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Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 4, 2008, 11:31pm

Ancient shark had colossal bite
By Jennifer Carpenter
Science reporter, BBC News

The great white shark may have awesome jaws but they are nothing compared with those of megalodon , its gigantic, whale-eating ancestor.



A new study of the extinct creature's skull shows it had an almighty bite, making the prehistoric fish one of the most fearsome predators of all time.

All the more remarkable, scientists say, because the crushing force came from jaws made of cartilage, not bone.

The researchers report their skull work in the Journal of Zoology.

The megalodon super-shark swam in the oceans more than a million-and-a-half years ago.

It grew up to 16m (52ft) in length and weighed in at 100 tonnes - 30 times heavier than the largest great white - and must have been one of the most formidable carnivores to have existed.

"Pound for pound, your common house cat can bite down harder, " explained Dr Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales, Australia. "But the sheer size of the animal means that in absolute terms, it tops the scales."

Measuring up

Dr Wroe's team used a technique known as finite element analysis to compare the skulls of the great white with that of the prehistoric megalodon .

The approach is a common one in advanced design and manufacturing, and allows engineers to test the performance of load-bearing materials, such as the metal in the body and wings of an aeroplane.

CT (X-ray) scans were taken of megalodon remains to construct a high-resolution digital model.

A model of a modern 2.4m-long male great white shark ( Carcharodon carcharias ) was developed for comparison.

Megalodon 's muscles were based on those of the great white, and the simulations were then loaded with forces to see how the two skulls, jaws, teeth and muscles would have coped with the mechanical stresses and strains experienced during predation.


A recent BBC series imagined a face-to-face encounter

By looking at the distribution of stress and strain on the sharks' jaws, researchers found that the largest great whites have a bite force of up to 1.8 tonnes, three times the biting force of an African lion and 20 times harder than a human bites.

Megalodon , though, is more impressive. It is predicted to bite down with a force of between 10.8 to 18.2 tonnes.

The team said biting with such force was quite a feat given that the jaws of these ancient creatures were made of flexible cartilage.

In contrast to most other fish, sharks' skeletons are made up entirely of cartilage. Scientists think that cartilage, being a much lighter material than bone, allows sharks to swim without the aid of a swim bladder.

With finesse

The Australian research team was interested in how a cartilaginous jaw performs compared with a bone jaw.

The scientists' study shows that the cartilaginous jaw is almost as strong as a bony jaw of the same size - losing only a few percent - in measures of bite force. What is more, the elasticity of the cartilage jaw increases the gape of the sharks to devastating ends.

"The shark's upper jaws can be dislocated: the whole upper and lower jaw pull out and forward as the shark twists and shakes its head from side to side to bite a chunk out of its prey," explains Dr Wroe.

Sharks feed on very large prey: the great white shark eats sea lions and the megalodon is thought to have eaten whales.

"Sharks ambush their prey and immobilise them with a bite, then wait for them to die," Dr Wroe told BBC News. "They are actually delicate feeders and take care not to damage their teeth by biting down too hard on the large bones of their prey."

To keep their teeth sharp, sharks have a battery of them that is continually replaced.

It is the combination of their size, their razor-sharp teeth and the element of surprise that makes sharks such deadly predators.

MEGALODON COMPARED WITH THE GREAT WHITE SHARK

Megalodon

Type
Cartilaginous fish

Size
16m (52ft)

Diet
Whales, including the now extinct Odobenocetops, seals

Predators
None known

Great white shark
Type
Cartilaginous fish

Size
6m (20ft)

Diet
Fish, turtles, seals, sea lions, squid and crustaceans

Predators
Occasionally caught by fishing industry as bycatch

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7540835.stm

Published: 2008/08/04 13:20:12 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 6, 2008, 2:49am

Little Teeth Suggest Big Jump In Primate Timeline


Tiny fossilized teeth excavated from an Indian open-pit coal mine could be the oldest Asian remains ever found of anthropoids, the primate lineage of today's monkeys, apes and humans, say researchers from Duke University and the Indian Institute of Technology. Researchers here show models of skulls. (Credit: Image courtesy of Duke University)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2008) — Tiny fossilized teeth excavated from an Indian open-pit coal mine could be the oldest Asian remains ever found of anthropoids, the primate lineage of today's monkeys, apes and humans, say researchers from Duke University and the Indian Institute of Technology.

Just 9-thousandths of a square inch in size, the teeth are about 54.5 million years old and suggest these early primates were no larger than modern dwarf lemurs weighing about 2 to 3 ounces. Studies of the shape of the teeth suggest these small animals could live on a fruit and insect diet, according to the researchers.

"It's certainly the oldest anthropoid from Asia and India," said Richard Kay, a Duke professor of evolutionary anthropology who is corresponding author of a report to be published online during the week of Aug. 4-8 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Previous fossil evidence shows primates were living in North America, Europe and Asia at least 55 million years ago. But, until now, the fossil record of anthropoid primates has extended back only 45 million years.

"We're going back almost 10 million years before any previously described Asian anthropoid," said co-author Blythe Williams, a Duke visiting associate professor of evolutionary anthropology. "The new fossils from India are exciting because they show that the anthropoid lineage is much more ancient than we realized."

In addition to stretching the primate timeline, the specimens represent a new genus as well as a new species of anthropoid, which the researchers have named Anthrasimias gujaratensis by drawing from the Greek word for "coal," Latin for "monkey" and the Indian State of Gujarat where the teeth were found.

"Anthrasimias may be the oldest anthropoid in the world," the PNAS report said -- "may" reflecting the fact that some scientists think slightly older fossils found in a Moroccan limestone deposit also could have been anthropoid, Kay said.

The report's first author is Sunil Bajpai, an earth scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology who directed excavations at the Vastan lignite coal mine in western India that unearthed the fossils.

Bajpai's Indian team managed to find and remove the tiny Anthrasimias tooth specimens from a strata in the mine while "really gigantic trucks" scooped up coal above them, Kay said. The teeth were dated by identifying microscopic marine plankton fossils of known age in nearby rock layers, he added.

Bajpai's team was funded by India's Department of Science and Technology. Work by Williams and Kay, who are anthropoid experts, was funded the Duke Provost's Research Fund and the National Science Foundation.

Their PNAS report describes tooth structure differences that would separate Anthrasimias from two other ancient lines of primates whose remains have been found at the same level of the Vastan mine. Of the three lines, Williams and Kay believe only Anthrasimias's is part of the anthropoid lineage that evolved into modern monkeys, apes and humans.

"Most of the fossil record of ancient primates is made up of teeth, because teeth are easy to preserve and hard," Williams said. "Occasionally we get lucky enough to have a skull to work with, but in this case a few teeth is all we have." Their PNAS report described two upper molars and one lower molar.

"From the tooth size and structure we can say something about the animals' body weight and diet, because teeth have crests that are differentially developed depending on whether they ate primarily insects, leaves or fruit," he said. But without more body parts, Kay and Williams declined to deduce what the animals looked like.

Other authors of the PNAS report were Debasis Das of the Indian Institute of Technology, Vivesh Kapur of Chandigarh, India, and B.N. Tiwari of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in India.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804190705.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 6, 2008, 3:05am

Genetic Evidence Used To Trace Ancient African Migration


Researchers have found that animal-herding methods arrived in southern Africa 2,000 years ago on a wave of human migration, rather than by movement of ideas between neighbors. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michel De Nijs)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2008) — Stanford University researchers peering at history's footprints on human DNA have found new evidence for how prehistoric people shared knowledge that advanced civilization.

Using a genetic technique pioneered at Stanford, the team found that animal-herding methods arrived in southern Africa 2,000 years ago on a wave of human migration, rather than by movement of ideas between neighbors. The findings shed light on how early cultures interacted with each other and how societies learned to adopt advances.

"There's a tradition in archaeology of saying people don't move very much; they just transfer ideas through space," said Joanna Mountain, PhD, consulting assistant professor of anthropology. Mountain and Peter Underhill, PhD, senior research scientist in genetics at Stanford's School of Medicine, were the study's senior authors. Their findings will appear in the Aug. 5 advance online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"We know that humans had to migrate at some point in their history, but we also know humans tend to stay put once they get someplace," Underhill said.

Instead of using archaeological evidence alone to guess whether people migrated, "all of a sudden, with genetics, you can actually address that question," Mountain said.

The researchers tracked genetic variation on the Y chromosome, the sex chromosome passed from father to son that encodes maleness, using a technique now widely used that was developed in the early 1990s by Underhill and colleagues in the lab of Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, professor emeritus of genetics. The method has given scientists a powerful window into ancient human migrations and prehistoric cultural shifts. The technique has also been adopted by some commercial genealogy services that offer Y-chromosome testing to the public.

Previous research suggested that prehistoric people in eastern and southern Africa had little contact, with only two known migrations between the regions about 30,000 and 1,500 years ago. After Bantu-language speakers migrated from eastern to southern Africa 1,500 years ago, agriculture took off in southern Africa. But the timing of the Bantu migration didn't quite match the 2,000-year-old anthropological evidence for the first sheep and cattle herds in southern Africa, so anthropologists were unsure whether the region's agricultural knowledge came from a bow-wave of ideas that spread in front of the migrating Bantu, or whether a separate migration brought the first herders.

"Africa has the most genetic diversity in the world, but it is one of the least-studied places," said Brenna Henn, a doctoral student in anthropology who was the study's lead author. "I've always felt like there were a lot of stories there that nobody's had the time or interest to look into."

The Stanford scientists picked the Y sex chromosome to examine for clues to migration because it changes very little from one generation to the next. Autosomes - the non-sex chromosomes - come in pairs, and the members of a pair can exchange bits of DNA during reproduction, making each autosome a mishmash of DNA from all of an individual's ancestors. But the Y chromosome is a singleton; males inherit one Y chromosome and one X chromosome, while women have two X chromosomes. In men, only a tiny region of the Y chromosome can swap DNA with the X chromosome. This means almost all of the Y chromosome moves intact from father to son, changing only infrequently when a new mutation arises. That allows researchers to examine several generations of ancestry by looking at the Y chromosomes of living men.

"The family tree of the Y chromosome is very, very clear," Mountain said.

The team analyzed Y chromosomes from men in 13 populations in Tanzania in eastern Africa and in the Namibia-Botswana-Angola border region of southern Africa. They discovered a novel mutation shared by some men in both locations, which implied those men had a common ancestor. Further analysis showed the novel mutation arose in eastern Africa about 10,000 years ago and was carried by migration to southern Africa about 2,000 years ago. The mutation was not found in Bantu-speakers, suggesting that a different group - Nilotic-language speakers - first brought herds of animals to southern Africa before the Bantu migration.

This new genetic evidence correlates well with pottery, rock art and animal remains that suggest pastoralists - herders who migrated to new pasture with their flocks - first tended sheep and cattle in southern Africa around 2,000 years ago. The genetic finding also helps explain linguistic similarities between peoples in the two regions.

"I like the fact that the linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence all line up," Henn said. "When you see lines of evidence converge on a single model, it means that's probably something that actually happened."

Underhill and Roy King, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, published a similar paper in the June issue of the journal Antiquity. That study used Y chromosome evidence to examine how climate change drove prehistoric migration in the Middle East. They found that a shift in rainfall 10,000 years ago propelled a cultural split among genetically related people. Some stayed in rainy areas and grew crops, while others moved to arid regions and lived the nomadic life of pastoralist herders. The groups didn't intermingle much after the split, perhaps explaining the origins of modern Middle Eastern cultures.

Genetic evidence gives a degree of clarity to the study of prehistoric migration that's hard to achieve in other ways.

"So rarely do we get to pin down the questions raised by archaeology," Mountain said.

Henn, Mountain and Underhill collaborated with scientists at the Stanford Genome Technology Center; the University of Regensburg, in Germany; Sapienza Università di Roma, in Italy, and the University of Maryland.

The research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Leakey Foundation and BayGene (the Bavarian Genome Network).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804190635.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 6, 2008, 9:15am

Duck-billed Dinosaurs Outgrew Predators To Survive


Hypocrasaurus grew three to five times faster than predators such as tyrannosaurs. (Credit: Art by Drew Lee/Ohio University)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2008) — With long limbs and a soft body, the duck-billed hadrosaur had few defenses against predators such as tyrannosaurs. But new research on the bones of this plant-eating dinosaur suggests that it had at least one advantage: It grew to adulthood much faster than its predators, giving it superiority in size.

In a study published online August 5 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, scientists compared growth rate data from the hadrosaur, Hypacrosaurus, to three predators: the tyrannosaurs Albertosaurus and its gigantic relative Tyrannosaurus rex, as well as the small Velociraptor-like Troodon.

The research suggests that it took 10 to 12 years for Hypacrosaurus to become fully grown. Tyrannosaurs, however, reached adulthood after 20 to 30 years, said Drew Lee, a postdoctoral fellow in Ohio University's College of Osteopathic Medicine who co-authored the paper with Lisa Noelle Cooper, a doctoral student at Kent State University and a researcher with the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

"Our duck-billed dinosaur grew three to five times faster than any potential predators that lived alongside it," Lee said. "By the time the duck-billed dinosaur was fully grown, the tyrannosaurs were only half grown – it was a huge size difference."

Hypacrosaurus also reached sexual maturity early, at only two or three years of age, Cooper said.

"That's another added bonus when facing predators – if you can keep reproducing, you're set," she said. "It's the stuff of evolution."

Cooper conducted the original analysis of the hadrosaur while an undergraduate student at Montana State University. Working with scientists Jack Horner and Mark Taper, Cooper looked at thin sections of the long leg bones of a specimen of Hypacrosaurus and counted and measured the growth rings, which each represent one year of life.

"We were shocked at how fast they grew. If you look at a cross section of the bone of a nestling or even from within the egg, there are huge spaces in which blood supply was going through the bone, which means they were growing like crazy," she said.

Hypacrosaurus was one of three common prey for the meat-eating tyrannosaurs, but was the most vulnerable, Lee said. He described the animal, which lived 67 million to 80 million years ago, as the "Thomson's gazelle of the Late Cretaceous." The other two had horns or had stout, tank-like bodies that would have provided some physical protection from their enemies. But even those creatures show faster growth rates than the predators, Lee noted, with the hadrosaur boasting the quickest growth spurt.

At least one study suggests that living animals employ this survival strategy as well, Lee said. Scientists have found that killifish, a tiny freshwater fish found mainly in the Americas, mature faster when predators lurk. Anecdotal evidence suggests that creatures such as African ungulates grow big to create an advantage over lions, cheetahs and hyenas, he said. And researchers also see signs of this phenomenon in butterflies, toads, salamanders, guppies and some birds, Cooper added.

"Over evolutionary history, this pattern seems to be prevalent," she said.

Though scientists are careful to preserve dinosaur fossils, they've also learned much more about growth rates, life spans, behavior and sexual reproduction of dinosaurs in the past decade by cutting up the bones and taking a closer look at the clues they contain, Lee and Cooper noted. Such research has offered a much more detailed picture of the relationships between different dinosaur species, including predator and prey. Cooper also has used the same bone analysis techniques to confirm the ancestor of whales, a study she co-authored last year in Nature.

Lee, who recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the sexual maturity rates of dinosaurs, hopes to conduct more research on communities of dinosaurs, such as those of Allosaurus, Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus, to draw further conclusions on the fast growth survival strategy.

"This study is a stepping stone to a larger comparative study on community changes that impacted dinosaur evolution," Lee said.

The work was supported by grants from the Dinamation Society, the MONTSUS Undergraduate Scholars Grant from Montana State University, the Undergraduate Scholars Program of Montana State University, the Paleontology Department of the Museum of the Rockies and the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080805192720.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 6, 2008, 12:15pm

Egypt to test fetuses for Tutankhamun family tree

Wed Aug 6, 2008 11:57am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian scientists are doing DNA tests on stillborn children found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the hope of identifying their mother and grandmother, who may be the powerful queen Nefertiti, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Wednesday.


The coffinette for the Viscera of Tutankhamun in a file photo. Egyptian scientists are doing DNA tests on stillborn children found in the tomb of the Pharoah Tutankhamun in the hope of identifying their mother and grandmother, who may be the powerful queen Nefertiti, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Wednesday.

REUTERS/Fred Prouser

British archaeologist Howard Carter found the mummified fetuses when he discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. Archaeologists assume they are the children of the teenage pharaoh but their mother has not been identified.

Many scholars believe their mother to be Ankhesenamun, the boy king's only known wife. Ankhesenamun is the daughter of Nefertiti, renowned for her beauty.

"For the first time we will be able to identify the family of King Tut," Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, told Reuters. "This should allow us for the first time to discover the mummy of Nefertiti."

Tutankhamun, born in 1341 BC, died less than a decade after taking the throne at the age of eight or nine.

Nefertiti had six daughters with the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned traditional gods in favor of monotheism during his rule from about 1350 to 1334 BC. The queen's mummy has never been identified.

The DNA tests and computerized tomography (CT) scans, to be performed at Cairo University, should be finished by December, Hawass said.

Egypt has been trying to check the identity of all its royal mummies using DNA and CT scans. Tutankhamun's was one of the first mummies to be examined with the technology in 2005.

(Writing by Will Rasmussen, editing by Paul Casciato)

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL666241820080806

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 7, 2008, 8:07am

Rock Art Marks Transformations In Traditional Peruvian Societies


Most rock paintings and rock carvings or petroglyphs were created by ancient and prehistoric societies. (Credit: IRD Jean Guffroy)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2008) — Most rock paintings and rock carvings or petroglyphs were created by ancient and prehistoric societies. Archaeologists have long used them to gain clues to the way of life of such peoples. Certain rock frescos − such as the renowned Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings or the petroglyphs of Scandinavia and North America − have already yielded substantial information on our ancestors' daily lives.

However, for other regions of the world like Latin America studies are still fragmentary. In Peru, where many sites have already been located, mystery still cloaks the signification and role of these concentrations of cave paintings and petroglyphs. One of these sites, Toro Muerto, in the South of the country, contains over 4000 carved blocks scattered over several dozen hectares.

Discoveries made in different areas of the country over recent years by Peruvian and international researchers are keys to improved understanding of the meaning behind these artistic representations which were realized over a long period from 10 000 BP to the arrival of the first Spanish Conquistadors in the XVIth Century, or even beyond that time, as in the Cuzco area.

Analysis of the distribution and characteristics of these sites brought out a distinction between the art produced in the coastal valleys from that of the Andean Cordillera uplands. The extensive sites with rocks carved in the open air are concentrated mainly on the Pacific facing slopes, whereas the scenes painted in caves or under shelters predominate in the high regions and on the Amazon side.

These preferences as to the supports and techniques used reflect associated ritual practices which are probably rather different. Study of the oldest rock paintings and their dating by indirect methods (carbon 14 dating of remains of in situ burnt charcoal) showed them to be the work of hunter-gatherers who occupied the region between 7000 and 3000 BC The motifs are small and most often painted in red. They depict hunting scenes involving wild camelid species, such as the guanaco, and also human-like silhouettes. The latter are portrayed with animal-like rather than human faces. Such figures are usually armed with sticks, bows or assegais and sometimes carry nets.

The most ancient sites show a predominance of naturalistic representations of dead or wounded animals. However, a second set dated at 4000 to 5000 years BC eulogizes fertility. This time the images are large, drawn with the abdomen enormously swollen, sometimes containing a foetus. This stylistic development, which seems to coincide with the beginnings of animal husbandry in the high upland regions of Peru, appear to symbolize the emergence of pastoralism and the change in man—animal relationships that came along with this practice.

These research studies also brought into relief periods that were quite distinct in terms of stylistic evolution of carved figures. Whereas the most ancient motifs, associated with the rise of the first great Andean civilizations (2500-300 BC) essentially reproduced complex figures bearing high symbolic and spiritual content, depicting mythical, often monster-like, animals and supernatural beings, the later carvings characteristically appear in abundance and testify to a simplification of morphological features. The simplicity and relative abundance of these petroglyphs, which depict animals of the local fauna and also scenes from daily life, suggest a degree of generalization of rock carving practices to further sections of the society.

The largest sites dating from this era, which contain several hundred carved rocks with dozens of motifs, probably played a significant role in societies' cultural and social life, both at local and regional level. Their location, and some of the rituals that took place, may have been linked to areas of production and trade routes of prized commodities such as coca or salt. Other, geographical, factors like the confluence of two rivers or the proximity to communication routes also appear to have significantly influenced the context and purpose of these artistic representations.

A more extensive study of these archaeological sites, still strongly subjected to vandalism and erosion, is paramount. These vestiges testify to the ideological and social changes that occurred over a period of almost 8000 years, and can further understanding of the way of life and beliefs of peoples who were among the New World's first settlers.

Reference: Guffroy, J., New research into rock art in Peru (2000-2004), In :G. Bahn, A. Fossati (eds), Rock art studies. News of the world III, 2008, Oxbow: p 239-247

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804111634.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 10, 2008, 4:59pm

Iron Age Warrior with Roman Links Found in U.K.
James Owen
for National Geographic News
August 8, 2008

The grave of an ancient British warrior with tantalizing Roman connections has been unearthed in southern England, archaeologists say.

The 2,000-year-old skeleton of the tribal king or nobleman was found buried with military trappings, including a bronze helmet and an ornate shield both of a style previously unknown in Britain, experts say.


The grave of an ancient British warrior with tantalizing Roman connections has been unearthed in southern England, archaeologists announced in August 2008.

The 2,000-year-old skeleton of the tribal king or nobleman was found buried with military trappings—including a bronze helmet and a unique metal lattice (above), both of a style previously unknown in Britain.

Photograph courtesy Steve Ford of Thames Valley Archaeological Services

The Iron Age man, who died in his 30s, was discovered in June at the site of a new housing development in North Bersted on England's southeastern coast.

"What we've found is of national and international importance," said dig team member Mark Taylor, senior archaeologist at West Sussex County Council.

Unique Discoveries

Pottery—including three large jars placed at the foot of the grave—date the site to between A.D. 40 and A.D. 60, the team said.

A bronze shield boss was found along with semicircular latticework plates that are thought to have decorated the shield.

The ornate artwork is unique "certainly in the U.K. and Europe, as far as we know," Taylor said.

The scroll patterning most closely resembles that of mainland Europe's La Tène culture, named after a late Iron Age site in Switzerland, Taylor noted.

The domed helmet likely had a similar origin, according to John Creighton, an archaeologist from the University of Reading.

Creighton, who specializes in the late Iron Age period, said it appears to be a Celtic-style Mannheim helmet—the first one ever found in Britain.

While the helmet originated in Gaul—the ancient Roman name for a region of western Europe—it was also worn by Roman soldiers, Creighton noted.

A greater mystery is a large, iron-framed structure that was placed on top of the warrior's body.

The study team suspects the object was a household item intended for use in the afterlife rather than the remains of a coffin.

"My hunch is that it was some usable part of the domestic riches that went into the grave with this chap," Taylor said.

The corroded object may have been a "fire dog," which was used to burn wood inside the home, he suggested.

Roman Alliances

Experts say the burial may provide important new evidence of Roman influence in the region before the Roman conquest of England in A.D. 43.

Alliances forged by the Romans with southern tribal kings after Julius Caesar (see photo) arrived in 55 B.C. are thought to have involved taking hostages.

"One of the tempting and really exciting prospects is that the find might fulfill the theory that the sons of nobility may have been sent to Rome or sent abroad to undertake military training or to complete their education," team member Taylor said.

"It was all part of the empire-building process of that time to secure loyal, high-status client kings in the countries that were to become part of the Roman Empire."

Creighton, of the University of Reading, says the newly discovered grave adds to recent "astonishing finds of metalwork demonstrating a close link between Britain and the Roman world in the years before the conquest."

Astonishing Finds

Scientific analysis of the warrior may reveal more evidence of Roman links, experts say.

"Hopefully, in six months … we'll have a lot more information," Taylor said.

For example, isotope analysis will reveal the chemical signature of the water the warrior drank, which could show if he lived overseas in his youth.

The tests may similarly indicate his diet, according to Steve Ford, director of Thames Valley Archaeological Services, which led the excavation.

"We might also find out what killed him—whether there had been any traumas such as broken bones or knife wounds," Ford said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080808-british-warrior.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by deborah on Aug 10, 2008, 10:30pm

Re:

Iron Age Warrior with Roman Links Found in U.K.
James Owen
for National Geographic News
August 8, 2008

What an extraordinary find this is. I can't stop looking at that latticework embellishment. It's really beautiful.

I think it's amazing that this metal object has remained as intact as it is for so many centuries underground. I would love to know the composition of the material from which this piece was fashioned.

Great catch, BB!

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 11, 2008, 3:37pm

Roman Temple Uncovered In Ancient Jewish Capital Of Galilee


View of the monumental building on the north side of the decumanus with a pile of collapsed columns in the courtyard -- probably the result of an earthquake. (Credit: Gaby Laron)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2008) — Ruins of a Roman temple from the second century CE have recently been unearthed in the Zippori National Park. Above the temple are foundations of a church from the Byzantine period.

The excavations, which were undertaken by the Noam Shudofsky Zippori Expedition led by of Prof. Zeev Weiss of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shed light on the multi-cultural society of ancient Zippori (also known as Sepphoris).

The discovery indicated that Zippori, the Jewish capital of the Galilee during the Roman period, had a significant pagan population which built a temple in the heart of the city center. The central location of the temple which is positioned within a walled courtyard and its architectural relation to the surrounding buildings enhance our knowledge regarding the planning of Zippori in the Roman era.

The building of the church on the foundation of the temple testifies to the preservation of the sacred section of the city over time. This new finding demonstrates not only the religious life, culture and society in Roman and Byzantine Zippori, but also that this was a city in which Jews, pagans and later Christians lived together and developed their hometown with various buildings.

The newly discovered temple is located south of the decumanus - colonnaded street - which ran from east to west and was the main thoroughfare in the city during the Roman through Byzantine period. The temple, measuring approximately 24 by 12 meters, was built with a decorated façade facing the street. The temple’s walls were plundered in ancient times and only its foundations remain.

No evidence has been found that reveals the nature of the temple’s rituals, but some coins dating from the time of Antoninus Pius, minted in Diocaesarea (Zippori), depict a temple to the Roman gods Zeus and Tyche. The temple ceased to function at an unknown date, and a large church, the remains of which were uncovered by the Hebrew University excavation team in previous seasons, was built over it in the Byzantine period.

North of the decumanus, opposite the temple, a monumental building was partially excavated this summer. Its role is still unclear, although its nature and size indicate that it was an important building. A courtyard with a well-preserved stone pavement of smooth rectangular slabs executed in high quality was uncovered in the center of the building, upon which were found a pile of collapsed columns and capitals - probably as a result of an earthquake. The decoration on these architectural elements was executed in stucco. Beyond a row of columns, an adjacent aisle and additional rooms were discovered. Two of them were decorated with colorful, geometrical mosaics.

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/08/080811072503.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 12, 2008, 2:13am

Extinction 'by man not climate'

The extinction of many ancient species may be due to humans rather than climate change, experts say.



Large prehistoric animals in Tasmania may have been wiped out by human hunting and not temperature changes, a team of international scientists argue.

This pattern may have been repeated around the globe on islands such as Great Britain, the scientists say.

The findings were published in the American scientific journal - Proceedings of the National Academy.

Giant kangaroos

For many years, scientists have been arguing about the causes of widespread extinctions of vast numbers of species at the end of the last Ice Age.

What has caused the most debate has been the fate of megafauna - large bodied creatures in Australia that included three-metre tall giant kangaroos and marsupial lions.

Humans arrived in Tasmania about 43,000 years ago, when the island became temporarily connected by a land bridge to mainland Australia.

It had been thought that many megafauna were already extinct by this stage.

But using the latest radiocarbon and luminescence dating techniques, the British and Australian scientists say they were able to determine the age of the fossilised remains of the megafauna more accurately than ever before.

They discovered that some of the giant animals survived for 2,000 years after humans arrived, and at a time when the climate was not changing dramatically.

The researchers concluded that these species were driven to extinction by hunting.

Human blame?

Professor Chris Turney, from the University of Exeter, the lead author on the research paper, said that 150 years after the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal work The Origin of Species, the argument for climate change being the cause of this mass extinction had been seriously undermined.

"It is sad to know that our ancestors played such a major role in the extinction of these species - and sadder still when we consider that this trend continues today," he said.

Given Tasmania's history as an island, the research findings should help to disentangle the role of humans and climate change in other island environments, such as Britain, the scientists said.

Previous research had found that on mainland Australia some 90% of megafauna disappeared about 46,000 years ago - soon after humans first settled on the continent.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7555206.stm

Published: 2008/08/11 23:38:06 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 12, 2008, 10:06pm

Humans Implicated In Prehistoric Animal Extinctions With New Evidence


Palorchestes azael. A marsupial similar to a ground-sloth. Weight: approx 500 kg. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Exeter)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2008) — Research led by UK and Australian scientists sheds new light on the role that our ancestors played in the extinction of Australia's prehistoric animals. The new study provides the first evidence that Tasmania's giant kangaroos and marsupial 'rhinos' and 'leopards' were still roaming the island when humans first arrived.

The findings suggest that the mass extinction of Tasmania's large prehistoric animals was the result of human hunting, and not climate change as previously believed.

Scientists have long argued over the reasons behind the worldwide mass extinctions that took place towards the end of the last ice age. The main culprits are generally thought to be climate change or some form of human impact. People only arrived in Tasmania around 43,000 years ago, when the island became temporarily connected by a land bridge to mainland Australia. None of Tasmania's giant animals, known as 'megafauna' were known to have survived until this time. This appeared to clear humans of any involvement in the disappearance of the island's large megafauna.

This new international study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, reports the discovery of giant kangaroos surviving in Tasmania until people arrived, placing humans back on the list of likely culprits for the subsequent extinction of the megafauna.

Using the latest radiocarbon and luminescence dating techniques, the team were able to determine the age of the fossilised remains of the megafauna more accurately than ever before. The results showed that some of these animals survived until at least 41,000 years ago—much later than previously thought and up to 2,000 years after the first human settlers arrived. As climate in Tasmania was not changing dramatically at this time, the researchers argue that this is evidence of these species being driven to extinction through over-hunting by humans.

Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter, lead author of the paper, said: "Ever since Charles Darwin's discovery of giant ground sloth remains in South America, debate has ensued about the cause of early extinction of the world's megafauna. Now, 150 years on from the publication of Darwin's seminal work The Origin of Species, the argument for climate change being the cause of this mass extinction has been seriously undermined. It is sad to know that our ancestors played such a major role in the extinction of these species – and sadder still when we consider that this trend continues today."

The researchers believe that the tale from Tasmania is relevant to many other parts of the world. Given Tasmania's history as an island, these findings should help to disentangle the role of humans and climate change in other island environments, such as Britain. Author Professor Tim Flannery of Macquarie University, Australia, said "Island environments offer an excellent test of competing hypotheses. They typically have a similar megafauna and climate to neighbouring continental landmasses but human arrival was often delayed."

Previous research by Professor Flannery and Professor Bert Roberts of the University of Wollongong, Australia, has shown that 90 per cent of mainland Australia's megafauna disappeared about 46,000 years ago, soon after humans first settled the continent. But humans did not reach Tasmania until a few thousand years later, when the island became connected to the mainland by a land bridge as sea levels fell during the last glaciation. "The Tasmanian results echo those on mainland Australia, putting humans squarely back in the frame as the driving force behind megafaunal extinction", said Professor Roberts.

The most recent discoveries were made serendipitously by cavers exploring a labyrinth of tunnels under the rainforest-clad Mt Cripps in north-west Tasmania. Author Craig Reid at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Tasmania, said "The skeletal remains provide key evidence of Tasmania's final megafauna in the dim, if not-too-distant, past."

The victims of Tasmania's first humans:

* Zygomaturus trilobus. A rhino-like marsupial. Weight: approx 500 kg.
* Palorchestes azael. A marsupial similar to a ground-sloth. Weight: approx 500 kg.
* Metasthenurus newtonae. A large, short-faced kangaroo that browsed like an antelope. Weight: approx 150 kg.
* Simosthenurus occidentalis. A smaller short-faced kangaroo. Weight: 100-130 kg
* Protemnodon anak. A long-faced, long-necked kangaroo, like a long-necked browsing antelope. Weight: approx 120 kg.
* Thylacoleo carnifex. A leopard-like marsupial. Weight: approx 70-100 kg.
* Megalibgwilia sp. A monotreme (egg-laying mammal) similar in shape and size to the long-beaked echidna of New Guinea. Weight: approx 10 kg.

This study was conducted by researchers at the University of Exeter (UK), University of Wollongong (Australia), Macquarie University (Australia), Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (Australia), Australian National University, University of Oxford (UK), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Australia), University of Newcastle (UK), University of Strathclyde (UK), Queen's University Belfast (UK).

