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« Reply #105 on Jun 7, 2012, 3:15am » | |
6 June 2012 Last updated at 09:55 GMT
'Vampire' skeletons found in Bulgaria near Black Sea
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img844/6466/60709905bulgaria.jpg "[image]")
An archeologist is cleaning one of the skeletons unearthed during excavations in the Black Sea town of Sozopol, Bulgaria. People believed the rod would pin the dead into their graves and stop them from becoming vampires
Archaeologists in Bulgaria have found two medieval skeletons pierced through the chest with iron rods to supposedly stop them from turning into vampires.
The discovery illustrates a pagan practice common in some villages up until a century ago, say historians.
People deemed bad had their hearts stabbed after death, for fear they would return to feast on humans' blood.
Similar archaeological sites have also been unearthed in other Balkan countries.
Bulgaria is home to around 100 known "vampire skeleton" burials.
Searchers stumbled across the latest two specimens, dating back to the Middle Ages, in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.
'Terrorise the living'
"These skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th Century," explained Bozhidar Dimitrov who heads the National History Museum in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
People believed the rod would pin the dead into their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorising the living, the historian added.
Archaeologist Petar Balabanov, who in 2004 discovered six nailed-down skeletons at a site near the eastern Bulgarian town of Debelt, said the pagan rite had also been practised in neighbouring Serbia and other Balkan countries.
Vampire legends form an important part of the region's folklore.
The myths directly inspired Bram Stoker's legendary gothic horror novel, Dracula, which was first published in 1897 and has since been turned into numerous filmic versions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #106 on Jun 9, 2012, 12:27pm » | |
'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal
Landmark polar research about the Adelie penguin's sex life by Captain Scott's expedition, deemed too shocking for the public 100 years ago, is unearthed at the Natural History Museum
Robin McKie, science editor
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 9 June 2012 11.31 BST
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img580/6352/drgeorgemurraylevicks00.jpg "[image]")
Dr George Murray Levick's observations of Adelie penguins were recorded in his notebook. Photograph: R Kossow/NHM
It was the sight of a young male Adélie penguin attempting to have sex with a dead female that particularly unnerved George Murray Levick, a scientist with the 1910-13 Scott Antarctic Expedition. No such observation had ever been recorded before, as far as he knew, and Levick, a typical Edwardian Englishman, was horrified. Blizzards and freezing cold were one thing. Penguin perversion was another.
Worse was to come, however. Levick spent the Antarctic summer of 1911-12 observing the colony of Adélies at Cape Adare, making him the only scientist to this day to have studied an entire breeding cycle there. During that time, he witnessed males having sex with other males and also with dead females, including several that had died the previous year. He also saw them sexually coerce females and chicks and occasionally kill them.
Levick blamed this "astonishing depravity" on "hooligan males" and wrote down his observations in Greek so that only an educated gentleman would understand the horrors he had witnessed. Back in Britain he produced a paper (in English), titled Natural History of the Adélie Penguin. However, the section about the animal's sexual proclivities was deemed to be so shocking it was removed to preserve decency. Levick then used this material as the basis for a separate short paper, Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin, which was privately circulated among a handful of experts.
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img856/8185/twoadeliepenguinswith00.jpg "[image]")
Two Adelie penguins with a chick. Steve Bloom/Alamy
In fact, Levick's observations turned out to be well ahead of their time. Scientists had to wait another 50 years before the remarkable sexual antics of the Adélie were revealed. By this time his pamphlet and its detailed records of Adélie shenanigans had been lost to science .
But now a copy of Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin has been unearthed, thanks to sleuthing by Douglas Russell, curator of birds at the Natural History Museum, who discovered a copy among records of the work of Scott's expeditions and has had it published in the journal Polar Record, with an accompanying analysis of Levick's work.
"The pamphlet, declined for publication with the official Scott expedition reports, commented on the frequency of sexual activity, auto-erotic behaviour, and seemingly aberrant behaviour of young unpaired males and females, including necrophilia, sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks and homosexual behaviour," states the analysis written by Russell and colleagues William Sladen and David Ainley. "His observations were, however, accurate, valid and, with the benefit of hindsight, deserving of publication."
Levick's lost masterpiece certainly has its eye-watering moments with its descriptions of male Adélies who gather in "little hooligan bands of half a dozen or more and hang about the outskirts of the knolls, whose inhabitants they annoy by their constant acts of depravity". Injured females are mounted by members of these "gangs", others have their chicks "misused before the very eyes of its parents". Some chicks are crushed and injured, others are killed.
It is startling stuff, though Russell told the Observer that recent studies have helped understand the behaviour of these "hooligan" penguins. "Adélies gather at their colonies in October to start to breed. They have only a few weeks to do that and young adults simply have no experience of how to behave. Many respond to inappropriate cues. Hence the seeming depravity of their behaviour. For example, a dead penguin, lying with its eyes half-open, is very similar in appearance to a compliant female. The result is the so-called necrophilia that Levick witnessed and which so disgusted him."
In addition, the penguin is the most humanlike of all birds in its appearance and its behaviour is most often interpreted in anthropomorphic terms, added Russell. For this reason, Adélie behaviour, when it was observed for the first time in detail, seemed especially shocking. "Levick was also a gentleman, travelling with a group of men in very difficult circumstances, witnessing behaviour he neither expected nor understood," said Russell. "It is not surprising that he was shocked by his findings."
The discovery ofLevick's paper is important because its helps shed new knowledge on a species that has been called the bellwether of climate change. "The Adélie needs pack ice from which to dive to get fish. When that ice disappears, numbers may crash – and we will have a clear warning that things are getting bad," said Russell.
