · Ian Sample · |
A fragment of human jaw unearthed in a prehistoric cave in Torquay is the earliest evidence of modern humans in north-west Europe, scientists say. The tiny piece of upper jaw was excavated from Kents Cave on the town's border in the 1920s but its significance was not fully realised until scientists checked its age with advanced techniques that have only now become available. The fresh analysis at Oxford University dated the bone and three teeth to a period between 44,200 and 41,500 years ago, when a temporary warm spell lasting perhaps only a thousand years, made Britain habitable. The age... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Smirking face of the Devil discovered in Giotto fresco |
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· 11/06/2011 5:02:34 PM PST · · Posted by bruinbirdman · · 57 replies · · The Telegraph · · 11/6/2011 · · Nick Squires, Rome · |
The smirking face of the Devil has been discovered hidden in a fresco by the Italian medieval artist Giotto after remaining undetected for more than 700 years in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi. The Satanic image went unnoticed until now because it is artfully hidden in the folds of a cloud and is invisible from ground level. The discovery of the face, in a fresco which depicts the death of St Francis, was made by Chiara Frugoni, a medievalist and an expert on the saint. "It's a powerful portrait, with a hooked nose, sunken eyes and two dark... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Britain's oldest family business opened when Henry VIII ruled |
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· 11/04/2011 9:29:26 AM PDT · · DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis · · 35 replies · · Telegraph · · 11-4-11 · |
RJ Balson and Sons, a butchers based in Bridport, Dorset, boasts an astonishing history that is almost 500 years old. Experts have traced the businesses roots back through 25 generations to when founder John Balson opened a stall in the town's market on South Street in 1535. Since then dozens of family members have worked as butchers in the market town, passing their skills down the generations. And 476 years later, the shop remains a thriving business and has been named Britain's oldest family run retailer. At that time Henry VIII was still married to Anne Boleyn, the first complete... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Greeks claim having found Alexander the Great's tomb, Ark of the Covenant |
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· 11/09/2011 5:11:12 PM PST · · Posted by Winstons Julia · · 90 replies · · Focus · · 09/11/11 · · staff · |
Athens. It is believed that the tomb of Alexander the Great and the Ark of the Covenant have been found on the Greek Island of Thasos, announced Russian Grekomania.ru, which is information partner of the Greek Minister of Culture and Tourism. |
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
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| Beer & Bullets to Go: Ancient 'Takeout' Window Discovered [Godin Tepe] |
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· 11/07/2011 6:09:54 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 74 replies · · LiveScience · · October 28, 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
Some 5,200 years ago, in the mountains of western Iran, people may have used takeout windows to get food and weapons, newly presented research suggests. But rather than the greasy hamburgers and fries, it appears the inhabitants of the site ordered up goat, grain and even bullets, among other items. The find was made at Godin Tepe, an archaeological site that was excavated in the 1960s and 1970s by a team led by T. Cuyler Young Jr., a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, who died in 2006... The idea that they were used as takeout windows... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Rachel's Tomb |
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· 11/10/2011 5:13:53 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 21 replies · · Jerusalem Post · · 11/10/2011 · · Lenny Ben-David · |
JPost special feature: A Library of Congress collection of photographs that document Israel before the creation of the state. The Library of Congress has recently digitalized a collection of over 10,000 photographs, taken by the "American Colony" in Jerusalem, a group of Christian utopians who lived in Jerusalem between 1881 and the 1940s. The photographers returned to the US, and bequeathed their massive collection to the Library of Congress in 1978. The collection includes Winston Churchill's visit to Jerusalem, Jewish expulsions from the Old City during Arab riots, and the building of Tel Aviv. Tens of thousands of Jews --... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Lost Syriac Text Gives Magi's View of the Christmas Story |
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· 11/07/2011 7:10:10 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 32 replies · · Biblical Archaeology Review · · Nov/Dec 2011 · · unattributed · |
The Bible tells us very little about the magi. Their story appears but once, in the Gospel of Matthew (2:1-12), where they are described as mysterious visitors "from the east" who come to Jerusalem looking for the child whose star they observed "at its rising." After meeting with King Herod, who feigns an intention to worship the child but actually plans to destroy him, the magi follow the same star to Bethlehem. There, upon seeing the baby Jesus and his mother Mary, the magi kneel down and worship him, presenting him with their three famous gifts --- gold, frankincense and... |
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| Cells for Questioning | |
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| Giant one-celled organisms discovered over six miles below the ocean's surface |