The research was supported by The Royal Society and the Australian Research Council.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811200028.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 15, 2008, 10:14pm

Stone Age Graveyard Reveals Lifestyles Of A 'Green Sahara'


Stone Age embrace: A remarkable triple burial -- containing a woman and two children who were 5 (left) and 8 years old, their limbs entwined -- was discovered at the Gobero site during the 2006 field season. Pollen clusters found in the sand indicated the three had been buried on top of flowers. The skeletons showed no sign of injury and had been ceremonially posed and buried, along with four arrowheads. The image appears in the September 2008 National Geographic. (Credit: Mike Hettwer (c) 2008 National Geographic)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2008) — The largest Stone Age graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unparalleled record of life when the region was green, has been discovered in Niger by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno, whose team first happened on the site during a dinosaur-hunting expedition.

The remarkable archaeological site, dating back 10,000 years and called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the area, was brimming with skeletons of humans and animals — including large fish and crocodiles. Gobero is hidden away within Niger’s forbidding Ténéré Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a “desert within a desert.” The Ténéré is the setting of some of Sereno’s key paleontological discoveries, including the 500-toothed, plant-eating dinosaur Nigersaurus that lived 110 million years ago and the enormous extinct crocodilian Sarcosuchus, also known as SuperCroc.

The discovery of the lakeside graveyard — representing two successive human populations divided by more than 1,000 years — is reported in the September 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine and the Aug. 14 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

As they explored the site, the team tiptoed among dozens of fossilized human skeletons laid bare on the surface of an ancient dune field by the hot Saharan wind. Jawbones still clenched nearly full sets of teeth; a tiny hand reached up through the sand, its finger bones intact. On the surface lay harpoon points, potsherds, beads and stone tools. The site was pristine, apparently never visited.

“Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don’t live in the desert,” said Sereno. “I realized we were in the green Sahara.”

Two seasons of excavation supported by the National Geographic Society eventually revealed some 200 graves clearly belonging to two successive lakeside populations. The older group, determined to be Kiffian, were hunters of wild game who left evidence that they also speared huge perch with harpoons when they colonized the green Sahara during its wettest period between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. Their tall stature, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet, was not immediately apparent from their tightly bound burial positions.

The more recent population was the Tenerian, a more lightly built people who appeared to have had a diverse economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding. They lived during the latter part of the green Sahara, about 7,000 to 4,500 years ago. Their one-of-a-kind burials often included jewelry or ritual poses — a girl wearing an upper-arm bracelet carved from a hippo tusk, for example, and a stunning triple burial containing a woman and two children in a poignant embrace.

“At first glance, it’s hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place,” said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University. “The biggest mystery is how they seemed to have done this without disturbing a single grave.”

Although the Sahara has long been the world’s largest desert, a faint wobble in Earth’s orbit and other factors occurring some 12,000 years ago caused Africa’s seasonal monsoons to shift slightly north, bringing new rains to the Sahara. From Egypt in the east to Mauritania in the west, lakes with lush margins dotted the formerly parched landscape, drawing animals, fish and eventually people. Separating these two populations was an arid interval perhaps as long as a millennium that began about 8,000 years ago, when the lake disappeared and the site was abandoned.

Dating the sun-bleached bones of fossil humans in the Sahara has proved very difficult. Using a new technique, the team has obtained nearly 80 radiocarbon dates from Gobero bones and teeth, including comprehensive dates based directly on human skeletons.

Archaeologist Elena Garcea of the University of Cassino in Italy helped identify the poorly known cultures so well-preserved at the site. Garcea, an expert in ancient pottery who has spent nearly three decades digging at Stone Age sites in northern Africa, traveled with Sereno in 2005 to the site, where she stood amazed, gazing at far more human skeletons than she had seen in all her previous digs combined.

She quickly homed in on two distinct types of pottery, one that bore a pointillistic pattern linked with the Tenerian and another that had wavy lines and zigzags. “These are Kiffian,” a puzzled Garcea told Sereno. “What is so amazing is that the people who made these two types of pots lived in the same place more than a thousand years apart.”

Over the next three weeks Sereno, Garcea and their team of five American excavators made a detailed map of the site. They exhumed eight burials and collected scores of artifacts from both cultures. In a dry lake bed nearby, they found dozens of Kiffian fish hooks and harpoons carved from animal bone as well as skeletal remains of massive Nile perch, crocodile and hippo.

A year later, a second round of excavation turned up more riddles: An adult Tenerian male was buried with his skull resting on part of a clay vessel; another adult male was interred seated on the shell of a mud turtle.

One burial, however, brought 2006 activity at the site to a standstill: Lying on her side, the skeleton of a petite Tenerian woman emerged from the sand, facing the skeletons of two young children; their slender arms reached toward her and their hands were clasped in an everlasting embrace. Samples taken from under the skeletons contained pollen clusters — evidence the people had been laid out on a bed of flowers. The team employed a range of new techniques to preserve this remarkable burial exactly as it had been for more than 5,000 years.

Bioarchaeologist Stojanowski analyzed dozens of individuals’ bones and teeth for clues to the two populations. “This individual, for example, had huge leg muscles,” he said of ridges on the thigh bone of a Kiffian male, “which suggests he was eating a lot of protein and had an active, strenuous lifestyle. The Kiffian appear to have been fairly healthy — it would be difficult to grow a body that tall and muscular without sufficient nutrition.” In contrast, the femur ridge of a Tenerian male was barely perceptible. “This man’s life was less rigorous, perhaps taking smaller fish and game with more advanced hunting technologies,” Stojanowski said.

Analysis of measurements on Kiffian skulls links them to skulls found across northern Africa, some as old as 16,000 years, Stojanowski said. The Tenerian, however, are not closely linked to these ancient populations.

Ancient bones from many animals common today on the Serengeti were identified at the site by Hélène Jousse, a zooarchaeologist from the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria. The evidence showed that elephants, giraffes, hartebeests, warthogs and pythons all made Gobero their home. Abundant bones of 6-foot-long Nile perch indicate the presence of a deep lake during Kiffian times; remains of small catfish and tilapia make it likely that the waters were shallower during Tenerian times.

The team is continuing to analyze Gobero bones for more clues to the people’s health and diet. A large-scale return expedition is planned to the site to further explore the two populations that coped with extreme climate change.

Besides National Geographic, the research at Gobero is funded by the Island Fund of the New York Community Trust, the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

The National Geographic magazine article and special Web features on Gobero are at http://www.nationalgeographic.ngm.com Extensive information about the discovery and science of Gobero is available at Project Exploration’s “People of the Green Sahara” Web site, http://www.projectexploration.org

Journal reference:

1. Sereno et al. Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change. PLoS ONE, 2008; 3 (8): e2995 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002995

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080815101317.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 15, 2008, 11:27pm

Archaeologists Lift Lid On Rare Roman Find


Archaeologists in the UK have discovered two rare Roman stone sarcophagi at a dig on the site of former chapel and office buildings in Newcastle upon Tyne. (Credit: Image courtesy of Durham University)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2008) — Durham University archaeologists have discovered two rare Roman stone sarcophagi.

The 1800 year old year old sandstone coffins were uncovered at a dig on the site of former chapel and office buildings in Newcastle upon Tyne They are the first such find – and arguably the most impressive - in the area for more than 100 years.

They are thought to have been used to bury members of a rich and powerful family from the adjacent, walled fort of Pons Aelius, whose West Gate would have been sited just yards away. Hadrian’s Wall would have run to the north of the fort.

The lid of one sarcophagus will be lifted by Durham University experts at 10.30AM on Friday August 15, to discover what it holds inside.

The other sarcophagus has already been opened and removed from the site for safekeeping. This was found to contain the poorly-preserved skeleton of a child, aged around six years old, which was submerged in water and sludge.

The head of the child appeared to have been removed and placed elsewhere in the coffin, which was an unusual but not unknown practice in Roman times. It is possible the burial included the remains of an older person in the same coffin.

The tombs, the most archaeologically significant find at the dig, were discovered by a team from Archaeological Services Durham University. In 1903, two sarcophagi were found at the former Turnbull Warehouse site, in Newcastle upon Tyne, which is now home to a block of luxury flats.

The Durham University team was hired by a development company which aims to build a modern office block on the site once its archaeological riches have been preserved for future generations.

Other discoveries at the site, on Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, include cremation urns, providing evidence of other Roman burials on site; a cobbled Roman road which experts believe may have been part of the old main road from the South of England to the North; a Roman well and a Medieval well; the remains of the foundations of Roman shops and workers’ homes, along with the remains of flint tools from Stone Age hunter-gatherers.

The site has been home to numerous developments since the Middle Stone Age. It was most recently home to warehouses and offices of the British Electrical and Manufacturing Company and still hosts a disused 19th century Presbyterian Church, which is a listed building.

Richard Annis, project manager with Archaeological Services, Durham University, commented on the significance of the finding: “These sarcophagi would have been a prominent feature of the landscape, as they were carefully placed to be viewed, being close to the road and, at the time, raised above the ground.

“They would certainly have had to belong to a wealthy family of a high status in the community, perhaps at Fort Commander level or at senior level in the Roman army. Very few people could have afforded to bury their child in such a grand fashion.”

The sarcophagi, about 70cm wide and 180 cm long, have walls around 10 cm thick and weigh up to half a tonne each. They are both carved out of a single piece of sandstone. Each lid was fixed in place with iron pegs sealed with molten lead.

After analysis by the Durham University team, all of the finds from the site will eventually go to the new Great North Museum in Newcastle, where the sarcophagi will be preserved for the public to see.

In Roman times, it was unlawful to bury bodies inside settlements. Cemeteries were laid out at the roadside, near the gates of forts and towns.

Mr Annis added: “It is very likely that a burial ceremony would have been held at the tombs, perhaps attended by many people. We know that some families hired professional mourners, who would weep and wail and add to the atmosphere of the burial.”

David Heslop, Tyne and Wear County Archaeologist, said: "For the first time, we are starting to understand the layout of the civilian settlement that provided services to the garrison of the fort, and we can catch a glimpse of the Roman way of life, and death, on the northern frontier of the Empire."

Timeline of the Forth Street site:

* 6,000 years ago: Nomadic hunter gatherers of the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) pass through, leaving remains of flint tools behind them.
* 1,880 years ago: Hadrian’s Wall is built north of the site
* 1,840 years ago: the Roman fort of Pons Aelius is built just east of the excavation site, which becomes a settlement, and later is used as a cemetery
* 1,600 years ago: Romans leave the area with the collapse of their empire.
* 900 years ago: Medieval settlements on the site. A Carmelite Friary is built on what is now Forth Street.
* 500 years ago: A house is built from the wreckage of the Friary, following Henry VIII’s Reformation.
* 300 years ago: Unitarians build a large chapel on the site
* 180 years ago: Presbyterians build a chapel adjacent to the Unitarian chapel
* 90 years ago: British Electrical and Manufacturing Company occupy warehouses and office space on the site till the early 21st Century.
* Present day: the Presbyterian chapel will be incorporated into the new building, and the other remains of the site’s history will be researched and archived for the future.

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/08/080814112212.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 15, 2008, 11:35pm

'Virtual Archaeologist' Reconnects Fragments Of An Ancient Civilization


This is one of the reassembled wall mosaics from the ancient Greek civilization Thera, which was buried under volcanic ash more than 3,500 years ago. (Credit: Princeton Graphics Group)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2008) — For several decades, archaeologists in Greece have been painstakingly attempting to reconstruct wall paintings that hold valuable clues to the ancient culture of Thera, an island civilization that was buried under volcanic ash more than 3,500 years ago.

This Herculean task -- more than a century of further work at the current rate -- soon may get much easier, thanks to an automated system developed by a team of Princeton University computer scientists working in collaboration with archaeologists in Greece.

The new technology "has the potential to change the way people do archaeology," according to David Dobkin, the Phillip Y. Goldman '86 Professor in Computer Science and dean of the faculty at Princeton.

Dobkin and fellow researchers report on their work in a paper to be presented Aug. 15 in Los Angeles at the Association of Computing Machinery's annual SIGGRAPH conference, widely considered the premier meeting in the field of computer graphics.

"This approach really brings in the computer as a research partner to archaeologists," said Dobkin, who got the inspiration for the project after a 2006 visit to the archaeological site of Akrotiri on the island of Thera, which in present-day Greece is known as Santorini.

To design their system, the Princeton team collaborated closely with the archaeologists and conservators working at Akrotiri, which flourished in the Late Bronze Age, around 1630 B.C.E.

Reconstructing an excavated fresco, mosaic or similar archaeological object is like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle, only far more difficult. The original object often has broken into thousands of tiny pieces -- many of which lack any distinctive color, pattern or texture and possess edges that have eroded over the centuries.

As a result, the task of reassembling artifacts often requires a lot of human effort, as archaeologists sift through fragments and use trial and error to hunt for matches.

While other researchers have endeavored to create computer systems to automate parts of this undertaking, their attempts relied on expensive, unwieldy equipment that had to be operated by trained computer experts.

The Princeton system, by contrast, uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf hardware and is designed to be operated by archaeologists and conservators rather than computer scientists. The system employs a combination of powerful computer algorithms and a processing system that mirrors the procedures traditionally followed by archaeologists.

"We mimic the archaeologists' methods as much as possible, so that they can really use our system as a tool," said Szymon Rusinkiewicz, an associate professor of computer science whose research team led the Princeton effort. "When fully developed, this system could reduce the time needed to reconstruct a wall from years to months. It could free up archaeologists for other valuable tasks such as restoration and ethnographic study."

In 2007, a large team of Princeton researchers made a series of trips to Akrotiri, initially to observe and learn from the highly skilled conservators at the site, and later to test their system. During a three-day visit to the island in September 2007, they successfully measured 150 fragments using their automated system.

Although the system is still being perfected, it already has yielded promising results on real-world examples. For instance, when tested on a subset of fragments from a large Akrotiri wall painting, it found 10 out of 12 known matches. Further, it found two additional matches that were previously unknown.

"This showed that the system could work in a real-life situation," said Tim Weyrich, a postdoctoral teaching fellow in computer science at Princeton who is the technical lead researcher on the project and who designed many of its components. The team is planning another trip to the site this fall to permanently install the system for the archaeologists' use, said Weyrich, who in September will become an assistant professor of computer science at University College London.

The setup used by the Princeton researchers consists of a flatbed scanner (of the type commonly used to scan documents and which scans the surface of the fragment), a laser rangefinder (essentially a laser beam that scans the width and depth of the fragment) and a motorized turntable (which allows for precise rotation of the fragment as it is being measured). These devices are connected to a laptop computer.

By following a precisely defined and intuitive sequence of actions, a conservator working under the direction of an archaeologist can use the system to measure, or "acquire," up to 10 fragments an hour. The flatbed scanner first is used to record several high-resolution color images of the fragment. Next, the fragment is placed on the turntable, and the laser rangefinder measures its visible surface from various viewpoints. The fragment is then turned upside down and the process is repeated.

Finally, computer software, or algorithms, undertake the challenging work of making sense of this information. The Princeton researchers have dubbed the software that they have developed "Griphos," which is Greek for puzzle or riddle.

One algorithm aligns the various partial surface measurements to create a complete and accurate three-dimensional image of the piece. Another analyzes the scanned images to detect cracks or other minute surface markings that the rangefinder might have missed.

The system then integrates all of the information gathered -- shape, image and surface detail -- into a rich and meticulous record of each fragment.

"This in itself is extremely useful information for archaeologists," said Weyrich.

Once it has acquired an object's fragments, the system begins to reassemble them, examining a pair of fragments at a time. Using only the information from edge surfaces, it acts as a virtual archaeologist, sorting through the fragments to see which ones fit snugly together.

"Having this ability to really exhaustively try everything very quickly could potentially be quite helpful," said Benedict Brown, whose doctoral thesis, completed recently under the direction of Rusinkiewicz, is devoted in large part to the fresco project.

Analyzing a typical pair of fragments to see whether they match is very fast, taking only a second or two. However, the time needed to reassemble a large fresco may be significant, as the system must examine all possible pairs of fragments. To make the system run faster, the researchers are planning to incorporate a number of additional cues that archaeologists typically use to simplify their searching for matching fragments. These data include information such as where fragments were found, their pigment texture and their state of preservation.

However, Weyrich noted, Princeton's system will never replace the experience, contextual knowledge and "soft skills" that conservators and archaeologists bring to the table. "Reconstructing these frescoes is incredibly complex, given the condition of the fragments and the sheer number of fragments," said Weyrich. "The computer takes over the laborious parts of the process while leaving the important, intuitive decisions to the humans."

This research by the Princeton Graphics Group was funded by the Kress Foundation, the Seeger Foundation, the Thera Foundation, the Cotsen Family Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Paper citation: "A System for High-Volume Acquisition and Matching of Fresco Fragments: Reassembling Theran Wall Paintings" by Benedict Brown, Corey Toler-Franklin, Diego Nehab, Michael Burns, David Dobkin, Andreas Vlachopoulos, Christos Doumas, Szymon Rusinkiewicz and Tim Weyrich. ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH), 27(3) 2008.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080815130417.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 16, 2008, 5:36am

Head of Roman empress unearthed
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News


The facial features told excavators they were on to something very new

Archaeologists digging in Turkey have found the colossal marble head of a Roman empress.

It was discovered in a rubble-filled building where parts of a huge statue of the emperor Hadrian were unearthed last year.

The discovery, at the ancient site of Sagalassos, is thought to show Faustina the Elder, wife of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius.

Sagalassos was once an important urban centre.

It was abandoned after being hit by several strong earthquakes.

A team led by Marc Waelkens, from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, has been excavating the site since 1990.

The head of Faustina was lying face down in rubble that fills the ruins of a bath house that was partially destroyed by an earthquake between AD 540 and AD 620.

It was unearthed just 6m from the spot where the Hadrian statue was found, but was sitting higher up in the rubble.

Emperor's line

At first, exacavators thought they had found a statue belonging to Hadrian's wife, Vibia Sabina, who was forced into a marriage with the homosexual emperor at the age of 14.

But when they turned it over, the face was very different from the usual depictions of Sabina. This was a more mature woman with fleshy lips and a distinctive hairstyle.

Experts said most of the features of the head identify the woman as Faustina the Elder. She married Hadrian's successor as emperor and adopted son, Antoninus Pius.

Faustina was well respected, especially for her charity work. She enjoyed a happy marriage to Antoninus which lasted 31 years until her death in AD 141. In her memory, Antoninus formally deified her as a goddess.

The building in which the statues were found at Sagalassos was probably a "frigidarium" - a room with a cold pool which Romans could dip into after a hot bath.

It is part of a larger bath complex that is being carefully uncovered by archaeologists.

The fragments were found not on the floor of the frigidarium - beneath the rubble from the earthquake - but higher up in the debris pile.

More discoveries

This suggests they did not originally stand in this room, but were hauled there from elsewhere in the bath complex - probably from the "Kaisersaal", or emperor's room.

They speculate that the Kaisersaal once hosted statues of Hadrian, Faustina the Elder and other members of Rome's so-called Antonine dynasty - many of whom belonged to a Spanish or southern French provincial aristocracy.

The Hadrian statue was probably brought to the frigidarium either to remove its gilded armour or to be burned to cement in a nearby kiln.

The fragments are now on display at the exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict at the British Museum in London.

But the frigidarium did have colossal statues of its own. On the floor of the room, experts have found the front parts of two huge female feet, surrounded by mosaics that follow the contours of the statue's long dress.


The statue of the emperor Hadrian was unearthed last year

Page last updated at 11:58 GMT, Thursday, 14 August 2008 12:58 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7560833.stm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 16, 2008, 9:53pm

2,500-Year-Old Greek Ship Raised off Sicilian Coast

Maria Cristina Valsecchi in Rome
for National Geographic News
August 11, 2008


Remains of a 2,500-year-old Greek ship are recovered off Sicily, Italy, on July 28, 2008.

At a length of nearly 70 feet (21 meters) and a width of 21 feet (6.5 meters), it is the largest recovered ship built in a manner first depicted in Homer's Iliad, which is believed to date back several centuries earlier.

The wreckage will now be sent to Portsmouth, U.K., to be restored before it returns to the Sicilian town of Gela, where officials hope to display it in a planned new sea museum.

Photograph from EPA/HO

An ancient Greek ship recently raised off the coast of southern Sicily, Italy, is the biggest and best maintained vessel of its kind ever found, archaeologists say.

At a length of nearly 70 feet (21 meters) and a width of 21 feet (6.5 meters), the 2,500-year-old craft is the largest recovered ship built in a manner first depicted in Homer's Iliad, which is believed to date back several centuries earlier.

The ship's outer shell was built first, and the inner framework was added later. The wooden planks of the hull were sewn together with ropes, with pitch and resin used as sealant to keep out water.

Carlo Beltrame, professor of marine archaeology at the Università Ca' Foscari in Venice, said the boat, found near the town of Gela, is among the most important finds in the Mediterranean Sea.

"Greek sewn boats have been found in Italy, France, Spain, and Turkey. Gela's wreck is the most recent and the best preserved," Beltrame said.

After 25 Centuries

The Italian Coast Guard helped archaeologists pull the wreck to the surface last month.

A floating crane lifted the main segment, a 36-foot (11-meter) chunk, and dragged it to land. The remains were then plunged into a tank of fresh water to remove the salt from the wood.

"The vessel was a mercantile sailer, probably used to sail short stretches along the coast, docking frequently to load and unload," said Rosalba Panvini, head of the Cultural Heritage Department of Sicily, who directed the raising operations.

Recovered artifacts—including cups, two-handled jars called amphoras, oil lamps, pottery, and fragments of straw baskets—reveal details of the ship's journey before it sank, Panvini said.

"The vessel stopped in Athens, then in the Peloponnese Peninsula," Panvini said. "It sailed up the western coast of Greece, crossed the Otranto Channel, coasted along Italy, and pointed to Sicily."

The ship was headed for Gela, then a Greek colony. About a half mile (800 meters) off the coast, a storm probably tilted the ship. The ballast broke the hull, and the vessel went down, where it lay on the muddy seabed for 25 centuries.

In 1988 two scuba divers discovered the remains and informed the Sicilian Cultural Heritage Department.

It took 20 years to recover the whole vessel, which will now be sent to Portsmouth, U.K., to be restored before it returns to Gela. Officials hope to display the restored ship in a planned new sea museum.

A Sewn Boat

Beltrame, of the Università Ca' Foscari, said the ship—"part of a family of archaic Greek vessels"—is something of a missing link in the evolution of naval engineering.

"It shows a mix of sewing and mortise-and-tenon joints—a different technique that later prevailed in shipbuilding," Beltrame said, referring to joints in which a protrusion in one piece of wood inserts into a cavity in another.

Roberto Petriaggi of the Italian Central Institute for Restoration said Greeks were not the only people in the region to build ships using the sewing method.

"Technical knowledge spread easily around the Mediterranean Basin," he said. "We have finds proving that Egyptians and Phoenician-Punic people used that method, too."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080811-greek-ship.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 16, 2008, 10:09pm

Neglect, Not Looting, Threatens Iraq Sites, Study Says
James Owen in London
for National Geographic News
August 12, 2008

Fears of the continued plunder of ancient antiquities in war-torn Iraq may be laid to rest, according to a new survey of eight of the most important archaeological sites in the south of the country.

An international team of scholars who visited the historic sites in June found no obvious evidence of recent looting, according to a report recently published by the British Museum in London.

The findings came as a surprise to antiquities experts and scholars who had expected continued destruction of Iraqi heritage sites after the U.S. invaded in 2003.

"We didn't see any new looting at the eight sites, which was really very, very encouraging," said team member Elizabeth Stone, a Mesopotamia specialist from Stony Brook University in New York.

While the study team cautions that the situation may be very different elsewhere in Iraq, the findings suggest a dramatically improved situation at the eight locations since 2003, when widespread illegal digging was recorded in the region.

The survey, however, uncovered other significant damage to ancient Mesopotamian monuments caused by neglect and military activity.

The British Museum-led expedition to Basra and three other southern provinces was supported by the British Army, which provided armed security and helicopter transport.

Using high-resolution satellite images from 2003, Stone, a National Geographic Society grantee, identified extensive looting at more than 200 sites in southern Iraq.

Larsa, an important second millennium B.C. city nearly 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of modern-day Baghdad, was among the badly looted sites visited by the team.

"If there was major recent looting there we would have expected to find it," Stone said. "But I didn't see anything that was there in late 2003 or early 2004."

Looting activity identified at other southern sites, including Tell el-'Oueili, Tell al-Lahm, Lagash, and Eridu, is also thought to have occurred at least four years ago.


A 4,000-year-old ziggurat, or pyramid-like structure, in the ancient Iraqi city of Ur is showing serious signs of neglect and decay, according to a recent survey of several historic sites in the southern part of the country. Ur, pictured in this June 2008 photo, is nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Baghdad. The city and temples there were bombed in the first Gulf War (1990-1991). Researchers suspect the bombing cracked a protective layer of Kassite temple, next to the ziggurat, allowing water to erode its ancient brickwork.

Photograph courtesy Crown Copyright

Sumerian Capital

Other types of damage were revealed at sites such as Ur, capital of the Sumerian civilization from 2100 to 2000 B.C.

Famous for its terraced temple, called a ziggurat, and royal tombs, Ur was hit during the bombing of the adjacent Tallil Airbase in the first Gulf War (1990-1991).

Stone says one of the temples, the Kassite temple next to the ziggurat, has "deteriorated considerably" since she last inspected it in 1992.

She now suspects the bombing may have cracked a protective concrete covering, allowing water to erode the temple's ancient brickwork.

The team additionally found that walls of the royal tombs have begun to collapse.

"In places like Ur we're seeing this kind of wear and tear," Stone said.

Damage to monuments caused by Iraqi defensive positions dug prior to the 2003 invasion and subsequent potentially harmful uncontrolled access by coalition troops was also highlighted in the report.

"Tens of thousands of military boots tramping over an archaeological site is not what we want," observed team member Paul Collins, curator of later Mesopotamian collections at the British Museum.

But, overall, the most serious threat is neglect, Collins said.

"The ongoing problem is not so much looting or military damage, it is the fact that these sites have faced 30 years of neglect," he said. "The lack of resources for the Iraqi Department of Antiquities means they simply haven't been able to inspect the sites or do conservation or restoration work."

Many ancient buildings "are simply eroding away," Collins said.

The apparent halt to looting at the study sites may be partly due to better security since Iraq's Facilities Protection Service (FPS) was set up with Italian assistance in 2003, Collins said.

The FPS started as a unit of 4,000 government-building guards and by 2006 had grown into a paramilitary force of nearly 145,000. U.S. officials have repeatedly called it unreliable.

However, Collins said the research team found the FPS to be very effective. "They turned up, fully armed, at several of the sites we visited," he said.

At some sites local tribes have taken responsibility for guarding ancient artifacts from potential looters, he added.

Not the Whole Picture?

Collins stresses that the study gives only a limited snapshot of the current situation in Iraq.

"It's just eight sites out of tens of thousands of archaeological sites, most of them unexplored," he said.

Similar surveys need to be undertaken across Iraq to "really get a picture of what did happen and what the situation is now," he added.

Lawrence Rothfield, director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, believes there are good reasons why the sites visited by the team didn't show evidence of recent looting.

Some sites were located near or within coalition bases, while others "did not contain artifacts of interest to collectors," Rothfield wrote in an email.

"There is plentiful evidence that serious plundering of sites since 2003 has occurred," Rothfield said.

He noted, for instance, that Polish and Italian forces in Iraq have reported "widespread looting" and "continuous and methodical illicit digging."

"We know that as of 2006, 17,000 artifacts looted from unregistered archaeological sites had been recovered, surely only a fraction of what has been lost," Rothfield said.

"If there is any grounds for optimism from this report," he said, "it is that it shows that an intelligently devised anti-looting policy by the military could have prevented much of the looting that has occurred, and that future looting can be controlled as well, if the Iraqis can get the support they need to do the job."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/....g-missions.html

Ancient Iraq Temples Eroding, Shot, Trampled



August 13, 2008 — A 4,000-year-old ziggurat, or pyramid-like structure, in the ancient Iraqi city of Ur is marked by bullet and shrapnel holes, according to a recent survey of several historic sites in the southern part of the country.

Ur and the ziggurat, pictured in this June 2008 photo, are about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Baghdad. The city and its temples were bombed in the first Gulf War (1990-1991).

The new survey, conducted by the British Museum, suggests the looting situation has dramatically improved at many important historical sites in this part of Iraq, but neglect, erosion, and military activities still pose significant risks.



The crumbled remains of mudbrick homes built in 2000 B.C. lead up to a recently reconstructed, but unfinished, housing unit in the southern Iraqi city of Ur.

Once the capital of the Sumerian empire, Ur sits near the Tallil airbase, currently a stronghold of U.S. and coalition troops. The ancient settlement is reportedly the site of continued bombing.

The mudbrick foundations, photographed in June 2008, are susceptible to erosion, according to a June assessment of Iraqi historic sites led by the British Museum.



The foundation of a prehistoric stone temple in the southern Iraqi settlement of Uruk has remained relatively unharmed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, according to a new report on the state of the country's historical sites.

The temple, photographed in June 2008, dates back to 3100 B.C. and was part of one of the Sumerian civilization's biggest cities. Extensively studied and heavily guarded, Uruk archeological sites have generated historically significant relics, including the first evidence of a written language.



British soldiers assisting an archeological team secure a historic site at Tell Ubaid, Iraq. In June an international research effort surveyed and photographed eight heritage sites in the southern part of the country for evidence of looting and damage.

Parts of the Ubaid site, just outside of Ur, were degraded in 2003 when an Iraqi command post was created at the top of this mound. Iraqi guards from Ur now monitor the site, and no recent looting was apparent, according to the survey.



The view from the top of Eanna ziggurat in Uruk, Iraq, shows ancient building foundations exposed to the elements. A 2008 archeological survey of the area revealed erosion rather than looting to be the primary cause of concern for preservation of the site, photographed in June.

"The ongoing problem is not so much looting or military damage, it is the fact that these sites have faced 30 years of neglect," said Paul Collins, curator of later Mesopotamian collections at the British Museum, which led the survey.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/....otos/index.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 18, 2008, 10:55pm

Unearthing proof of Korea killings

By John Sudworth
BBC News, Daegu, South Korea

For decades, Lee Tae-joon has wondered what became of his cousin, his childhood companion, who disappeared without trace at the start of the Korean War.

Now he thinks he knows the answer.

At an abandoned cobalt mine near the South Korean city of Daegu, evidence of a massacre is being slowly uncovered.

With brushes and trowels, working ankle-deep in water, a team of archaeologists is sweeping away the top-soil to reveal a mass of human bones.

It is thought that this cold tomb contains the bodies of up to 3,000 people who were executed and then thrown into a vertical mine shaft.

Mr Lee believes his cousin was one of them.

"My heart really breaks when I think that all this killing took place without any judicial process, and by our own forces," he said.

'Hostility and hatred'

At the outbreak of the Korean War, his cousin, like many thousands of suspected Communist sympathisers, was rounded up by the South Korean police.

That large numbers of these political prisoners were shot to stop them joining troops advancing from the north is the grim truth now being pulled from the country's soil.

It has taken this long to unearth because, for much of the post-war period, South Korea's military dictatorships made this kind of investigation impossible.

The families of those who disappeared suffered in silence.

"It was very difficult," Mr Lee said. "After the war, even the slightest suggestion that your family had leftist sympathies would leave you open to hostility and hatred."

In 2005, South Korea finally established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its 240 staff have interviewed hundreds of witnesses and relatives of the victims.

Last year, they started digging. Just a handful of 160 suspected mass-grave sites have been uncovered so far.

In total, they are estimated to contain the remains of more than 100,000 civilian prisoners and suspected leftists.

And there is strong evidence to suggest that the 1950 summer of slaughter took place in the full view of South Korea's American allies.

'Internal matter'

Photos of the executions, taken by US soldiers, were stamped "secret" and filed away in Washington for years.

Their eyewitness accounts were passed to the top of the chain of command.

"There is proof that it was reported to the very top," said Kim Dong-choon, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "US soldiers took pictures and reported back to their superiors."

News reports have suggested that the Americans saw it as an "internal matter".

The British, though, did take some action, seizing "Execution Hill", outside Seoul, to prevent further killings.

But 82-year-old Kim Man-sik, one of the few South Koreans left alive who admits to having taken part in the executions, pleads for a fuller understanding of the circumstances of war.

In the midst of a civil conflict, with the front line just a few miles away, he says the military policemen under his command felt they had little choice but to follow orders.

"On two occasions my unit was told to collect suspected leftists from the police, and we conducted group executions," he said.

"But you have to understand the situation at the time, our forces were in a very disadvantaged situation and cornered."