Levick's experiences with the Adélie penguins were not the only root of his suffering in the Antarctic. In February 1912, he and five other members of Scott's team were waiting to be picked up by the expedition ship, Terra Nova, but found that pack ice had blocked its route. The men had to spend an entire Antarctic winter huddled in an ice cave with no provisions and only an occasional seal or penguin to eat. "They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber lamps," recalled one expedition member. "Their clothes and gear were soaked with blubber, and the soot blackened them, their sleeping bags, cookers, walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed their eyes."
Remarkably, the men all survived and Levick returned to England in 1913 – in time to sign up for the first world war. He served in the Grand Fleet and at Gallipoli, and after the war founded the British Schools Exploring Society in 1932, of which he was president until his death in June 1956. An obituary described him as "a truly great English gentleman".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun....scott-antarctic
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #107 on Jun 17, 2012, 11:27am » | |
Ancient Story of Dartmoor Tors Has an Ice-Cold Twist
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img822/1229/120613091144large.jpg "[image]")
Haytors at Dartmoor. (Credit: © David Clewer / Fotolia)
ScienceDaily (June 13, 2012) — Ice extended further across the UK than previously thought and played a part in sculpting the rocky landscape of Dartmoor in South West England during the last Ice Age, according to new research which challenges previously held theories.
A study of the National Park area of Dartmoor, UK, shows for the first time that an ice cap and valley glaciers were present in its centre and that the naturally castellated stone outcrops, known as tors, were survivors.
The new research by the Universities of Durham and Exeter, and Stockton Riverside College, is published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.
Researchers, who carried out detailed observations on the ground and using aerial photography, say the evidence includes glacial features such as elongated rounded mounds or drumlins and hummocky landforms or moraines. Similar features may also exist in other upland areas of southwest England, indicating that small upland glaciers were regularly hosted in the region during periods of glaciation.
Dartmoor represents one of the largest areas of exposed granite in Britain, some of which was used to construct parts of the British Museum, National Gallery and Covent Garden in London, and London Bridge in Arizona. It is also the location for the world-famous annual Ten Tors hike.
Tors are produced by deep weathering and the removal of weathered rock. A number of theories exist to explain their formation including the effects of repeated freezing and thawing.
The researchers believe the glacier ice -- previously believed not to have developed on Dartmoor -- helped to shape its distinctive landscape. On the highest summits in the middle of Dartmoor, the ice cap, which was an estimated 80km2 in area and up to 100m thick, either destroyed and carried away tors or prevented their formation over thousands of years.
However, distinctive outer tors probably survived because they were untouched by the ice or because the ice layer on them was not substantial enough to destroy and move them.
Professor David Evans, Department of Geography, Durham University said: "The Dartmoor tors tell a story of ancient landscape development but that story has a surprising ice-cold twist. The story is more complicated than we have traditionally believed.
"A landscape that has been regarded as a classic example of cold, non-glacial processes was in fact covered by a glacial ice cap. Dartmoor was the location of the southernmost independent ice cap in the British Isles, the evidence for which is so subtle that researchers had missed it for almost 100 years."
University of Exeter scientist Dr Stephan Harrison said: "Dartmoor was high enough and big enough to develop its own ice cap.
"The evidence of an ice cap over Dartmoor is compelling when you look closely at the landscape and our research techniques may help us to see if other southern upland areas of the UK were also glaciated and shaped by ice."
Dartmoor is one of 15 National Parks in Britain and the Ten Tors event has become so popular that there is now a restriction on entries of 2,400 individuals a year.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Durham University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
David J.A. Evans, Stephan Harrison, Andreas Vieli, Ed Anderson. The glaciation of Dartmoor: the southernmost independent Pleistocene ice cap in the British Isles. Quaternary Science Reviews, 2012; 45: 31 DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.04.019
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120613091144.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #108 on Jun 22, 2012, 11:59am » | |
21 June 2012 Last updated at 16:17 GMT
DNA clues to Queen of Sheba tale
By Helen Briggs BBC News
Clues to the origins of the Queen of Sheba legend are written in the DNA of some Africans, according to scientists.
Genetic research suggests Ethiopians mixed with Egyptian, Israeli or Syrian populations about 3,000 years ago.
This is the time the queen, mentioned in great religious works, is said to have ruled the kingdom of Sheba.
The research, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, also sheds light on human migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago.
According to fossil evidence, human history goes back longer in Ethiopia than anywhere else in the world. But little has been known until now about the human genetics of Ethiopians.
Professor Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, a researcher on the study, told BBC News: "Genetics can tell us about historical events.
"By analysing the genetics of Ethiopia and several other regions we can see that there was gene flow into Ethiopia, probably from the Levant, around 3,000 years ago, and this fits perfectly with the story of the Queen of Sheba."
Lead researcher Luca Pagani of the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute added: "The genetic evidence is in support of the legend of the Queen of Sheba."
More than 200 individuals from 10 Ethiopian and two neighbouring African populations were analysed in the largest genetic investigation of its kind on Ethiopian populations.
About a million genetic letters in each genome were studied. Previous Ethiopian genetic studies have focussed on smaller sections of the human genome and mitochondrial DNA, which passes along the maternal line.
Dr Sarah Tishcoff of the Department of Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, said Ethiopia would be an important region to study in the future.
Commenting on the study, she said: "Ethiopia is a very diverse region culturally and linguistically but, until now, we've known little about genetic diversity in the region.
"This paper sheds light on the very interesting recent and ancient population history of a region that played an important role in both recent and ancient human migration events.
"In particular, the inference of timing and location of admixture with populations from the Levant is very interesting and is a unique example of how genetic data can be integrated with historical data."
The scientists acknowledge that there are uncertainties about dating, with a probable margin of error of a few hundred years either side of 3,000 years.
