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On the origin of the Etruscan civilisation 00:01 14 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Michael Day Etruscan cippus (grave marker) in the shape of a warrior head. Found in Orvieto, Italy One of anthropology's most enduring mysteries - the origins of the ancient Etruscan civilisation - may finally have been solved, with a study of cattle. This culturally distinct and technologically advanced civilisation inhabited central Italy from about the 8th century BC, until it was assimilated into Roman culture around the end of the 4th century BC. The origins of the Etruscans, with their own non-Indo-European language, have been debated...

Bush: We're facing fight for civilisation By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 12/09/2006)US President Bush and first lady Laura Bush place a wreath to mark the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Pentagon President George W Bush last night linked the nuclear showdown with Iran to the fight against terrorism as he called on Americans to unite to spare their children a terrible future. In a speech from the Oval Office marking the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, he told Americans they faced not a "clash of civilisations" but "a struggle for civilisation". "If we do not...

21 February 2006 Europe at a crossroads Address to the American University of Rome by Marcello Pera 1. A geopolitical continental drift The subject I intend to address today is the crisis of the West, and particularly of Europe. In my view this crisis is twofold, both geopolitical and spiritual, with the latter as the main cause of the former. The fact that the Old Continent is in a state of deep crisis has been upheld by many distinguished scholars, observers and a few – unfortunately just a few – political leaders in Europe. This was argued in most alarming...

Thousands of years after the advent of agriculture, ancient farmers in India routinely foraged for wild plants -- even weeds -- when times got tough, a UCLA archaeologist has found. In fact, they may have eaten a flower now used today in Hawaii for leis, a weed considered invasive in the American West and a relative of the acacia plant that now grows beside Southern California freeways, said Monica L. Smith, the article's author and an assistant professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology and who also heads the South Asian archaeology laboratory at UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology.

Civilisation has left its mark on our genes 22:00 19 December 2005 From New Scientist Print Edition Bob Holmes Darwin’s fingerprints can be found all over the human genome. A detailed look at human DNA has shown that a significant percentage of our genes have been shaped by natural selection in the past 50,000 years, probably in response to aspects of modern human culture such as the emergence of agriculture and the shift towards living in densely populated settlements. One way to look for genes that have recently been changed by natural selection is to study mutations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms...

LONDON (AFP) - Europe's oldest civilisation has reportedly been discovered by archaelogists across the continent. More than 150 large temples, constructed between 4800 BC and 4600 BC, have been unearthed in fields and cities in Germany, Austria and Slovakia, predating the pyramids in Egypt by some 2,000 years, The Independent newspaper revealed. The network of temples, made of earth and wood, were constructed by a religious people whose economy appears to have been based on livestock farming, The Independent reported. (snip) The most complex centre discovered so far, beneath the city of Dresden in Saxony, eastern Germany, comprises a temple...

A civilisation parallel to Harappa? Experts wonder Abhishek Kapoor Vadodara, December 11: Was Gujarat the cradle of an independent civilisation, contemporary of the classical Harappan civilisation around the Indus Valley? This view is gaining academic credence in the community of archaeologists specialising on the subject across the country. The Sorath (present Saurashtra) region civilisation, dating back to 3700 BC at some places, was distinct from the classical Harappan as it developed in the Indus Valley, say researchers in the field. ‘‘It maintained its separate identity in many ways even as a cultural, economic and technological exchange took place between the...

Ancient Iranian site shows Mesopotamia-like civilisation [World News]: Tehran, Nov 16 : Shellfish is not seen on most Iranians dining tables but it was part of the daily diet of the inhabitants of ancient Jiroft in southern Iran 5,000 years ago that showed the existence of an ancient civilisation. Jiroft, located in Kerman province, is one of the richest historical areas in the world, with ruins and artefacts dating back to the third millennium BC and with over 100 historical sites located along the approximately 400 km of the Halil Rood riverbank, according to Mehr news agency. Many Iranian and...