Weak mandate

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has until 2010 to complete its task.

An uncomfortable truth has been airbrushed from the history of the Korean War, which has long attributed almost all atrocities to the communists in the North.

More than half a century on, it is a new generation in the South that are coming to terms with the thought that in war terrible deeds are not only the preserve of the enemy.

But the commission cannot compel witnesses to give evidence, nor can it impose any sanctions on the perpetrators.

There is concern amongst its supporters that its mandate is too short, and its powers too weak, to do justice to its cause.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7567936.stm

Published: 2008/08/18 13:47:03 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 21, 2008, 2:08am

Peru joins fray for treasure ship claimed by Spain

By Jim LoneyPosted 2008/08/20 at 6:28 pm EDT

MIAMI, Aug. 20, 2008 (Reuters) — Peru has entered the battle for a multimillion-dollar treasure of gold and silver that Spain alleges a U.S. treasure hunting company looted from a Spanish warship sunk in 1804.

The South American nation filed a conditional claim on Tuesday asking a U.S. court to turn over information about the find, which Spain believes to be the wreckage of the Spanish warship La Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes and treasure it was carrying back from what is now Peru.

"This admiralty proceeding may involve part of the patrimony of the Republic of Peru," the court filing said.

A Florida lawyer representing Peru was not available for comment and the Peruvian Embassy in Washington declined comment.

The battle between Spain and Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc began after the company announced it had recovered tonnes of gold and silver coins last year at a wreck site in international waters it code-named "Black Swan."

The company flew the haul, by some estimates worth $500 million, back to Tampa.

In October a Spanish warship intercepted an Odyssey treasure-hunting ship after it left the British territory of Gibraltar and escorted it to a Spanish port. Police arrested and then released the ship's captain.

In May, Spain said it could prove the wreck site was that of the Spanish warship Mercedes, which was attacked by British warships off the Spanish coast in October 1804.

An explosion ripped the vessel apart and it sank, killing more than 200 sailors. It was carrying treasure back to Europe from Peru, which was ruled by Spain at the time.

Spain accused Odyssey of stripping the warship of valuables and artifacts and trying to hide its actions by claiming it did not know the identity of the vessel.

Odyssey has said even if the vessel is determined to be the Mercedes, Spain would still have to prove it was the owner of artifacts found at the site and had not abandoned them.

In a statement issued on Wednesday the company welcomed Peru's claim.

"We believe that Peru's filing raises a significant and timely question relating to whether a former colonial power or the colonized indigenous peoples should receive the cultural and financial benefit of underwater cultural heritage...," chief executive Greg Stemm said.

The company said Peru was welcome to take part in a study of any property found to have originated in Peru.

Saying it had never abandoned its interest in its "property and patrimony," Peru asked the U.S. court in Tampa to turn over information to help it determine if it would make a formal claim for the treasure.

"All of Peru's sovereign and other rights in its property, artifacts, and other items sunken at sea are and have been reserved."

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20463489-spain-treasure-peru/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 23, 2008, 12:40am

Oetzi The Iceman Dressed Like A Herdsman


Early photograph of the body before its removal from the ice.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2008) — A famous Neolithic Iceman is dressed in clothes made from sheep and cattle hair, a new study shows. The researchers say their findings support the idea that the Iceman was a herdsman, and that their technique, reported today in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, has use in the modern clothing industry.

The social and cultural background of the Iceman, dubbed Oetzi, has been the subject of much debate since his mummified remains were discovered in an Alpine glacier in 1991. Although his clothes were known to be made of animal skins, their exact origin was uncertain. This new study focuses on hair samples taken from Oetzi's coat, leggings and moccasin shoes.

"We found that the hairs came from sheep and cattle, just the types of animals that herdsmen care for during their seasonal migrations," says lead researcher Klaus Hollemeyer of Saarland University in Germany.

The researchers analysed hair samples in excess of 5,000 years old using MALDITOF mass spectrometry. This allowed them to study patterns of peptides of fermented proteins present in the ancient hair and compare them with those of modern day animals. They found that Oetzi's coat and leggings were made from sheep's fur, whilst his moccasins were of cattle origin.

The researchers believe that MALDITOF mass spectrometry may be faster and more reliable than methods based on DNA analysis and that it could be applied in archaeology and evolutionary biology.

"This method could, for example, be used in checking the purity of products made from animal hair, such as pullovers and jackets made of Cashmere wool," says Hollemeyer. "I think that a major field of application will be to help manufacturers abide by the European Union law concerning the ban of dog and cat fur trade next year."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080820194843.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 23, 2008, 11:06am

Further to "Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico" @ http://chem11.proboards2.com/index.cgi?b....32&page=2#41323 :

Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico?
Alexis Okeowo in México City
for National Geographic News
August 22, 2008


Archaeologists Victoria Rojas (front) and Lara Hindersten (back) work at a site in the village of Tahtzibichen, in Mérida, the capital of Mexico's Yucatán state, on April 12, 2008.

Mexican archaeologists announced in August the discovery of a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones.

Ancient Mayas likely considered the construction a portal for dead souls to pass into the underworld, scholars say.

Photograph by Tammara Thomsen/HO/Reuters

A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater—have been uncovered on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week.

The discovery has experts wondering whether Maya legend inspired the construction of the underground complex—or vice versa.

According to Maya myth, the souls of the dead had to follow a dog with night vision on a horrific and watery path and endure myriad challenges before they could rest in the afterlife.

In one of the recently found caves, researchers discovered a nearly 300-foot (90-meter) concrete road that ends at a column standing in front of a body of water.

"We have this pattern now of finding temples close to the water—or under the water, in this most recent case," said Guillermo de Anda, lead investigator at the research sites.

"These were probably made as part of a very elaborate ritual," de Anda said. "Everything is related to death, life, and human sacrifice."

Stretching south from southern Mexico, through Guatemala, and into northern Belize, the Maya culture had its heyday from about A.D. 250 to 900, when the civilization mysteriously collapsed.

Myth and Reality

Archaeologists excavating the temples and pyramids in the village of Tahtzibichen, in Mérida, the capital of Yucatán state, said the oldest item they found was a 1,900-year-old vessel. Other uncovered earthenware and sculptures dated to A.D. 750 to 850.

"There are stones, huge columns, and sculptures of priests in the caves," said de Anda, whose team has been working on the Yucatán Peninsula for six months.

"There are also human remains and ceramics," he said.

Researchers said the ancient legend—described in part in the sacred book Popul Vuh—tells of a tortuous journey through oozing blood, bats, and spiders, that souls had to make in order to reach Xibalba, the underworld.

"Caves are natural portals to other realms, which could have inspired the Mayan myth. They are related to darkness, to fright, and to monsters," de Anda said, adding that this does not contradict the theory that the myth inspired the temples.

William Saturno, a Maya expert at Boston University, believes the maze of temples was built after the story.

"I'm sure the myths came first, and the caves reaffirmed the broad time-and-space myths of the Mayans," he said.

Underworld Entrances

Saturno said the discovery of the temples underwater indicates the significant effort the Maya put into creating these portals.

In addition to plunging deep into the forest to reach the cave openings, Maya builders would have had to hold their breath and dive underwater to build some of the shrines and pyramids.

Other Maya underworld entrances have been discovered in jungles and aboveground caves in northern Guatemala Belize.

"They believed in a reality with many layers," Saturno said of the Maya. "The portal between life and where the dead go was important to them."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080822-maya-maze.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 25, 2008, 8:13pm

Huge statue of Roman ruler found
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

Parts of a giant, exquisitely-carved marble sculpture depicting the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius have been found at an archaeological site in Turkey.


The colossal marble head depicts Marcus Aurelius in his youth. (Image: Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project)

Fragments of the statue were unearthed at the ancient city of Sagalassos.

So far the statue's head, right arm and lower legs have been discovered, high in the mountains of southern Turkey.

Marcus Aurelius was portrayed by Richard Harris in the Oscar-winning 2000 film Gladiator and was one of the so-called "Five Good Emperors".

He reigned from 161AD until his death in 180AD.

In addition to his deeds as emperor, Marcus Aurelius is remembered for his writings, and is considered one of the foremost Stoic philosophers.

The partial statue was unearthed in the largest room at Sagalassos' Roman baths.

The cross-shaped room measures 1,250 sq m (13,500 sq ft), is covered in mosaics and was probably used as a frigidarium - a room with a cold pool which Romans could sink into after a hot bath.

It was partially destroyed in an earthquake between 540AD and 620AD, filling the room with rubble. Archaeologists have been excavating the frigidarium for the past 12 years.

The dig is part of wider excavations at the ruined city, which was once an important regional centre.

Imperial gallery

Last year, the team led by Prof Marc Waelkens, from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, uncovered fragments of a colossal marble statue of the emperor Hadrian in the rubble.

This month, the researchers found a huge head and arm belonging to Faustina the Elder - wife of the emperor Antoninus Pius.

Archaeologists now think the room hosted a gallery of sculptures depicting the "Antonine dynasty" - rulers of Spanish origin who presided over the Roman Empire during the second century AD.

Early on 20 August, a huge pair of marble lower legs, broken just above the knee, turned up in the debris.



They also found a 1.5m-long (5ft-long) right arm and hand holding a globe which was probably once crowned by a gilded bronze "Victory" figure.



But it was the giant marble head which identified this statue as the young Marcus Aurelius. The colossal head, which is just under 1m (3ft) in height, is said to bear his characteristic bulging eyes and beard.

Prof Waelkens said the pupils were gazing upwards "as if in deep contemplation, perfectly fitting of an emperor who was more of a philosopher than a soldier".

He added that this was one of the finest depictions of the Roman ruler.

The emperor wore exquisitely carved army boots decorated with a lion skin, tendrils and Amazon shields.

The torso was probably covered in bronze armour filled inside with terracotta or wood. When the niche's vault collapsed in the earthquake, the torso would have exploded.

Bath complex

The statue of Hadrian was found lying halfway down in the frigidarium 's rubble.

This initially led archaeologists to think it had been hauled in there from another part of the huge bath complex, perhaps to remove its gilded bronze armour, or to burn the huge marble pieces to make cement in a nearby lime kiln.

However, they now think sculptures of Hadrian, his wife Vibia Sabina, another Roman emperor Antoninus Pius, his wife Faustina the Elder, and Marcus Aurelius all once adorned niches situated around the room.

There were three large niches on both the western and eastern sides. The fragments of Hadrian's statue were found near the south-west niche.

The front parts of two female feet were discovered in the opposite niche, on the room's south-eastern side.

The archaeologists now think these belonged to a colossal figure of Vibia Sabina, who was forced into marriage with the homosexual Hadrian at the age of 14.

Remains of the statue depicting Faustina the Elder were found further along, on the eastern side.

In the opposite niche, they found the front parts of a pair of male feet in sandals, which could belong to her husband, Antoninus Pius - who succeeded Hadrian as emperor.

The experts suggest Antonine emperors occupied niches on the western side of the room, while their spouses stood opposite, on the east side.

Five good emperors

After the discovery of Faustina and her male counterpart, the archaeologists guessed the north-western niche would contain a colossal statue of Marcus Aurelius - the longest surviving successor of Antoninus Pius.

The discovery on Wednesday confirmed this prediction, and suggests the north-eastern niche may contain remains of a statue depicting Faustina the Younger, Marcus Aurelius' wife.

Archaeologists will get the opportunity to excavate this part of the room next year.

Despite his philosophical leanings, Marcus Aurelius had to spend much of his reign fighting Germanic tribes along the Austrian Danube, where in 180AD, he died in nearby Carnuntum.

The part of Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator was one of Richard Harris' last roles (the actor died in 2002). Although much of the storyline is fictional, it is set against an historical backdrop of the imperial succession from Marcus Aurelius to his son Commodus.

While Marcus Aurelius is considered, along with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, as one of Rome's Five Good Emperors, Commodus' reign was marked by internal strife, cruelty and conspiracies.

Commodus took part, naked, in gladiatorial battles - which he always won. Opponents, whose lives were apparently spared, would eventually submit to the emperor.

He was murdered in 192AD: not by a general called Maximus, but by an athlete named Narcissus, sent by conspirators to strangle the megalomaniac emperor in his bath.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7580745.stm

Published: 2008/08/25 19:20:55 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 25, 2008, 9:05pm

New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth


Early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals (like the one shown in the above model), new research shows. (Credit: iStockphoto/Klaus Nilkens)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2008) — Research by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to the theory that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). The research team has shown that early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals.

Published in the Journal of Human Evolution, their discovery debunks a textbook belief held by archaeologists for more than 60 years.

The team from the University of Exeter, Southern Methodist University, Texas State University, and the Think Computer Corporation, spent three years flintknapping (producing stone tools). They recreated stone tools known as 'flakes,' which were wider tools originally used by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, and 'blades,' a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens. Archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as proof of Homo sapiens' superior intellect. To test this, the team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting-edge was created, the efficiency in consuming raw material and how long tools lasted.

Blades were first produced by Homo sapiens during their colonization of Europe from Africa approximately 40,000 years ago. This has traditionally been thought to be a dramatic technological advance, helping Homo sapiens out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their Stone Age cousins. Yet when the research team analysed their data there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the two technologies. In fact, their findings showed that in some respects the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were more efficient than the blades adopted by Homo sapiens.

The Neanderthals, believed to be a different species from Homo sapiens, evolved in Ice Age Europe, while the latter evolved in Africa before spreading out to the rest of the world around 50-40,000 years ago. Neanderthals are thought to have died out around 28,000 years ago, suggesting at least 10,000 years of overlap and possible interaction between the two species in Europe.

Many long-held beliefs suggesting why the Neanderthals went extinct have been debunked in recent years. Research has already shown that Neanderthals were as good at hunting as Homo sapiens and had no clear disadvantage in their ability to communicate. Now, these latest findings add to the growing evidence that Neanderthals were no less intelligent than our ancestors.

Metin Eren, an MA Experimental Archaeology student at the University of Exeter and lead author on the paper comments: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens were more advanced than Neanderthals. It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived. Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other. When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different.'"

Now that it is established that there is no technical advantage to blades, why did Homo sapiens adopt this technology during their colonization of Europe? The researchers suggest that the reason for this shift may be more cultural or symbolic. Eren explains: "Colonizing a continent isn't easy. Colonizing a continent during the Ice Age is even harder. So, for early Homo sapiens colonizing Ice Age Europe, a new shared and flashy-looking technology might serve as one form of social glue by which larger social networks were bonded. Thus, during hard times and resource droughts these larger social networks might act like a type of 'life insurance,' ensuring exchange and trade among members on the same 'team.'"

The University of Exeter is the only university in the world to offer a degree course in Experimental Archaeology. This strand of archaeology focuses on understanding how people lived in the past by recreating their activities and replicating their technologies. Eren says: "It was only by spending three years in the lab learning how to physically make these tools that we were able to finally replicate them accurately enough to come up with our findings."

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation of the USA and the Exeter Graduation Fund.

Journal reference:

1. Metin I. Eren, Aaron Greenspan, C. Garth Sampson. Are Upper Paleolithic blade cores more productive than Middle Paleolithic discoidal cores? A replication experiment. Journal of Human Evolution, Published online August 26, 2008

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080825203924.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 26, 2008, 10:05pm

1300-year-old mummy unearthed in Peru

By Dana Ford in Lima

August 27, 2008 08:10am


A mummy of the Wari prehispanic culture is seen inside a recently discovered tomb in Lima's Huaca Pucllana ceremonial complex August 26, 2008. Archaeologists working at the ruins of Huaca Pucllana in the country's capital pulled a mummy from a tomb on Tuesday, thought to be from the ancient Wari culture that flourished in modern-day Peru before the Incas. REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil

ARCHEOLOGISTS working at Peru's Huaca Pucllana ruins have pulled a mummy from a tomb, thought to be from the ancient Wari culture that flourished before the Incas.

Besides the female mummy, the tomb contained the remains of two other adults and a child. It is the first intact Wari burial site discovered at Huaca Pucllana in the capital Lima, and researchers believe it dates from about 700 AD.

"We'd discovered other tombs before," said Isabel Flores, director of the ruins.

"But they always had holes, or were damaged. Never had we found a whole tomb like this one - intact," she said, standing on the ancient plaza, a huge partially excavated mound of rocks, bricks and dirt.

Workers wrapped the female mummy in tissue paper before lifting it onto a flat wood board. They exposed her face, revealing two big, bright blue orbs in her eye sockets. They extracted the other adult mummies, which were also whole, earlier in the week.

"Her face startled me at first," said Miguel Angel, 19, a worker at Huaca Pucllana who helped unearth the tomb.

"I wasn't expecting to find anything like that," he said. It was not clear what the fake eyes were made of.

The Wari people lived and ruled in what is now Peru for some 500 years, between 600 AD and 1100 AD. Their capital was near modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes, but they traveled widely and are known for their extensive network of roads.

Ms Flores said about 30 tombs have been found at Huaca Pucllana, surrounded by Lima's busy streets.

When in good condition, Wari tombs can be identified by the ceramic and textile offerings placed around the dead.

Small children were often sacrificed and it is common to find their bodies alongside adult ones.

The child discovered with the adult mummies at Huaca Pucllana was likely sacrificed.

The discovery at Huaca Pucllana confirms the Wari people buried their dead in what is now Lima and offers a more complete picture of how burials were done.

"This enriches Lima's story," Ms Flores said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24249526-401,00.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 27, 2008, 2:10am

Bone Parts Don't Add Up To Conclusion Of Hobbit-like Palauan Dwarfs


A close-up view of the teeth shows their size as well as betel staining -- a red byproduct of chewing betel, an Areca palm nut along with slaked lime and leaf of the Piper betel vine. Betel has slight stimulant and medicinal qualities. (Credit: Photos by Jim Barlow)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2008) — Misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found in Palau appear to be an archaeologist's undoing, according to researchers at three institutions. They say that the so-called dwarfs of these Micronesian islands actually were modern, normal-sized hunters and gatherers.

Scientists from the University of Oregon, North Carolina State University and the Australian National University have refuted the conclusion of Lee R. Berger and colleagues that Hobbit-like little people once lived there.

"Our evidence indicates the earliest inhabitants of Palau were of normal stature, and it counters the evidence that Berger, et al, presented in their paper indicating there was a reduced stature population in early Palau," said University of Oregon anthropologist Greg C. Nelson. "Our research from whole bones and whole skeletons indicates that the earliest individuals in Palau were of normal stature but gracile. In other words, they were thin."

Berger, an American-raised paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, stunned archaeologists in March with his claim -- based on skeletal fragments collected from two caves exposed to tidal activity -- that small-bodied humans may have lived in isolation and suffered from insular dwarfism on the islands 1,000 to 3,000 years ago. Berger initially found fragmented human remains while vacationing in Palau, and returned later for excavations under a grant from the National Geographic Society.

Nelson and NCSU anthropologist Scott M. Fitzpatrick, who earned his doctorate at the UO and based his dissertation on Palauan culture, reviewed full skeletal remains and cultural evidence dating back to almost 3,500 years ago. Their Australian co-author Geoffrey Clark also has studied multiple Palauan cultural sites dating to approximately 3,000 years ago.

They argue that Berger, an expert on much earlier humans dating to the Pleistocene, failed to review existing documentation, much of it published by Nelson or Fitzpatrick. Much of their rebuttal comes from remains unearthed by Fitzpatrick and Nelson at Chelechol ra Orrak, only miles from Berger's two sites. Among these whole remains are bone pieces that match -- some are even smaller that fragments found by Berger -- and come from much larger bodies than those claimed by Berger.

"I think Berger's primary mistakes were his not understanding the variation in the skeletal population in which he was working, using fragmentary remains again in a situation where he didn't understand variation, and stepping outside his own area of expertise, which, I think all scientists try not to do but sometimes we do," Nelson said.

In their paper, Nelson, Fitzpatrick and Clark provide detailed information on the island chain's geography, early migration patterns and cultural history based on a meta-analysis of their own research and studies done by others on the islands.

"Although we have not seen the material that Berger et al base their results on, we can speak to the diversity and normalcy of human skeletal series from throughout the archipelago that have been excavated from several burial caves over the last decade, as well as the an abundance of archaeological, linguistic and historical data indicating a general continuity of cultural traits over a period of three millennia," they wrote in the paper. "Archaeological data also do not suggest a separate isolated group evolving differently (biologically or culturally), although there are subtle differences and changes that occur through time."

Skeletal evidence, Nelson said, reveals three main areas where Berger's conclusions were flawed:

* Berger, as his primary evidence of the existence of small stature humans, pointed to fragments of femoral heads, the round balls atop the body's longest bone that connects it to the hip. Nelson concurs that these heads were often small compared to today's humans but that they connected femurs of modern-sized individuals -- with females averaging about 5-foot, 1-inch in height -- who were slightly built and subsisted off available food sources. At least two femoral heads analyzed by Nelson from full skeletons were smaller than those cited by Berger. Having an intact femur provides a usually accurate starting point for extrapolating body height.

* Berger argued that his fragmentary cranial evidence indicated brow ridges common to very ancient human foreheads (picture those of Neanderthals). Nelson and colleagues argue that all cranial measurements they analyzed point to modern-sized heads. They also noted that limestone dissolved in water -- very common to the island chain's karst environment -- running across bodies buried at or just below the surface will create the easily misinterpreted lumpy appearance on brow ridges.

* Berger said teeth and orthodontia fragments suggested megadontism -- abnormally large teeth, a condition common in the pre-modern, small-bodied hominins that he often studies. Nelson says that large teeth were indeed common in early Palauans but simply reflected a hunter-gatherer society. Smaller teeth evolved as cultures turned to agriculture, he said. "Had [Berger's team] compared their scant dental metric data with those of other regions in the Pacific, or elsewhere in the world, they would have seen that large teeth are not uncommon in early peoples of these regions," Nelson and colleagues wrote.

"One of his biggest mistakes was rushing to publish," Nelson said of Berger. "He did not take the time to understand the area in which he was working -- its entire history, not just the skeletal stuff," he said. "Any time you work anywhere, you have to understand this history. You just can't walk in and cowboy it, pull some stuff out and draw conclusions in the absence of understanding the bigger picture."

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/08/080826205936.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 28, 2008, 5:13am

First Prehistoric Pregnant Turtle And Nest Of Eggs Discovered In Southern Alberta


"Although it is relatively rare to find the eggs and babies of extinct animals, it is even rarer to find them inside the body of the mother," says Darla Zelenitsky. (Credit: Photo by Ken Bendiktsen)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2008) — A 75-million-year-old fossil of a pregnant turtle and a nest of fossilized eggs that were discovered in the badlands of southeastern Alberta by scientists and staff from the University of Calgary and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology are yielding new ideas on the evolution of egg-laying and reproduction in turtles and tortoises.

It is the first time the fossil of a pregnant turtle has been found and the description of this discovery was published today in the British journal Biology Letters.

The mother carrying the eggs was found in 1999 by Tyrrell staff while the nest of eggs was discovered in 2005 by U of C scientist Darla Zelenitsky, the lead author of the article and an expert on fossil nest sites, and her field assistant. Both were found about 85 km south of Medicine Hat in the Manyberries area.

“Although it is relatively rare to find the eggs and babies of extinct animals, it is even rarer to find them inside the body of the mother,” says Darla Zelenitsky, who was also involved in the first discovery of a dinosaur with eggs inside its body.

It was almost by accident that scientists realized that the fossil turtle was pregnant.

“The turtle specimen was partly broken when it was first discovered. It is this fortuitous break that revealed that the fossil was a mother,” says François Therrien, a co-investigator of the study and curator of dinosaur palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The remains of at least five crushed eggs were visible within the body of the fossil female and a CT scan exposed more eggs hidden under its shell. The turtle, estimated to be about 40 cm long, could have produced around 20 eggs. The nest, which was laid by a different female, contained 26 eggs, each approximately 4 cm in diameter.

Both specimens belong to an extinct turtle called Adocus, a large river turtle that lived with the dinosaurs and resembles today’s slider and cooter turtles.

The eggs of Adocus are extremely thick and hard, whereas those of most modern turtles are either thinner or soft-shelled. The thick eggshell may have evolved to protect the eggs from desiccation in dry environments or to protect them from voracious predators during the time of the dinosaurs.

Zelenitsky says the pregnant turtle specimen and the nest shed light on the evolution of reproductive traits of modern turtles, specifically those traits related to their eggs and nests.

“Based on these fossils, we have determined that the ancestor of living hidden-necked turtles, which are most of today's turtles and tortoises, laid a large number of eggs and had hard, rigid shells,” says Therrien.

The fossilized pregnant turtle will be on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller starting August 29th.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080827152614.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 28, 2008, 7:25pm


Lost towns found in Amazon

From correspondents in Washington

August 29, 2008 08:26am

A VAST region of the Amazon forest in Brazil was home to a complex of ancient towns in which about 50,000 people lived, according to scientists assisted by satellite images of the region.

The scientists, whose findings were published yesterday in the journal Science, described clusters of towns and smaller villages connected by complex road networks and housing a society doomed by the arrival of Europeans five centuries ago.

European colonists and the diseases they brought with them probably killed most of the inhabitants, the researchers said. The settlements, consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages organized around a central plaza, are now almost entirely overgrown by the forest.

"These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns," University of Florida anthropologist Mike Heckenberger said.

"If we look at your average medieval town or your average Greek polis, most are about the scale of those we find in this part of the Amazon. Only the ones we find are much more complicated in terms of their planning," Mr Heckenberger added.

Helped by satellite imagery, the researchers spent more than a decade uncovering and mapping the lost communities.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans starting in 1492, the Americas were home to many prosperous and impressive societies and large cities. These findings add to the understanding of the various pre-Columbian civilisations.

The existence of the ancient settlements in the Upper Xingu region of the Amazon in north-central Brazil means what many experts had considered virgin tropical forests were in fact heavily affected by past human activity, the scientists said.

The US and Brazilian scientists worked with a member of the Kuikuro, an indigenous Amazonian people descended from settlements' original inhabitants.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24260325-23109,00.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 29, 2008, 7:28am



Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in raw form (top) and after infrared imaging (bottom). Israel's Antiquities Authority is planning to put the scrolls online, hence the need to image them. Infrared is being used to decipher segments that have degraded over the scrolls' two millennia existence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/po....4775/html/1.stm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 29, 2008, 7:56am

New Giant Clam Species Offers Window Into Human Past

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — Researchers report the discovery of the first new living species of giant clam in two decades, according to a report to be published online on August 28th in Current Biology. While fossil evidence reveals that the new species, called Tridacna costata, once accounted for more than 80 percent of giant clams in the Red Sea, it now represents less than one percent of giant clams living there.

The researchers said they cannot say for sure which factors contributed to the loss of this giant clam species in favor of others, but the overall decline in giant clam stocks and the striking loss of large specimens is a "smoking gun" for overharvesting by humans many thousands of years ago, said Claudio Richter of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. The new species appears to live only in the shallowest waters, making it particularly vulnerable to overfishing.

"These are all strong indications that T. costata may be the earliest example of marine overexploitation," he said.

Modern humans are believed to have coasted out of Africa during the last interglacial, some 125,000 years ago, Richter said. The Red Sea, a saltwater inlet between Africa and Asia, may have acted as a bottleneck, and its overall aridity may have driven the early hunter-gatherers to rely on shallow-water marine resources. Giant clams would have been a prime target, because of their sedentary nature, conspicuousness, and large size, he added.

The research team, including scientists from the Center of Tropical Marine Ecology in Germany and the University of Jordan, discovered the new species while attempting to develop a breeding program for another prized giant clam species. Study coauthor Hilly Roa-Quiaoit of Xavier University in the Philippines, known as the "mother of clams," recognized the new species, which can measure up to a foot long and has a shell with a distinctive zig-zag outline, as a new variety.

Analysis of those apparent differences in morphology confirmed that the species was in fact clearly distinct. To further resolve the relationship of this new variety to the other giant clams, Marc Kochzius at the University of Bremen led the molecular genetic analysis, which confirmed T. costata as a new species.

The new giant clam differs from others in the Red Sea in an early and brief reproductive period each spring, coinciding with the seasonal plankton bloom, they report. Underwater surveys carried out in the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Red Sea revealed that the long-overlooked clam must be considered critically endangered. Only six out of a thousand live specimens the researchers observed belonged to the new species.

Early shellfishing evidence in other areas has led to speculation that the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa into the Red Sea and adjacent regions 110,000 to 90,000 years ago was driven largely by competition for marine resources, the researchers said.

" Our discovery that T. costata was already on a trajectory of decline prior to this period corroborates this hypothesis, by providing the first circumstantial evidence that humans were not only using but also depleting reef resources, making T. costata the likely earliest victim of anthropogenic degradation of coral reefs," they wrote. "Declining marine and terrestrial resources, by human and climatic factors, respectively, may have acted in concert to thwart the precocious but short-lived colonization of the Near East by anatomically modern but technologically primitive humans at the end of the last interglacial."

The researchers include Claudio Richter, Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany; Hilly Roa-Quiaoit, Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro, Philippines; Carin Jantzen, Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Bremen, Germany; Mohammad Al-Zibdah, The University of Jordan, Yarmouk University, Aqaba, Jordan; and Marc Kochzius, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828135859.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 29, 2008, 7:57am

'Pristine' Amazonian Region Hosted Large, Urban Civilization


Picture from a low-flying airplane as it passes over the current Kuikuro village, demonstrating the circular-plaza village structure that has historically been and remains a primary cultural trait of urban construction. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Florida)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — They aren't the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover.

But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical forest, were once large and complex enough to be considered "urban" as the term is commonly applied to both medieval European and ancient Greek communities.

So says a paper set to appear August 28 in Science co-authored by anthropologists from the University of Florida and Brazil, and a member of the Kuikuro, an indigenous Amazonian people who are the descendants of the settlements' original inhabitants.

"If we look at your average medieval town or your average Greek polis, most are about the scale of those we find in this part of the Amazon," said Mike Heckenberger, a UF professor of anthropology and the lead author of the paper. "Only the ones we find are much more complicated in terms of their planning."

The paper also argues that the size and scale of the settlements in the southern Amazon in North Central Brazil means that what many scientists have considered virgin tropical forests are in fact heavily influenced by historic human activity. Not only that, but the settlements – consisting of networks of walled towns and smaller villages, each organized around a central plaza – suggest future solutions for supporting the indigenous population in Brazil's state of Mato Grosso and other regions of the Amazon, the paper says.

"Some of the practices that these folks hammered may provide alternative forms of understanding how to do low level sustainable development today," Heckenberger said.

Heckenberger and his colleagues first announced the discovery of the settlements in a 2003 Science paper. The largest date from around 1250 to 1650, when European colonists and the diseases they brought likely killed most of their inhabitants.

The communities are now almost entirely overgrown. But Heckenberger said that members of the Kuikuro, a Xinguano tribe that calls the region home, are adept at identifying telltale landscape features that reveal ancient activity. These include, for example, "dark earth" that indicate past human waste dumps or farming, concentrations of pottery shards and earthworks. Also assisted by satellite imagery and GPS technology, the researchers spent more than a decade uncovering and mapping the obscured communities.

The new paper reports that the settlements consisted of clusters of 150-acre towns and smaller villages organized in spread out "galactic" patterns.

None of the large towns was as large as the largest medieval or Greek towns. But as with those towns, the Amazonian ones were surrounded by large walls – in their case, composed of earthworks still extant today. Among other repeated features, each Amazonian settlement had an identical formal road, always oriented northeast to southwest in keeping with the mid-year summer solstice, connected to a central plaza.

The careful placement of the like-oriented settlements is indicative of the regional planning and political organization that are hallmarks of urban society, Heckenberger said.

"These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns," he said.

The findings are important because they contradict long-held stereotypes about early Western versus early New World settlements that rest on the idea that "if you find it in Europe, it's a city. If you find it somewhere else, it has to be something else," Heckenberger said.

"They have quite remarkable planning and self-organization, more so than many classical examples of what people would call urbanism," he said.

But the research is also important because it means at least one area of "pristine" Amazon has a history of human activity. That could change not only how scientists assess the flora and fauna, but also how conservationists approach preserving the remains of forest so heavily cleared it is the world's largest soybean producing area. "This throws a wrench in all the models suggesting we are looking at primordial biodiversity," Heckenberger said.

Around the communities the scientists found dams and artificial ponds that indicate inhabitants farmed fish near their homes. They also found the remnants of open areas and large compost heaps suggesting widespread near-town cultivation.

The research has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828162554.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Aug 29, 2008, 8:01am

'Armored' Fish Study Helps Strengthen Darwin's Natural Selection Theory


Lateral plate morphs in marine stickleback. Complete morph (top), partial morph (middle), and low morph (bottom). These fish were stained to highlight bones. (Credit: Courtesy of Rowan Barrett, UBC)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — Shedding some genetically induced excess baggage may have helped a tiny fish thrive in freshwater and outsize its marine ancestors, according to a UBC study published today in Science Express.

