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Ancient ale Prehistoric yeast takes beer drinkers back millions of yearsBy Suzanne Bohan Contra Costa Times Sep 24, 2009‎ GUERNEVILLE, Calif. - Inside a stainless-steel tank at a brew pub here overlooking the redwood-rimmed Russian River, a 45-million-year-old yeast proves its mettle. And the remarkably resilient prehistoric microbe hasn't just garnered a devoted pack of Fossil Fuels Beer fans, it's also providing palpable proof of the tenacity of life on this planet. When the Australian-born owner of Stumptown Brewery, Peter Hackett, first learned of the ancient yeast, he doubted this long-extinct strain would ferment anything drinkable. It took the urging...

BANGKOK, Thailand – The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it — fertilization of eggs inside a female — took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday. Scientists from Australia and Britain studying 380 million-year-old fossils of the armored placoderm fish, or Incisoscutum richiei, said they were initially confused when they realized that the two fish were carrying embryos. They originally thought the fish laid their eggs before fertilization. "Once we found embryos in this group, we knew they had internal fertilization. But how the hell are...

ATHENS, Greece – Authorities say a hoard of 4,500-year-old copper weapons recovered off a northern beach is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece. A Culture Ministry statement says the discovery includes at least 110 ax and hammer heads, but several more should be extracted from compacted masses of corroded metal. The ministry says they were probably buried at a time of unrest or war. The hoard would have represented a fortune at the time.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, officials said Friday. Four leathery, white eggs from an indigenous tuatara were found by staff at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, during routine maintenance work Friday, conservation manager Rouen Epson said. "The nest was uncovered by accident and is the first concrete proof we have that our tuatara are breeding," Epson said. "It suggests that there may be other nests in the sanctuary we don't...

Prehistoric settlement found in Qatar 6/23/2008 2:25:18 DOHA • A prehistoric settlement in what is now Qatar may confirm alternative theories on how early humans emigrated from the African continent, a report in a Danish newspaper said. Danish archaeologists have uncovered a settlement they believe may be over 700,000 years old, making it the oldest organised human community ever found, reported Berlingske Tidende newspaper. Eight dwellings in the desert region of Qatar indicate that an early human species crossed what is now the Red Sea to leave their origins in Africa, according to the scientists. There is still uncertainty within...

Prehistoric cave uncovered in Western Galilee 22 May 2008 A stalactite cave containing prehistoric remains was exposed in the Western Galilee. Among the artifacts found are flint implements and the bones of animals that have long since become extinct from ‎the country’s landscape The stalactite cave uncovered in Western Galilee (Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority) (Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesman) While carrying out development work connected with the construction of a sewage line in a forest of the Jewish National Fund, a large stalactite cave was accidentally breached inside of which an abundance of prehistoric artifacts were discovered. Immediately...

Primitive Mouse-Like Creature May Be Ancestral Mother Of Australia's Unusual Pouched MammalsThe Monito del Monte (Dromiciops gliroides) (Credit: Image courtesy of University of New South Wales) ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2008) — They are separated by a vast ocean and by millions of years, but tiny prehistoric bones found on an Australian farm have been directly linked to a strange and secretive little animal that lives today in the southern rainforests of South America. The fossilised ankle and ear bones are those of Australia's earliest known marsupial, Djarthia, a primitive mouse-like creature that lived 55 million years ago. It is a...

Discovery of vast prehistoric works built by Giants?The Geoglyphs of Teohuanaco Posted: February 24, 2008 1:00 am EasternBy David E. Flynn© 2008 RaidersNewsNetwork The size and scope of David Flynn's Teohuanaco discovery simply surpasses comprehension. Mammoth traces of intelligence carved in stone and covering hundreds of square miles. For those who understand what they are seeing here for the first time, this could indeed be the strongest evidence ever found of prehistoric engineering by those who were known and feared throughout the ancient world as gods. ~ Thomas Horn This satellite image (above) is a portion of the Andean foothills...

ANCIENT BURIALS REVEAL FOREIGN LINKS IN PREHISTORIC SCOTLAND By Richard Moss 19/02/2008 Site plan, showing in red the features excavated in 2005. © AOC Archaeology Group Recent analysis of 4,000-year-old pots recovered during an excavation of two graves at Upper Largie, near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute, has provided exciting evidence linking prehistoric Scotland with the Netherlands. Analysis of the pots by Alison Sheridan, of National Museums Scotland, has revealed early international-style Beakers of the type found around the lower Rhine, which is the modern-day Netherlands and a strange hybrid of styles that suggest Irish and Yorkshire influences. “These finds...

Giant prehistoric frog hints at ancient land link 22:00 18 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Rowan Hooper An artist's impression of Beelzebufo shows it facing a modern-day Mantidactylus guttulatus, the largest living Malagasy frog (Image: Luci Betti-Nash) The discovery of a giant frog fossil has opened a rift among researchers over when an ancient land bridge closed. Discovery of the fossil in Madagascar supports the controversial view that South America and Madagascar were linked until 80 million years ago - far more recently than previously thought. The frog, dubbed Beelzebufo, resembles the family of horned toads that are now unique...