They plan to look at all three billion genetic letters of DNA in the genome of individual Ethiopians to learn more about human genetic diversity and evolution.
The Queen of Sheba
Queen mentioned in the Bible, the Koran and the Ethiopian Kabra Nagast
Sheba was a rich kingdom that prospered through trade with Jerusalem and the Roman Empire, and spanned modern day Ethiopia and Yemen
Queen said to have visited Jerusalem with gold to give to King Solomon
Some texts record that she had a son with King Solomon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18526428
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #109 on Jun 22, 2012, 12:31pm » | |
20 June 2012 Last updated at 01:20 GMT
Turtles fossilised in sex embrace
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img18/6291/61009517turtle1.jpg "[image]")
Fossilised turtles (Naturmuseum Senckenberg) The turtles were found in male-female pairs
Turtles killed as they were having sex and then fossilised in position have been described by scientists.
The remains of the 47-million-year old animals were unearthed in the famous Messel Pit near Darmstadt, Germany.
They were found as male-female pairs. In two cases, the males even had their tails tucked under their partners' as would be expected from the coital position.
Details are carried in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Researchers think the turtles had initiated sex in the surface waters of the lake that once existed on the site, and were then overcome as they sank through deeper layers made toxic by the release of volcanic gases.
The animals, still in embrace, were then buried in the lakebed sediments and locked away in geological time.
"We see this in some volcanic lakes in East African today," explained Dr Walter Joyce of the University of Tübingen.
"Every few hundred years, these lakes can have a sudden outburst of carbon dioxide, like the opening of a champagne bottle, and it will poison everything around them."
The turtles described in Biology Letters are of the extinct species Allaeochelys crassesculpta.
They are about 20cm in length; the females are slightly bigger than the males.
Their nearest living relatives are probably the pig-nosed turtle (Carettochelys insculpta), a much bigger species that swims in waters around Australia and Papua New Guinea.
A. crassesculpta is just one of thousands of exquisitely preserved fossil creatures pulled from Messel Pit, which has Unesco World Heritage status because of its palaeontological significance.
Nine pairs of turtles have been unearthed at the site over the past 30 years.
In most of the couples, the individuals were discovered in contact with each other. For the pairs that were not, the individuals were no more than 30cm apart.
"People had long speculated they might have died while mating, but that's quite different from actually showing it," said Dr Joyce.
"We've demonstrated quite clearly that each pair is a male and a female, and not, for example, just two males that might have died in combat.
"This fact combined with the observation that their back ends are always orientated toward one another, and the two pairs with tails in the position of mating - that's a smoking gun in our view."
It is said to be the only example in the fossil record of vertebrates being preserved in the act of having sex.
For invertebrates, there are numerous examples in the scientific literature of copulating insects being caught in amber, or fossilised tree resin.
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img406/3444/61015960.jpg "[image]")
Pig-nosed turtle The closest living relative is probably the distinctive pig-nosed turtle
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18495102
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #110 on Jun 25, 2012, 1:20pm » | |
Stonehenge Was Monument Marking Unification of Britain
ScienceDaily (June 22, 2012) — After 10 years of archaeological investigations, researchers have concluded that Stonehenge was built as a monument to unify the peoples of Britain, after a long period of conflict and regional difference between eastern and western Britain.
Its stones are thought to have symbolized the ancestors of different groups of earliest farming communities in Britain, with some stones coming from southern England and others from west Wales.
The teams, from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth and University College London, all working on the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP), explored not just Stonehenge and its landscape but also the wider social and economic context of the monument's main stages of construction around 3,000 BC and 2,500 BC.
"When Stonehenge was built," said Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, "there was a growing island-wide culture -- the same styles of houses, pottery and other material forms were used from Orkney to the south coast. This was very different to the regionalism of previous centuries. Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, requiring the labour of thousands to move stones from as far away as west Wales, shaping them and erecting them. Just the work itself, requiring everyone literally to pull together, would have been an act of unification."
Stonehenge may have been built in a place that already had special significance for prehistoric Britons. The SRP team have found that its solstice-aligned Avenue sits upon a series of natural landforms that, by chance, form an axis between the directions of midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset.
Professor Parker Pearson continued: "When we stumbled across this extraordinary natural arrangement of the sun's path being marked in the land, we realized that prehistoric people selected this place to build Stonehenge because of its pre-ordained significance. This might explain why there are eight monuments in the Stonehenge area with solstitial alignments, a number unmatched anywhere else. Perhaps they saw this place as the centre of the world."
Although many people flocked to Stonehenge June 21 for the summer solstice, it seems that the winter solstice was the more significant time of the year when Stonehenge was built 5,000-4,500 years ago.
Professor Parker Pearson said: "We can tell from aging of the pig teeth that higher quantities of pork were eaten during midwinter at the nearby settlement of Durrington Walls, and most of the monuments in the Stonehenge area are aligned on sunrise and sunset at midwinter rather than midsummer. At Stonehenge itself, the principal axis appears to be in the opposite direction to midsummer sunrise, towards midsummer sunset, framed by the monument's largest stone setting, the great trilithon."
Parker Pearson and the SRP team firmly reject ideas that Stonehenge was inspired by ancient Egyptians or extra-terrestrials. He said: "All the architectural influences for Stonehenge can be found in previous monuments and buildings within Britain, with origins in Wales and Scotland. In fact, Britain's Neolithic people were isolated from the rest of Europe for centuries. Britain may have become unified but there was no interest in interacting with people across the Channel. Stonehenge appears to have been the last gasp of this Stone Age culture, which was isolated from Europe and from the new technologies of metal tools and the wheel."