Measuring three to 10 centimetres long, stickleback fish originated in the ocean but began populating freshwater lakes and streams following the last ice age. Over the past 20,000 years – a relatively short time span in evolutionary terms – freshwater sticklebacks have lost their bony lateral plates, or “armour,” in these new environments.

“Scientists have identified a mutant form of a gene, or allele, that prohibits the growth of armour,” says UBC Zoology PhD candidate Rowan Barrett. Found in fewer than one per cent of marine sticklebacks, this allele is very common in freshwater populations.

Barrett and co-authors UBC post-doctoral fellow Sean Rogers and Prof. Dolph Schluter set out to investigate whether the armour gene may have helped sticklebacks “invade” freshwater environments. They relocated 200 marine sticklebacks with the rare armour reduction allele to freshwater experimental ponds.

“By documenting the physical traits and genetic makeup of the offspring produced by these marine sticklebacks in freshwater, we were able to track how natural selection operates on this gene,” says Rogers.

“We found a significant increase in the frequency of this allele in their offspring, evidence that natural selection favours reduced armour in freshwater,” says Barrett.

Barrett and Rogers also found that offspring carrying the allele are significantly larger in size. “It leads us to believe that the genetic expression is also tied to increased growth rate,” says Barrett.

“If the fish aren’t expending resources growing bones – which may be significantly more difficult in freshwater due to its lack of ions – they can devote more energy to increasing biomass,” says Barrett. “This in turn allows them to breed earlier and improves over-winter survival rate.”

Celebrating its 150th anniversary this week, Darwin’s first publication of his natural selection theory proposed that challenging environments would lead to a struggle for existence, or “survival of the fittest.” Since then, scientists have advanced the theory by contributing an understanding of how genes affect evolution.

“This study provides further evidence for Darwin’s theory of natural selection by showing that environmental conditions can directly impact genes controlling physical traits that affect the survival of species,” says Barrett.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828162604.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 2, 2008, 9:19am

Prehistoric Funerary Precinct Excavated In Northern Israel: Grave Goods Include Phallic Figurines, Sea Shells


(1) Phallic figurine, (2) Small symbolic axe made with serpentine, (3) Shell pendants, (4) Engraved token (Credit: Photo by Professor Nigel Goring-Morris)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2008) — Hebrew University excavations in the north of Israel have revealed a prehistoric funerary precinct dating back to 6,750-8,500 BCE.

The precinct, a massive walled enclosure measuring 10 meters by at least 20 meters, was discovered at excavations being undertaken at Kfar HaHoresh. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site in the Nazareth hills of the lower Galilee is interpreted as having been a regional funerary and cult center for nearby lowland villages.

Prof. Nigel Goring-Morris of the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, who is leading the excavations, says that the precinct is just one of the many finds discovered at the site this year – including remains of a fully-articulated, but tightly contracted 40 year old adult male.

Accompanying grave goods include a sickle blade and a sea shell, while a concentration of some 60 other shells were found nearby. The sea shells provide evidence for extensive exchange networks from the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Symbolic items include small plain or incised tokens. An entire herd of cattle was also found buried nearby.

While fertility symbols during this period are often associated with female imagery, at Kfar HaHoresh only phallic figurines have been found to date, including one placed as a foundation deposit in the wall of the precinct.

Exotic minerals found at the site include malachite from south of the Dead Sea, obsidian (natural volcanic glass) from central Anatolia, and a votive axe on serpentine from either Cyprus or northern Syria.

"Cultic artifacts, installations and their contextual associations attest to intensive ritual practices in the area," says Prof. Goring-Morris.

Burials at the site now total at least 65 individuals, and display an unusual demographic profile – with an emphasis on young adult males. Graves occur under or associated with lime-plaster surfaced L-shaped walled structures, and are varied in nature from single articulated burials through multiple secondary burials with up to 17 individuals. Bones in one had been intentionally re-arranged in what appears to be a depiction.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, ca. 8,500-6,750 BCE, corresponds to the period when the first large village communities were established in the fertile regions of the Near East when a wide ranging cultural interaction sphere came into being throughout the Levant.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080901085355.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 3, 2008, 10:34am

Tutankhamen Fathered Twins, Mummified Fetuses Suggest


Replica of King Tutankhamen bust. (Credit: iStockphoto/Greg Nicholas)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2008) — Two fetuses found in the tomb of Tutankhamen may have been twins and were very likely to have been the children of the teenage Pharaoh, according to the anatomist who first studied the mummified remains of the young King in the 1960s.

Robert Connolly, who is working with the Egyptian authorities to analyse the mummified remains of Tutankhamen and the two stillborn children, will discuss the new findings at the Pharmacy and Medicine in Ancient Egypt Conference at The University of Manchester on September 1, 2008.

Mr Connolly says: "The work carried out by Catherine Hellier in Norway and I suggests that the two fetuses in the tomb of Tutankhamen could be twins despite their very different size and thus fit better as a single pregnancy for his young wife. This increases the likelihood of them being Tutankhamen's children.

"I studied one of the mummies, the larger one, back in 1979, determined the blood group data from this baby mummy and compared it with my 1969 blood grouping of Tutankhamen. The results confirmed that this larger fetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamen.

"Now we believe that they are twins and they were both his children. The forthcoming DNA study on them by Dr Zahi Hawass's group in Egypt will contribute another key piece to this question."

Mr Connolly, Senior Lecturer in Physical Anthropology at the University of Liverpool's Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, adds: "It is a very exciting finding which will not only paint a more detailed picture of this famous young King's life and death, it will also tell us more about his lineage."

More than 100 delegates from 10 countries, including the Director of the Cultural Bureau of the Egyptian Embassy in the UK and researchers from Egypt's Conservation of Medicinal Plants project in Sinai and the British Museum, are attending the conference, hosted by the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at The University of Manchester, in conjunction with the National Research Centre in Cairo, Egypt, and sponsored by The Leverhulme Trust.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902143322.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 3, 2008, 10:37am

Oldest Gecko Fossil Ever Found, Entombed In Amber


Digital images of the amber fossil discovered by OSU researchers, containing the foot and partial tail. (Credit: Image courtesy of OSU)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2008) — Scientists from Oregon State University and the Natural History Museum in London have announced the discovery of the oldest known fossil of a gecko, with body parts that are forever preserved in life-like form after 100 million years of being entombed in amber.

Due to the remarkable preservative power of being embalmed in amber, the tiny foot of this ancient lizard still shows the tiny “lamellae,” or sticky toe hairs, that to this day give modern geckos their unusual ability to cling to surfaces or run across a ceiling. Research programs around the world have tried to mimic this bizarre adhesive capability, with limited success.

This gecko’s running days are over, however, as only the foot, toes and part of a tail are left in the stone. The rest might have become lunch for a small dinosaur or other predator during an ancient fight in the tropical forests of Myanmar during the Lower Cretaceous Period, from 97 million to 110 million years ago.

The find is at least 40 million years older than the oldest known gecko fossil, shedding additional light on the evolution and history of these ancient lizards that scampered among the feet of giant dinosaurs then and still are common in tropical or sub-tropical regions all over the world.

The findings were just published in Zootaxa, a professional journal.

“It’s the unusual toe pads and clinging ability of some geckos that make them such a fascinating group of animals, so we were very fortunate to find such a well-preserved foot in this fossil specimen,” said George Poinar, Jr., a courtesy professor at OSU and one of the world’s leading experts on insects, plants and other life forms trapped in amber, a semi-precious stone that begins as tree sap.

“There’s a gecko society, gecko clubs, just a lot of interest in these animals because of their unusual characteristics,” Poinar said. “So there are a lot of people pretty excited about this.”

Based on the number of lamellae found on its toe pads, this gecko was probably a very small juvenile of what would have become a comparatively large adult, possibly up to a foot long, the researchers say. Modern geckos get no more than about 16 inches long, although it’s possible there were larger species millions of years ago. The juvenile gecko found in the fossiljuvenile gecko found in the fossil was less than an inch in length when it died – possibly by being eaten or attacked, since only partial remains were found.

The discovery has been announced as a new genus and species of gecko, now extinct, and has been named Cretaceogekko. It had a striped pattern that probably served as camouflage.

There are more than 1,200 species of geckos in the world today , common in warm or tropical regions, including parts of the southern United States. They are frequently kept as pets, and often are welcome in the homes of some tropical residents because they help control insects. Some are very colorful. They use long tongues to lick, clean and moisturize their eyes.

“Geckos are territorial, and when I lived in Africa in the early 1980s we used to have them in our house,” Poinar said. “They are pretty friendly and don’t bother humans. Certain individuals would move into the house, we’d give them names, and they would run around the house, catch mosquitoes, help control bugs. They would crawl across the ceiling and look down at you.”

The new study provides evidence that geckos were definitely in Asia by 100 million years ago, and had already evolved their bizarre foot structure at that time. The amber fossil was mined in the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, and during its life the gecko probably lived in a moist, tropical forest with ample opportunities for climbing.

The ability of geckos to walk on vertical walls or even upside down is due to the presence of thousands of “setae” on their toes, very tiny, hairlike structures that have tips which attach to surfaces by van der Walls forces. It’s a type of incredibly strong, dry adhesion shared by virtually no other group of animals.

It’s not known exactly how old this group of animals is, and when they evolved their adhesive toe pads. However, the new study makes it clear that this ability was in place at least 100 million years ago, in nature. Modern research programs still have not been able to completely duplicate it.

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley reported earlier this year that they have developed a new “anti-sliding” adhesive that they said was the closest man-made material yet to mimic the ability of geckos – they think it might help a robot climb up the side of walls. A research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this year created a waterproof adhesive bandage inspired by geckos, that may some day be used in surgery. And of course, geckos have become an advertising icon for the insurance company Geico.

This study is just one of many in which Poinar and colleagues have used the unusual characteristics of amber to study ancient life forms and develop information on the ecology of ancient ecosystems.

As a stone that first begins to form as sap oozing from a tree, amber can trap small insects or other life forms and preserve them in near-perfect detail for observation millions of years later.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902163920.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 3, 2008, 11:08am

Jerusalem dig uncovers ancient city walls

Posted 2008/09/03 at 10:26 am EDT

JERUSALEM, Sep. 3, 2008 (Reuters) — Israeli archaeologists unveiled on Wednesday a 2,100-year-old Jerusalem perimeter wall -- along with beer bottles left behind by 19th century researchers who first discovered the stone defences.


People stand at an excavation site in Jerusalem's Old City September 3, 2008. Israeli archaeologists unveiled on Wednesday a 2,100-year-old Jerusalem perimeter wall -- along with beer bottles left behind by 19th century researchers who first discovered the stone defences. The wall, on Mount Zion at the southern edge of Jerusalem's Old City, dates back to the Second Jewish Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The wall, on Mount Zion at the southern edge of Jerusalem's Old City, dates back to the Second Jewish Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.

Yehiel Zelinger, who headed the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the location of the wall indicated that Jerusalem had expanded to the south at the time, reaching its largest size in biblical times.

The 3.2-metre (10.5-foot)-high wall was not supported by any mortar or other bonding material and formed part of a 6 km (3.5-mile)-long fortification around the city, he said.

The present wall around Jerusalem's Old City is 4 km (2.5 miles) in circumference.

The ancient wall on Mount Zion had disappeared from view by the time a similar stone barrier, also uncovered in the dig, was built at the site during the Byzantine period more than 250 years later. Nonetheless, the second wall followed almost exactly the same path.

"During these two periods, Jerusalem was the centre ... to the Jews during the Second Temple Period and to pilgrims from the Christian world (during the Byzantine Period)," Zelinger said.

British archaeologists surveyed the site in the 19th century, leaving behind a shoe and beer and wine bottles, which Zelinger's team found and put on display on Wednesday.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/l3420254-israel-archaeology/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 3, 2008, 11:01pm

'Rare' mammoth skull discovered
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

The "extremely rare" fossilised skull of a steppe mammoth has been unearthed in southern France.



The discovery in the Auvergne region could shed much needed light on the evolution of these mighty beasts.

Many isolated teeth of steppe mammoth have been found, but only a handful of skeletons exist; and in these surviving specimens, the skull is rarely intact.

Palaeontologists Frederic Lacombat and Dick Mol describe this skull specimen as being well preserved.

It belongs to a male steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ) that stood about 3.7m (12ft) tall and lived about 400,000 years ago, during Middle Pleistocene times.

The animal was about 35 years of age when it died, the researchers estimate.

The steppe mammoth is of vital importance for understanding mammoth evolution.

It represents the transitional phase between an ancient species known as the southern mammoth and the more recent woolly mammoth.

But comparatively little is known about this intermediate stage.

"This specimen is of extreme importance because we don't know that much about the Middle Pleistocene," Mr Mol, from the Museum of Natural History in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, told BBC News.

MAMMOTH EVOLUTION

Southern mammoth ( Mammuthus meridionalis ) - lived from 2.6 million years ago to 800,000 years ago, during the Early Pleistocene

Steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ) - lived from 800,000 years ago to 300,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene

Woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius ) - lived from 300,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene

"Lots of the sediments have been eroded and not so many localities are known where we can find fossils.

He added: "We cannot keep saying that we have the [southern mammoth] at the beginning of the Pleistocene, then we have something which we are not sure about, and finally we have the woolly mammoth [at the end of the Pleistocene].

"We need to find what I call the 'missing link' in mammoth evolution."

The southern mammoth appears to have lived in a savannah environment, and was probably a "browser", feeding on trees and shrubs.

However, the molar teeth of steppe mammoth and woolly mammoth show that these animals were adapted to grazing.

This is thought to represent an adaptation to climate change; as conditions got colder and drier over the Pleistocene period, the savannah disappeared, making way for grassy steppe. Mammoth had to adapt their diets accordingly.

"If they have a complete skull then that would be very valuable," Dr Adrian Lister, a mammoth expert from London's Natural History Museum and University College London, told BBC News.

Evolutionary debate

One of the best preserved examples of a steppe mammoth was excavated in the cliffs of West Runton in Norfolk, UK.

"With West Runton, we have a fabulous skeleton. It has its jaws and teeth, but the whole top part of the skull has gone. And that is usually the case with these fossil elephants," explained Dr Lister.

According to a theory developed by Dr Lister with other researchers, the southern mammoth was once widespread in Eurasia. It then evolved into a cold-adapted form - the steppe mammoth - in eastern Asia, where the climate has been chilly for the last two million years.

However, when Ice Age conditions took hold across the northern hemisphere, the steppe mammoth spread outwards, replacing its predecessor in Europe and Asia.

A similar process may have later led to the emergence of the woolly mammoth. According to Dr Lister, it evolved from the steppe mammoth in north-east Siberia, then expanded its range during an Ice Age, eventually displacing its forerunner the steppe mammoth.

However, Dick Mol takes a different view. He thinks evolutionary changes in the mammoth lineage take place too quickly under this model.

Instead, he favours a model in which Europe is the centre for mammoth evolution.

Two molar teeth belonging to the newly discovered specimen were found in 1986, during the construction of a water pipeline.

Frederic Lacombat was able to trace the site of this discovery and subsequent excavations revealed the skull from which they had come.

The team plans to lift the skull out of the ground and transport it on a truck to Crozatier Museum in nearby Le Puy-en-Velay.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7592317.stm

Published: 2008/09/02 00:47:43 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 5, 2008, 6:38pm

Ethiopia unveils ancient obelisk

Ethiopia is celebrating the unveiling of the reassembled Axum obelisk, one of the country's greatest treasures.



The obelisk, at least 1,700 years old, was looted by Italian troops in the 1930s and returned to Ethiopia in 2005.

A giant Ethiopian flag was removed from the obelisk in front of what organisers said was a crowd of tens of thousands in the ancient northern town of Axum.

The ceremony is the last big event of Ethiopia's millennium year, the year 2000 by the country's Coptic calendar.

The president and prime minister were among the officials attending.

Ancient empire

Intricately carved obelisks were erected at the tombs of Ethiopia's ancient kings when Axum was the centre of a great empire.

But only one remained standing amid the tumbled blocks of its former companions, the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt reports from Ethiopia.

The Axum obelisk was taken by troops in 1937 during the Italian occupation.

The monument weighs more than 150 tonnes and was brought back from Italy in three pieces.

Its return followed decades of negotiations between the Italian and Ethiopian governments, and long delays in transporting the heavy stones from Rome.

The monument has now been restored and resurrected in its original home.

It had been lying on the ground for centuries when the Italians found it, and some archaeologists argued it should have been replaced in that position to avoid damage to it or nearby networks of underground tombs.

But others have said Ethiopians should be able to see the obelisk in its original position.

Ethiopia's ambassador to the UK, Berhanu Kebede, told the BBC's Network Africa programme that the obelisk would help his country "to build a stronger and vibrant nation".

"We have fought a protracted battle to bring back our historical asset, and this is very important because it's a manifestation of who we are and it also shows what our ancestors have done," he said.

"The obelisk shows the architectural talent of our ancestors and modern architects are fascinated how the Ethiopians were able to do that during that period."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7597589.stm

Published: 2008/09/04 10:24:50 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 5, 2008, 7:53pm

DNA Shows That Last Woolly Mammoths Had North American Roots


The last of the woolly mammoths originated in North America. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Hendrik Poinar)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2008) — In a surprising reversal of conventional wisdom, a DNA-based study has revealed that the last of the woolly mammoths—which lived between 40,000 and 4,000 years ago—had roots that were exclusively North American.

The research, which appears in the September issue of Current Biology, is expected to cause some controversy within the paleontological community.

"Scientists have always thought that because mammoths roamed such a huge territory—from Western Europe to Central North America—that North American woolly mammoths were a sideshow of no particular significance to the evolution of the species," said Hendrik Poinar, associate professor in the departments of Anthropology, and Pathology & Molecular Medicine at McMaster University.

Poinar and Régis Debruyne, a postdoctoral research fellow in Poinar's lab, spent the last three years collecting and sampling mammoths over much of their former range in Siberia and North America, extracting DNA and meticulously piecing together, comparing and overlapping hundreds of mammoth specimen using the second largest ancient DNA dataset available.

"Migrations over Beringia [the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait] were rare; it served as a filter to keep eastern and western groups or populations of woollies apart, says Poinar. "However, it now appears that mammoths established themselves in North America much earlier than presumed, then migrated back to Siberia, and eventually replaced all pre-existing haplotypes of mammoths."

"Small-scale population replacements, as we call them, are not a rare phenomenon within species, but ones occurring on a continental scale certainly are," says Ross MacPhee, curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History, and one of the researchers on the study. "We never expected that there might have been a complete overturn in woolly mammoths, but this is the sort of discoveries that are being made using ancient DNA. Bones and teeth are not always sensitive guides."

"Like paleontologists, molecular biologists have long been operating under a geographic bias," says Debruyne. "For more than a century, any discussion on the woolly mammoth has primarily focused on the well-studied Eurasian mammoths. Little attention was dedicated to the North American samples, and it was generally assumed their contribution to the evolutionary history of the species was negligible. This study certainly proves otherwise."

The origin of mammoths is controversial in itself. Some scientists believe that the first proto-mammoths arose in Africa about seven-million years ago in concert with ancestors of the Asian elephant. Around five to six million years ago, an early mammoth species migrated north into China, Siberia and, eventually, North America. This early dispersal into North America gave rise to a new mammoth known as the Columbian mammoth. Much later, back in Siberia, a cold-adapted form—the woolly mammoth—evolved and eventually crossed over the Beringian land bridge into present-day Alaska and the Yukon.

What happened next, says Poinar, is a mystery: The Siberian genetic forms began to disappear and were replaced by North American migrants.

"The study of evolution is an evolution in itself," says Poinar. "This latest research shows we're drilling down and getting a closer and better understanding of the origins of life on our planet."

Funding for this study was provided in part by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the Human Frontiers Science Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Research Chairs program, and the Discovery Channel.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080904145058.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 7, 2008, 10:52am

Long-held Assumptions Of Flightless Bird Evolution Challenged By New Research


Male ostrich in Nairobi National Park, Kenya. (Credit: iStockphoto/Klaas Lingbeek- Van Kranen)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2008) — Large flightless birds of the southern continents – African ostriches, Australian emus and cassowaries, South American rheas and the New Zealand kiwi – do not share a common flightless ancestor as once believed.

Instead, each species individually lost its flight after diverging from ancestors that did have the ability to fly, according to new research conducted in part by University of Florida zoology professor Edward Braun.

The new research, which appears this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has several important implications.

First, it means some ratites, like the emus, are much more closely related to their airborne cousins, the tinamous, than they are to other ratites, Braun said.

Second, it means the ratites are products of parallel evolution – different species in significantly different environments following the exact same evolutionary course.

Braun and his fellow researchers began closely studying this group of flightless birds, known collectively as ratites, after a discovery made while working on a larger-scale effort to better understand the evolution of birds and their genomes by analyzing corresponding genetic material sampled from the tissue of many different bird species and determining how they relate to one another.

As they analyzed the genetic material, they noticed that the ratites did not form a natural group based on their genetic makeup. Rather, they belonged to multiple related but distinct groups that contained another group of birds, the tinamous, with the ability to fly.

Previously, the ratites were used as a textbook example of vicariance, a term that describes the geographical division of a single species, resulting in two or more very similar sub-groups that can then undergo further evolutionary change and eventually become very distinct from one another.

Scientists assumed that a single flightless common ancestor of the ratites lived on the supercontinent of Gondwana, which slowly broke up into Africa, South America, Australia and New Zealand; once divided, the ancestor species evolved slightly in each new location to produce the differences among the present-day ratites, Braun said.

But in light of this new information, he said it's more likely that the ratites' ancestors distributed themselves among the southern continents after the breakup of Gondwana, which began about 167 million years ago, in a much more obvious way.

They flew.

Although these new revelations teach evolutionary scientists a great deal, they also pose a great many new questions. For example, why did these birds evolve into such similar organisms in such different environments?

"To know for sure, we'll have to go into the lab and really study the genetics underlying the ratites' developmental pathway," Braun said. "But nobody would have asked that question without the type of data we've collected, which raises the question in the first place."

The scientists' effort to analyze such a tremendous amount of genetic material collected from birds across the globe is in turn just a single part of a program called Assembling the Tree of Life, funded and organized by the National Science Foundation, which aims to assemble a body of similar research for every group of organisms on the planet, including animals, plants, fungi, algae and bacteria.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903172152.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 8, 2008, 7:02pm

Neanderthals Grew Fast, but Sexual Maturity Came Late

Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News
September 8, 2008

Live fast, die young—this is how our closest relatives the Neanderthals were traditionally thought to progress through life.

But a new study of Neanderthal skeletons suggests the species grew quickly but reached sexual maturity later than so-called modern humans—and quite possibly survived to a ripe old age.


Neanderthals (such as these shown in an artist's conception) may have grown quickly but reached sexual maturity later than modern humans—and quite possibly survived to a ripe old age, a September 2008 study on Neanderthal skeletons shows.

Illustration by Charles R. Knight/NGS

The study also suggests that Neanderthals had a harder time of child bearing and possibly child raising. As a result, modern humans may have simply outbred their heavy-browed rivals.

By studying the skulls of Neanderthal babies, researchers were able to estimate how quickly the infants' brains grew.

They found that between birth and adulthood, a Neanderthal brain expanded faster than that of a modern human. The biggest growth spurt occurred in the first couple of years of life.

Neanderthal heads—and therefore brains—were already known to be larger than those of modern humans.

But that doesn't mean Neanderthals matured any faster.

"It shows that brain growth in modern humans and Neanderthals was quite similar and suggests that a fast pace of development was unlikely in the early years," said Chris Dean of University College London, who wasn't involved with the study.

The research appears tomorrow in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Torturous Birth

Neanderthals first appeared in Europe about 300,000 years ago but mysteriously vanished about 35,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

The University of Zurich's Maria Ponce de León and colleagues pieced together three Neanderthal skeletons: one newborn from Mezmaiskaya Cave in Russia and two infants aged 19 and 24 months, respectively, from Dederiyeh Cave in Syria.

In addition, the scientists reconstructed the pelvis of an adult female Neanderthal skeleton, found in Tabun Cave in Israel.

By analyzing the skeletons, the team found that Neanderthal babies were born with similar-size skulls to those of modern human babies. However, the shape of the face was different.

"Even in a newborn [Neanderthal] baby, we could see the conspicuous protrusion of the forehead that distinguishes Neanderthals," said study co-author Christoph Zollikofer, also of the University of Zurich.

By creating virtual reconstructions of the Neanderthal skeletons, the scientists also investigated the birthing process.

"The birth would have been at the limit of what was possible, and the baby's head would have had to turn by a quarter … in order to get through the narrow lower pelvis," Zollikofer said—as is required of the smaller-headed babies of modern humans.

Meaty Diet

Young Neanderthals' rapid growth required lots of energy, experts say.

"Neanderthals must have had a rich diet in protein and fat for children to fuel rapid growth in [their] brains," said Holly Smith of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the research.

Mothers also likely had to consume vast quantities of calories to produce enough breast milk.

This energy-intensive child rearing may have caused "somewhat longer interbirth intervals, or somewhat older mothers," study co-author Zollikofer said.

This may explain why modern humans eventually outcompeted Neanderthals.

"If one population reproduces just one percent more than another, then it can eventually replace the other population," Zollikofer said.

However, Dean of University College London is not convinced by this argument.

"I think they might be trying to push their data too far," he said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080908-neanderthal-brain.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 9, 2008, 9:19am

Geologists Dig Up One Of The Largest Lakes In The World, Dammed By Ice During Last Ice Age

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2008) — Geologists are digging in the bed on the western bank of what was once a 700-800 kilometre-long lake along the 62nd parallel in Russia. Large lakes, dammed up by a huge ice sheet one or more times during the last Ice Age, used to dominate this enormous plain.

They are just beyond the ice margin from the maximum of the last Ice Age, where it has been mapped 100 kilometres north of the town of Kotlas in north-western Russia.

Here, at Tolokonka, in a four kilometre-long cutting beside the River Dvina, an international team of scientists is busy studying the past changes in climate.

“Lakes have probably been situated here in two periods during the last Ice Age. We’ve found river delta deposits which suggest that the oldest lake formed some 65 000 years ago,” Eiliv Larsen, a geologist at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) said.

He is in charge of fieldwork being done in Russia as part of the SciencePub project during the International Polar Year. Along with colleagues from NGU, the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and Hertzen University in St. Petersburg, he is continually finding new pieces to fit into the last Ice Age jig-saw puzzle.

Right on the margin

The enormous lake stretched from Kotlas in the west to the village of UstNem in the east, just a few tens of kilometres from the Ural Mountains. Last year, the scientists found remnants of a lake near UstNem. Now, the same lake has been found 700-800 kilometres further west, in the long cutting at Tolokonka. The mighty River Dvina, meandering north-westwards through the flat landscape to Archangel, dominates this region today.

“We’re trying to find out just what these lakes have looked like. Where did the sediments come from and how did the lakes influence the environment and the climate in the region? Even though we’re just beyond the ice margin, we’re finding traces of the snout of a glacier that calved into the lake from the north. This probably took place around 20 000 years ago and this

Future climate

The scientists have said that it is very interesting to find out what took place when the ice finally melted, the dams burst and the enormous volumes of dammed up fresh water poured into the Arctic Ocean. This must have had consequences for the climate system and the oceanic circulation, for example.

“We ourselves are urged on by curiosity. When we started working in these parts of Russia 12 or 13 years ago, very little research had been done on the Ice Age. The results of our work now form part of the framework which climate researchers are using to calculate the future climate,” says Eiliv Larsen.

He generally uses a keyhole as a metaphor. “From a distance, you see hardly anything of the inside of the room, but the closer you manage to put your eye to the keyhole, the more of the room becomes apparent. It’s the same with the research here in north-western Russia, we’re uncovering more and more of the Ice Age history and hence the past climate changes,” he says.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080908073744.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 11, 2008, 7:24am

Greece unearths treasures at Alexander's birthplace

Posted 2008/09/11 at 7:31 am EDT

ATHENS, Sep. 11, 2008 (Reuters) — Archaeologists have unearthed gold jewellery, weapons and pottery at an ancient burial site near Pella in northern Greece, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, the culture ministry said on Thursday.

The excavations at the vast cemetery uncovered 43 graves dating from 650-279 BC which shed light on the early development of the Macedonian kingdom, which had an empire that stretched as far as India under Alexander's conquests.

Among the most interesting discoveries were the graves of 20 warriors dating to the late Archaic period, between 580 and 460 BC, the ministry said in a statement.

Some were buried in bronze helmets alongside iron swords and knives. Their eyes, mouths and chests were covered in gold foil richly decorated with drawings of lions and other animals symbolizing royal power.

"The discovery is rich in historical importance, shedding light on Macedonian culture during the Archaic period," Pavlos Chrysostomou, who headed the eight-year project that investigated a total of 900 graves, told Reuters.

Pavlas said the graves confirmed evidence of an ancient Macedonian society organized along militaristic lines and with overseas trade as early as the second half of the seventh century BC.

Among the excavated graves, the team also found 11 women from the Archaic period, with gold and bronze necklaces, earrings and broaches.

Nine of the graves dated to the late classical or early Hellenistic period, around the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.

Alexander, whose father Philip II unified the city states of mainland Greece, conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks before dying at the age of 32 in Babylon. Educated by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, Alexander was never defeated in battle.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/lb85409-greece-discovery/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 11, 2008, 7:25am

Giant Buddha statue unearthed in Afghanistan

By Sayed Salahuddin

Posted 2008/09/11 at 3:39 am EDT

KABUL, Sep. 11, 2008 (Reuters) — Archaeologists have discovered a 19-metre (62-foot) Buddha statue along with scores of other historical relics in central Afghanistan near the ruins of giant statues destroyed by the Islamist Taliban seven years ago.

The team was searching for a giant sleeping Buddha believed to have been seen by a Chinese pilgrim centuries ago when it came upon the relics in the central province of Bamiyan, an official said on Monday.

"In total, 89 relics such as coins, ceramics and a 19 meters statue have been unearthed," Mohammad Zia Afshar, adviser in the information and culture ministry, told Reuters.

He said the idol, in sleeping posture, was badly damaged. The other relics dated back to the Bactrian era and from Islamic and Buddhist civilizations.

Lying on the old Silk Road and linking West with the East, Bamiyan was once a thriving Buddhist centre where monks lived in caves. In 2001 the Taliban blew up two giant standing Buddha statues carved into a cliff face saying they were offensive to Islam, despite appeals worldwide.

Later that year U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government, and work has begun to restore the biggest of the two destroyed statues, once the tallest standing Buddha in the world. The mammoth task is expected to take a decade.

The latest discovery has raised hopes of finding a 300-metre-long Buddha statue that according to an ancient Chinese pilgrim is lying in Bamiyan, Afshar said.

Afghanistan has suffered decades of foreign interventions and civil war, and many of its historical relics, belonging to various civilizations, have been destroyed or looted.

Scientists said in April that they had found conclusive evidence the world's first ever oil paintings were in caves near the two destroyed giant statues of Buddha in Bamiyan, hundreds of years before oil paint was used in Europe.

Samples from paintings dated to the 7th century AD, they said. Paintings found in 12 of the 50 caves were created using oil paints, possibly from walnut or poppy, according to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).

It was not until the 13th century that oil was added to paints in Europe and oil paint was not widely used in Europe till the early 15th century.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/isl342533-afghan-statue/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 11, 2008, 9:48pm

My, what big teeth you had!

Extinct species had large teeth on roof of mouth


Teeth are visible along the edge of this temnospondyl fossil, and also can be seen spaced out across the palate roof about one-third of the way up in the photograph.

Credit: Christian Sidor

When the world's land was congealed in one supercontinent 240 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't the forbiddingly icy place it is now. But paleontologists have found a previously unknown amphibious predator species that probably still made it less than hospitable.

The species, named Kryostega collinsoni, is a temnospondyl, a prehistoric amphibian distantly related to modern salamanders and frogs. K. collinsoni resembled a modern crocodile, and probably was about 15 feet in length with a long and wide skull even flatter than a crocodile's.

In addition to large upper and lower teeth at the edge of the mouth, temnospondyls often had tiny teeth on the roof of the palate. However, fossil evidence shows the teeth on the roof of the mouth of the newly found species were probably as large as those at the edge of the mouth.

"Its teeth, compared to other amphibians, were just enormous. It leads us to believe this animal was a predator taking down large prey," said Christian Sidor, a University of Washington associate professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the UW.


This map shows the location in Antarctica where the fossil of Kryostega collinsoni was found.