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· 11/05/2011 2:55:33 PM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 47 replies · · mongabay.com · · October 23, 2011 · · Jeremy Hance · |
PDF version Imagine a one-celled organism the size of a mango. It's not science fiction, but fact: scientists have cataloged dozens of giant one-celled creatures, around 4 inches (10 centimeters), in the deep abysses of the world's oceans. But recent exploration of the Mariana Trench has uncovered the deepest record yet of the one-celled behemoths, known as xenophyophores. Found at 6.6 miles beneath the ocean's surface, the xenophyophores beats the previous record by nearly two miles. The Mariana Trench xenophyophores were discovered by dropcams, developed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and National Geographic, which are unmanned HD cameras 'dropped'... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| First Long-Necked Dinosaur Fossil Found In Antarctica |
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· 11/07/2011 11:15:17 PM PST · · Posted by Altariel · · 12 replies · · LiveScience.com · · November 4, 2011 · · Stephanie Pappas · |
It's official, long-necked sauropod dinosaurs once roamed every continent on Earth --- including now-frigid Antarctica. The discovery of a single sauropod vertebra on James Ross Island in Antarctica reveals that these behemoths, which included Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus, lived on the continent in the upper Cretaceous Period about 100 million years ago. |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| World's largest dino dung -- |
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· 09/07/2003 4:36:54 PM PDT · · Posted by UnklGene · · 47 replies · · 2,385+ views · · Ottawa Citizen · · September 6, 2003 · · Jacob Berkowitz · |
World's largest dino dung T. rex left an ancient calling card, writes Jacob Berkowitz. Jacob Berkowitz The Ottawa Citizen Sunday, September 07, 2003 Mountains, beavers and the Maple leaf. And with a recent paleontological discovery Canada could soon gain international recognition for another natural wonder --- tyrannosaurid turds. A team of Canadian and American scientists recently identified an Albertan fossil as the world's largest dinosaur dropping, stealing the title from a T. rex turd found in Saskatchewan in 1995. While stool size is notable, what's really exciting scientists about this latest find is what it contains: Incredibly well-preserved dinosaur muscle... |
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| Dung Reveals Dinosaurs Ate Grass |
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· 11/17/2005 4:01:41 PM PST · · Posted by Nasty McPhilthy · · 74 replies · · 1,255+ views · · LiveScience/Yahoo · · 11/17/05 · · Bjorn Carey · |
Grass existed on Earth at least 10 million years earlier than was known, based on a new discovery in fossilized dinosaur dung. It's also the first solid evidence that some dinosaurs ate grass. While dissecting fossilized droppings, known as coprolites, researchers found tiny silica structures called phytoliths. They are short, rigid cells that provide support to a plant. This type is found exclusively in grasses. The discovery shows that five types of grass related to modern varieties were present in the Gondwana region of the Indian subcontinent during the late Cretaceous period about 71 to 65 million years ago. Museum... |
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| Dinosaurs in India may have fed on grass |
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· 11/18/2005 1:24:59 PM PST · · Posted by glow-worm005 · · 17 replies · · 591+ views · · newkerala.com · · Nov 18 · |
Washington, Nov 18 : Fossilized dinosaur droppings found in central India show sauropod dinosaurs may have fed on grass between 65 million and 71 million years ago, refuting the theory that grasses emerged long after the dinosaur era, a study said Friday. An international team of researchers, including Vandana Prasad of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in Lucknow, India, studied the dinosaur coprolites, or fossilized droppings, of 65 million years ago. The researchers sent some photographs and samples to Caroline Stromberg of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, who spotted tiny particles of silica called phytoliths that have come... |
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| Dinosaur poop shows grass is older than it seems |
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· 12/06/2005 9:03:21 AM PST · · Posted by flevit · · 34 replies · · 1,248+ views · · seattlepi.com · · Friday, November 18, 2005 · · by Lauran Neergaard · |
It's a big surprise for scientists, who had never really looked for evidence of grass in dinosaur diets before. After all, grass fossils aside, those sauropods --- the behemoths with the long necks and tails and small heads --- didn't have the special kind of teeth needed to grind up abrasive blades. "Most people would not have fathomed that they would eat grasses," noted lead researcher Caroline Stromberg of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. |
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| India | |
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| The only living master of a dying martial art |
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· 11/07/2011 6:03:09 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 31 replies · · BBC News · · 10-29-2011 · · Stephanie Hegarty · |
A former factory worker from the British Midlands may be the last living master of the centuries-old Sikh battlefield art of shastar vidya. The father of four is now engaged in a full-time search for a successor. The basis of shastar vidya, the "science of weapons" is a five-step movement: advance on the opponent, hit his flank, deflect incoming blows, take a commanding position and strike. It was developed by Sikhs in the 17th Century as the young religion came under attack from hostile Muslim and Hindu neighbours, and has been known to a dwindling band since the British forced... |
