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When the Vikings sailed west to England more than a millennium ago, they brought their animal companions with them and even cremated their bodies alongside human ones in a blazing pyre before burying them together, a new study finds.These animal and human remains were found in a unique cremation cemetery in central England that has long been assumed to hold the remains of Vikings — in particular, the warriors who sailed west to raid the countryside in the ninth century A.D. However, the new analysis revealed that several of the burial mounds didn’t contain just the remains of humans but...

In order to analyze the tooth enamel, the researchers embedded the teeth in resin and then cut them into wafer-thin slices some 150 micrometers thick. These extremely precious tooth samples are part of the Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald Collection at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, a permanent loan from the Werner Reimers Foundation.In turn, they used a special laser to ablate material from the thin slices, which was chemically analyzed with a mass spectrometer for, among other elements, strontium and calcium, which are found in both bones and teeth (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass...

American Journal of Physical AnthropologyHINTS OF DIASPORA Archaeologists found the remains of at least 180 people – European, Indian and African – near the ruins of a colonial church in Campeche, Mexico. While remodeling the central plaza in Campeche, a Mexican port city that dates back to colonial times, a construction crew stumbled on the ruins of an old church and its burial grounds. Researchers who were called in discovered the skeletal remains of at least 180 people, and four of those studied so far bear telling chemical traces that are in effect birth certificates. The particular mix of...

The body of a woman found in Missouri in 1981 has been identified via DNA match exactly 40 years later, sheriff officials said. Karen Kay Knippers, whose body was discovered at a low river crossing near Dixon on May 25, 1981, was later buried as a “Jane Doe” at Waynesville Cemetery after authorities were unable to identify the apparent homicide victim, the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday. The unidentified remains were exhumed in 2015 in hopes of getting DNA evidence after a detective became interested in the case and requested approval to take another look, sheriff officials said.

Strontium Ratio Variation in Marine Carbonates BY VERNON R. CUPPS, PH.D. * | MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 In 1948, geologist F. E. Wickman predicted that the decay of 87Rb (a rubidium isotope) in the earth’s crust and mantle would be reflected in a related increase in the 87Sr/86Sr (two strontium isotopes) in seawater as well as in strontium-bearing marine precipitates.1 This would seem a perfectly reasonable prediction within the millions-of-years paradigm that the academic geological community of the time preferred. This allowed plenty of time for the isotropic distribution of 87Sr and 86Sr in seawater and the associated marine sediments.2,3

Physicists have known since 1911 that electricity can flow without resistance in materials called superconductors. And in 1957, they figured out why: Under specific conditions, including typically very cold temperatures, electrons join together in pairs—something that's normally forbidden due to their mutual repulsion—and as pairs, they can flow freely. Electron pairs are named for Leon Cooper, the physicist who first described them. In addition to explaining classical superconductivity, physicists believe Cooper pairs bring about high-temperature superconductivity, an unconventional variant discovered in the 1980s. It was dubbed "high-temperature" because it occurs at temperatures that, although still very cold, are considerably higher...

In the 1990s, the remains of six Neanderthals -- two adults, two adolescents and two children -- were found in a small cave at Baume Moula-Guercy in the Rhône valley in southern France. The bones bear many of the hallmarks of cannibalism: cut marks made by stone tools, complete dismemberment of the individuals, and finger bones that look as if they've been gnawed by Neanderthal teeth, rather than by other carnivores. Remains from other sites in Croatia, Spain and Belgium also show evidence of cannibalism. But in each case, there has been a lack of evidence to answer the question...

In France, the Bell Beaker period lasted from around 2500 to 1800 BCE... But ceramics from as far back as the middle Neolithic -- around 5500 BCE -- and as recently as the Iron Age -- around 1000 BCE -- have also been found at the site... James and colleagues date a further eight individuals, using teeth from seven adults and one child. [Six of the teeth were from the Bell Beaker period, but one was much older -- dating to between 3650 and 3522 BCE -- and one much younger -- from 1277 to 1121 BCE... It's not known...

In two previous studies, researchers analyzed isotopes (an element that has a different number of neutrons than normal in its nucleus) in the women's remains, so they could piece together where the women had lived. But now, new research finds that these analyses were likely contaminated by modern agricultural lime... However, the researchers of the original studies are standing by their work... Both Bronze Age women are well known by archaeologists; the remains of Egtved Girl (the possible priestess) and Skrydstrup Woman were found in Denmark in 1921 and 1935, respectively. More recently, the Freis and their colleagues found that...

Roman artifacts including coins, glass beads and brooches turn up in many Irish counties, especially in the east. Cahill Wilson investigated human remains... using strontium and isotope analysis and carbon dating. Remarkably, this allowed her say where they most likely spent their childhood. One burial site on a low ridge overlooking the sea in Bettystown, Co Meath, was dated to the 5th/6th century AD using radiocarbon dating. Most of the people were newcomers to the area, Cahill Wilson concluded. The clue was in their teeth. Enamel, one of the toughest substances in our body, completely mineralises around the age of...