Previous theories have suggested the great stone circle was used as a prehistoric observatory, a sun temple, a place of healing, and a temple of the ancient druids. The Stonehenge Riverside Project's researchers have rejected all these possibilities after the largest programme of archaeological research ever mounted on this iconic monument. As well as finding houses and a large village near Stonehenge at Durrington Walls, they have also discovered the site of a former stone circle -- Bluestonehenge -- and revised the dating of Stonehenge itself. All these discoveries are now presented in Parker Pearson's new book Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery published by Simon & Schuster. The research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, National Geographic and many other funding bodies.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Sheffield.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120622163722.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #111 on Jul 4, 2012, 6:17am » | |
Subway construction unearths ancient road
AP
June 26, 2012 7:52AM
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img17/7439/563106ancientgreekroad.jpg "[image]")
Workers of Metro's construction company are seen at the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki. Picture: AAP
Archaeologists in Greece's second-largest city have uncovered a 70-metre section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city's main travel artery nearly 2000 years ago.
The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for Thessaloniki's new subway system, which is due to be completed in four years. The road in the northern port city will be raised to be put on permanent display when the metro opens in 2016.
The excavation site was shown to the public on Monday, when details of the permanent display project were also announced. Several of the large marble paving stones were etched with children's board games, while others were marked by horse-drawn cart wheels.
Also discovered at the site were remains of tools and lamps, as well as the bases of marble columns.
Viki Tzanakouli, an archaeologist working on the project, told The Associated Press the Roman road was about 1,800 years old, while remains of an older road built by the ancient Greeks 500 years earlier were found underneath it.
"We have found roads on top of each other, revealing the city's history over the centuries," Tzanakouli said. "The ancient road, and side roads perpendicular to it appear to closely follow modern roads in the city today."
About 7 metres below ground in the center of the city, the ancient road follows in roughly the same direction as the city's modern Egnatia Avenue.
The subway works, started in 2006, present a rare opportunity for archaeologists to explore under the densely populated city - but have also caused years of delays for the project.
In 2008, workers on the Thessaloniki metro discovered more than 1000 graves, some filled with treasure. The graves were of different shapes and sizes, and some contained jewelry, coins or other pieces of art.
A massive excavation project also took place during the 1990s in the capital, Athens, before the city's new metro system opened in 2000.
Thessaloniki's new subway is already four years behind schedule, due to the excavation work as well as Greece's financial crisis. Thirteen stations will operate initially, before a 10-station extension is added later.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/travel/subway-con....7#ixzz1zeSIpSVS
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #112 on Jul 25, 2012, 6:58pm » | |
Fossil find could hold key to climate change
July 26, 2012 - 7:49AM
Australian cavers have stumbled upon a vast network of tunnels containing fossils that could offer key insights into species' adaptation to climate change, scientists have confirmed.
The limestone caves in Australia's far north contained what University of Queensland paleontologist Gilbert Price described as a "fossil goldmine" of species ranging from minute rodents and frogs to giant kangaroos.
Once part of an ancient rainforest, the remote site now lies in arid grassland and Price said the fossilised remains could hold key clues about how the creatures had adapted to climate change and evolved to their current forms.
The caves' oldest specimens are estimated to be 500,000 years old. Price said they lived in a period of major aridification of central Australia and retreat of the rainforest that triggered a "formal extinction event".
"What we're trying to do up here is really look at the fossils and look at the animals and see how they responded to those prehistoric climatic changes, and that's something that's really quite relevant to today," Price told AFP.
He said the caves could serve as an important benchmark to contrast modern relatives against, to understand how they had evolved.
"We've got the question of what the effect of modern climate change is going to be on the organisms that we have around us, and the reality is we just don't know because we don't have any significant period of ecological sampling of the modern faunas," said Price.
"Just having an understanding of how they responded in the past is incredible, it's something that we can use and plug into models for conservation going into the future."
The smaller creatures were thought to have been carried into the cave by a predator such as an owl, while the larger ones, including a 2.2-metre, 180-kilogram mega kangaroo, probably tumbled into it through a hole.
It is slow work, with access to the caves difficult and time-consuming. Price said it would take a year to work through the 120 kilograms of fossil-rich sediment they had managed to carry out of the site on foot so far.
Local cavers had uncovered more tunnels in the past week alone, each producing "something of significance" and Price said there was "potentially many lifetimes worth of work in the area".
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tec....#ixzz21gLB xSh9
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #113 on Jul 27, 2012, 10:05am » | |
26 July 2012 Last updated at 11:27 GMT
'Land not sea' origin for snakes
![[image]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/61823000/jpg/_61823788_61823787.jpg "[image]")
Coniophis - The animal combined a lizard-like head with a snake-like body
One of the most primitive snake fossils ever found hints that the slithery reptiles might have originated on land, not in the sea as has been proposed.
The animal, which lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, probably emerged from a line of burrowing reptiles that lost their legs.
Where and how snakes diverged from their legged cousins the lizards has been a mystery.
Details of the find appear in the journal Nature.
The debate over snake origins has been complicated by the scarcity of transitional fossils (those with features in between two groups of creatures).
But new fossils from eastern Wyoming, US, belonging to the ancient snake Coniophis precedens - which lived some 65-70 million years ago - could help clear up the mystery.
According to the analysis by Nicholas Longrich from Yale University and colleagues, Coniophis lived in a floodplain environment and "lacks adaptations for aquatic locomotion".
They describe it as a "transitional snake, combining a snake-like body and a lizard-like head".
"This thing quite probably would have had small legs," Dr Longrich told the AFP news agency.
The ancient reptile's small size, along with physical features of its spine, suggest that it burrowed. And analysis of its jaws show that it fed on relatively large, soft-bodied prey.