Sidor is lead author of a paper describing the new species published in the September issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Co-authors are Ross Damiani of Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart in Germany and William Hammer of Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. The work was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The scientists worked from a fossilized piece of the snout of K. collinsoni, analyzing structures present in more complete skulls for other temnospondyl species that had similar size characteristics.

"The anatomy of the snout tells us what major group of amphibian this fossil belonged to," Sidor said.


The shaded area at the snout represents the size of the K. collinsoni fossil found in 1986, compared with the estimated actual head size.

Teeth at the edge of the mouth, as well as on the palate roof, were clearly visible, and the presence of structures similar to those that allow fish and amphibians to sense changes in water pressure led the researchers to conclude that the species was aquatic.

The fossilized piece of snout also contains a nostril, which aided the scientists in judging proportions of the head when comparing it to other fossils. They estimated the skull was about 2.75 feet long and perhaps 2 feet across at its widest point.

"Kryostega was the largest animal in Antarctica during the Triassic," Sidor said.

The term "Kryostega" translates to 'frozen' and 'roof,' which refer to the top of the skull. The scientists named the species for James Collinson, a professor emeritus of Earth sciences at Ohio State University who made important contributions to the study of Antarctic geology.

Hammer collected the fossil in 1986 from an Antarctic geological layer called the Fremouw Formation. He has studied a number of other Antarctic fossils, including dinosaurs, collected at about the same time, and so the temnospondyl fossil was not closely examined until the last couple of years.

At the time K. collinsoni was living, all the world's land was massed into a giant continent called Pangea. The area of Antarctica where the fossil was found was near what is now the Karoo Basin of South Africa, one of the richest fossil depositories on Earth.

Sidor noted that in the early Triassic period, from about 245 million to 251 million years ago, just before the period that produced the K. collinsoni fossil, it appears that Antarctica and South Africa were populated by largely the same species. While Antarctica was still colder than much of the world, it was substantially warmer than it is today, though it still spent significant periods in complete darkness.

By the middle of the Triassic period perhaps only half the species were the same, he said, and in the early Jurassic period, around 190 million years ago, unique early dinosaur species were appearing in Antarctica.

"It could be that these animals were adjusting to their local environment by then, and we are seeing the results of speciation occurring at high latitude," Sidor said. "Here we have really good evidence that Antarctic climate wasn't always the way it is today. During the Triassic, it was warmer than it is today – it was warmer globally, not just in Antarctica."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/uow-mwb090808.php

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 11, 2008, 9:52pm

Dinosaurs' Rise Due to "Blind Luck," Study Says

Ker Than
for National Geographic News
September 11, 2008

Far from besting their competitors in a long struggle to become Earth's dominant land animals, dinosaurs may have just gotten lucky, new research suggests.


Far from besting their competitors in a long struggle to become Earth's dominant land animals, dinosaurs may have just gotten lucky, a study released in September 2008 suggests.

Scientists compared anatomical features across nearly 60 fossils of dinosaurs and crurotarsans (above), ancient reptiles that gave rise to modern-day crocodiles.

Image courtesy of Stephen Brusatte, Columbia University

The first dinosaurs appeared during the late Triassic period about 240 million years ago.

Their main competitors were a closely related group of reptiles called the crurotarsans, from which modern crocodiles and alligators descended.

Crurotarsans and dinosaurs coexisted for about 30 million years. But about 200 million years ago, Earth suffered a mass extinction, possibly caused by rapid global warming.

Most crurotarsans disappeared, leaving dinosaurs to inherit Earth.

"I think the answer is just blind luck," said Stephen Brusatte, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University in New York and paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History.

"There was this big extinction event 200 million years ago, and for some reason it hit the crurotarsans very hard.

"Crurotarsans survived the extinction, but they were truncated basically just to crocodiles."

Brusatte co-authored the new study, which appears tomorrow in the journal Science.

Would-Be Dominators

Some scientists have argued that some feature or characteristic of the dinosaurs allowed them to beat their competition and survive the mass extinction.

To test this theory, Brusatte and his colleagues compared anatomical features across nearly 60 dinosaur and crurotarsan species.

The researchers hoped to gauge the rate of evolution and the range of body shapes in the two groups.

To their surprise, the team found no difference in dinosaur and crurotarsan evolution rates.

"If dinosaurs were superior to crurotarsans, you might suspect they would be evolving faster, or that over time, crurotarsans would start evolving slower," Brusatte said.

Even more striking, the scientists said, was that crurotarsans had more diverse body types and occupied more niches than Triassic dinosaurs did.

Many Triassic crurotarsans looked nothing like crocodiles, and some had body shapes reminiscent of those which evolved much later in dinosaurs.

There were bulky four-legged predators; swift, graceful animals that ran on two legs; and tank-like herbivores covered in armor plates.

"If we were standing in the Late Triassic, 210 million years ago or so, and had to bet on which group would eventually dominate ecosystems, all reasonable gamblers would go with the crurotarsans," Brusatte said.

"A Whole Different Horse"

But other scientists say attributing the dinosaurs' success to luck isn't a very satisfactory explanation.

"Organisms don't become extinct at random, and they don't succeed at random," said Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkley, who was not involved in the study.

If no differences existed between crurotarsans and dinosaurs, then it might be appropriate to talk about the chance elimination of one group and not the other, Padian said. But dinosaurs were different, he noted.

"[Dinosaurs] grew faster, they had higher metabolic rates, they were bipedal, and they were presumably more alert, agile, and lightly built," Padian said.

That dinosaurs and crurotarsans coexisted for tens of millions of years suggest the competitive edge dinosaurs had was not very great—at least not initially.

Their differences may have proved crucial only at the end of the Triassic, when life on Earth was threatened on a mass scale.

"Maybe dinosaurs didn't take over the world right away, but something in the end made them more successful," Padian said.

Brusatte, the study co-author, said that even if the dinosaurs were competing with the crurotarsans, it wasn't competition in the classical sense, and it was much briefer than previously thought.

"What our research has done has demolished this idea that dinosaurs and crurotarsans were competing, red in tooth and claw, for 30 million years across the Late Triassic," Brusatte said.

"Call it competition if you will, but it's a whole different horse. What we're essentially saying is that without the extinction [event], dinosaurs would have never made it."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080911-lucky-dinosaurs.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 11, 2008, 9:56pm

Gold Found Near Alexander Birthplace



September 11, 2008—A gold-bedecked warrior helmet and gold mask (pictured)—among other treasures—have been unearthed at an ancient cemetery near Alexander the Great's birthplace in what is now northern Greece.

Gold-foil ornaments, such as those shown above, were specially made for funerals. The precious material covered the mouths, eyes, and chests of 20 warriors recently found at the site, according to the Greek national culture ministry, which released this photo yesterday.

The warriors, who had been buried in the Archaic period, between 580 and 480 B.C., were found with helmets, swords, daggers, and spearheads.

The warrior graves were among 43 newfound burials at the Arhontiko site near Pella, the ancient Macedonians' capital. The new graves date from 650 to 279 B.C., the ministry said.

Other new finds include gold jewelry, copper and iron weapons, and pottery. Artifacts from previous digs include gold masks, crowns, and diadems, as well as local and imported pottery.

"The settlement [to which the cemetery belonged] flourished in wealth and population mainly during the Archaic period," a ministry statement said. "The funerary use of [gold] and the other grave goods points to a strong belief in life after death, and rebirth."

A total of 915 graves have been excavated over the past eight years at Arhontiko, about 330 miles (531 kilometers) northwest of Athens. Archaeologists estimate this represents just 5 percent of the cemetery.

Arhontiko was first settled around 6000 B.C. and abandoned in the 14th century A.D.

—Associated Press

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080911-gold-photo.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 12, 2008, 11:51am



Outback bones may be Aussie T-rex

Michael Wray

September 13, 2008 12:01am

BONES that could be the first skeletal evidence of Australia's answer to the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex have been found in outback Queensland.

Scientists digging at a secret location in central western Queensland found the fossils about two weeks ago, although it could be years before the bones are positively identified.

Queensland Museum curator of geosciences Scott Hocknull said the 1.5m-deep pit outside Winton held one of the most dense concentrations of dinosaur bones in Australia.

"All of the dinosaurs and all of the fossils we're finding out there are completely new to science, so everything we find out there has yet to be scientifically described," he said.

"That's really exciting from my point of view because we're looking at an environment that has had very little scientific research done on it. Having such a concentration of bones means we'll have many surprises along the way."

One of the biggest mysteries in the area surrounds a huge carnivorous dinosaur that left footprints on a muddy shore as it chased smaller dinosaurs about 98 million years ago.

The footprints were preserved at Lark Quarry, 110km south of Winton, but no bones matching the 3.5m tall, 9m long meat-eating dinosaur have ever been found.

Mr Hocknull said scientists knew the dinosaur roamed western Queensland and were hopeful the missing link could be among 150 fossils excavated from the pit this year.

University of Queensland dinosaur expert Steve Salisbury, who was not on the dig, said finding fossilised bones of a large theropod - a carnivorous dinosaur - would be a major breakthrough in understanding Australian and Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs.

"The trackways (at Lark Quarry) don't mean that there was a tyrannosaurus here, but there was an animal that made a footprint very similar to one that has previously been called tyrannosauropus, or the foot of tyrannosaurus," Dr Salisbury said.

"I guess the perfect preserved skeleton of a big thing like this is yet to have emerged so if they've got something like that up at Winton it would be really good."

Footprints of smaller carnivores called coelurosaurs, which were about the size of chickens, and larger plant-eating ornithopods, some of them as large as emus, have also been found in Winton.

Mr Hocknull said the outback town was in the middle of a "dinosaur rush" which was leading Australia's push to create a national dinosaur collection.

"It's our best crack at understanding what life was here before Australia became an island and that has huge implications for understanding how life has evolved in Australia as an island," he said.

He said the bones seemed to be deposited on the edge of a 98 million-year-old billabong formed in the same way as modern billabongs.

"That whole process has been under way for at least 98 million years and still happens out there, but instead of dinosaurs there are sheep and cow (bones being deposited)," he said.

Kylie Piper, of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs organisation that ran the dig with the Queensland Museum, said new finds were confirming the diversity of Australia's dinosaur history. "We're hoping to find a whole lot more something-osaurs," she said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24336389-2,00.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 16, 2008, 8:00am


Pharaoh's temple discovered in capital

From correspondents in Cairo

September 16, 2008 11:21am
Article from: AAP

AN Egyptian archaeological team has unearthed a temple and parts of a statue belonging to one of Egypt's most famous pharaohs, in a rare find inside the capital.

A temple built for 19th dynasty King Ramses II was found in the Ain Shams area in east Cairo, the MENA news agency reports.

"The team also found parts of a giant statue of Ramses II" as well as "large slabs of limestone used to build the temple", MENA said.

In 2006, one of Cairo's landmarks, a colossal 100-tonne, 11-metre high pink granite statue of Ramses II, was moved from the polluted city to a spot near the pyramids and closer to its original site.

Ramses II reigned over Egypt for around 68 years, from 1304 to 1237 BC, and is believed to have lived to the age of 90.

He covered the country with monuments to his exploits and his mummy, on display in the National Museum in Cairo, is one of the country's biggest tourist attractions.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24354144-401,00.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 19, 2008, 11:52am

Emergence Of Agriculture In Prehistory Took Much Longer, Genetic Evidence Suggests


A new mathematical model shows how plant agriculture actually began much earlier than first thought. It also shows that useful gene types could have actually taken thousands of years to become stable. (Credit: iStockphoto/Tomas Bercic)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2008) — Researchers led by Dr Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick’s plant research arm Warwick HRI have found evidence that genetics supports the idea that the emergence of agriculture in prehistory took much longer than originally thought.

Until recently researchers say the story of the origin of agriculture was one of a relatively sudden appearance of plant cultivation in the Near East around 10,000 years ago spreading quickly into Europe and dovetailing conveniently with ideas about how quickly language and population genes spread from the Near East to Europe. Initially, genetics appeared to support this idea but now cracks are beginning to appear in the evidence underpinning that model

Now a team led by Dr Robin Allaby from the University of Warwick have developed a new mathematical model that shows how plant agriculture actually began much earlier than first thought, well before the Younger Dryas (the last “big freeze” with glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere). It also shows that useful gene types could have actually taken thousands of years to become stable.

Up till now researchers believed in a rapid establishment of efficient agriculture which came about as artificial selection was easily able to dominate natural plant selection, and, crucially, as a consequence they thought most crops came from a single location and single domestication event.

However recent archaeological evidence has already begun to undermine this model pushing back the date of the first appearance of plant agriculture. The best example of this being the archaeological site Ohalo II in Syria where more than 90,000 plant fragments from 23,000 years ago show that wild cereals were being gathered over 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, and before the last glacial maximum (18,000-15,000 years ago).

The field of Archaeobotany is also producing further evidence to undermine the quick development model. The tough rachis mutant is caused by a single recessive allele (one gene on a pair or group of genes) , and this mutant is easily identifiable in the archaeological specimens as a jagged scar on the chaff of the plant noting an abscission (shedding of a body part) as opposed to the smooth abscission scar associated with the wild type brittle rachis.

Simply counting the proportion of chaff types in a sample gives a direct measure of frequency of the two different gene types in this plant. That study has shown that the tough rachis mutant appeared some 9,250 years ago and had not reached fixation over 3,000 years later even after the spread of agriculture into Europe was well underway. Studies like these have shown that the rise of the domestication syndrome was a slow process and that plant traits appeared in slow sequence, not together over a short period of time.

Genome wide surveys of crops such as einkorn and barley that in the past that have suggested a single origin from a narrow geographical range, supporting the rapid establishment view, have long been in conflict with other gene studies. The most notable conflict is in the case of barley for which there is a large body of evidence that suggests more than one common ancestor was used in its development.

These challenges to the fast model of agricultural development need a new model to explain how and why the development was so slow and demonstrate why artificial selection of just one plant type does not have the expected quick result. This computer model has now been provided by Dr Robin Allaby and his team at the University of Warwick, the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre has outlined the new mathematical model in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 2008 and in a summary article in the Biologist (2008 55:94-99).

Their paper entitled The genetic expectations of a protracted model for the origins of domesticated crops used computer simulations that showed that over time a cultivated population will become monophyletic (settle into one stable species) at a rate proportional to its population size as compared various gene variations in the wild populations. They found this rate of change matched closely the 3000 years it took the tough rachis mutant to become established.

Ironically, this process is actually accelerated if there is more than one

wild source population (in other words if attempts at domestication happen more than once) because any resulting hybrid between those domesticated populations then has a heightened differentiation compared with either one of the wild populations of the two parent plants.

This mathematical model also more supportive of a longer complex origin of plants through cross breeding of a number of attempts at domestication rather than a single plant type being selectively bred and from a single useful mutation that is selectively grown quickly out paces the benefits natural selection

Dr Robin Allaby says:

“This picture of protracted development of crops has major implications for the understanding of the biology of the domestication process and these strike chords with other areas of evolutionary biology.”

“This lengthy development should favour the close linkage of domestication syndrome trait genes which may become much more important because linked genes will not be broken up by gene flow – and this makes trait selection and retention easier. Interestingly, as more crop genomes become mapped, the close linkage of two or more domestication syndrome genes has been reported on several occasions.”

“This process has similarities to the evolution of ‘supergenes’ in which many genes cluster around a single locus to contribute to one overall purpose.”

“We now need to move this research area to a new level. Domestication was a complex process and can now be viewed more legitimately as the paragon of evolutionary process that Darwin originally recognized. There are many interacting factors involved that we know about operating on a wide range of levels from the gene to the farmer and climate – the challenge is to integrate them into a single story.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080919075005.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 19, 2008, 6:38pm

Will the real dinosaurs stand up?
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News


This plant-eating Jurassic dinosaur was named Yinlong downsi by Xu Xing and colleagues in 2006. Xu Xing is the most prolific namer of new dinosaurs: this is his 25th new species. This type specimen is essentially complete, typical of the good practice of most workers today.

Most of the newly discovered dinosaurs are just that - new to science, an assessment concludes.

With many past fossil finds named on the basis of partial remains, there has been concern that a lot of double counting has been taking place.

Recent studies had even suggested this error rate might be as high as 50% - with some species being catalogued with several aliases.

But the journal Biology Letters reports that modern practice is now very good.

"My research suggests we're getting better at naming things; we're being more critical; we're using better material," said Professor Michael Benton from Bristol University, UK.

The scientist looked at the original descriptions of all 1,047 species of dinosaurs ever named, from 1824 to the present day.

He assessed the quality of the specimens on which the names were founded - the type specimens. Professor Benton said some 500 were genuinely distinct, and the confidence surrounding the latest discoveries - about one new species a fortnight - was now very high.

"The bane of the dinosaurologist's life is species that have been named on the basis of incomplete specimens," Professor Benton explained.

"In Victorian times, palaeontologists were keen to name new species, and in the excitement of the great 'bone wars' for example, from 1870 to 1890, they rushed into print with new names for every odd leg bone, tooth, or skull cap that came their way.

"Later work, on more complete specimens, reduced more than 1,000 named dinosaurs to 500 or so."

Professor Benton said science had now put in place far more rigorous naming protocols, dramatically reducing the "alias problem".

Since 1960, the great majority of new species are founded on more or less complete specimens, sometimes even whole skeletons.

Professor Benton has a critical interest in the topic because he studies the evolution of dinosaurs. He tries to understand how this famous animal group changed and diversified over almost 200 million years.

"There's no point somebody such as myself doing big statistical analyses of numbers of dinosaur species through time - or indeed any other fossil group - if you can't be confident that they really are genuinely different," he told BBC News.

"This is important also for studies of modern biodiversity. People have also been looking at our current knowledge of mammals and insects and other animal groups and asking the simple question: are the species totals and lists we use for important conclusions - including to give political advice about endangered species - are they correct?

"There's been a big debate about vast extinctions among amphibians. We have to know what the species are first, before we can talk about that."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7620621.stm

Published: 2008/09/17 09:07:37 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 22, 2008, 8:57am


Fingers, toes, evolved from fins, scientists say

From correspondents in Paris

September 22, 2008 12:01am

SCIENTIST have traced the origin of fingers and toes to fish-like creatures that roamed the seas 380 million years ago, according to a new study.

The findings, published today in the British-based science journal Nature, upend the prevailing theory on the evolution of digits.

It had long been assumed that the first creatures to develop primitive fingers were tetrapods, air-breathing animals that crawled from sea to land some 10 to 20 million years later.

The need to adapt to swampy marshlands and terra firma, the theory went, is what drove the gradual shift through natural selection from fish fins suitable only for swimming to weight-bearing limbs with articulated joints.

The study, however, reveals that rudimentary fingers were already present inside the fins of the shallow-water Panderichthys, a transitional species that was nonetheless more fish than tetrapod.

"What we have shown is that the hand and the foot emerge from pre-existing bits of the fin skeleton that were just reshaped, rather than being entirely new bits that were bolted onto the existing fin skeleton,'' said co-author Per Ahlberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The discovery did not come from a new archeological find but from the reexamination of existing fossils, he said.

Previous research, it turns out, had simply overlooked what was there.

"The problem is that all good specimens of Panderichtys come from one location'' - a brick quarry in Latvia - "where the clay is almost exactly the same color as the bones,'' he said.

"With a nice big bone, that is not a problem. But if you are interested in tiny, fragile bones at the outer end of the fin skeleton, it is nearly impossible to see what is going on.''

Scientists had been thrown further off the track by the morphology of another animal from the Devonian period, which spanned from 360 to 416 million years ago.

In most ways, Tiktaalik seemed even closer to the true air-breathing tetrapods that first colonized firm land than Panderichtys, and yet its fins remained largely fish-like, lending even more credence to the theory that proto-fingers came during, not before, the transition to land.

But recent research in genetics had suggested that rudimentary digits might have emerged further back along the evolutionary tree than once suspected.

A gene that plays a key role in patterning the hands and feet in mice, for example, was found to express itself similarly in modern-day lung fish, a distant but direct cousin of the tetrapods that first crawled out of the sea.

So Mr Ahlberg and two colleagues decided it was worth taking a closer look at Panderichthys using a new technique.

They ran a specimen, still embedded in clay, through a CT scanner at a hospital.

"We could see the internal skeleton very clearly, and were able to model it without ever physically touching the specimen,'' Mr Ahlberg said.

The image shows stubby bones at the end of the fin skeleton clearly arrayed like four fingers, called distal radials. There are no joints, and the bones are quite short, but there could be no doubt as to what they were.

"This was the key piece of the puzzle that confirms that rudimentary fingers were already present in the ancestors of tetrapods,'' said lead author Catherine Boisvert, also of Uppsala University.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24382450-401,00.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 22, 2008, 9:12am

Dig pinpoints Stonehenge origins
By James Morgan
Science reporter, BBC News

Archaeologists have pinpointed the construction of Stonehenge to 2300BC - a key step to discovering how and why the mysterious edifice was built.

The radiocarbon date is said to be the most accurate yet and means the ring's original bluestones were put up 300 years later than previously thought.

The dating is the major finding from an excavation inside the henge by Profs Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright.

The duo found evidence suggesting Stonehenge was a centre of healing.

Others have argued that the monument was a shrine to worship ancestors, or a calendar to mark the solstices.

Date demand

For centuries, archaeologists have marvelled at the construction of Stonehenge, which lies on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

Mineral analysis indicates that the original circle of bluestones was transported to the plain from a site 240km (150 miles) away, in the Preseli hills, South Wales.

This extraordinary feat suggests the stones were thought to harbour great powers.

Professors Darvill and Wainwright believe that Stonehenge was a centre of healing - a "Neolithic Lourdes", to which the sick and injured travelled from far and wide, to be healed by the powers of the bluestones.

They note that "an abnormal number" of the corpses found in tombs nearby Stonehenge display signs of serious physical injury and disease.

And analysis of teeth recovered from graves show that "around half" of the corpses were from people who were "not native to the Stonehenge area".

"Stonehenge would attract not only people who were unwell, but people who were capable of [healing] them," said Professor Darvill, of Bournemouth University.

"Therefore, in a sense, Stonehenge becomes 'the A & E' of southern England."

Modern techniques

But without a reliable carbon date for the construction of Stonehenge, it has been difficult to establish this, or any other, theory.

Until now, the consensus view for the date of the first stone circle was anywhere between 2600BC and 2400BC.

To cement the date once and for all, Professors Darvill and Wainwright were granted permission by English Heritage to excavate a patch of earth just 2.5m x 3.5m, in between the two circles of giant sarsen stones.

The dig unearthed about 100 pieces of organic material from the original bluestone sockets, now buried under the monument. Of these, 14 were selected to be sent for modern carbon dating, at Oxford University.

The result - 2300BC - is the most reliable date yet for the erection of the first bluestones.

Strictly speaking, the result was rounded down to "between 2400BC and 2200BC" - but 2300BC is taken as the average.

An even more precise date will be produced in the coming months.

"It's an incredible feeling, a dream come true," said Professor Wainwright, formerly chief archaeologist at English Heritage.

"We told the world we were going to date Stonehenge. That was a risk, but I was always confident," said Professor Darvill.

Intriguingly, the date range ties in closely with the date for the burial of the so-called "Amesbury Archer", whose tomb was discovered three miles from Stonehenge.

Some archaeologists believe the Archer is the key to understanding why Stonehenge was built.

Analyses of his corpse and artefacts from his grave indicate he was a wealthy and powerful man, with knowledge of metal working, who had travelled to Salisbury from Alpine Europe, for reasons unknown.

Post mortem examinations show that he suffered from both a serious knee injury and a potentially fatal dental problem, leading Darvill and Wainwright to conclude that the Archer came to Stonehenge to be healed.

But without an accurate date for Stonehenge, it was not even clear whether the temple existed while the Archer was alive.

His remains have been dated between 2500BC and 2300BC - within the same period that the first stone circle was erected.

"It's quite extraordinary that the date of the Amesbury Archer is identical with our new date for the bluestones of Stonehenge," said Professor Darvill.

"These two things happening within living memory of each other for sure is something very, very important."

Earliest occupation

Professor Wainwright added: "Was the Amesbury Archer, as some have suggested, the person responsible for the building of Stonehenge? I think the answer to that is almost certainly 'no'.

"But did he travel there to be healed? Did he limp, or was he carried, all the way from Switzerland to Wiltshire, because he had heard of the miraculous healing properties of Stonehenge? 'Yes, absolutely'.

"Tim and I are quite convinced that people went to Stonehenge to get well. But Stonehenge probably had more than one purpose, so I have no problem with other people's interpretations."

Among other key finds, the team uncovered organic material that indicates people inhabited the Stonehenge site as long ago as 7200BC - more than 3,500 years earlier than anything previously known.

They also found that bluestone chippings outnumbered sarsen stone chippings by three to one - which Wainwright takes to be a sign of their value.

"It could be that people were flaking off pieces of bluestone, in order to create little bits to take away... as lucky amulets," he said.

The duo are preparing to publish an academic report of their excavation, and will announce their findings to their peers next month, in a lecture at London's Society of Antiquaries.

Ongoing debate

Experts on Stonehenge said the new date was a major milestone in understanding Britain's most famous monument.

Dr Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, said: "This is a great result - a very important one.

"The date of Stonehenge had been blowing in the wind. But this anchors it. It helps us to be secure about the chronology of events.

"The theory that it was a centre of healing is certainly a plausible one, but I don't think we can rule out the other main competing theory - that the temple was a meeting point between the land of the living and the dead.

"I am not yet persuaded that the Amesbury Archer came to Stonehenge to be healed. I favour the interpretation that he was one of the earliest metal workers, who travelled to the area to make a living from his skills.

"In any case, it is still not clear if his burial predated Stonehenge."

Dave Batchelor, Stonehenge curator at English Heritage, said: "We are pleased that the professors' precision in targeting that small area of turf and their rigorous standards in archaeological excavations have produced such a rich collection of physical evidence.

"We are looking forward to seeing the results of the full analysis, but from what we understand so far, we believe they have added valuable information to the chronology of Stonehenge."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7625145.stm

Published: 2008/09/21 23:01:34 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 24, 2008, 8:41pm

Neanderthals 'enjoyed broad menu'
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News

It seems Neanderthals enjoyed a wide range of foods - a much broader menu than had previously been supposed.



Excavations in caves in Gibraltar once occupied by the ancient humans show they ate seal and dolphin when they could get hold of the animals. There are even indications that mussels were warmed to open their shells.

The findings, reported in the journal PNAS, give the lie to the popular view that Neanderthals ate a diet utterly dominated by meat from land animals.

It is one more example of the greater sophistication now being ascribed to Homo neanderthalensis ; and further complicates the story of how modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) out-competed and out-lived their evolutionary cousins.

"Moderns still had a more efficient way of extracting the maximum out of the environment compared with the Neanderthals," said lead author Chris Stringer from London's Natural History Museum.

"So there still is an element of superiority, but it is a much more finely balanced one now. This is yet another difference that had been proposed between Neanderthals and moderns which now disappears," he told BBC News.

Bone product

Professor Stringer and colleagues have been investigating the fossil material from a number of seaside excavation sites in Vanguard and Gorham's Caves in eastern Gibraltar.

The cave deposits are throwing up a rich array of Neanderthal artefacts, demonstrating that Homo sapiens were not the only ones to live off the sea.


Seal bones indicate they were making good use of what was around them

It has been known from earlier work that Neanderthals would eat some shellfish when available, but the Gibraltar study is the first to show the exploitation of marine mammals.

"We've got a shoulder blade of a seal with cut marks on it and we've got parts of the bones from a flipper with cut marks," explained Professor Stringer.

"These Neanderthals were skinning and dismembering seals. What's interesting is that they didn't always cook them; they often ate them raw, it seems.

"They were also heating bones, not to cook the meat but to get at the marrow inside. By putting bones in fires, they were making them more brittle so they could get them open more easily."

On the menu also was dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ), probably dead animals that had washed up on the beach. Monk seals ( Monachus monachus ), on the other hand, were most likely juveniles clubbed to death at breeding grounds and then taken back to the caves to be butchered.


(Top) Gibraltar today with a series of caves at its base. Gorham's is second from the left. (Bottom) A reconstruction of late Neanderthal times. The sea is down by 80-120m. Exposed is a marshland, plains environment, rich in food resources that the Neanderthals exploited. (© Gibraltar Museum)

By analysing the different types, or isotopes, of atoms incorporated into Neanderthal bones as a result of the foods they ate, it is possible to glimpse something of their lifestyle.

In northern Europe, particularly, it is clear that big game meat - mammoth, deer, horse - dominated the Neanderthal menu.

The isotopes from early modern humans, by comparison, show a much broader range of foods - they were eating small grain, they were fowling and fishing.

This has been used to help explain Neanderthal extinction: H. neanderthalensis may have struggled at times to get the most out of their environment and could be out-competed by moderns.

The latest research, by demonstrating the exploitation of seal and dolphin, shows the extinction story is a little more complicated - at least as far as Gibraltar is concerned, believes Professor Stringer.

"We can't generalise to all Neanderthal populations, because the further north you go, away from the coast, you won't have those resources," he told BBC News.



The Gibraltar caves also contain hearths and flint stone tools, as well as butchered land mammals such as ibex ( Capra ibex ), red deer ( Cervus elaphus ), wild boar ( Sus scrofa ), bear ( Ursus arctos ) and rabbit ( Oryctolagus cuniculus ).

The remains of mussels ( Mytilus galloprovincialis ) are also evident. These are found in ash and are scorched - clear evidence that they were cooked near a fire to open them.

The caves in Gibraltar may be among the very last places Neanderthals lived before they became extinct.

Analysis of charcoal remains from the hearths indicates the species was present 28,000 years ago, and perhaps as recently as 24,000 years ago.

The excavation of the caves is a collaborative project between several institutes, including London's NHM, Gibraltar Museum, and the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7630042.stm

Published: 2008/09/23 11:20:13 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 25, 2008, 6:39am

Primordial Fish Had Rudimentary Fingers


Scientists found rudiments of fingers in the fins in fossil Panderichthys, the “transitional animal,” which indicates that rudimentary fingers developed considerably earlier than was previously thought. (Credit: Image courtesy of Uppsala University)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2008) — Tetrapods, the first four-legged land animals, are regarded as the first organisms that had fingers and toes. Now researchers at Uppsala University can show that this is wrong. Using medical x-rays, they found rudiments of fingers in the fins in fossil Panderichthys, the “transitional animal,” which indicates that rudimentary fingers developed considerably earlier than was previously thought.

Our fish ancestors evolved into the first four-legged animals, tetrapods, 380 million years ago. They are the forerunners of all birds, mammals, crustaceans, and batrachians. Since limbs and their fingers are so important to evolution, researchers have long wondered whether they appeared for the first time in tetrapods, or whether they had evolved from elements that already existed in their fish ancestors.

When they examined genes that are necessary for the evolution of fins in zebrafish (a ray-finned fish that is a distant relative of coelacanth fishes) and compared them with the gene that regulates the development of limbs in mice, researchers found that zebrafish lacked the genetic mechanisms that are necessary for the development of fingers. It was therefore concluded that fingers appeared for the first time in tetrapods.

This reading was supported by the circumstance that the fossil Panderichthys, a “transitional animal” between fish and tetrapod, appeared to lack finger rudiments in their fins.

In the present study, to be published in Nature, medical x-rays (CT scans) were used to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of Panderichthys fins. The results show hitherto undiscovered elements that constitute rudiments of fingers in the fins.

Similar rudiments have been demonstrated once in the past, two years ago in Tiktaaliks, which is a more tetrapod-like group. Together with information about fin development in sharks, paddlefish, and Australian lungfish, the scientists can now definitively conclude that fingers were not something new in tetrapods.

“This was the key piece of the puzzle that confirms that rudimentary fingers were already present in ancestors of tetrapods,” says Catherine Boisvert.

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/09/080922090843.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 25, 2008, 11:20am

America's Smallest Dinosaur Uncovered


An illustration of Albertonykus borealis. (Credit: Nick Longrich)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2008) — An unusual breed of dinosaur that was the size of a chicken, ran on two legs and scoured the ancient forest floor for termites is the smallest dinosaur species found in North America, according to a University of Calgary researcher who analyzed bones found during the excavation of an ancient bone bed near Red Deer, Alberta.

"These are bizarre animals. They have long and slender legs, stumpy arms with huge claws and tweezer-like jaws. They look like an animal created by Dr. Seuss," said Nick Longrich, a paleontology research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences. "This appears to be the smallest dinosaur yet discovered in North America."

Called Albertonykus borealis, the slender bird-like creature is a new member of the family Alvarezsauridae and is one of only a few such fossils found outside of South America and Asia. In a paper published in the current issue of the journal Cretaceous Research, Longrich and University of Alberta paleontologist Philip Currie describe the specimen and explain how it it likely specialized in consuming termites by using its small but powerful forelimbs to tear into logs.