Church's pre-historic past unearthed Feb 14 2008 By Tony Henderson Work on a town’s church has revealed that the site may have been used for ritual and worship for thousands of years. Major refurbishment work on the Grade I-listed St Michael and All Angels church in Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, began last month and has involved digging up the floor to install a new heating system. The church, dating back to Norman times, is the oldest building in the town. A carved stone above a tiny doorway, featuring a carving of mysterious intertwined animals known as the Houghton Beasts, may...

Reindeer: It's What Was For Dinner Jennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsOnce a Staple Dec. 20, 2007 -- Reindeer meat went from being an occasional treat to everyday fare among prehistoric cavemen who lived in Southwest France and what is now the Czech Republic, two new studies suggest. In fact, so many nibbled-on reindeer bones were present in their caves that possible calendars circa 26,000 years ago might have been carved on the leftover bones. They may have also been used as counting devices or for ornamentation. The first study, authored by J. Tyler Faith, analyzed bones found in limestone cave and...

Ancient Toolkit Gives Glimpse of Prehistoric Life Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Toolkit Contents Dec. 13, 2007 -- Before the end of the last ice age, a hunter-gatherer left a bag of tools near the wall of a roundhouse residence, where archaeologists have now found the collection 14,000 years later. The tool set -- one of the most complete and well preserved of its kind -- provides an intriguing glimpse of the daily life of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer. The contents, as described to Discovery News by Phillip Edwards, a senior lecturer in the Archaeology Program at Melbourne's La Trobe University, show...

September 10, 2007 - 12:35 PMPrehistoric find located beneath the waves Archaeologists have discovered traces of Switzerland’s oldest known building, but it will never draw tourists: it lies underwater in the middle of a lake. Since it was made of wood scientists used dendrochronology – the technique of dating by tree rings – to give a precise figure of 3863 BC. The find in Lake Biel, northwest of the Swiss capital, Bern, was described as “sensational” by Albert Hafner, who is in charge of underwater archaeology in the region. Divers working for the cantonal archaeological service came upon the site...

Did prehistoric man come from Haifa?Last update - 23:34 06/09/2007 By Fadi Eyadat The audience, the stage and the set are ready. Only the guest of honor is missing - "and everyone is waiting for him," says Prof. Mina Evron, a researcher in the Archaeology Department of the University of Haifa and the codirector of excavations at Misliya Cave, southwest of Mt. Carmel. The 'guest' that she and a team of researchers are seeking in the cave area is a skeleton that could represent early humans. "We have found everything here: large quantities of the tools they used, hand-held stone...

PERTHSHIRE ROCK ART SHEDS LIGHT ON SCOTLAND'S PREHISTORIC PAST By Graham Spicer 03/08/2007 Archaeologists have discovered a large group of ancient rock art in Perthshire, which they hope will shed more light on the area’s prehistoric inhabitants. A team working on National Trust for Scotland (NTS) land as part of the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project found the previously undiscovered ‘cup-and-ring’ style markings on a hillside overlooking Loch Tay and Kenmore. The carvings could date back to Neolithic times and be up to 5,000 years old. Cup-and-ring rock art features abstract symbols of circles and cups, chipped out of the...

Ancient "Royal Temple" Discovered in Path of Ireland Highway James Owen for National Geographic NewsMay 15, 2007 The discovery of a major prehistoric site where experts believe an open-air royal temple once stood has stalled construction of a controversial four-lane highway in Ireland. A large circular enclosure estimated to be at least 2,000 years old was exposed at Lismullin in County Meath, by road-builders working on a 37-mile-long (60-kilometer-long) road northwest of Dublin. The find is located just 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) from the Hill of Tara, once the seat of power of Ireland's Celtic kings, and likely represents a...

Archaeologists find 3 prehistoric bodies in SE Mexico www.chinaview.cn 2007-04-11 11:39:34 MEXICO CITY, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Mexican archaeologists found remains of two women and a man that can be traced to more than 10,000 years ago in the Mayan area of Tulum, Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute said in a statement on Tuesday. The remains were being examined by laboratories in Britain, the United States and Mexico, all of which had said the remains were people between 10,000 and 14,500 years ago, said Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist quoted in the statement. "This makes southeastern Mexico one of the...

Cavemen Chose Caves on Five Criteria Jennifer Viegas, Discovery NewsLocation, Location, LocationCave With A View April 9, 2007 — House buyers today usually peruse properties with a checklist of desired features in mind. This aspect of human behavior has apparently not changed much over the millennia, according to a new study that found prehistoric cave dwellers in Britain did exactly the same thing when choosing their homes. The recently released three-year-long survey of approximately 230 caves in the Yorkshire Dales and 190 caves in the northern England Peak District determined that people there from 4,000 to 2,000 B.C. selected caves...

Prehistoric women: Not so simple, not so strange 18:00 28 March 2007 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Germaine Greer Prehistoric women: Not so simple, not so strange This is a review of The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the true roles of women in prehistory by J. Adovasio, Olga Soffer & Jake Page, Collins, $27/£13.72, ISBN 9780061170911 Jim Adovasio is the leading expert in the perishable artefacts of the Palaeolithic – baskets, cordage, woven fabric – all associated, if somewhat arbitrarily, with women. To correct the astigmatism that has hitherto seen prehistory as the story of early man, Adovasio – director...