But it did not have the flexible jaws that allow modern-day snakes to swallow prey many times their own body size.
"The genesis of the Serpentes (the biological name that defines what we understand as snakes) that began with the evolution of a novel means of locomotion, followed by adaptations facilitating the ingestion of ever larger prey, thereby enabling snakes to exploit a wider range of ecological niches," the researchers write in Nature journal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18998634
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #114 on Aug 2, 2012, 3:28am » | |
1 August 2012 Last updated at 20:04 GMT
Palm trees 'grew on Antarctica'
By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News
![[image]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/61949000/jpg/_61949984_61949983.jpg "[image]")
The study also found relatives of modern trees such as the baobab and macadamia
Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there.
Analyses of pollen and spores and the remains of tiny creatures have given a climatic picture of the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago.
The study in Nature suggests Antarctic winter temperatures exceeded 10C, while summers may have reached 25C: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7409/full/nature11300.html
Better knowledge of past "greenhouse" conditions will enhance guesses about the effects of increasing CO2 today.
The early Eocene - often referred to as the Eocene greenhouse - has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years as a "warm analogue" of the current Earth.
"There are two ways of looking at where we're going in the future," said a co-author of the study, James Bendle of the University of Glasgow.
"One is using physics-based climate models; but increasingly we're using this 'back to the future' approach where we look through periods in the geological past that are similar to where we may be going in 10 years, or 20, or several hundred," he told BBC News.
The early Eocene was a period of atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than the current 390 parts per million (ppm )- reaching at least 600ppm and possibly far higher.
Global temperatures were on the order of 5C higher, and there was no sharp divide in temperature between the poles and the equator.
Frozen thermometers
Drilling research carried out in recent years showed that the Arctic must have had a subtropical climate.
But the Antarctic presents a difficult challenge. Glaciation 34 million years ago wiped out much of the sediment that would give clues to past climate, and left kilometres of ice on top of what remains.
![[image]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/61949000/jpg/_61949988_61949987.jpg "[image]")
Pyrococcus furiosus archaea - Archaea hold on to their structure through millions of years, giving hints of long-gone temperatures
Now, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) has literally got to the bottom of what the Eocene Antarctic was like, dropping a drilling rig through 4km of water off Wilkes Land on Antarctica's eastern coast.
The rig then drilled through 1km of sediment to return samples from the Eocene. With the sediment came pollen grains from palm trees and relatives of the modern baobab and macadamia.
Crucially, they contained also the remnants of tiny single-celled organisms called Archaea.
The creatures' cell walls show subtle molecular changes that depend on the temperature of the soil surrounding them when they were alive. The structures are faithfully preserved after they die.
They are, in essence, tiny buried thermometers from 53 million years ago.
Together, the data suggest that even in the darkest period of Antarctic winter, the temperature did not drop below 10C; and summer daytime temperatures were in the 20Cs.
The lowland coastal region sported palm trees, while slightly inland, hills were populated with beech trees and conifers.
Dr Bendle said that as an analogue of modern Earth, the Eocene represents heightened levels of CO2 that will not be reached any time soon, and may not be reached at all if CO2 emissions abate.
However, he said the results from the Eocene could help to shore up the computer models that are being used to estimate how sensitive climate is to the emissions that will certainly rise in the nearer term.
"It's a clearer picture we get of warm analogues through geological time," he said.
"The more we get that information, the more it seems that the models we're using now are not overestimating the [climatic] change over the next few centuries, and they may be underestimating it. That's the essential message."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19077439
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #115 on Aug 4, 2012, 11:52pm » | |
3 August 2012 Last updated at 11:00 GMT
Geography helps solve dinosaur evolution puzzle
By Nick Crumpton BBC News
![[image]](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/61999000/jpg/_61999561_rockymountains.jpg "[image]")
The birth of mountain ranges, like the Rockies, substantially changed the rate of dinosaur speciation
The number of dinosaur species in the Americas increased following tectonic activity that led to the creation of a mountain range, a study has suggested.
Fifteen million years before the mass extinction that wiped out the giant reptiles, the number of species increased in what is now North America.
Researchers said that the birth of the mountains probably sped up diversification.
The findings have been published in the journal PLoS One.
In their research, Terry Gates from Ohio University and colleagues showed that as the "Sevier" mountain range grew on the west of what is now America, which caused the east of the continent to "flex" downwards creating a shallow sea as water from the ocean flooded the land.
This new ocean resulted in America being split into three islands, of which the western one, known as Laramidia, was densely populated by ornithischian dinosaurs (bird-hipped dinosaurs).
Many of these species were adorned with ornaments for sexual displays, such as horns and crests.
"We know from lots of evidence that animals that have these types of features speciate at a faster rate than other animals," explained Dr Gates.
"If you combine that with the fact that they are isolated within their ecosystems, what you have is a great recipe for lots of new dinosaur species."
The isolation of the dinosaurs and their subsequent diversification makes sense in light of knowledge about how island isolation in modern animals leads to high levels of speciation.
Birth of the Rockies
This period of rapid diversification ended as the Rocky Mountains began to form towards the end of the Cretaceous Period (145.5-65.5 million years ago).
"When these started to form, you no longer had this beautiful paradise... Instead what happened was that the slow rising hills altered the weather patterns," Dr Gates observed.
This ecological change that accompanied the geological upheaval, and the increase in land area due to the vast seaway receding, led to a slowdown in the number of species evolving.
The reasons why dinosaur species had been so numerous, and then became less so before the Cretaceous mass extinction, had previously remained elusive.
It was only through talking to structural geologists rather than palaeontologists that Dr Gates began to develop ideas.
"I was working on a different project and I realised 'there's a lot of useful information over here' and the pieces started falling together," he told BBC News.