"Proportionately, the forelimbs are shorter than in a Tyrannosaurus but they are powerfully-built, so they seem to have served a purpose," Longrich said. "They are built for digging but too short to burrow, so we think they may have been used to rip open log in search of insects."

Longrich studied 70 million-year-old bones that were collected on a dig led by Currie at Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park in 2002 where the remains of more than 20 Albertosaurus sarcophagus individuals were found. Albertosaurs are a type of tyrannosaur. The bones were placed in storage at the Royal Tyrrell Museum and Longrich came across them while trying to compare Albertosaurus claws to another dinosaur species.

"This is the oldest and most complete dinosaur of its kind known from North America and it provides evidence that these dinosaurs migrated to Asia through North America," he said.

Longrich, who specializes in studying dinosaur-era ancestors of birds, completed his PhD at the University of Calgary under the supervision of zoology professor Anthony Russell. In September 2006 Longrich argued that that earliest known ancestor of birds, a feathered creature called Archaeopteryx, likely flew with wings on all four limbs after examining fossils originally collected in Germany in 1861.

"You can really find amazing things if you just keep looking at fossils we already have sitting in museum collections," he said. "The number of dinosaur discoveries is actually accelerating because we just keep digging up more material to work with."

Journal reference:

1. Longrich et al. Albertonykus borealis, a new alvarezsaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Early Maastrichtian of Alberta, Canada: implications for the systematics and ecology of the Alvarezsauridae. Cretaceous Research, August 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2008.07.005

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080923104414.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 26, 2008, 11:09am

Carbonate-hosted Avalon-type Fossils In Arctic Siberia

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2008) — Our present understanding of the origin of animals and Phanerozoic ecosystems depends critically on the ability to interpret impressions left behind by soft-bodied Ediacaran organisms, and to document their spatial and temporal distribution, which conceivably relate to strong environmental gradients in terminal Proterozoic seawater.

To our disadvantage, ever since their first discovery in South Australia, the terminal Proterozoic Ediacaran fossils have been recurrently found in clastic sediments that are unfavorable for the preservation of soft tissues. To enhance paleobiological resolution and track environmental perturbations, however, requires the discovery of new taphonomic windows (sets of conditions for preservation) for the Ediacaran biota in relatively continuous successions dominated by chemical sediments.

Yet, finding these fossils in alternative modes of preservation has been difficult. Grazhdankin et al. describe Ediacaran fossils uniquely preserved in fine-grained carbonate sediments, which promise a much-enhanced anatomical and paleoecological view of these enigmatic organisms and their taphonomic variants. Importantly, the appearance of Ediacaran fossils turned out to be not inferior or different to that seen in their counterparts found in clastic sediments, indicating that the celebrated weirdness of Ediacaran fossils is not due to unusual preservational circumstances.

On the other hand, the Ediacaran fossils are excluded from a taphonomic window that otherwise favors preservation of diverse organic tissues, suggesting that certain Ediacaran tissues, specifically of rangeomorph and frondomorph organisms, had unique properties.

Grazhdankin et al.’s results corroborate the hypothesis that the earliest macroscopic life forms were not ancestral to any Phanerozoic or modern organisms.

Journal reference:

1. Grazhdankin et al. Carbonate-hosted Avalon-type fossils in arctic Siberia. Geology, 2008; 36 (10): 803 DOI: 10.1130/G24946A.1

http://www.sciencedaily.com/­releases/2008/09/080925104307.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 26, 2008, 11:30am

The Earth After Us - What Legacy Will Humans Leave In The Rocks?

ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2008) — Jan Zalasiewicz, a lecturer in geology at the University of Leicester, has published a new study looking at the lasting impression made by mankind -100 million years hence.

He takes the perspective of alien explorers arriving on earth - their geologists study the layers of rock, using the many clues to piece together its history over several billion years

A story unfolds of moving and changing continents, rising and falling oceans, ice ages, and evidence of life going back many millions of years. They grow familiar with its phases of change, the rise of great new ecosystems, and occasional catastrophic collapses of life. But then they stumble on something quite different in a thin layer of rock: a striking signal of climate changes, extinctions and strange movements of wildlife across the planet. Following this trail, decoding clues in the rocks takes them to the petrified remains of cities, and finally to the fossilized bones of those, long dead, who built them.

Dr Zalasiewicz said: "From the perspective of 100 million years in the future–a geologist's view–the reign of humans on Earth would seem very short: we would almost certainly have died out long before then. What footprint will we leave in the rocks? What would have become of our great cities, our roads and tunnels, our cars, our plastic cups in the far distant future? What fossils would we leave behind?

"My study shows how scientists put together clues from the rocks to understand the past, its landscapes and climate, and the nature of the creatures that inhabited it. A thin layer of silt here, a trace formed by a crawling worm there–the clues are often subtle and difficult to read. But by such clues would future geologists–whether hyper-evolved rat or alien visitor–work out our story. My study explores which of our structures are likely to leave traces, and what future explorers might make of us and the impact we made on our environment.

"Looking to the distant future gives us a warning for the present: our activities have already left a significant footprint on the planet, and not a flattering one. It is not too late to limit it. We would not wish to be dubbed by future explorers the 'amazingly clever and utterly foolish two-legged ape'."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926100634.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 26, 2008, 11:54am

Degradation Of Wood In Royal Warship Vasa Is Caused By Iron


The Vasa

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2008) — During its time in the sea bottom of Stockholm harbour, huge amounts of iron and sulfurous compounds accumulated in the wood of the royal warship Vasa. Since 2000 it has been noticed that changes are taking place in the wood, changes that threaten the stability of the ship.

At first it was believed that the conversion of sulfur to sulfuric acid was the culprit, but now it has been shown that it is the iron from the ship’s rusted bolts and cannonballs is causing the most serious deterioration of the wood. This is the subject of a dissertation by Gunnar Almkvist from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

The wood in the royal ship Vasa has been seriously affected by the biological and chemical processes that the hull was exposed to during its period under water (1628-1961), during its conservation period (1962-1989), and subsequently in its modern museum setting.

Iron and sulfurous compounds (a total of 5-10 tons) were incorporated in the wood through natural processes when the ship lay on the sea bottom of Stockholm harbour.

The sulfur comes from the degradation of Stockholm’s unpurified sewage on the oxygen-free bottom, while the iron primarily comes from the bolts that held together the hull and other iron objects onboard, such as cannonballs. In the subsequent conservation, the wood was treated with huge amounts of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and fungicides.

During the rainy summer of 2000, the humidity varied dramatically inside the museum, and during this time white and yellow precipitates were discovered on the ship. These deposits turned out to be acidic sulfur and iron compounds, and it was concluded that sulfur in the wood had been converted into sulfuric acid. Concern about what was happening to the Vasa led to a commitment to pursue research into the causes and how they could be prevented.

Gunnar Almkvist and his colleagues have now completed a thorough examination of the chemical degradation processes in the wood, and it turns out that it is the iron that is the main culprit, not the sulfur.

The most serious problem is that the wood substances have begun to be degraded at some depth in the lumber and that this degradation has also affected the conservation agent (PEG). Analyses show that the wood is extremely acidic in places where the scientists found degradation.

The low pH level is a result of the formation of organic acids such as formic acid and oxalic acid with the degradation of wood components and PEG. In these sections there are only tiny amounts of sulfur. Certain types of sulfurous compounds appear to have a protective effect when the wood is in much better condition where there is a great deal of sulfur.

Everywhere there has been degradation, on the other hand, there is plenty of iron, and this iron has proven to be in a form that is highly mobile and chemically active. Iron can vary in its oxidation levels and then can take on special properties and participate in special reactions.

In the presence of oxygen or other oxidation agents, iron ions can form so-called radicals. These are very short-lived but highly reactive and can attack most biological substances. The theory is therefore that the iron is catalyzing (hastening) the formation of radicals in the wood of the Vasa. Sulfur, on the other hand, can function as an antioxidant that captures radicals and prevents them from reacting with the wood or with PEG. The element that was originally thought to be the threat thus appears to be a safeguard.

The dissertation also reports from attempts to extract iron compounds from the Vasa wood. The results show that this is possible, though very time-consuming. In the process, other water-soluble compounds are also extracted and acids are neutralized. The method can be successfully used for smaller objects and can also be developed for the treatment and conservation of waterlogged archeological wood.

Link to the complete dissertation: The Chemistry of the Vasa - Iron, Acids and Degradation: http://diss-epsilon.slu.se/archive/00001809/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925083203.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 27, 2008, 9:10pm

Uncovering Namibia's sunken treasure

By Frauke Jensen
BBC News, Oranjemund, Namibia

A team of international archaeologists is working round the clock to rescue the wreck of what is thought to be a 16th Century Portuguese trading ship that lay undisturbed for hundreds of years off Namibia's Atlantic coast.



The shipwreck, uncovered in an area drained for diamond mining, has revealed a cargo of metal cannonballs, chunks of wooden hull, imprints of swords, copper ingots and elephant tusks.

It was found in April when a crane driver from the diamond mining company Namdeb spotted some coins.

The project manager of the rescue excavation, Webber Ndoro, described the find as the "the most exciting archaeological discovery on the African continent in the past 100 years".

"This is perhaps the largest find in terms of artefacts from a shipwreck in this part of the world," he said.

Skeleton coast

The ship may have been unable to withstand the currents in the volatile seas off the Namibian shore.

The area is also known as the Skeleton Coast and is associated with the skeletons of wrecked ships and past stories of sailors wandering through the barren landscape in search of food and water.

Working out whose ship this was is no easy task.



Gold coins that the Portuguese crown began producing in October 1525 mean it could not have been the vessel of the famous seafarer Bartholomew Dias, who disappeared on one of his travels around the point of Africa in the year 1500.

But there are other pointers, including swivel-guns known to have been used by Portuguese and Spanish seafarers, and the boat's shape, indicating that it was a Portuguese "nau".



There are also copper ingots carrying a clearly visible trident seal that can be traced back to the German banker and merchant family of Jakob Fugger - the main suppliers of primary materials to the Portuguese crown.

Gold and silver coins have been deposited in a bank vault.

Rare navigational instruments have been sent to Portugal for research, while pewter plates and jugs, pieces of ceramic, tin blocks and elephant tusks are temporarily housed in a warehouse on the premises of the mining company.

Some are being freed of their layer of sand and salt to allow for more detailed scrutiny over their make and origin.

"It represents a very interesting cargo - we have goods from Asia, we have goods from Europe, we have goods from Africa," said Mr Ndoro.

"We always think that globalisation started yesterday but in actual fact here we are with something we can date to around 1500."

Protected

The site is about 130km (80 miles) south of the Namibian harbour town Luderitz, in an area long sealed off for mining.

The mines are established by sea-walling the ocean and dredging the dry seabed for diamonds.

Pumps ensure the sea does not reclaim the land - an exercise that is costing thousands of dollars each week.

Bruno Werz, the archaeologist leading the excavations, said the shipwreck was particularly valuable because it had not been tampered with.

"This collection has not been disturbed by human interference," he said.

"We are very fortunate to have found an untouched wreck with all the material that was on site still here in one collection."

Archaeologists from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, the United States, the UK and Portugal are working on the excavation, which is due to be completed by mid-October.

Thereafter the detailed work of recording and preserving, which can take up to 30 years, can begin.

Stone and metal cannonballs and other artefacts are being covered with plastic and sand to protect them from sun and air.

Mr Ndoro said the shipwreck was a very important find for Africa.

"Here we have different African countries cooperating to make sure we have saved this ship and we have something we can show to the world."

"I am sure there will be many more wrecks to be found here," he added.

"Namibia should invest in training archaeologists."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7634479.stm

Published: 2008/09/26 01:06:31 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 28, 2008, 7:18pm

Mother Of A Goose! Giant Ocean-going Geese With Bony-teeth Once Roamed Across SE England


The 'goose' Dasornis emuinus, skimmed over the waters, covering the area what is now London, Kent and Essex in the UK. (Credit: Image courtesy of Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2008) — A 50 million year old skull reveals that huge birds with a 5 metre wingspan once skimmed across the waters that covered what is now London, Essex and Kent. These giant ocean-going relatives of ducks and geese also had a rather bizarre attribute for a bird: their beaks were lined with bony-teeth.

It may be a few weeks until the British pantomine season kicks-off, but this new fossil from the Isle of Sheppey is giving ‘Mother Goose’ an entirely new meaning. Described today (September 26) in the journal Palaeontology, the skull belongs to Dasornis, a bony-toothed bird, or pelagornithid, and was discovered in the London Clay, which lies under much of London, Essex and northern Kent in SE England.

The occurrence of bony-toothed birds in these deposits has been known for a long time, but the new fossil is one the best skulls ever found, and preserves previously unknown details of the anatomy of these strange creatures.

With a five metre wingspan, these huge birds were similar to albatross in their way of life. Albatross have the largest wingspan of any living bird, but that of Dasornis was over a meter and half greater. Despite these similarities, the latest research suggests that the closest living relatives of Dasornis and its fossil kin are ducks and geese.

“Imagine a bird like an ocean-going goose, almost the size of a small plane! By today’s standards these were pretty bizarre animals, but perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they had sharp, tooth-like projections along the cutting edges of the beak” explains Gerald Mayr, expert palaeornithologist at the German Senckenberg Research Institute and author of the report.

Like all living birds Dasornis had a beak made of keratin, the same substance as our hair and fingernails, but it also had these bony ‘pseudo-teeth’ “No living birds have true teeth - which are made of enamel and dentine - because their distant ancestors did away with them more than 100 million years ago, probably to save weight and make flying easier. But the bony-toothed birds, like Dasornis, are unique among birds in that they reinvented tooth-like structures by evolving these bony spikes.”

So why did Dasornis have these pseudo-teeth? “Its linked to diet” says Mayr, “these birds probably skimmed across the surface of the sea, snapping up fish and squid on the wing. With only an ordinary beak these would have been difficult to keep hold of, and the pseudo-teeth evolved to prevent meals slipping away.”

Journal reference:

1. Mayr et al. A skull of the giant bony-toothed bird Dasornis (Aves: Pelagornithidae) from the Lower Eocene of the Isle of Sheppey. Palaeontology, 2008; 51 (5): 1107 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00798.x

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926143908.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 30, 2008, 8:21am

Meat-eating Dinosaur From Argentina Had Bird-like Breathing System


Flesh rendering of the predator Aerosteon with the body wall removed to show a reconstruction of the lungs (red) and air sacs (other colors) as they might have been in life. (Credit: Drawing: Todd Marshall c 2008, courtesy of Project Exploration)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2008) — The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system.

University of Michigan paleontologist Jeffrey Wilson was part of the team that made the discovery, to be published Sept. 29 in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE and announced at a news conference in Mendoza, Argentina.

The discovery of this dinosaur builds on decades of paleontological research indicating that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Birds have a breathing system that is unique among land animals. Instead of lungs that expand, birds have a system of bellows, or air sacs, which help pump air through the lungs. This novel feature is the reason birds can fly higher and faster than bats, which, like all mammals, expand their lungs in a less efficient breathing process.

Wilson was a University of Chicago graduate student working with noted dinosaur authority Paul Sereno on the 1996 expedition during which the dinosaur, named Aerosteon riocoloradensis ("air bones from the Rio Colorado") was found. Although the researchers were excited to find such a complete skeleton, it took on even more importance as they began to understand that its bones preserved hallmark features of a bird-like respiratory system.

Arriving at that understanding took some time. Laboratory technicians spent years cleaning and CT-scanning the bones, which were embedded in hard rock, to finally reveal the evidence of air sacs within Aerosteon's body cavity. Previously, paleontologists had found only tantalizing evidence in the backbone, outside the cavity with the lungs.

Wilson worked with Sereno and the rest of the team to scientifically describe and interpret the find. The vertebrae, clavicles, and hip bones bear small openings that lead into large, hollow spaces that would have been lined with a thin layer of soft tissue and filled with air in life. These chambers result from a process called pneumatization, in which outpocketings of the lungs (air sacs) invade the bones. Air-filled bones are the hallmark of the bellows system of breathing in birds and also are found in sauropods, the long-necked, long-tailed, plant-eating dinosaurs that Wilson studies.

"In sauropods, pneumaticity was key to the evolution of large body size and long necks; in birds it was key to the evolution of a light skeleton and flight," Wilson said. "The ancient history and evolutionary path of this feature is full of surprising turns, the explanations for which must account for their presence in a huge predator like Aerosteon and herbivores like Diplodocus, as well as in a chicken."

In the PLoS ONE paper, the team proposes three possible explanations for the evolution of air sacs in dinosaurs: development of a more efficient lung; reduction of upper body mass in tipsy two-legged runners; and release of excess body heat.

Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, said he is especially intrigued by heat loss, given that Aerosteon was likely a high-energy predator with feathers but without the sweat glands that birds possess. At approximately 30 feet in length and weighing as much as an elephant, Aerosteon might well have used an air system under the skin to rid itself of unwanted heat.

In addition to Sereno and Wilson, coauthors of the PLoS ONE article include Ricardo Martinez and Oscar Alcober of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Argentina, David Varricchio of Montana State University and Hans Larsson of McGill University. The expedition that led to the discovery was supported by the National Geographic Society and The David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080929212931.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 30, 2008, 8:37am

First Dinosaur Feathers for Show, Not Flight?
Charles Q. Choi
for National Geographic News
September 29, 2008

The oldest known dinosaur relative of birds had "bizarre" anatomy, including long, ribbon-like tail feathers that suggest plumage may have first evolved for show rather than for flight, scientists say.



Farmers unearthed a fossil of the new dino species, dubbed Epidexipteryx hui, from the hills of Inner Mongolia in late 2007.

The remains date back 152 million to 168 million years ago, making the newfound creature slightly older than Archaeopteryx, the most primitive known bird.

Like other avialans—birds and their closest dinosaur relatives—Epidexipteryx is a theropod, a group of two-legged animals that includes Tyrannosaurus rex.

Researchers think the pigeon-size Epidexipteryx might have used its plumes as flashy ornaments, since it was mostly covered in short feathers that lack the structure necessary for flight.

"For example, [the feathers] could potentially have played a role in displays intended to attract a mate, scare off a rival, or send a warning signal to other individuals of the same species," said study co-author Fucheng Zhang, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

"This is very exciting indeed, since it gives us a window into a stage of avialan history just preceding the appearance of the classic 'first bird,'" Zhang said.

"It shows that the use of feathers for visual communication—as opposed to other functions such as insulation and flight—was a very early development."

"Bizarre" Anatomy

Epidexipteryx lived in the mid- to late Jurassic period in a lush, well-vegetated area that was rich in salamanders and other possible prey.

The dinosaur had claws similar to those of ground-foraging birds, such as ostriches and turkeys, and its front teeth were large and protruding.

"One can certainly imagine [the teeth] being used to snatch at small prey, such as lizards, small mammals, or even insects," Zhang said.

Strangely, Epidexipteryx's anatomy seems to be a hodgepodge of features taken from a variety of animals.

For instance, its front limb bones and short, bony tail resemble those of living birds. But its short, high skull and large front teeth look like those of small theropods called oviraptors.

"It's not uncommon for features present in one group to appear independently in another," Zhang said of the newfound dino's "bizarre" anatomy.

"It's also typical for different parts of the body to evolve at different rates, so that some bits end up looking very specialized whereas others remain primitive."

Zhang and his colleagues reported their findings last week in Nature Precedings, an online pre-publication service run by the journal Nature.

Evolution Experiments?

Luis Chiappe is a paleontologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a former National Geographic Society grantee. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

He said that the mosaic of features suggests "there was a lot of evolutionary experimentation around the origin of birds, with many different kinds of lineages reaching different levels of 'birdness.'"

But Chiappe, who was not involved in the new study, is skeptical of the idea that feathers originated as ornaments.

"Feathers could have served an aerodynamic function of some sort whether you fly or not. You could flap feathered wings and run faster," he said.

"Still, these ornamental feathers are a really interesting new piece of evidence into why feathers first originated."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080929-bizarre-dinosaur.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Sept 30, 2008, 9:03am

Extreme Dinosaurs

Fossil finds are revealing how evolution took some dinosaurs in bizarre directions, from domed skulls to sickle-shaped toenails.















http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/12/bizarre-dinosaurs/dinosaur-photography

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 5, 2008, 9:03pm

New Dinosaur Species, Pachyrhinosaur Lakustai, Had Bony Frill And Horns


A 3-D computer rendering of the skeleton of Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. (Credit: Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Project)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2008) — The fossils revealed a herd of dinosaurs that perished in a catastrophic event 72.5 million years ago. The animals are characterized by a bony frill on the back of the skull ornamented with smaller horns. They also had large bony structures above their nose and eyes which lends them their name: Pachyrhinosaurus (thick-nosed lizard). These structures probably supported horns of keratin.

According to Dr. Philip Currie, renowned palaeontologist and Canada Research Chair of Dinosaur Palaeobiology from the University of Alberta who was involved in the excavation, Northwest Alberta was not previously known for dinosaur material. It wasn't until the 1970s when Al Lakusta's excavations and studies in the area led the Royal Tyrrell Museum to begin excavation of the bone bed. The naming of the new species, Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai , honors Lakusta, now retired Grande Prairie science teacher.

"The density of the Pipestone Creek bonebed is exceptional and surpasses many of Alberta's other ceratopsian bonebed sites. The preservation of the material is outstanding and was easy to collect. The number of bones, from all age groups, made complex investigations possible regarding behaviour and growth patterns."

The site contains fossils from young and old individuals, allowing researchers to describe individual variations and growth patterns, investigate the possibility of sexual dimorphism, and hypothesize on a herding lifestyle.

With this new species, added Currie, researchers will now have more data to give us a better understanding of the ancient life and ecosystems in northwestern Alberta 73 million years ago.

Currie, along with Wann Langston, Jr., and Darren H. Tanke, has published a monograph entitled "A New Horned Dinosaur from an Upper Cretaceous Bone Bed in Alberta", published by NRC Press.

According to Jack O'Toole, Chair of the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Project, Currie's research and publication puts the region on centre stage in the scientific community.

"Ongoing cooperation between Grande Prairie Regional College, the Royal Tyrrell Museum and the University of Alberta has uncovered many additional sites and fossils in our region," he explains. "Thanks to continued research, we now have a better understanding of the geology of the area as well. The communities of northwestern Alberta are excited to have such a unique resource. "

The Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Project is developing these resources as the northern part of an overall provincial network of palaeontological sites, to present them as a world-class tourism, education, and research centre that benefits local communities, the Province and Canada.

Andrew Neuman, Executive Director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, explained the importance of the site. "The excavations at Pipestone Creek provide us with many rewards. Working on a previously unknown site that is abundant in dinosaur material shows how rich the entire province of Alberta is in palaeontological resources."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081002092856.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 5, 2008, 10:18pm

Earliest Animal Footprints Ever Found Show Animals Walking 30 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought


Trackway of one of the earliest animals, a multilegged creature that walked over the bed of an ancient sea once covering Nevada. The animal left behind a pair of parallel impressions - small, round dots in the silt that later became rock. (Credit: Photo by Kevin Fitzsimons, Ohio State University)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2008) — The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks -- two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter -- date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period.

The Ediacaran preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved.

Scientists once thought that it was primarily microbes and simple multicellular animals that existed prior to the Cambrian, but that notion is changing, explained Loren Babcock, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

"We keep talking about the possibility of more complex animals in the Ediacaran -- soft corals, some arthropods, and flatworms -- but the evidence has not been totally convincing," he said. "But if you find evidence, like we did, of an animal with legs -- an animal walking around -- then that makes the possibility much more likely."

Soo-Yeun Ahn, a doctoral student at Ohio State, presented the discovery in a poster session at the Geological Society of America meeting Sunday in Houston. Coauthors included Margaret Rees of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and J. Stewart Hollingsworth of the Institute for Cambrian Studies.

Babcock was surveying rocks in the mountains near Goldfield, Nevada, with Hollingsworth in 2000 when he found the tracks.

"This was truly an accidental discovery. We came on an outcrop that looked like it crossed the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, so we stopped to take a look at it. We just sat down and started flipping rocks over. We were there less than an hour when I saw it."

The creature must have stepped lightly onto the soft marine sediment, because its legs only pressed shallow pinpoints into that long-ago sea bed. But when Babcock flipped over the rock containing those tracks, the low-angle sunlight cast the dots in crisp shadow.

He immediately suspected that the tracks were made by an arthropod, such as one resembling a centipede or millipede, or by a leg-bearing worm.

He couldn't be certain of the length of the creature, or the number of legs it had. But judging from the tracks, he guessed that it carried its centimeter-wide body on many spindly legs.

In 2002, other researchers reported a similar fossil trail from Canada that dated back to the middle of the Cambrian period, about 520 million years ago. Another set of tracks found in South China date back to 540 million years ago.

At approximately 570 million years old, this new fossil not only provides the earliest suggestion of animals walking on legs, but it also shows that complex animals were alive on earth before the Cambrian.

Not many macroscopic fossils exist from that time because soft-bodied creatures are not normally preserved.

Babcock is an expert in "exceptional preservation" -- the special chemical, physical and biologic conditions that enabled some soft-bodied creatures to fossilize. By knowing where to look in the geologic record, he has uncovered a menagerie of unusual fossils, from unusual echinoderms in Nevada to sulfur-eating bacteria in Antarctica.

The shallow sea covering western Nevada 570 million years ago would have been a good site for exceptional preservation. The sediment surface was probably bound together by a microbial mat -- a cohesive carpet of bacteria and sediment grains. A creature's tracks could have been readily preserved when the animal pressed its legs into the sediment.

Babcock says that he is "reasonably certain -- not 100 percent" that the fossil was made by a centipede-like arthropod or a leg-bearing worm. A fossil of the animal itself would be more definitive. He is going to continue looking in the same region of Nevada, but that is not the only potential site. Similar fossils might be found in the White Sea area of Russia, South Australia, Newfoundland or Namibia, where body fossils of Ediacaran organisms have been found.

"I expect that there will be a lot of skepticism," he said about the discovery. "There should be. But I think it will cause some excitement. And it will probably cause some people to look harder at the rocks they already have. Sometimes it's just a matter of thinking differently about the same specimen."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081005121337.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 5, 2008, 10:39pm

Mass Extinctions And The Evolution Of Dinosaurs


Illustration of a Tarbosaurus, a cousin of Tyrannosaurus Rex, chasing two Parasaurolophuses. (Credit: iStockphoto/Allan Tooley)

ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2008) — Dinosaurs survived two mass extinctions and 50 million years before taking over the world and dominating ecosystems, according to new research published this week.

Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions.

“The sheer size of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus makes us think there was something special about these animals that preordained them for success right from the beginning,” Brusatte said. “However, our research shows that the rise of dinosaurs was a prolonged and complicated process. It isn’t clear from the data that they would go on to dominate the world until at least 30 million years after they originated.”

Importantly, the new research also shows that dinosaurs evolved into all their classic lifestyles – big predators, long-necked herbivores, etc. – long before they became abundant or diversified into the many different species we know today.

Brusatte added: “It just wasn’t a case of dinosaurs exploding onto the scene because of a special adaptation. Rather, they had to wait their turn and evolved in fits and starts before finally dominating their world.”

Dinosaurs originated about 230 million years ago and survived the Late Triassic mass extinction (228 million years ago), when some 35 per cent of all living families died out. It was their predecessors dying out during this extinction that allowed herbivorous dinosaurs to expand into the niches they left behind.

The rapid expansion of carnivorous and armoured dinosaur groups did not happen until after the much bigger mass extinction some 200 million year ago, at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. At least half of the species now known to have been living on Earth at that time became extinct, which profoundly affected life on land and in the oceans.

Historically the rise of the dinosaurs has been treated as a classic case in which a group evolves key features that allow it to rapidly expand, fill many niches, and out-compete other groups. But Professor Benton said the story isn’t so simplistic: “We argue that the expansion of the dinosaurs took up to 50 million years and was not a simple process that can be explained with broad generalizations.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/09/080930102631.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 5, 2008, 10:43pm

Navy Confirms Sunken Submarine Is Grunion


In this undated file photo the submarine USS Grunion (SS 216) is seen underway. Grunion was reported lost on August 16, 1942 after reporting firing on an enemy destroyer, sinking three destroyer-type vessels, and attacking unidentified enemy ships during her first war patrol. The boat has been found off the coast of the Aleutian Islands by the sons of the boat's commanding officer, who was lost with the ship in World War II. (Credit: U.S. Navy Photo)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2008) — Commander, Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC), Rear Adm. Douglas McAneny announced October 2 that a sunken vessel off the coast of the Aleutian Islands is in fact the World War II submarine USS Grunion (SS 216).

The submarine Grunion arrived at Pearl Harbor on June 20, 1942. The vessel completed pre-patrol training before departing on its first war patrol June 30. Grunion's commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Abele, was ordered to proceed to the Aleutian Islands and patrol westward from Attu on routes between the Aleutians and the Japanese Empire. On July 10, Grunion was reassigned to the area north of Kiska. Over the next 20 days, the submarine reported firing on an enemy destroyer, sinking three destroyer-type vessels, and attacking unidentified enemy ships near Kiska.

Grunion's last transmission was received on July 30, 1942. The submarine reported heavy antisubmarine activity at the entrance to Kiska, and that it had 10 torpedoes remaining forward. On the same day, Grunion was directed to return to Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base. There was no contact or sighting of the submarine after July 30, and on August 16, Grunion was reported lost.

"I am honored to announce that, with records and information provided by the Abele family and assistance from the Naval Historical Center, USS Grunion has been located," said McAneny. "We are very grateful to the family of Grunion's Commanding Officer Lt. Cmdr. Mannert L. Abele for providing the underwater video footage and pictures that allowed us to make this determination. We also appreciate the efforts of the USS Cod Submarine Memorial for their assistance in this matter. We hope this announcement will help to give closure to the families of the 70 crewmen of Grunion."

Abele was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for heroism. A destroyer, USS Mannert L. Abele (DD 733), was commissioned in his honor, and was later lost in action off Okinawa in 1945. Japanese anti-submarine attack data recorded no attack in the Aleutian area at the time of Grunion's disappearance, so the submarine's fate remained an unsolved mystery for more than 60 years.

After discovering information on the internet in 2002 that helped pinpoint USS Grunion's possible location, the sons of Grunion's commanding officer, Bruce, Brad, and John Abele, began working on a plan to find the submarine. In August 2006, a team of side scan sonar experts hired by the brothers located a target near Kiska almost a mile below the ocean's surface. A second expedition in August 2007 using a high definition camera on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) yielded video footage and high resolution photos of the wreckage of a U.S. fleet submarine.

"This discovery has come about through a stream of seemingly improbable events; it's like we won the lottery 10 times in a row," said Bruce Abele, eldest son of Grunion's commanding officer. "It is so dramatic to see the underwater photo and be certain it was in fact Grunion; not only is this announcement important for the families of the crew members, it's also important for the Navy and the country."

The Abele brothers then contacted the USS Cod Submarine Memorial for assistance in identifying the wreckage. The vessel is lying at a depth of about 3,200 feet. Very cold water and lack of significant currents has preserved much of the wreckage.

Dr. John Fakan, director of the USS Cod Submarine Memorial, remarked about the importance of having an unmodified example in USS Cod, a fellow Gato-class submarine, in identifying the wreckage of USS Grunion.

"USS Grunion and USS Cod shared the same blueprints," he said. "It is very gratifying for me and my crew to help with the identification of the submarine."

With the information provided by the Abele family and the USS Cod Submarine Memorial, COMSUBPAC and the Naval Historical Center examined the evidence and historical records and determined that the submarine found at the reported position could only be USS Grunion.

"The synergy of our group working together with the Navy for the common cause has been a wonderful group effort," Bruce Abele said. "The teamwork combined with everyone's compassion and wisdom has resulted in our success."

According to Bruce's brother John Abele, those responsible for contributing to this discovery included historians and engineers from the United States, Australia, Israel and Japan. Of particular note was the involvement of Japanese naval architect Yutaka Iwasaki, who provided information critical to pinpointing the location of the submarine.

Bruce and John's brother, retired Lt. Brad Abele, who recently passed away, also played a significant role in the find. As his brother John explained, "Brad's experience as a Naval aviator helped a great deal by helping us to plot the strategy for the discovery."

Unfortunately, the cause of Grunion's sinking remains a mystery. No matter what the cause, the end result was the loss of all hands. As the Naval Historical Center noted, "no amount of analysis or speculation will change or alter the fact that families lost fathers, husbands, uncles and brothers… the Navy and the nation will always be grateful for their service and their sacrifice."

Former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz once said, "When I assumed command of the Pacific Fleet on 31 December 1941 our submarines were already operating against the enemy, the only units of the Fleet that could come to grips with the Japanese for months to come. It was to the Submarine Force that I looked to carry the load until our great industrial activity could produce the weapons we so sorely needed to carry the war to the enemy. It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of great peril."

