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The oldest example of grave flowers has been discovered in Israel. An ancient burial pit dating to nearly 14,000 years ago contained impressions from stems and flowers of aromatic plants such as mint and sage. The new find "is the oldest example of putting flowers and fresh plants in the grave before burying the dead," said study co-author Dani Nadel, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel. snip... Past evidence suggested that humans only started using flowers in graves more recently. (A 35,000-year-old Neanderthal burial site called Shanidar Cave in Iraq contained pollen, but subsequent research revealed that...

If you know the musical “1776,” you know the plot of Joseph J. Ellis’s breezy new book. It’s a stirring and conventional story. A handful of famous men struggle to create a republic against insurmountable odds. In the long run, their greatest challenge is the problem of slavery. But the most immediate threat is the military might of Britain. Toward the end of June 1776, as the Continental Congress nears a vote on American independence, the first of 427 royal ships carrying 1,200 cannons, 32,000 soldiers and 10,000 sailors appears off Long Island. Things look dire, a point made repeatedly...

Another English Town Tries to Claim the Mayflower, and Tourism, From Plymouth HARWICH, England—A disagreement between two sleepy English seaside towns could make a splash across the Atlantic: by forcing a rewrite of American history. For 393 years, the southwest England town of Plymouth has been celebrated as the last port of call of the Mayflower before the ship carried the first Pilgrim settlers to what was to become the United States of America. But that is only part of the story. Plymouth's fame has come at the expense of this tiny town to the northeast of London. The reason:...

Sex offender charged with murdering eight-year-old Florida girl less than ONE HOUR after mom let him take her to McDonald’s after befriending family at dollar store [complete headline] Charish Perriwinkle, 8, was out with her mom and two siblings on a late night Friday shopping trip Florida sex offender, Donald Smith, 56, spoke with family and offered to take the girl for a burger Smith abducted Charish and a police search began within minutes of her disappearance Child's body was found at local church early Saturday morning Smith is now back in custody, caught by police as he was fleeing...

1st PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1789-97 FAMILY ESSAY "Washington came of very good blood - aw, quite good - I b'lieve." Attributed by his classmates to Amory Blaine in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The Washingtons are of unusual antiquity in European terms, let alone American ones. A direct male ancestry has been traced back to William de Wessington or Wessyngton (i.e., Washington, a town in Tyne and Wear, formerly County Durham, in northern England), who was living in the late 12th century. The remoter ancestry is not absolutely certain but a detailed argument has...

N Engl J Med 2013; 368:2251-2253June 13, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1302795 Shortly after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, two of us received letters from our county sheriff in North Carolina asking whether one of our patients had medical or physical conditions that would preclude issuance of a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Uncomfortable with our limited knowledge about such permits and our expected role, and fearing that our participation could affect our relationships with patients, we began exploring the ethical, legal, and policy considerations regarding physician involvement in this process. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the Second Amendment...

VideoHubei, China - Chinese scientists have discovered a fossil that they claim is the earliest known ancestor of humans. The find has challenged the long-held belief that apes began their evolution in Africa. The Archicebus Achilles was discovered in 2002 on a lake bed in China's Hubei province, but took more than 10 years of analysis for scientists to declare it as the world's oldest known primate fossil. The scientists contend that the 55-million-year-old fossil, which looks a bit like a mouse with monkey-like feet, is the world's oldest known ape-like creature. "Now after we discovered this fossil, we can...

The US Supreme Court announced this week that it will take up the question of whether it’s OK for Greece, New York, to open meetings of the town board by letting citizens voluntarily offer a prayer. It’s a potential landmark case in the contest over religion in the public square. But it’s not the first time this question has arisen. The moment invites a telling of the story of the Reverend Jacob Duché. It was he who, in 1774, gave the most famous prayer ever delivered at a governmental meeting in America. His tale takes a surprise turn that could...

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. snip... Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to...

During the summer of 2010, the dozen or so accountants and tax agents of Group 7822 of the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati got a directive from their manager. A growing number of organizations identifying themselves as part of the Tea Party had begun applying for tax exemptions, the manager said, advising the workers to be on the lookout for them and other groups planning to get involved in elections. “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as rogue agents,” said Bonnie Esrig, a former senior manager in the I.R.S. office in Cincinnati. The specialists, hunched over laptops on...