When tooth enamel forms, it incorporates elements from the local environment -- the food one eats, the water one drinks, the dust one breathes. When the researchers looked at remains from the ancient city of Harappa, located in what is known today as the Punjab Province of Pakistan, individuals' early molars told a very different story than their later ones, meaning they hadn't been born in the city where they were found... The text of the Indus Valley Civilization remains undeciphered, and known and excavated burial sites are rare. A new study, published in today's PLOS ONE, illuminates the lives...

The Environmental Protection Agency took the first step toward regulating a chemical in the country’s drinking water on Monday. The EPA issued a preliminary determination to regulate the chemical called strontium, which is a naturally occurring element. At elevated levels strontium can impact bone strength in people who don’t consume enough calcium, the EPA said. Strontium has been found in roughly 99 percent of the public water systems in the U.S..

If each energy field pervading space is thought of as the surface of a pond, and waves and particles are the turbulence on that surface, then the new evidence strengthens the argument that a vibrant, hidden world lies beneath. For decades, the surface-level description of the subatomic world has been sufficient to make accurate calculations about most physical phenomena. But recently, a strange class of matter that defies description by known quantum mechanical methods has drawn physicists into the depths below... Of all the strange forms of matter, cuprates -- copper-containing metals that exhibit a property called high-temperature superconductivity...

A piece of nettle cloth retrieved from Denmark's richest known Bronze Age burial mound Lusehøj may actually derive from Austria, new findings suggest. The cloth thus tells a surprising story about long-distance Bronze Age trade connections around 800 BC. 2,800 years ago, one of Denmark's richest and most powerful men died. His body was burned. And the bereaved wrapped his bones in a cloth made from stinging nettle and put them in a stately bronze container, which also functioned as urn... Karin Margarita Frei's work and the grave's archaeological remains suggest that the cloth may have been produced as far...

Archaeologists long believed the volcano changed Sinagua culture. Yet because the date of the eruption remained elusive, they could not tell how fast those changes occurred. Ort, however, had a geological clock that let him make a better estimate. The Earth's magnetic north pole constantly drifts. Researchers have records of drift going back thousands of years made by measuring how certain minerals are magnetized to align with the magnetic poles as they settle in lake sediments. What Ort needed was a way to link these paleomagnetic measurements to the age of artifacts found in villages abandoned after the eruption. Ort...

Strontium-tainted water leak suspected The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says about 45 tons of strontium-tainted water may have leaked out of a water treatment device, with a portion of it spilling out of the facility. Tokyo Electric Power Company says the water may contain high levels of radioactive strontium. Strontium causes internal radiation exposure. The company is trying to determine whether the water reached the sea. The utility said at about 11:30 am on Sunday a water leak was spotted in a device to remove salt from contaminated water from which radioactive material had already been...

Residents' feelings mixed over discovery of radioactive strontium in Yokohama YOKOHAMA -- Residents have expressed mixed feelings over the discovery of radioactive strontium in Yokohama's Kita Ward, some 250 kilometers away from the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Relatively high levels of strontium were found in two spots in the ward where it was easy for radioactive materials to accumulate when the Yokohama Municipal Government took measurements. While some residents say they can no longer let their children play outside, others maintain that the level of radioactive materials is not enough to cause concern. In the Okurayama district...

Radioactive strontium found in Yokohama gutter October 15, 2011 By YOSHIKAZU SATO / Staff Writer YOKOHAMA -- Radioactive strontium has been found in a street gutter in Yokohama, appearing to confirm that the radioactive isotope has spread far beyond districts close to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Sediment in the gutter in the Okurayama district of Kohoku Ward contained 129 becquerels of radioactive strontium-89 and strontium-90 combined per kilogram, city officials announced on Oct. 14. The results follow an earlier report that deposits of strontium had been found on a nearby apartment building's rooftop. "We believe (the deposits)...

Trace Levels of Strontium Detected near Tokyo Yokohama, Oct. 14 (Jiji Press)--Trace levels of strontium have been detected at three locations in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, the city government said Friday. The detected strontium-89 and strontium-90 are thought to have been leaked from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station, about 250 kilometers away. Previously, strontium was found in soil in areas 80 kilometers from the plant. High levels of cesium have already been detected at the three locations in Yokohama. At two of the locations, strontium was measured at 59 and 129 becquereles per kilogram of sediment. The...

Details in the mail magazine by the independent journalist Yasumi Iwakami (paid subscription). I'm asking if I could translate and post it here. The number is more than 150 times more than the background (1.2 becquerels/kg). As far as the Ministry of Education is concerned, the southern most detection of strontium-90 was in Shirakawa City, 79 kilometers from the plant. The Ministry doesn't have a plan to test for strontium or plutonium outside the 80 kilometer radius.