By the end of World War II, submarines had made more than 1,600 war patrols. Pacific Fleet submarines like Grunion accounted for more than half of all enemy shipping sunk during the war. The cost of this success was heavy: 52 U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines were lost, and more than 3,500 submariners remain on "eternal patrol."

A representative of the submarine force will speak on behalf of the U.S. Navy at a memorial service in Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 11. The service, hosted by the USS Cod Memorial, will honor the 70 crewmembers killed when USS Grunion was sunk near the Aleutian Islands on or about July 30, 1942.

"To provide ourselves and the families this closure, it's icing on the cake," said John Abele. "The memorial service is a symbolic event; we've discovered family we didn't know we had. Not only is this an honor for all of us, it increases the feeling of community we've been able to achieve."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003193648.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 10, 2008, 5:42am

Deathways Open Doors To Unexpected Cultural Practices

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2008) — Cremation, "air burial," grave cairns, funeral mounds, mummification, belief in life after death -- death practices sacred to one culture are often considered "odd" or even terrifying by another.

The Greeks, for example, were fascinated with the historian Herodotus' description of the ancient Issedonians chopping up their dead into a mixed grill and devouring them in a communal barbeque, something entirely contrary to the Greeks' treatment of their own dead.

In every social group throughout history, the disposal of the dead has special significance, and ways of death always fascinate those on the outside looking in, says Erik Seeman, Ph.D., associate professor of history at the University at Buffalo, where he teaches "Death in American History."

"Beyond that," he says, "deathways illuminate religious meaning and the social life of cultures about which we may know little else."

Seeman's work, which, unlike much in this field, focuses on the deathways of non-European peoples, primarily those of the eastern third of North America and the Caribbean, is being prepared for publication in a book with the working title "Death in the New World."

"Much of my research looks at how deathways marked cultural self-definition and the definition of 'other' in the New World," he says.

"Placing death at the center of an analysis of cross-cultural encounters among Africans, Europeans and Native Americans allows us, perhaps better than through the use of any other conceptual category, to see the world as the participants themselves viewed it."

In fact, Seeman says the examination of deathways is virtually unmatched for understanding cross-cultural encounters that took place centuries ago in the New World.

"For one thing," he says, "death was ubiquitous. Virgin soil epidemics devastated Indian populations; the mortality of slaves on New World plantations was appalling; unfamiliar disease environments decimated Europeans in the Chesapeake and West Indies; and war raged in every corner of the region.

"Second, Christianity, Judaism and the many polytheistic religions of American Indians and Sub-Saharan Africans focused on explaining to believers the meaning of death and the afterlife," he says.

"Because of this," Seeman says, "when individuals met strangers they were interested in the others' deathways. What remains are far more descriptions of mortuary rituals than of such cultural practices as food preparation or music.

"Finally," says Seeman, "how corpses were prepared, what was included in burials and how death was commemorated leave traces in the material record that other cultural forms do not, offering researchers a rich trove of evidence with which to explore cultural and social attitudes and practices outside of deathways."

Seeman's research also looks at how, in the exploitive context of colonial encounters, understanding of deathways was put to manipulative ends by both sides. He demonstrates how missionaries used it to gain native converts, for instance, while some Indians used European fear of post-mortem mutilation to incite horror through scalping.

The book also takes a particular interest in how deathways document the cultural syncretism that, over time, reconciled a vast number of disparate or contradictory beliefs, often by melding practices of cultures ranging from the French and Portuguese to the Iroquois and Congolese who came into contact with one another in the New World from the 15th century on.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008151328.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 10, 2008, 10:31am

Preserved By Ice: Glacial Dams Helped Prevent Erosion Of Tibetan Plateau


A shortened moraine dam on the Tsangpo River stands amid the Himalaya mountains at Namche Barwa in Tibet, at the head of the Tsangpo gorge. (Credit: Bernard Hallet/University of Washington)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2008) — The Tsangpo River is the highest major river in the world, starting at 14,500 feet elevation and plunging to the Bay of Bengal, scouring huge amounts of rock and soil along the way. Yet in its upper reaches, the powerful Tsangpo seems to have had little effect on the elevation of the Tibetan Plateau.

New research suggests that the plateau edge might have been preserved for thousands of years by ice during glacial advances and by glacial debris deposited at the mouth of many Tsangpo tributaries during warmer times when glaciers retreated. Those debris walls, or moraines, acted as dams that prevented the rapidly traveling water in the main Tsangpo gorge from carving upstream into the plateau.

"At the edge of the plateau, the river's erosion has been defeated because the dams have flattened the river's slope and reduced its ability to cut into the surrounding terrain, making it more like a lake," said David Montgomery, a University of Washington geomorphologist.

Montgomery is co-author of a paper in the Oct. 9 issue of Nature that describes a new hypothesis of why the Tibetan Plateau has maintained its elevation when it appears it should have been worn down in the area of the Tsangpo system.

The paper's lead author is Oliver Korup of the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, Switzerland. The work was financed in part by the European Commission and the National Science Foundation in the U.S.

The researchers focused on the three primary rivers of the Tsangpo system, the Yarlung Tsangpo and its two major tributaries, the Yigong Tsangpo and the Parlung Tsangpo. The scientists mapped geologic evidence of more than 300 natural dams, including 260 moraines, that have formed repeatedly at the mouths of tributaries in the last 10,000 years to block water flow on the three main streams.

The first evidence of the dams was found at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and additional evidence continued to be found upstream, Montgomery said. The dams essentially formed giant lakes along the river and prevented the water from carving into bedrock.

"The glaciers seem to have helped preserve the edge of the plateau by keeping the river from ripping into it," he said. "This isn't the explanation for why the rest of the plateau is so well preserved, but it might work for this area where the Tsangpo crosses the edge of the plateau."

There are two well-recognized mechanisms that typically are thought to be responsible for preserving a feature such as the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. But one of them, the plateau's arid climate, is not to blame because the Tsangpo is already a large river at the point that it enters the world's deepest and fastest-eroding gorge. The other conventional explanation, that tectonic faults continually push new rock to the surface and thus offset any erosion by the river, might be at work in concert with the glacial damming, the scientists believe.

In the Tsangpo gorge, also called Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, the river plunges from about 10,000 feet to about 1,000 feet in a span of 150 miles. Eventually the river becomes the Brahmaputra River, flowing through India and Bangladesh and into the Bay of Bengal.

"Up in the gorge, the river is very steep and the erosion is very high, and one would think that back through geologic time it should have sliced upstream into the Tibetan Plateau," Montgomery said.

The question is why that didn't happen. Korup and Montgomery suspect that the glacial dams on tributaries right to the edge of the plateau prevented such pronounced erosion.

"It's a transition from where the river is doing all the erosion at lower elevations to where the glaciers are doing all the erosion at high elevations, and the glaciers are limited on how deeply they erode," Montgomery said. "They shave off the top but they don't erode farther down, and the rivers can't erode back past the glaciers."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008151104.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 12, 2008, 10:26am

Unique Fossils Capture ‘Cambrian Migration’


Fossils showing 'migrating' Cambrian arthropods. (Credit: Derek Siveter)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2008) — A unique set of fossils indicates that 525 million years ago marine animals congregated in Earth’s ancient oceans, most likely for migration, according to an international team of scientists.

Fossil evidence of collective behaviour is extremely rare. But what makes the find even more intriguing is that it indicates that such behaviour was occurring at the beginning of the ‘Cambrian explosion’ – a major event that saw a vast profusion of complex organisms enter the fossil record for the first time.

The fossils, found in Yunnan province in south west China, were analysed by scientists from Oxford University, the University of Leicester and Yunnan University, China. The find is reported in an article in the journal Science.

‘What we see in these fossils are shrimp-like animals with a carapace and segmented body, which are similar to arthropods that we know existed in the Cambrian seas,’ said Professor Derek Siveter of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, co-author of the article. ‘What’s unique about the Yunnan fossil material is that it shows individual specimens closely interlocked to form a chain, of which there are several examples.’

These chains may have formed for reproductive purposes, or they may represent a stage in the animal’s life cycle – if so there are no comparable occurrences in modern arthropods.

The team believes the congregation is more likely to be evidence of migratory activity, possibly associated with animals congregating as a defence against predators.

‘The simplest explanation is that what we’re seeing is reflecting some sort of migration,’ said Professor Derek Siveter. ‘The spiny lobster is one example of this sort of migratory behaviour amongst modern arthropods. These lobsters join together in a kind of ‘train’ with the antennae of one animal sometimes touching the tail of the animal in front. However, the animals represented by the Chinese fossils are much more closely interlocked – they formed ‘chains’ rather than ‘trains’’.

The fossil was preserved in the Chengjian Lagerstatte, a fossil-rich exceptional preservation deposit discovered in 1984 that has been dated to the Lower Cambrian period, 525 million years ago, making it around 10 million years older than Canada’s famous Burgess Shale.

‘This amazingly rich period in the history of life saw the appearance of more or less all the major groups of animals that provide the biodiversity we see around us today,’ commented Professor Derek Siveter. ‘This find demonstrates that the creatures in our seas 525 million years ago were far from primitive, in fact they were complex organisms exhibiting some very sophisticated behaviour.’

Journal reference:

1. Hou et al. Collective Behavior in an Early Cambrian Arthropod. Science, 2008; 322 (5899): 224 DOI: 10.1126/science.1162794

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081012093843.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 14, 2008, 9:09am

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Roman Mystery


Archeologist Roger Wilson pulls out the clay amphora from its 1,500 year hiding place. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Roger Wilson)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2008) — University of British Columbia archaeologists have dug up a mystery worthy of Indiana Jones, one that includes a tomb, skeletons and burial rites with both Christian and pagan elements.

This summer, Prof. Roger Wilson led excavations at Kaukana, an ancient Roman village located near Punta Secca, a small town in the south-eastern province of Ragusa in Sicily.

Combing through the sand-buried site, the 15-member team made a series of startling discoveries. Central to the mystery was finding a tomb inside a room in a house dating from the sixth century AD.

Wilson explains that tombs during this period are normally found only in cemeteries outside the built-up area of a town, or around the apse of a church. And since the building was substantial with mortared walls and internal plaster, this would have been likely a tomb for the wealthy.

“It’s extremely unusual to find an elite burial set inside a house in the middle of a settlement, even as late as the sixth century,” says Wilson, who heads UBC’s Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies.

The UBC initiative -- in collaboration with Prof. Giovanni Di Stefano of the Superintendency for the Cultural Heritage of Ragusa -- is the first major exploration of this historic site since 1972.

Locals first stumbled upon the late Roman village during the 1960s when a bulldozer preparing for new houses uncovered the tops of some 24 ancient buildings. Only a few, among them a church, were explored at the time, by renowned Italian archaeologist Paola Pelagatti.

Wilson directed students from UBC and Sicily in their painstaking work, focusing on what proved to be an “exceptionally well-preserved” structure on the south side of Kaukana, only yards from the beach. The walls uncovered stand nearly six feet high.

Once the cover was lifted off the tomb, one team member spent 10 days sieving the contents with great care. Two skeletons were found. One was of a woman between the ages of 25 and 30, with teeth in excellent condition and no signs of arthritis.

“She was in pretty good nick, so we know this wasn’t a peasant working in the field,” says Wilson.

The other skeleton was a child of indeterminate sex between the ages of five and seven. The position of their bones showed that the woman had been laid to rest first. The tomb was then re-opened to bury the child and the woman’s spinal column was pushed to one side. A hole in the stone slab covering the tomb allowed visitors to pour libations for the dead.

“This shows that the long-established, originally pagan, rite of offering libations to the dead clearly continued into early Byzantine times,” observes Wilson.

Yet, the presence of a Christian cross on a lamp found in the room and on the underside of a grave slab suggests that the deceased were Christian. As well, the skeletons were wrapped in plaster, a practice believed to be Christian for preserving the body for resurrection.

“It is the first plaster burial recorded in Sicily, although the practice is known from Christian communities in North Africa,” says Wilson.

What also intrigued the archaeologists was learning that the tomb was opened one further time, an intrusion that disturbed the bones of the child and caused its skull to be placed upside down. Wilson says he wondered whether it was grave robbers in search of expensive jewelry or other loot.

“But the tomb was tidied up again afterwards.”

Around the tomb was plentiful evidence of periodic feasting in honour of the dead. The archaeologists found cooking pots, glass and several large clay containers (amphorae), of which one is virtually intact. These would have been used to carry oil and wine to the site. The team also found the remains of two hearths where meals had been prepared.

As well, the room was designed with niches along one wall. Wilson says a knife, seafood, and fragments of stemmed goblets and other glass vessels were left on these shelves, “as though placed there after the last party.”

UBC’s snapshot of late Roman and early Byzantine life has stirred considerable interest among the Italian media and historians worldwide. With support for three years of study from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Wilson says the team is eager to further unravel the skeins of history.

When they return to Kaukana next summer, they will attempt to solve the riddles encountered this first year. “Along with questions of when the house was built and whether it was still occupied when the tomb was inserted, we want to find out why the woman and child were buried in the tomb at all.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081013210144.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 18, 2008, 9:44am

'Gladiator' tomb is found in Rome



The tomb of a general thought to have been an inspiration for the main character in the Oscar-winning film Gladiator has been unearthed in Rome.

The tomb of Marcus Nonius Macrinus is one of a number of recent archaeological discoveries in the city.

Marcus Nonius Macrinus was a favourite of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, helping him achieve major victories in Europe.

He is believed to have in part inspired the character Maximus Decimus Meridius, played by Russell Crowe in Gladiator.

But although the film character is also a favourite of Marcus Aurelius and goes into battles with him in the late 2nd century AD, that is where the similarities end. The real Roman general is not believed to have been sold into slavery only to return to Rome as a vengeful gladiator.

'Huge' tomb

The tomb was discovered along the northbound Via Flaminia where construction work has been taking place. Many marble columns, inscriptions and decorations have been beautifully preserved thanks to the mud caused by a centuries-old flood of the River Tiber.

It is "the most important ancient Roman monument to come to light for 20 or 30 years", said senior archaeologist Daniela Rossi.

More than 10 inscriptions on the tomb detail the life of Marcus Nonius Macrinus. They show he came from Brescia in northern Italy, was a police commissioner, magistrate, pro-consul of Asia and close confidante of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wanted him to fight in the wars against Germanic tribes in northern Europe.

"The movie character played by Russell Crowe leaves for and participates in these wars and is an intimate friend of Marcus Aurelius, chronologically we are in the same period and the war is the same, but the movie character has a very sad story and comes to a terrible end while ours becomes a rich and famous man," said Professor Rossi.

Much of the tomb remains buried in mud, and Professor Rossi said archaeologists were working around the clock to unearth the rest of it.

"Perhaps we will also find the sarcophagus. It's also too early to say how big it is, but it appears there was a row of columns at least 15m long, so it was quite huge," he said.

The tomb is one of a number of recent archaeological discoveries in Rome.

Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Meanwhile, archaeologists restoring imperial residences in the heart of ancient Rome are also reported to have found what they believe to be the underground passageway where the Emperor Caligula was murdered by his guards, the AP also reports.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7675633.stm

Published: 2008/10/17 12:05:41 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 19, 2008, 2:25am

The treasure trove making waves

Simon Worrall explains why a recent discovery on the seabed of the Indian Ocean will revolutionise our understanding of two ancient civilisations.


The exceptional quality of the goods has led some scholars to suggest that these were gifts from the Tang Emperor himself

"The local fishermen believe that there are underwater spirits guarding the wrecks," says Tilman Walterfang, as our boatman picks his way through a maze of coral reefs and submerged rocks.

"Sometimes, they perform prayers on the boats, sacrificing a goat, spreading the blood everywhere, to keep the vessel safe."

I am on a fishing boat in the Gaspar Strait, near Belitung Island, off the south-east coast of Sumatra.

Since time immemorial, this funnel-shaped passage linking the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean has been one of the two main shipping routes. The Malacca Straits is the other, from China to the West.

A British sea captain, shipwrecked here in 1817, called it "the most dangerous area between China and London".

Discovery

Ten years ago, at a spot known locally as "Black Rock", two men diving for sea cucumbers came across a large pile of sand and coral.

Digging a hole, they reached in and pulled out a barnacle-encrusted bowl. Then another. And another.



They had stumbled on the oldest, most important, marine archaeological discovery ever made in South East Asia, an Arab dhow - or ship - built of teak, coconut wood and hibiscus fibre, packed with a treasure that Indiana Jones could only dream of.

There were 63,000 pieces of gold, silver and ceramics from the fabled Tang dynasty, which flourished between the seventh and 10th centuries.

Among the artefacts was the largest Tang gold cup ever discovered and some of the finest Yue ware - a porcelain that the ancient Chinese likened to snow because of its delicacy.

The exceptional quality of the goods has led some scholars to suggest that these were gifts from the Tang Emperor himself.

The bulk of the cargo was more homely, including 40,000 Changsha bowls, named after the Changsha kilns in Hunan Province, where they were produced.

Found packed inside tall, earthenware jars, some experts believe bean sprouts were placed between the bowls as a sort of organic bubble-wrap. These brightly painted tea bowls were the Tang equivalent of plastic food containers.

"It looks like they were approaching Tanjung Pandang, the main town on Belitung Island, when they hit the reef," explains Walterfang, the stocky German treasure hunter who salvaged the wreck.

"They may have come here for water or other supplies. Perhaps there was an emergency. Or even an attack by pirates.

"But we cannot know. It was nearly 1,200 years ago."

Magically, everything was perfectly preserved by a layer of silt. Raised from the seabed more than a millennium later, the gold cups and bronze mirrors, silver boxes and ewers look as fresh as the day they were created.



In 2005, the Singapore government paid more than £20m to acquire the treasure as the centrepiece for a new maritime museum.

But it is not just about bling. The Belitung wreck is a time capsule that has revolutionised our understanding of two ancient civilisations that fill the airwaves today - China and the Middle East.

The serial nature of the cargo - 1,000 miniature funeral urns and 800 identical inkpots - shows that China was mass-producing goods for export several centuries earlier than previously thought.

The Arab dhow, the first of its kind ever found, proves something equally startling - that mariners from the Persian Gulf were trading on a scale, and over distances, unmatched by human beings until Vasco da Gama set sail for India at the end of the 15th Century. Sinbad the Sailor was for real.

Prosperous Basra

One of the Changsha bowls bore a date stamp, "the 16th Day of the seventh Month of the second Year of the Baoli reign", or AD 826. Carbon-14 analysis of some star anise found in the wreck confirmed this as the probable date of the dhow's departure from China.

Most scholars believe it set sail from Canton, or Guangzhou, as it is today, the largest of the five ports servicing the Maritime Silk Route.

No-one knows exactly where the dhow was heading when it struck the coral reef.

Its most likely destination was a place familiar to us for other reasons, the Iraqi port of Samara, or Basra as it is called today.

In the 9th Century, Basra was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, with a prosperous merchant class hungry for Chinese luxury goods.

Among the most sensational artefacts found in the wreck are three dishes decorated with cobalt from Iran which represent the oldest blue and white ware ever found, setting back by several hundred years the invention of what would become known all over the world simply as "china."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/pr....ent/7675866.stm

Published: 2008/10/18 11:52:30 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 19, 2008, 9:10am

Details Of Evolutionary Transition From Fish To Land Animals Revealed


A new study of Tiktaalik roseae (middle), a 375-million-year-old transitional fossil, highlights an intermediate step between the condition in fish like Eusthenopteron (bottom) and that in early limbed forms like Acanthostega (top). (Credit: Kalliopi Monoyios)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2008) — New research has provided the first detailed look at the internal head skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae, the 375-million-year-old fossil animal that represents an important intermediate step in the evolutionary transition from fish to animals that walked on land.

A predator, up to nine feet long, with sharp teeth, a crocodile-like head and a flattened body, Tiktaalik's anatomy and way of life straddle the divide between fish and land-living animals. First described in 2006, and quickly dubbed the "fishapod," it had fish-like features such as a primitive jaw, fins and scales, as well as a skull, neck, ribs and parts of the limbs that are similar to tetrapods, four-legged animals.

The initial 2006 report did not describe the internal anatomy of the head, because those parts of the fossil were buried in rock. In the October 16, 2008, issue of Nature, the researchers describe this region and show how Tiktaalik was gaining structures that could allow it to support itself on solid ground and breathe air.

"We used to think of this transition of the neck and skull as a rapid event," said study author Neil Shubin, PhD, of the University of Chicago and Field Museum and co leader of the project, "largely because we lacked information about the intermediate animals. Tiktaalik neatly fills this morphological gap. It lets us see many of the individual steps and resolve the relative timing of this complex transition."

"The braincase, palate, and gill arch skeleton of Tiktaalik have been revealed in great detail by recent fossil preparation of several specimens," said Jason Downs, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Academy of Natural Sciences and lead author on the new study. "By revealing new details on the pattern of change in this part of the skeleton, we see that cranial features once associated with land-living animals were first adaptations for life in shallow water."

"The new study reminds us that the gradual transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles required much more than the evolution of limbs," said Ted Daeschler, PhD, of the Academy of Natural Sciences and co-leader of the team that discovered Tiktaalik. "Our work demonstrates that, across this transition, the head of these animals was becoming more solidly constructed and, at the same time, more mobile with respect to the body." These changes are intimately associated with the change in environment.

Fish in deep water move and feed in three-dimensional space and can easily orient their body in the direction of their prey. A neck, seen for the first time in the fossil record in Tiktaalik, is advantageous in settings where the body is relatively fixed, as is the case in shallow water and on land where the body is supported by appendages planted against a substrate.

Another important component of this transition was the gradual reduction of the hyomandibula, a bony element that, in fish, coordinates the cranial motions associated with underwater feeding and respiration. In the transition to life on land, the hyomandibula loses these functions and the bone becomes available for an eventual role in hearing.

In humans, as in other mammals, the hyomandibula, or stapes, is one of the tiny bones in the middle ear. "The bony part of Tiktaalik's hyomandibula is greatly reduced from the primitive condition," said Downs, "and this could indicate that these animals, in shallow water settings, were already beginning to rely less on gill respiration."

The discoveries were made possible by laboratory preparators Fred Mullison and Bob Masek, who prepared the underside of the skull of specimens collected in 2004. This painstaking process took several years. This work showed the underside of the skull and gill bones "beautifully preserved," said Shubin, "to a degree unlike any creature of its kind at this transition."

Having multiple Tiktaalik specimens enabled the researchers to prepare the fossils in ways that showed the bones of the head in "exceptional detail," Downs said.

The team discovered Tiktaalik roseae on Ellesmere Island, in the Nunavut Territory of Canada, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Though this region of Nunavut is now a harsh Arctic ecosystem, at the time that Tiktaalik lived, the area was much further south and was a subtropical floodplain ecosystem.

The formal scientific name for the new species, "Tiktaalik" (tic-TAH-lick), was derived by the Elders Council of Nunavut, the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. The Inuktikuk word means "a large, shallow-water fish." The paleontology team works in Nunavut with authorization from the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. All fossils are the property of the people of Nunavut and will be returned to Canada after they are studied.

The fossil research in Nunavut is carried out with authorization from the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth, Government of Nunavut. All fossils are the property of the people of Nunavut and will be returned to Canada after they are studied.

A cast of Tiktaalik, along with a fleshed-out model of the animal, are on display in the Evolving Planet exhibition at Chicago's Field Museum, where Shubin serves as Provost.

The research was supported by private donors, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Putnam Expeditionary Fund (Harvard University), the University of Chicago, the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081015144123.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 19, 2008, 9:11am

21st Century Detective Work Reveals How Ancient Rock Got Off To A Hot Start

ScienceDaily (Oct. 15, 2008) — A new technique using X-rays has enabled scientists to play 'detective' and solve the debate about the origins of a three billion year old rock fragment.

In the study, published in the journal Nature, a scientist describes the new technique and shows how it can be used to analyse tiny samples of molten rock called magma, yielding important clues about the Earth's early history.

Working in conjunction with Australian and US scientists, an Imperial College London researcher analysed a magma using the Chicago synchrotron, a kilometre sized circular particle accelerator that is commonly used to probe the structure of materials.

In this case, the team used its X-rays to investigate the chemistry of a rare type of magmatic rock called a komatiite which was preserved for billions of years in crystals.

It has previously been difficult to discover how these komatiites formed because earlier analytical techniques lacked the power to provide key pieces of information.

Now, thanks to the new technique, the team has found that komatiites were formed in the Earth's mantle, a region between the crust and the core, at temperatures of around 1,700 degrees Celsius, more than 2.7 billion years ago.

These findings dispel a long held alternative theory which suggested that komatiites were formed at much cooler temperatures, and also yields an important clue about the mantle's early history. They found that the mantle has cooled by 300 degrees Celsius over the 2.7 billion year period

Lead researcher, Dr Andrew Berry, from Imperial College London's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, says more research needs to be done to understand fully the implications of this finding. However, he believes this new technique will enable scientists to uncover more details about the Earth's early history. He says:

"It has long been a 'holy grail' in geology to find a technique that analyses the chemical state of tiny rock fragments, because they provide important geological evidence to explain conditions inside the early Earth. This research resolves the controversy about the origin of komatiites and opens the door to the possibility of new discoveries about our planet's past."

In particular, Dr Berry believes this technique can now be used to explain Earth's internal processes such as the rate at which its interior has been cooling, how the forces affecting the Earth's crust have changed over time, and the distribution of radioactive elements which internally heat the planet.

He believes this information could then be used to build new detailed models to explain the evolution of the planet. He concludes:

"It is amazing that we can look at a fragment of magma only a fraction of a millimetre in size and use it to determine the temperature of rocks tens of kilometres below the surface billions of years ago. How's that for a piece of detective work?"

Journal reference:

1. Berry et al. Oxidation state of iron in komatiitic melt inclusions indicates hot Archaean mantle. Nature, October 16, 2008; 455 (7215): 960 DOI: 10.1038/nature07377

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081015144131.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 19, 2008, 9:13am

Volcanoes May Have Provided Sparks Of First Life

ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2008) — New research suggests that lightening and volcanoes may have sparked early life on Earth. Researcher Jeffrey Bada at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues reanalyzed Stanley Miller's classic origin of life experiment, offering a new analysis on how the essential building blocks of life may have arisen from volcanic eruptions.

Bada, Scripps professor of marine chemistry and graduate student of Miller's in the Chemistry Department at the UC San Diego in 1960, preserved Miller's original chemical samples. Bada along with lead author Adam Johnson, Indiana University graduate student and colleagues, reanalyzed the samples to determine if new chemical compounds could be detecting using modern equipment. The paper, "The Miller Volcanic Spark Experiment," is published in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Science.

"We believed there was more to be learned from Miller's original experiment," said Bada, co-author in the paper. "We found that a modern day version of the volcanic apparatus produces a wider variety of compounds."

Miller's classic "primordial soup" experiment, published in Science in 1953, is still widely used today in high school chemistry labs to mimic chemical reactions that occur in vapor-rich volcanic eruptions. The experiment circulated methane, ammonia, water vapor and hydrogen in a closed experiment, simulating the earth's early atmosphere and sent a lightning-like spark through it. Over a series of days, organic compounds formed in the mixture, demonstrating how Earth's primitive atmosphere may have given rise to life.

It is commonly thought that early Earth was comprised of many small volcanic islands. This study suggests that lightning and the release of gases associated with these volcanic eruptions could have produced the necessary chemical components to give rise to early life.

Bada's lab is the first to perform follow up studies using Miller's original apparatus and chemicals samples, which were discovered following Miller's death in 2007. Researchers reanalyzed 11 of the original samples using contemporary analytical chemistry techniques and produced 22 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, 10 of which had not been identified previously by Miller.

"Historically, you don't get many experiments that might be more famous than these; they redefined our thoughts on the origin of life and showed unequivocally that the fundamental building blocks of life could be derived from natural processes," said lead author Adam Johnson, a Indiana University graduate student with the NASA Astrobiology Institute team.

Henderson Cleaves (Carnegie Institution for Science), Jason Dworkin and Daniel Glavin (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and Antonio Lazcano (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) also contributed to the report. It was funded with grants from the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and Mexico's El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016141405.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 19, 2008, 9:47am

'Lost' Miller-Urey Experiment Created More Of Life's Building Blocks


The apparatus used for Miller's "second," initially unpublished experiment. Boiled water (1) creates airflow, driving steam and gases through a spark (2). A tapering of the glass apparatus (inlay) creates a spigot effect, increasing air flow. A cooling condenser (3) turns some steam back into liquid water, which drips down into the trap (4), where chemical products also settle. (Credit: Ned Shaw, Indiana University)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2008) — A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in this week's Science.

One of the unpublished experiments by American chemist Stanley Miller (under his University of Chicago mentor, Nobelist Harold Urey) actually produced a wider variety of organic molecules than the experiment that made Miller famous. The difference between the two experiments is small -- the unpublished experiment used a tapering glass "aspirator" that simply increased air flow through a hollow, air-tight glass device. Increased air flow creates a more dynamic reaction vessel, or "vapor-rich volcanic" conditions, according to the present report's authors.

"The apparatus Stanley Miller paid the least attention to gave the most exciting results," said Adam Johnson, lead author of the Science report. "We suspect part of the reason for this was that he did not have the analytical tools we have today, so he would have missed a lot."

Johnson is a doctoral student in IU Bloomington's Biochemistry Program. His advisor is biogeochemist Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences and the director of NASA's Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Institute.

In his May 15, 1953, article in Science, "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions," Miller identified just five amino acids: aspartic acid, glycine, alpha-amino-butyric acid, and two versions of alanine. Aspartic acid, glycine and alanine are common constituents of natural proteins. Miller relied on a blotting technique to identify the organic molecules he'd created -- primitive laboratory conditions by today's standards. In a 1955 Journal of the American Chemical Society paper, Miller identified other compounds, such as carboxylic and hydroxy acids. But he would not have been able to identify anything present at very low levels.

Johnson, Scripps Institution of Oceanography marine chemist Jeffrey Bada (the present Science paper's principal investigator), National Autonomous University of Mexico biologist Antonio Lazcano, Carnegie Institution of Washington chemist James Cleaves, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astrobiologists Jason Dworkin and Daniel Glavin examined vials left over from Miller's experiments of the early 1950s. Vials associated with the original, published experiment contained far more organic molecules than Stanley Miller realized -- 14 amino acids and five amines. The 11 vials scientists recovered from the unpublished aspirator experiment, however, produced 22 amino acids and the same five amines at yields comparable to the original experiment.

"We believed there was more to be learned from Miller's original experiment," Bada said. "We found that in comparison to his design everyone is familiar with from textbooks, the volcanic apparatus produces a wider variety of compounds."

Johnson added, "Many of these other amino acids have hydroxyl groups attached to them, meaning they'd be more reactive and more likely to create totally new molecules, given enough time."

The results of the revisited experiment delight but also perplex.

What is driving the second experiment's molecular diversity? And why didn't Miller publish the results of the second experiment?

A possible answer to the first question may be the increased flow rate itself, Johnson explained. "Removing newly formed molecules from the spark by increasing flow rate seems crucial," he said. "It's possible the jet of steam pushes newly synthesized molecules out of the spark discharge before additional reactions turn them into something less interesting. Another thought is that simply having more water present in the reaction allows a wider variety of reactions to occur."

An answer to the second question is relegated to speculation -- Miller, still a hero to many scientists, succumbed to a weak heart in 2007. Johnson says he and Bada suspect Miller wasn't impressed with the experiment two's results, instead opting to report the results of a simpler experiment to the editors at Science.

Miller's third, also unpublished, experiment used an apparatus that had an aspirator but used a "silent" discharge. This third device appears to have produced a lower diversity of organic molecules.

Research on early planetary geochemistry and the origins of life isn't limited to Earth studies. As humans explore the Solar System, investigations of past or present extra-terrestrial life are inevitable. Recent speculations have centered on Mars, whose polar areas are now known to possess water ice, but other candidates include Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, both of which are covered in water ice. The NASA Astrobiology Institute, which supports these investigations, has taken a keen interest in the revisiting of the Miller-Urey Synthesis.

"This research is both a link to the experimental foundations of astrobiology as well as an exciting result leading toward greater understanding of how life might have arisen on Earth," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, headquartered at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

Henderson Cleaves (Carnegie Institution for Science) also contributed to the report. It was funded with grants from the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and Mexico's El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia.