7,000-year-old civilisation site needs attention By Muhammad Ejaz Khan QUETTA: Mehrgarh necropolis is one of the archaeological sites discovered in Balochistan during the last five decades, where a city had been buried for centuries under tons of earth. It tells us about the oldest human settlements in the South Asian region.The site, 140 kms southeast of the provincial capital, is located on the bank of the Bolan river near a settlement of Raisani tribe in the Bolan district. Archaeologists say it is one of the three oldest villages in the world, the other two being in Palestine and Iraq. French...

'Lost river' could rewrite history books February 19 2002 at 08:33AM Madras India, - The discovery of an ancient city on the seabed off India's western coast has scientists salivating at the prospect of a fundamental rewrite in the chronology of ancient human society. Preliminary tests have suggested the site in the Gulf of Cambay off Gujarat state could date as far back as 7 500 BC, several thousand years older than what were previously known to be the first significant urban settlements. The discovery was made purely by chance last year as oceanographers from the National Institute of ...

Mon, Sep 16 2002 12:39 AM AEST Ancient warrior grave unearthed in Lebanese port Archaeologists have unearthed several Bronze Age graves, including that of an ancient warrior interred with his axe, in the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon. Excavation team director Claude Doumet Serhal said the excavations are "among the most important archaeological projects in Lebanon as they are taking place in the centre of the city of modern Sidon." He also said the warrior's grave dated back to the Middle Bronze Age, around the second millennium BC, and included an unusually well preserved bronze duck-bill axe with a...

Ancient vessel retraces voyages of the past By Stefanos Evripidou IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it's the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation. The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six- tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep. The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the...

Drought that destroyed a civilisation MARTIN WILLIAMS November 11 2003 IT is one of history's biggest mysteries and has confounded experts for hundreds of years. But a team of scientists believe they have discovered why the world's first great civilisation, established in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago, crumbled and plunged into a dark age that lasted for more than 1000 years. The researchers, including one academic from St Andrews University, have produced new evidence linking the demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom with decades of drought after a study of layers of sediment at the source of the Blue Nile...

The trashing of civilisation April 15 2003 This is a tragedy with echoes of past catastrophes: the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258, and the fifth-century destruction of the library of Alexandria. For the loss is not just Iraq's but ours, too. Iraq has not been called the cradle of civilisation for nothing. Five thousand years ago it was the birthplace of writing, cities, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. The House of Wisdom in ninth-century Baghdad kept classical scholarship alive and promoted a vigorous intellectual reaction to it while Europe was stumbling through the dark ages. In 1976 -...

Oriana Fallaci, the controversial writer who has caused a furore with her views on Islam, says we have realised too late that our values are in danger To avoid the dilemma of whether this war should take place or not, to overcome the reservations, the reluctance and the doubts that still lacerate me, I often say to myself: “How good if the Iraqis would get free of Saddam Hussein by themselves. How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini.” But it does not help. Or...

How Does Islam view the Western civilization? The reason for this question is that, as we know, the Westerners always brag about their civilization and scientific advancement, with which they view other people with scorn. But to me, the ruins and woes this civilization brought them outweigh its advantage. What do you think? As regards your question, we’d like say that the materialistic civilization can be replaced by morally and spiritually based systems only when Muslims become aware that Allah has shown us the principles and strategy designed to liberate man from the clutches of the Satan. Truth and justice...

Pat Buchanan Predicts the Death of "Gringos" by Ernesto Cienfuegos La Voz de Aztlan Los Angeles, Alta California - 12/2/2002 - (ACN) It looks like Pzifer's Sildenafil Citrate (Viagra) tablets are not working for white men if one is to believe Pat Buchanan's new book titled "The Death of the West" . Mr. Buchanan is predicting the demise of white America, white Europe and even white Israel because of the greater virility and fertility of people of color. He says that by 2050 the USA will be a Third World nation largely because of Mexican immigration and birthrates. Somebody...