"The people that studied the structural geology side of the story never talked to the palaeontologists and the palaeontologists never thought to talk to them. I see this paper as an excellent example of multidisciplinary research," he said.
This research has implications for understanding Earth's history in addition to explaining the evolution of dinosaurs.
"The radiation of these dinosaurs begins slightly before the geologic record indicates the beginning of mountain building in the area," Dr Laura Porro of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study, told BBC News.
"We expect animals to respond to environmental changes before these events leave a geological trace," she said.
"So not only are these long ago mountain-building events impacting the animals, but changes in the animals can also help us pinpoint the timing of the tectonic events."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19103979
FURTHER:
Mountains, Seaway Triggered North American Dinosaur Surge
![[image]](http://images.sciencedaily.com/2012/08/120802183948-large.jpg "[image]")
This is a diagram illustrating the diversification of duck-billed and horned dinosaurs during the Late Cretaceous as a result of high ocean level and mountain uplift. The geologic time scale is to the left of the diagram, with horizontal green divisions representing the Campanian (lower) and Maastrichtian (upper) time periods. Silhouettes of North America demonstrating areas covered by ocean water during each of the time periods are to the right along with triangles designating the relative size of both the Western Interior Seaway and the Laramide mountain range. Finally, the fork within the duck-billed (black) and horned (grey) dinosaur family trees show the coinciding time (yellow bar) of a major split within each group. (Credit: Lindsay Zanno)
ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2012) — The rise of the Rocky Mountains and the appearance of a major seaway that divided North America may have boosted the evolution of new dinosaur species, according to a new Ohio University-led study.
The finding, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, may explain patterns of evolution and migration of North American duck-billed and horned dinosaurs in the years leading up to their extinction 65 million years ago, said Terry Gates, a postdoctoral researcher with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine who is lead author on the study.
"Over the past century, paleontologists have found a wide variety of dinosaurs in rocks dating to around 75 million years ago, but right before the asteroid hit at the end of the Cretaceous, there appeared to be fewer species in North America," he said. "The reason for this discrepancy in dinosaur diversity has never been adequately explained."
Gates and collaborators Albert Prieto-Márquez and Lindsay Zanno turned to the geologic record of western North America for possible answers. They examined trends in mountain and ocean formation during a period 80-70 million years ago, when there was an apparent explosion of dinosaur species, and later, when species became less diverse.
The record painted a picture of pronounced geological change.
During the early to middle Cretaceous, geological forces lifted the western United States, creating a huge mountain range (the Sevier Mountains) that extended in a line from the American southwest through Alberta, Canada. The area just to the east of the new mountain range flexed downward, creating a shallow North American seaway (known as the Western Interior Seaway) that flooded the continent from the Canadian arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.
This seaway cut the continent into three large islands to the north, east and west that were densely populated with dinosaurs. The dinosaurs of the west lived on an island known as Laramidia. Most fossil discoveries have been made in the area of the northern part of the island, in places such as Alberta, South Dakota and Montana, while dinosaurs have been found only recently in the former areas of southern Laramidia.
"Western North America has been a hotbed for dinosaur discoveries for more than a century," Zanno noted, "but the recent explosion of new dinosaur species coming out of Utah is sending waves through the paleontological community and revolutionized our understanding of dinosaur evolution on the continent."
The new discoveries have helped illustrate how dinosaurs evolved on an island with changing geography. The rise of the Sevier Mountains and the growing seaway caused dinosaur habitat to shrink on Laramidia. Later, one of the tectonic plates under North America's crust shifted position, building another mountain range -- the Laramide Orogeny, or the infant stage of the modern-day Rocky Mountains -- further east.
"At that time, it appears that geographic, as well as probably also ecological, barriers created by the rise of mountain ranges and the seaway caused isolation of the northern and southern populations of the crested duck-billed and horned plant-eating dinosaurs. We hypothesize that such isolation facilitated rapid speciation and increased diversity in these animals," explained Prieto-Márquez.
The new species of duck-billed and horned dinosaurs were being born at an astounding rate of every few hundred thousand years during the brief time when the two mountain ranges and the seaway coexisted, Gates said. "Isolating populations allows them to evolve new features more rapidly, especially when skull ornamentation such as head crests and horns play a role," he said.
Eventually, however, the continued rise of the Rocky Mountains would evict the seaway from the continent's interior. Gates and his colleagues argue that this second geological change opened up a wide territory for duck-billed and horned dinosaurs to roam, that, in turn, reduced how fast new species evolved in the region to every few million years.
"Our data suggests that changing geography contributed to the pattern we see in western North America, but also that this pattern is unique to this region and should not be blindly extrapolated to infer global diversity leading up to the K-T extinction event," Zanno noted.
The study also found that the same species of at least some duck-billed dinosaurs lived from Canada through southern Utah at some points in the Cretaceous. Yet, during the times of isolation, these giant plant-eaters "roamed a much smaller area than you might think given that many were larger than elephants," Gates noted. Scientists hypothesize that there are ecological as well as geological reasons behind this, including the possibility that dinosaurs evolved to eat specialized plants found only in certain regions.
The mountain and seaway changes not only impacted dinosaur diversity in North America, but may have had implications in other parts of the world. Global geological changes during this time created migration routes to Asia and South America. The team speculates that the rise of the early Rocky Mountains in North America created a barrier. Only species living in the southern part of Laramidia island could get to South America and only species living north of the mountains would have been able get to Asia across modern-day Alaska.