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| Not-so-Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Doctor turned serial killer in World War II Paris |
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· 11/10/2011 7:34:12 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · Reuters · · November 9, 2011 · · Elaine Lies · |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Nazi-occupied Paris was a terrible place to be in the waning days of World War II, with Jews, Resistance fighters and ordinary citizens all hoping to escape. Disappearances became so common they often weren't followed up. And one man used the lawlessness for his own terrible purposes, killing perhaps as many as 150 people. Yet it wasn't until thick black smoke seeped into buildings in a fashionable part of the city that firefighters and police were called to an elegant townhouse where they found body parts scattered around --- setting off a manhunt that led them, eventually,... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| World War II in Photos - A Retrospective in 20 Parts |
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· 11/05/2011 10:19:11 AM PDT · · Posted by bigbob · · 32 replies · · The Atlantic · · June 19, 2011 · · Alan Taylor · |
World War II is the story of the 20th Century. The war officially lasted from 1939 until 1945, but the causes of the conflict and its horrible aftermath reverberated for decades in either direction. While feats of bravery and technological breakthroughs still inspire awe today, the majority of the war was dominated by unimaginable misery and destruction. In the late 1930s, the world's population was approximately 2 billion. In less than a decade, the war between the nations of the Axis Powers and the Allies resulted in some 80 million deaths --- killing off about 4 percent of the whole... |
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| Central Asia | |
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| Kyrgyzstan: Germans Fading Away on Central Asian Steppe |
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· 11/10/2011 2:28:11 AM PST · · Posted by cunning_fish · · 7 replies · · Eurasianet · · November 8, 2011 · · Nate Schenkkan · |
Amid commemorations marking 70 years since the 1941 deportation of the Russian Germans to Central Asia, there is a palpable sense that the community is disappearing. In Bishkek, roughly 30 people gather each Sunday to pray at the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Empty seats are abundant in a room that once was routinely filled to overflowing. Although the pastor is from Germany, services for the past 10 years have been held in Russian. Congregants say perhaps one-third of the worshippers have any German heritage, and only a handful can speak the language. According to the German Language Center in Bishkek, a... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| University of Michigan rediscovers rare Chinese art collection |
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· 11/06/2011 3:32:40 PM PST · · Posted by cripplecreek · · 18 replies · · Ann Arbor.com · · Nov 6, 2011 · · Associated Press · |
Link only due to the fact that its an AP story. Basically propaganda pieces from the Chinese Cultural Revolution were recently discovered in a storeroom at University of Michigan. |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| WATERGATE: Nixon Warned Grand Jury on Pentagon Spy Ring |
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· 11/10/2011 9:20:39 PM PST · · Posted by Hunton Peck · · 23 replies · · FoxNews.com · · November 10, 2011 · · James Rosen · |
Newly unsealed grand jury testimony by ex-President Richard Nixon shows he warned prosecutors and grand jurors not to probe an episode from 1971, when he discovered that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been spying on him and national security adviser Henry Kissinger. "Don't open that can of worms," Nixon told his interrogators in June 1975, when he spent roughly eleven hours over two days' time fielding --- and sometimes deflecting --- questions put to him by lawyers for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and two grand jurors flown in from Washington. *** And he confided what his predecessor in... |
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| Cryptobiology | |
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| Canada's Loch Ness Monster Caught on Tape? |
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· 11/11/2011 12:45:24 AM PST · · Posted by Berlin_Freeper · · 52 replies · · ABC News Blogs · · 11/11/11 · · ABC News · |
A possible sighting of Canada's version of the Loch Ness monster at a lake in British Columbia has stirred up the legend of the sea creature long-rumored to reside there. A man visiting British Colombia's Lake Okanagan claims he filmed video of what could only be the elusive monster, known to locals as Ogopogo. The 30-second video shows two long ripples in the water in a seemingly deserted area of the lake. "It was not going with the waves," Richard Huls, who captured the scene on camera during a visit to a local winery, told the Vancouver Sun. "It was... |
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| end of digest #382 20111112 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #382 · v 8 · n 18 Saturday, November 12, 2011 |
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14 topics |
Welcome to issue #382 of the GGG Digest. · view this issue · |
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I sent you a FB friend request just now.
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