Nathaniel Philbrick's new book gets at the on-the-ground reality of the American Revolution, which the author writes began as 'a profoundly conservative movement.' John Trumbull's "Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill." (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Viking / May 12, 2013) It turns out the modern incarnation of the tea party may have more in common with the original Boston hell-raisers than people think. Americans have long romanticized the events leading to the Battle of Bunker Hill and the start of the American Revolution, most without really understanding what happened or what was at stake....

After I (Pharmboy) returned from King's Mountain (the wife and I stopped by there on the way back from attending my son's graduation from US Army Ranger School at Ft Benning), Bert told me that he and his wife would be following the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail (OVNHT) from Eastern TN to King's Mountain, SC. I told Bert that I would love to see his account of the trip, and that I would also like to post it to FR: well, he did a terrific job on his blog, here are some excerpts. Go to the blog for more!...

SAVANNAH, Ga. May 5, 2013 (AP) Less than two months after British forces captured Savannah in December 1778, patriot militiamen scored a rare Revolutionary War victory in Georgia after a short but violent gunbattle forced British loyalists to abandon a small fort built on a frontiersman's cattle farm. More than 234 years later, archaeologists say they've pinpointed the location of Carr's Fort in northeastern Georgia after a search with metal detectors covering more than 4 square miles turned up musket balls and rifle parts as well as horse shoes and old frying pans. The February 1779 shootout at Carr's Fort...

Aaron “Tango” Tang Cops are seeking these two men (above) who were spotted near the site of the Boston blasts. Investigators probing the deadly Boston Marathon bombings are circulating photos of two men spotted chatting near the packed finish line, The Post has learned. In the photos being distributed by law-enforcement officials among themselves, one of the men is carrying a blue duffel bag. The other is wearing a black backpack in the first photo, taken at 10:53 a.m., but it is not visible in the second, taken at 12:30 p.m. “The attached photos are being circulated in an...

Associated Press/Mark Scolforo - In this photo made on Tuesday, March 26, 2013, Carol Tanzola, president of Friends of Camp Security, points out the property on a 47-acre parcel, located about four miles east of York, Pa. It includes the spot where a 1979 archaeological study found numerous artifacts that confirmed local lore that the area had once served as Camp Security, a prison for the English, Scottish and Canadian soldiers who were captured after defeats in the battles of Saratoga and Yorktown. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo) (AP) — The mud of a south-central Pennsylvania cornfield may soon produce answers about...

The discovery of the structure of DNA and the subsequent developments in genetics and genomics have had a great impact on all of the biological sciences, including human evolution. Our ideas about human evolution 60 years ago came primarily from the fossil and archaeological records. These fields revealed that the last two million years were a dynamic period of our evolutionary history. The human lineage two million years ago was a population with ape-sized brains limited to sub-Saharan Africa. The human lineage expanded into Eurasia around 1.85 million years ago, and our brain size increased throughout the Pleistocene. Anatomically modern...

War veterans in New Rochelle are protesting the city's order for the so-called Gadsden flag to be taken down from its post outside the armory. Jonathan Vigliotti reports War veterans in New Rochelle are protesting the city's order for the so-called Gadsden flag to be taken down from its post outside the armory. A symbol of pride for the veterans, the flag features a rattlesnake and the words, "Don't tread on me." "That flag is the first flag of the Continetal Navy," said Peter Parente, president of the United Veterans Memorial. He helped hoist the flag up on March...

Revolutionary War history Last Ohio surviving soldier buried in Noble Co. HIRAMSBURG-Nestled off the beaten path in Noble County in a small family cemetery are two headstones marking the final resting place of Private John Gray, the last surviving Revolutionary War soldier in Ohio, and the second to last in the nation. Though Gray fought in many battles during the war, he otherwise did little that would have gained him renown. He was born the oldest of eight into a poor laboring family near Mount Vernon, Va., and worked most of his life as a laborer. He was not a...

<p>Put down your pitchforks. The wealthiest 10% pay a big majority of federal income taxes. Pick up your pitchforks. The story is more complicated than that.</p> <p>Many people think that the rich are able to weasel their way out of taxes, but they actually pay an overwhelming majority of the taxes in the United States. What's more, their share of the tax burden is increasing.</p>

The study found that a higher number of firearm laws in a state is associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually. However the study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships because of limitations inherent in the study design. States with more intensive regulation of gun ownership, sales, and storage tended to have lower rates of gun-related fatalities, researchers said. With state-level gun laws from 2007 to 2010 rated on a "legislative strength" scale, states in the top quartile had gun-related fatality rates more than 40% lower than states in the...