"These giant herbivores were truly invasive species that seemingly came to dominate these other continents," said Gates, adding that this idea needs to be tested further with additional fossil remains.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Ohio University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Terry A. Gates, Albert Prieto-Márquez, Lindsay E. Zanno. Mountain Building Triggered Late Cretaceous North American Megaherbivore Dinosaur Radiation. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (8): e42135 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042135
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120802183948.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #116 on Aug 9, 2012, 11:05am » | |
Early man was not alone, study finds
August 9, 2012 - 7:16AM
![[image]](http://images.smh.com.au/2012/08/09/3539806/dh_skull-20120809071046880820-300x0.jpg "[image]")
The TKNM-ER 1470 cranium found in 1972. Photo: AFP/Nature/Fred Spoor
Modern man's forerunners shared the planet with at least two related species nearly two million years ago, scientists say, pointing to newly-unearthed pieces in a 40-year-old fossil puzzle.
Findings published in the journal Nature touch on the odyssey of our ancestor, the upright-walking early human known as Homo erectus.
H. erectus and a tool-making relative called Homo habilis were probably contemporaries of an even older species called Homo rudolfensis, the scientists contend.
"Human evolution (is) clearly not the straight line that it once was" thought to be, study co-author Fred Spoor said in a teleconference.
Spoor and a team dug up teeth, face and jaw fragments from sediment dated to the Pleistocene period at a location east of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya between 2007 and 2009.
The prize culminated an agonising search for clues about a flat-faced, large-brained hominid whose skull had been found nearby in 1972.
Known as KNM-ER 1470, or 1470 for short, the hominid had lived around two million years ago.
But that was the only thing that was clear, for palaeontologists fought bitterly over its identity.
Until 2007, such evidence remained elusive, for the skull lacked a lower jawbone, a vital piece of evidence.
"Then our luck magically changed, and within three years we found three fossils which we believe are attributable to the same species as 1470," said Meave Leakey, who had discovered 1470 with her husband Richard Leakey.
Their daughter Louise was part of the team that found the new fossils.
The new fragments of two individuals that resemble 1470 are between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years old and were found within a 10-kilometre radius of the 1470 site.
"One of the big problems with the skull 1470 was that, yes it is remarkably complete with the whole brain case there and a good part of the face, but it doesn't have teeth and it doesn't have a lower jaw with it," said Spoor.
"This (new) little skull had teeth and in fact the teeth are very well preserved."
The new fossils were gently removed from sandstone using a dental drill before being scanned inside and out at a hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The scans were used in a virtual reconstruction of the entire lower jaw, which proved a good fit with the upper jaw of 1470.
The result: a hominid that most likely is of an even older lineage of homo called H. rudolfensis. If so, it deals a blow to a rival theory that 1470 was a misshapen habilis.
"Statistically speaking, the chances that this is really a separate species have now greatly improved," said Spoor.
The three species presumably stayed out of each other's way and ate different foods, the authors surmise.
The find is "significant, because they answer a key question in our evolutionary past - how diverse was our genus close to the base of the human lineage?" said Leakey.
The fossils "help to confirm the existence of a distinctive kind of early human nearly two million years ago", said Chris Stringer of London's Natural History Museum.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tec....l#ixzz2347Xsg2U
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #117 on Aug 14, 2012, 3:24am » | |
More pyramids uncovered by Google Earth search
News Limited Network
August 14, 2012 12:57PM
![[image]](http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/08/14/1226449/908353-giant-039-pyramid-039-.jpg "[image]")
One of the possible pyramid sites discovered by Angela Micol via Google Earth.
STEP aside Indiana Jones. Google Earth - and a young woman sitting at her computer - have archaeology covered.
But it wasn't a simple task.
While no whips, snakes or gunfights were involved - researcher Angela Micol took 10 years of studying Google Earth to pinpoint two areas on the Nile basin as likely contenders to be lost pyramid sites.
One of the suspiciously angular formations is a 190m-wide triangular plateau, almost three times bigger than the largest known pyramid - the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Other, smaller, triangular mounds range in size from 80m to 100m.
Archaeologists are yet to visit the sites to confirm whether or not they are natural formations or decayed constructions.
![[image]](http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2012/08/14/1226449/924994-angela-micol.jpg "[image]")
Angela Micol, from her Facebook profile.
But Ms Micol, of North Carolina, is confident of her finds.
"The images speak for themselves," she said. "It's very obvious what the sites may contain, but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids."
Almost all known pyramids are near modern-day Cairo on the Giza Plateau. These are much further south.
The first site is about 20km from the Egyptian city of Abu Sidhum. The second is about 200km further north.
"My dream is to work with archaeologists to release sites that I have identified over the past ten years of research. This research is the frontier of discovery and it's just beginning to advance views of our ancient past", Ms Micol said.
This is not the first discovery Ms Micol has made. She used the program to discover the site of a possible underwater city off the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
And Google Earth was also credited with the discovery of 17 lost pyramids last year.
![[image]](http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/08/14/1226449/907873--039-pyramid-039-.jpg "[image]") ![[image]](http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2012/08/14/1226449/908607--039-pyramid-039-.jpg "[image]")
'Pyramids' Picture: Angela Micol via Google Earth.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/more-....#ixzz2 3VTF4CNX
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #118 on Aug 14, 2012, 8:14pm » | |
Old Skull Bone Rediscovered in Mammals
![[image]](http://images.sciencedaily.com/2012/08/120814085443.jpg?1344954053 "[image]")
The interparietal (os interparietale) and tabular bones in different mammals. The interparietal-tabular complex is marked in light green (“tabular” corresponds to the lateral bone pair). (Credit: UZH)
ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2012) — Although clearly discernible in the embryo, shortly afterwards it fuses with other bones beyond recognition. Consequently, researchers have often missed it. Now, however, paleontologists from the University of Zurich have rediscovered it: the "os interparietale," a skull bone also referred to as the interparietal. Using imaging methods, they were able to detect its presence in all mammals -- including humans, which is new as it was previously believed to have been lost in the course of evolution.
The mammalian skull, including that of people, is composed of about 20 bones. Fish, reptile and bird skulls, however, have considerably more. After all, when mammals evolved from reptile-like vertebrates 320 million years ago, the skull's structure became simplified during its development and the number of skull bones decreased.
Some bones were lost in the lineage leading to mammals in the course of evolution, especially a number of skull roof bones. The skull's interparietal, which is one of the skull roof bones, particularly puzzled researchers: on the one hand, it seems to have survived, such as in humans, carnivores and ungulates (especially horses); on the other hand, it is not found in all mammals.
Together with a colleague from the University of Tübingen, Marcelo Sánchez, a professor of paleontology at the University of Zurich, and post-doctoral student Daisuke Koyabu have now detected the presence of the interparietal after all: Studying fossils and embryos of over 300 species of vertebrate, they were able to identify the bone in all of them. They used non-invasive micro-CT imaging to analyze rare embryos of different species from museum collections. "The interparietal was clearly discernible in specimens from the embryonic period as the skull bones were fused less strongly here," explains Sánchez. At the same time, he sees the fact that the bone is only clearly and easily discernible in the embryonic period as the reason why previous researchers failed to recognize it: "It would seem that many anatomists have overlooked the presence of the interparietal in numerous mammalian lineages as the bone becomes fused to other skull bones during growth and is unrecognizable in adult individuals."
Same skull bone in fish and humans
Another result that also refutes previous assumptions concerns the origin of the bone. As Koyabu reports: "Whilst it was previously assumed that the mammalian interparietal was composed of two elements, we discovered that it develops from four elements: a medial and a lateral pair."
The tabular bones of our reptile-like ancestors and fish correspond to the lateral interparietal bones, which were overlooked until now. According to the new results, however, they have survived in mammalian lineages after all.
The results also explain the mixed evolutionary tissue origin of the interparietal complex, which had been identified in mice but could not be confirmed by conventional anatomical tests: Genetic studies have revealed that the lateral bone pair develops from the mesoderm, but the medial pair from the neural crest cells.
This present study provides a conclusive explanation for the hitherto inexplicable mixed tissue origin of the interparietal complex: It stems from the evolutionary fusion of the os interparietale to the tabular bones in mammalian lineages.
The study also yields insights into us people, as Sánchez concludes: "The evidence of the continuation of fish bones in mammals provides new insights into the origins of our own anatomy." These anatomical discoveries were made possible thanks to a microtomographic imaging, the museum collections of rare animal embryos and the interdisciplinary collaboration between paleontology and embryology.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Zurich.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
D. Koyabu, W. Maier, M. R. Sanchez-Villagra. Paleontological and developmental evidence resolve the homology and dual embryonic origin of a mammalian skull bone, the interparietal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1208693109
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120814085443.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Digging In The Dirt V
« Reply #119 on Aug 14, 2012, 8:17pm » | |
Macabre Finds in the Bog at Alken Enge, Denmark: Skeletal Remains of Hundreds of Warriors Unearthed
![[image]](http://images.sciencedaily.com/2012/08/120814100302.jpg?1344955732 "[image]")
The first skull from the 2012 dig with a mortal wound caused by a spear or an arrow. (Credit: Field Director Ejvind Hertz, Skanderborg Museum)
ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2012) — A fractured skull and a thighbone hacked in half. Finds of damaged human bones along with axes, spears, clubs and shields confirm that the bog at Alken Enge was the site of violent conflict.
"It's clear that this must have been a quite far-reaching and dramatic event that must have had profound effect on the society of the time," explains Project Manager Mads Kähler Holst, professor of archaeology at Aarhus University.
For almost two months now, Dr Holst and a team of fifteen archaeologists and geologists have been working to excavate the remains of a large army that was sacrificed at the site around the time of the birth of Christ. The skeletal remains of hundreds of warriors lie buried in the Alken Enge wetlands near Lake Mossø in East Jutland, Denmark.
The remains will be exhumed from the excavation site over the coming days. Then an international team of researchers will attempt to discover who these warriors were and where they came from by performing detailed analyses of the remains.
"The dig has produced a large quantity of skeletal remains, and we believe that they will give us the answers to some of our questions about what kind of events led up to the army ending up here," explains Dr Holst.
Forty hectares of remains
The archaeological investigation of the site is nearing its conclusion for this year. But there are many indications that the find is much larger than the area archaeologists have excavated thus far.
"We've done small test digs at different places in the 40 hectare Alken Enge wetlands area, and new finds keep emerging," says Field Director Ejvind Hertz of Skanderborg Museum, who is directing the dig.
In fact, the find is so massive that researchers aren't counting on being able to excavate all of it. Instead, they will focus on recreating the general outlines of the events that took place at the site by performing smaller digs at different spots across the bog and reconstructing what the landscape might have looked like at the time of the birth of Christ.
New geological insights
At the same time as the archaeological dig, geologists from the Department of Geoscience at AU have been investigating the development of the bog.
"The geological survey indicates that the archaeological finds were deposited in a lake at a point in time when there was a a smaller basin at the east end of Lake Mossø created by a tongue of land jutting into the lake," explains Professor Bent Vad Odgaard, Aarhus University.
This smaller basin became the Alken Enge bog of today. The geologists' analyses also indicate that the water level in the area has changed several times. Mapping these periods of high and low water levels chronologically using geological techniques will tell researchers what the precise conditions were on the site at the time of the mass sacrifice.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Aarhus University. The original article was written by Signe Hvid Maribo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120814100302.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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