Journal reference:

1. Adam P. Johnson, H. James Cleaves, Jason P. Dworkin, Daniel P. Glavin, Antonio Lazcano, and Jeffrey L. Bada. The Miller Volcanic Spark Discharge Experiment. Science, Vol. 322, Issue 5900

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081016141411.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 23, 2008, 11:44pm

Tiny dinosaur on verge of swearing off meat

By Julie Steenhuysen

Posted 2008/10/23 at 7:13 pm EDT

CHICAGO, Oct. 23, 2008 (Reuters) — A rare juvenile skull of a 190 million-year-old dinosaur may help explain when an important group of plant eaters branched off from carnivorous cousins, U.S. and British researchers said on Thursday.


Handout illustration shows a heterodontosaurus adult and juvenile. A rare juvenile skull of a 190 million-year-old dinosaur may help explain when an important group of plant eaters branched off from carnivorous cousins, U.S. and British researchers said on Thursday. REUTERS/Natural History Museum/Nobumichi Tamura/handout

The tiny skull belonged to a young Heterodontosaurus. Its tooth structure -- sharp canine teeth for biting and tearing and flat grinding teeth -- suggest the tiny creature was evolving from a meat eater to a plant eater, the scientists said.

"This juvenile skull indicates that these dinosaurs were still in the midst of that transition," said Laura Porro, a post-doctoral student at the University of Chicago, who described the skull in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Porro came across the skull in a drawer in the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, while researching the eating habits of adults of this type of dinosaur, which belonged to the herbivore order ornithischians that lived during the Early Jurassic period of South Africa.

It was dug up in the 1960s but never identified.

Heterodontosaurus had an unusual combination of teeth, with large fang-like canines at the front of their jaws and worn, molar-like grinding teeth at the back.

Porro said paleontologists had thought the canines were sexually dimorphic -- a characteristic present only in adults of one gender in a species like antlers in male deer.

But the presence of long, serrated canines in the juvenile suggest they were common to both genders, Porro said.

"They have these really long canine teeth, which don't look like the teeth of a plant eater," Porro, who worked with scientists from the Natural History Museum in London, said in a telephone interview.

"They almost look like little saber-toothed tiger teeth."

The first dinosaurs appeared about 230 million years ago, and the earliest known ones were meat eaters.

There were other plant-eating dinosaurs at the time of Heterodontosaurus including the long-necked sauropods. But this little creature was one of the earliest of the ornithischians that soon become very important in the Age of Dinosaurs.

Later ornithischians included the duck-billed dinosaurs, horned dinosaurs such as Triceratops and tank-like dinosaurs such as Ankylosaurus.

While adult Heterodontosaurus were turkey-sized creatures that reached just over three feet (1 meter) in length and weighed about five pounds (2.5 kg), the juvenile likely weighed less than half a pound (200 grams) and would have been just about a foot and a half long.

The find also offers a rare chance to compare a young dinosaur to adults in the species. Porro said the eyes in the juvenile skull are much bigger, and the nose is much shorter.

"It's the same things that makes puppies and kittens appealing," she said. "I think it's adorable."

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre49m93y-us-dinosaur/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 23, 2008, 11:47pm

Artifacts discovery might lead to lost tribe

By Manny Mogato

Posted 2008/10/23 at 8:25 pm EDT

MANILA, Oct. 23, 2008 (Reuters) — When Philippine police confiscated 22 bags of broken pottery from antiquity smugglers near an area where Muslim rebels operated, little did they know that they may have uncovered the remnants of a long-lost tribe.


A local government official shows samples of the broken burial jars with human forms that were seized from antiquity smugglers near a conflict area on the southern island of Mindanao in mid-August are seen on September 2, 2008. Archaeologists say the discovery of 22 sacks of broken anthropomorphic pottery could lead to a long, lost local tribe that existed around 2,000 years ago. REUTERS/Stringer

Now, experts at the National Museum in the capital Manila are studying the burial urns from a tribe that lived in the Philippines over 2,000 years ago, in what could be a major archaeological discovery.

"The pottery has human faces that show emotions," Eusebio Dizon, head of the archaeological unit at the National Museum, told Reuters.

Dizon said that pictures of people on the shards might mean the tribe that used the vessels had different origins from the known indigenous tribes in the Philippines.

"The Manobos, Tirurays and B'laans tribes that have survived over time do not bury their dead in painted anthropomorphic (human form) jars. So, we have no idea what kind of people are behind these unique burial jars," Dizon said.

A U.S.-trained archaeologist, Dizon spent several years in the 1990s excavating in a cave in Sarangani province on Mindanao after he was tipped off by treasure hunters about rare anthropomorphic, or human form, pottery in the area. Carbon dating tests showed the jars to be from about 5 BC.

He said the latest pottery find could be much older because of the cruder method used in the pottery as well as the human forms on the jars. But, further studies are needed to establish the real origins of the latest finds, he added.

"We have no idea where these artifacts come from because the people who were trying to smuggle them out from the area could not tell us where exactly they found those materials. But, I am sure the materials are not fake."

Rene Miguel Dominguez, governor of Sarangani province, said they were told the latest pottery was found near Palembang town, a coastal area in the adjacent Sultan Kudarat province where Muslim rebels are very active.

RARE AND UNIQUE

Archaeologists have uncovered late stone-age weapons, pottery and other artifacts in digs in the region.

"(But) Anthropomorphic pottery is seldom seen in this part of the world," Dizon said.

Angel Bautista, head of the National Museum's cultural property division, said the government wanted the new discovery to be declared a "national treasure," but further investigations were needed to establish provenance.

Dizon said it was important for archaeology experts to inspect the places where the pottery was found and examine the "primary data" that might reveal valuable information about what could be one of the earliest sites of human habitation in the country.

However, the museum lacked the resources to embark on a major exploration in an area where there has been sporadic fighting between troops and the country's largest Islamic rebel group.

Dominguez said some areas where the pottery was suspected to have been found were controlled by Muslim rebels that demand huge sums of money to allow further archaeological exploration work.

"These pottery pieces are part of our pre-historic history and the government must do everything to protect the site where these materials were found," he said.

Apart from rebels and lawless groups active in the areas, archaeologists may have to race against antiquity dealers and treasure hunters as the artifacts could fetch millions of pesos on the black market.

"We could learn more about our past from this pottery, but first we need to preserve and protect the areas from where these materials have been found," he added.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre49n011-us-philippines-archaeology/

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 23, 2008, 11:50pm

Ancient Bone Tool Sheds Light On Prehistoric Midwest


This awl, fashioned from a piece of deer bone, has been radiocarbon dated to 10,400 BP, making it the oldest organic implement yet documented in Indiana. It was discovered by University of Indianapolis students in 2003. (Credit: University of Indianapolis)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2008) — A prehistoric bone tool discovered by University of Indianapolis archeologists is the oldest such artifact ever documented in Indiana, the researchers say.

Radiocarbon dating shows that the tool – an awl fashioned from the leg bone of a white tail deer, with one end ground to a point – is 10,400 years old.

The find supports the growing notion that, in the wake of the most recent Ice Age, the first Hoosiers migrated northward earlier than previously thought. Sites from the Paleoindian and Early Archaic eras are more common in surrounding states such as Illinois and Ohio, which were not as heavily glaciated as Indiana.

“Indiana has been such a void,” said Associate Professor Christopher Schmidt, director of UIndy’s Indiana Prehistory Laboratory and president of the Indiana Archeology Council. “This bodes well for the future.”

The tool was found in 2003 in northwestern Indiana’s Carroll County by students participating in the university’s annual summer archeology field school. Schmidt has directed ongoing excavations since 2002 at the site near the small town of Flora, where a glacial lake attracted mastodon, giant beaver and smaller wildlife for thousands of years.

Stone tools thought to be from the same era have been found in Indiana, but because they are not made from organic materials, their age cannot determined precisely, only inferred from surrounding materials and comparison with similar artifacts. Tools made from biodegradable materials, such as bone, rarely survive intact from such ancient times.

Scratches and notches on the 5-inch bone awl indicate it probably was used in conjunction with a stone knife to punch holes in leather, perhaps for clothing. The nature of the activity suggests that the lifestyle of its users was more settled than nomadic.

“This tells us they’re pretty well established in northern Indiana,” Schmidt says. “This isn’t just people passing through. This is people settling down, making homes.”

The tool has undergone further analysis by Christopher Moore, who was among the UIndy students who found the tool and is now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky.

Moore and Schmidt describe the bone tool in the context of similar artifacts from around the country in an article titled “Paleoindian and Early Archaic Organic Technologies: A Review and Analysis,” to be published in an upcoming edition of North American Archaeologist.

The people who lived in Indiana 10,000 years ago are not well known, Schmidt says. No burials of this age have been found, and only a few sites this old have been documented.

“That’s what makes this site so interesting,” Schmidt says. “It gives us a glimpse into life not long after the glaciers had receded. It shows us a lake that was rich with life, some of which would soon go extinct, some of which is still with us today. And, despite the changes, it is clear those first people in Indiana were hardy and later flourished.”

Schmidt also offered praise for the residents of the Flora area, a close-knit German Baptist community that adheres to traditional farming practices but has been enthusiastic and generous toward the archeologists working in their midst.

“This particular dig has been wonderful because the people of Flora have been so gracious and supportive of our efforts,” Schmidt says. “They helped us at every turn. They gave us food, helped with our pumps, and even jumped into the pits to help with the digging.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021214301.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 23, 2008, 11:53pm

Archaeologists Find Unique, Early US Relic Of African Worship


How the African bundle might have looked 300 years ago. (Credit: Brian Payne, University of Maryland)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2008) — University of Maryland archaeologists have dug up what they believe to be one of the earliest U.S. examples of African spirit practices. The researchers say it's the only object of its kind ever found by archaeologists in North America - a clay "bundle" filled with small pieces of common metal, placed in what had been an Annapolis street gutter three centuries ago.

The bundle appears to be a direct transplant of African religion, distinct from hoodoo and other later practices blending African and European traditions.

"This is a remarkably early piece, far different from anything I've seen before in North America," says University of Maryland anthropologist Mark Leone, who directs the Archaeology in Annapolis project. "The bundle is African in design, not African-American. The people who made this used local materials. But their knowledge of charms and the spirit world probably came with them directly from Africa."

About the size of a football, the compacted clay and sand bundle originally sat in clear public view stationed in front of a house. X-rays show the object served as a container holding hundreds of pieces of lead shot, pins and nails intended to ward off or redirect spirits. A prehistoric stone axe extends upward from the top of the bundle.

Leone dates the object to about 1700, plus or minus 20 years, from a period when English beliefs in witchcraft could mingle more openly with the African.

"We're particularly intrigued by the placement of this bundle in so visible a spot, because it suggests an unexpected level of public toleration," says Maryland's Leone. "All the previous caches of African spirit practices we've found in Annapolis were at least fifty years younger. These had been hidden away and used in secret. But in this earlier generation, the Annapolis newspaper was filled with references to English magic and witchcraft, so both European and African spirit practices may have been more acceptable then. That changed with the growing influence of the Enlightenment."

After consulting with experts on West and Central-West African culture, Leone says the bundle might have origins in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea among Yoruba or Mande speakers. It may have been fashioned in the image of a god and energized through its construction to invoke and disseminate spiritual power.

Clay Bundle

The Maryland team discovered the bundle four feet below Fleet Street in the Annapolis historic district - about 1,000 feet from the Maryland statehouse. It sat in the gutter of a much earlier unpaved street on a hill overlooking an inlet. Water would have run down the gutter, making it a vital conduit for spirits and a strategic spot to place a powerful charm, Leone says.

The bundle measures about 10 inches high, six inches wide and four inches thick. It remains intact, held together by the sand and clay. X-rays taken at the state of Maryland's conservation facility reveal the bundle's contents - about 300 pieces of lead shot, 25 common pins and a dozen nails. The blade of the stone axe points upward.

Originally, some kind of cloth or animal hide probably wound around the bundle forming a pouch that held the metal objects. But it has long since decomposed.

Interpretation

Leone immediately suspected that the object had African origins based on the materials and the construction, which differed from the hoodoo caches his teams have unearthed in Annapolis over the past two decades. To help identify the object, Leone consulted with Frederick Lamp, curator of African Art at the Yale University Art Gallery.

"The use of compacted clay and iron materials points to the African origin of this bundle," Lamp says. "Combining these materials was believed to increase the spiritual power of the objects."

Lamp adds that Mande groups, principally in Sierra Leone and Liberia, used packed clay as binders when building spiritual objects. If Yoruba in origin, the bundle would likely represent the image of Eshu Elegba, the god of chance, confusion and unpredictability, the god of the crossroads. The axe blade could replace the comb in other representations of the Eshu, and it is also indicative of the power of Shango, the god of thunder and the lightning bolt.

"We hope to open a scholarly debate," says Leone. "Further research may help pinpoint the bundle's cultural origins. Whoever made this understood that public invocations of magic were a source of social control," Leone says. "It radiates power. The construction was intended to amplify its influence over the spirit world."

English Magic

Before 1750, Annapolis' newspaper, The Maryland Gazette, frequently cited many-headed monsters, witchcraft trials in Europe, misshapen babies linked to magic, unaccounted appearances and disappearances and the world of pagan, non-Christian belief, explains Leone.

"English witchcraft in this period existed openly in public and was tolerated," he adds. "It's intriguing to speculate how English and African spirit beliefs may have interacted and borrowed from each other."

After 1750 though, the Gazette changed markedly. Leone says references to magic disappeared and the paper reflected the changing philosophy of the period.

Object of Display

Beginning October 21, the object is on display in the window of the Banneker-Douglass Museum, the state of Maryland's Center for African-American History and Culture.

The Annapolis Department of Public Works contracted for the archaeological excavation along Fleet and Cornhill streets in the city's historic district in advance of a project to lay underground utility cables. The area was part of early Annapolis' waterfront.

"We've been committed for a long time to uncovering our state capital's history, and yet the old never gets old, never ceases to astound me," says Annapolis Mayor, Ellen Moyer. "This latest discovery underscores just how deeply the city's European and African roots are intertwined."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021120755.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 24, 2008, 12:19am

'Magnetic Death Star' Fossils: Earlier Global Warming Produced A Whole New Form Of Life


A typical "giant" spearhead-shaped crystal is only about four microns long, which means that hundreds would fit on the period at the end of this sentence. However, the crystals found recently are eight times larger than the previous world record for the largest bacterial iron-oxide crystal. (Credit: Image courtesy of California Institute of Technology)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 23, 2008) — An international team of scientists has discovered microscopic, magnetic fossils resembling spears and spindles, unlike anything previously seen, among sediment layers deposited during an ancient global-warming event along the Atlantic coastal plain of the United States.

The researchers, led by geobiologists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and McGill University, describe the findings in a paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Fifty-five million years ago, Earth warmed by more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit after huge amounts of carbon entered the atmosphere over a period of just a few thousand years. Although this ancient global-warming episode, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), remains incompletely explained, it might offer analogies for possible global warming in the future.

Perhaps in response to the environmental stress of the PETM, many land mammals in North America became dwarfed. Almost half of the common sea bottom-dwelling microorganisms known as foraminifera became extinct in newly warmer waters that were incapable of carrying the levels of dissolved oxygen for which they were adapted.

"Imagine our surprise to discover not only a fossil bloom of bacteria that make iron-oxide magnets within their cells, but also an entirely unknown set of organisms that grew magnetic crystals to giant sizes," said Caltech postdoctoral scholar Timothy Raub, who collected the samples from an International Ocean Drilling Program drill-core storehouse at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

A typical "giant" spearhead-shaped crystal is only about four microns long, which means that hundreds would fit on the period at the end of this sentence. However, the crystals found recently are eight times larger than the previous world record for the largest bacterial iron-oxide crystal.

According to Dirk Schumann, a geologist and electron microscopist at McGill University and lead author of the study, "It was easy to focus on the thousands of other bacterial fossils, but these single, unusual crystals kept appearing in the background. It soon became evident that they were everywhere."

In addition to their unusually large sizes, the magnetic crystals occur in a surprising array of shapes. For example, the spearhead-like crystals have a six-sided "stalk" at one end, a bulbous middle, and a sharp, tapered tip at the other end. Once reaching a certain size, spearhead crystals grow longer but not wider, a directed growth pattern that is characteristic of most higher biological organisms.

The spearhead magnetic crystals compose a minor fraction of all of the iron-oxide crystals in the PETM clay layer. Most of the crystals have smaller sizes and special shapes, which indicate that they are fossils of magnetotactic bacteria. This group of microorganisms, long studied at Caltech by study coauthor Joseph Kirschvink, the Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology, use magnets to orient themselves within Earth's magnetic field, and proliferate in oxygen-poor water.

Spearheads are not, however, the rarest fossil type in the deposit. That honor belongs to a spherical cluster of spearheads informally dubbed the "Magnetic Death Star" by the researchers. The Magnetic Death Star may have preserved the crystals as they occurred in their original biological structure.

The researchers could not find a similar-shaped organism anywhere in the paleontological annals. They hypothesize that it may have been a single-celled eukaryote that evolved for the first time during the PETM and was outcompeted once the strange climate conditions of that time diminished. Alternatively, it may still exist today in a currently undiscovered location.

"The continental shelf of the mid-Atlantic states during the PETM must have been very iron-rich, much like the Amazon shelf today," notes study coauthor Robert Kopp of Princeton University, who first began working on the project while a graduate student at Caltech. "These fossils may be telling a story of radical environmental transformation: imagine a river like the Amazon flowing at least occasionally where the Potomac is today."

Journal reference:

1. Schumann et al. Gigantism in unique biogenic magnetite at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 20, 2008 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803634105

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081022135844.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 24, 2008, 12:54am

Less Ice In Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 Years Ago


Settlement: Astrid Lyså in August 2007 in the ruined settlement left by the Independence I Culture in North Greenland. The first immigrants to these inhospitable regions succumbed to the elements nearly 4000 years ago, when the climate became colder again. (Credit: Eiliv Larsen, NGU)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2008) — Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free.

”The climate in the northern regions has never been milder since the last Ice Age than it was about 6000-7000 years ago. We still don’t know whether the Arctic Ocean was completely ice free, but there was more open water in the area north of Greenland than there is today,” says Astrid Lyså, a geologist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU).

Shore features

Together with her NGU colleague, Eiliv Larsen, she has worked on the north coast of Greenland with a group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen, mapping sea-level changes and studying a number of shore features. She has also collected samples of driftwood that originated from Siberia or Alaska and had these dated, and has collected shells and microfossils from shore sediments.

”The architecture of a sandy shore depends partly on whether wave activity or pack ice has influenced its formation. Beach ridges, which are generally distinct, very long, broad features running parallel to the shoreline, form when there is wave activity and occasional storms. This requires periodically open water,” Astrid Lyså explains.

Pack-ice ridges which form when drift ice is pressed onto the seashore piling up shore sediments that lie in its path, have a completely different character. They are generally shorter, narrower and more irregular in shape.

Open sea

”The beach ridges which we have had dated to about 6000-7000 years ago were shaped by wave activity,” says Astrid Lyså. They are located at the mouth of Independence Fjord in North Greenland, on an open, flat plain facing directly onto the Arctic Ocean. Today, drift ice forms a continuous cover from the land here.

Astrid Lyså says that such old beach formations require that the sea all the way to the North Pole was periodically ice free for a long time.

”This stands in sharp contrast to the present-day situation where only ridges piled up by pack ice are being formed,” she says.

However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing.

"Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes.

Inuit immigration

The mapping at 82 degrees North took place in summer 2007 as part of the LongTerm project, a sub-project of the major International Polar Year project, SciencePub. The scientists also studied ruined settlements dating from the first Inuit immigration to these desolate coasts.

The first people from Alaska and Canada, called the Independence I Culture, travelled north-east as far as they could go on land as long ago as 4000-4500 years ago. The scientists have found out that drift ice had formed on the sea again in this period, which was essential for the Inuit in connection with their hunting. No beach ridges have been formed since then.

”Seals and driftwood were absolutely vital if they were to survive. They needed seals for food and clothing, and driftwood for fuel when the temperature crept towards minus 50 degrees. For us, it is inconceivable and extremely impressive,” says Eiliv Larsen, the NGU scientist and geologist.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081020095850.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 27, 2008, 6:38pm

Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Governor's Palace In Turkey


Discovery of a rare treasure trove of more than 20 bronze vessels under the paving stones in the courtyard. (Credit: Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2008) — Within the scope of an international rescue excavation project, a team of four archaeologists specialized in Middle Eastern affairs headed by Dr. Dirk Wicke (Institute of Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies) have unearthed parts of a Neo-Assyrian governor's palace dating back to the 9th to 7th century BCE in a two-month excavation program amongst the ruins on Ziyaret Tepe. The discoveries were extraordinary.

The site in the south-east of Turkey (Diyarbakir province) is at risk from the construction of the Ilisu Dam. For several years now it has been investigated by teams from the universities of Akron (Ohio), Cambridge, Munich and Istanbul (Marmara University) in a joint excavation project. Sponsorship by the research funds of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in 2007 and 2008 gave its archaeologists the opportunity to become involved in this international and multi-disciplinary project. There are plans to continue the project for another three years.

The Upper Tigris region came under the sway of the Assyrians in the middle of the second millennium BCE. They established their provincial capital in Tushan which is identified today as Ziyaret Tepe. According to historical inscriptions by the Assyrian ruler Assurnasirpal II it is certain that the construction of an administrative palace in Tushan dates back to the year 882 BCE. The excavation area of the Mainz team comprises the topmost parts of the acropolis, which must have been subsumed by the governor's palace. Parts of the private residential area and a courtyard have already been uncovered. The main rooms were well equipped - amongst the findings were colorful wall paintings and a facility for an oven on wheels.

But the most unusual discovery was the excavation of cremations in pits within the extensive courtyard area. Five installations have been found to date, two of which were undisturbed and contained opulent burial goods. In the rectangular graves of approximately 1.50 m x 2.00 m in size, for example, a considerable layer of ash and burned bones as well as numerous bronze vessels, sumptuous stone and ivory receptacles, carved ivory objects, seals, and beads were found. These items indicate the high status of the people buried here. They are believed to have been residents of the palace. These objects are very similar to those found in the Assyrian capitals of Assur and Kalhu/Nimrud in modern day Iraq.

In addition to the cremation remains found this year, a rare treasure trove of more than 20 bronze vessels was discovered under the paving stones in the courtyard. These include a jug, a wine ladle, a sieve, several bowls and cups, mostly made from embossed bronze, which are now waiting to be restored. This will reveal their elaborate ornamentation which can already be made out under the corrosion layer.

The archaeological research project at Ziyaret Tepe (Turkey) undertaken by the Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies of Mainz University, which was set up 10 years ago, adds a new field archaeological portfolio alongside the excavations in Haft Tappeh and Tchogha Zanbil (Iran). It enables its students to work in the region in which they specialize and makes them part of an international research project.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021094216.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 27, 2008, 6:40pm

New Fossil Reveals Primates Lingered In Texas


Chris Kirk and Blythe Williams have discovered Diablomomys dalquesti, a new genus and species of primate that dates to 44-43 million years ago when tropical forests and active volcanoes covered west Texas. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Texas at Austin)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2008) — More than 40 million years ago, primates preferred Texas to northern climates that were significantly cooling, according to new fossil evidence discovered by Chris Kirk, physical anthropologist at The University of Texas at Austin.

Kirk and Blythe Williams from Duke University have discovered Diablomomys dalquesti, a new genus and species of primate that dates to 44-43 million years ago when tropical forests and active volcanoes covered west Texas.

During the early part of the Eocene epoch, primates were common in the tropical forests that covered most of North America. Over time, however, climatic cooling caused a dramatic decline in the abundance and diversity of North American primates. By the end of the Eocene, primates and most tropical species had almost disappeared from North America.

Kirk's discovery of late middle Eocene (Uintan) primates at the Devil's Graveyard Formation in Southwest Texas reveals new information about how North American primates evolved during this period of faunal (animal) reorganization.

"After several years of collecting new fossils, reviewing Texas' primate community and comparing it to other places in North America, we found a much more diverse group of primate species in Texas than we expected," Kirk said. "It seems that primates stuck around in Texas much longer than many other parts of the continent because the climate stayed warm for a longer period of time. While primate diversity was falling off precipitously in places like Utah and Wyoming during the late middle Eocene, west Texas provided a humid, tropical refuge for primates and other arboreal (tree-inhabiting) animals."

The anthropologists named the new primate Diablomomys dalquesti, combining "Diablo" to represent the Devil's Graveyard Formation (sand- and mudstones near Big Bend National Park) with Omomys, a related fossil genus. The dalquesti species name honors Walter and Rose Dalquest, who donated the land on which the fossil was collected (Midwestern State University's "Dalquest Research Site"). Walter was a Texas paleontologist and distinguished biology professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls until his death in 2000.

Journal reference:

1. Williams et al. New Uintan primates from Texas and their implications for North American patterns of species richness during the Eocene. Journal of Human Evolution, October 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.07.007

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014111401.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 27, 2008, 6:42pm

Role Of Slave Trade In Evolution Of American Wild Rice Species

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2008) — Rice is the world’s foremost cereal crop as a human food source. Today’s cultivated varieties derive from the species Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrina, domesticated respectively in Asia and West Africa. Besides these two domestic taxa, there are around 20 species of wild rice of the genus Oryza, all located in the tropics.

Their common ancestor appears to have emerged from Eurasia about 50 million years B.P. For several decades, scientists have been using molecular biology techniques to explore the evolutionary path which has led to the current diversity of wild rice species. A study published by an IRD research team has shed light on the origin of the settlement of wild rice on the American continent.

Three colonization theories for evolution of rice in the Neotropical region have been confronting each other for many years. The first one takes continental drift as the basis for explaining the current distribution of American rice in the tropical zone, considering that their ancestors already existed before Africa separated from South America. The second postulates the major role of natural seed dispersion across extremely long distances, with migrating birds as agents. The third links the arrival of rice in America to the great exploratory voyages and to the slave trade run by Europeans between West Africa and America.

Recent dating methods using the “molecular clock” were applied to the species present in the American tropical zone. This method, founded on the principle that genetic mutations accumulate in a genome at a rate globally proportional to the time that has elapsed, arrived at an estimated date for the appearance of American wild rice of 300 000 years. However, a relative genetic proximity for certain fractions of the genome of these cereals suggests a much more recent origin by the interaction of crossings between different species. To overcome the constraints imposed by molecular study of a hybrid species grouping together several genomes in one, the IRD team took advantage of available historical documentation. Investigation of the main European herbarium collections compiled by XVIIth and XIXth Century naturalist explorers who travelled around the American continent revealed that almost all the rice specimens listed during this period belong to the same hybrid species.

Moreover, contrary to what the first flora describe concerning a number of neighbouring species, the distribution area of American rice is in fact clearly delimited by the activity of Europeans. Examination of the historical literature also shows that the triangular trade that became established from the XVIth Century between Europe, West Africa and America was the decisive factor in the appearance of the first species of the genus Oryza on the American continent. At that time, seeds were first transported inadvertently in the holds of slave-ships. It was also established that sailors deliberately took with them seeds of a range of exotic plant species, including wild rice, on their many transoceanic voyages.

The hybrid rice first emerged among crops cultivated on the Caribbean islands, were then transported to the mainland by sea, mixed with stocks of cultivated rice seed. The presence of the hybrid rice species inland was for a long time limited to a perimeter around the first Brazilian gold mines that had attracted the colonists with their slaves. The location of this mine on the watershed between the River Amazon and the River Paraguay then enabled new rice species, born of crosses between wild rice of the Old World and domestic rice, to be conveyed by the current of the two rivers and gradually to invade a large area of South America.

The particularly vigorous American rice therefore seems to be the fruit of human migrations across the oceans. They appear to have the special feature of combining in the same genome the genetic characters of many different wild species of the Old World and rice that was already being grown there. This arrangement provided them with a number of qualities, including abundant seed production, ability to be pollinated by cultivated rice varieties, or high resistance to disease.

Confirmation of this theory at molecular level could make these Neotropical species potential candidates for development of a new type of domestic rice. In contrast to a hybrid rice currently being developed by China, the “super-hybrid” rice that could be derived from domestication of American species would offer the advantage that rice-growers could multiply it empirically, in the same way as for the traditional varieties they grow already.

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081027152539.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 27, 2008, 6:45pm

First Inhabitants Of Caribbean Brought Drug Heirlooms With Them


Examples of inhaling bowls that were likely used for the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances. (Credit: Image courtesy of Dr. Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, NC State University)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2008) — A new study led by North Carolina State University's Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick is the first to show physical evidence that the people who colonized the Caribbean from South America brought with them heirloom drug paraphernalia that had been passed down from generation to generation as the colonists traveled through the islands.

The research team used a dating technique called luminescence to determine the age of several artifacts found on the Caribbean island of Carriacou, in the West Indies, and discovered that the items dated back to between roughly 400 and 100 B.C. These dates are well before Carriacou was colonized in approximately A.D. 400. Luminescence testing involves heating a substance and measuring the amount of light it gives off to determine how long ago it was last heated.

Heirlooms are portable objects that are inherited by family members and kept in circulation for generations, Fitzpatrick says, and are frequently part of important rituals. The objects tested for this study are ceramic inhaling bowls that were likely used for the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances. Fitzpatrick says the luminescence dates of the bowls, as well as analysis of the material from which the bowls were made, indicate that the artifacts "appear to have been transported to Carriacou when it was colonized – possibly hundreds of years after they were made."

Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor of anthropology at NC State, says scholars have long thought that the people who settled the Caribbean islands likely brought heirlooms with them – but says the bowls "are the first physical evidence we've found to support that claim."

Journal reference:

1. Fitzpatrick et al. Evidence for inter-island transport of heirlooms: luminescence dating and petrographic analysis of ceramic inhaling bowls from Carriacou, West Indies. Journal of Archaeological Science, October 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2008.08.007

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081020093410.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 27, 2008, 6:47pm

Fire Out Of Africa: A Key To The Migration Of Prehistoric Man

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2008) — The ability to make fire millennia ago was likely a key factor in the migration of prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology believes on the basis of findings at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in Israel.

Earlier excavations there, carried out under the direction of Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Institute of Archaeology, showed that the occupants of the site – who are identified as being part of the Acheulian culture that arose in Africa about 1.6 million years ago -- had mastered fire-making ability as long as 790,000 years ago. This revelation pushed back previously accepted dates for man’s fire-making ability by a half-million years.

The Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site is located along the Dead Sea rift in the Hula Valley of northern Israel.

Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil, a member of Goren-Inbar’s team, said that further, detailed investigation of burned flint at designated areas in all eight levels of civilization found at the site now shows that “concentrations of burned flint items were found in distinct areas, interpreted as representing the remnants of ancient hearths.” This tells us, she said, that once acquired, this fire-making ability was carried on over a period of many generations. Alperson-Afil’s findings are reported in an article published in the most recent edition of Quaternary Science Reviews.

She said that other studies which have reported on the use of fire only verified the presence of burned archaeological materials, but were unable to penetrate further into the question of whether humans were “fire-makers” from the very early stages of fire-use.

“The new data from Gesher Benot Ya’akov is exceptional as it preserved evidence for fire-use throughout a very long occupational sequence. This continual, habitual, use of fire suggests that these early humans were not compelled to collect that fire from natural conflagrations, rather they were able to make fire at will," Alperson-Afil said.

The manipulation of fire by early man was clearly a turning point for man’s ancestors, Once “domesticated,” fire enabled protection from predators and provided warmth and light as well as enabling the exploitation of a new range of foods.

Said Alperson-Afil: “The powerful tool of fire-making provided ancient humans with confidence, enabling them to leave their early circumscribed surroundings and eventually populate new, unfamiliar environments.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081027082314.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 2:55am

King Solomon's Mines Rediscovered?
Rebecca Carroll
for National Geographic News
October 28, 2008


This ancient copper mine in southern Jordan may have been the source of metal for a Jerusalem temple built by the Biblical figure of King Solomon, according to a new study. Previous studies had concluded no copper production occurred in the area before the seventh century B.C. But new carbon dating pushes mining operations back to the tenth century B.C.

Photograph courtesy UCSD Levantine Archaeology Laboratory

Copper mines in southern Jordan were active centuries earlier than previously believed, according to a new study that suggests the area was producing the metal at the same time the biblical figure of King Solomon is said to have built Jerusalem's first Jewish temple.

Industrial-scale metal production was occurring at a site in Jordan in the tenth century B.C., according to the study's carbon dating of ancient industrial mining debris and analysis of the settlement's layout.

Previous studies had concluded no copper production occurred in the area before the seventh century B.C.

"We're conclusively showing that the Iron Age chronology [of this region] has to be pushed back another 300 years," said lead author Thomas Levy, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Diego.

Biblical References

The shift in estimated Iron Age dates means the Jordan copper mine would have been in operation during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon—who are referred to in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) but have not been verified as actual historical figures.

"Now we have to readdress many of the questions about the relationship between the biblical text about this region in those centuries and the archeological record," Levy said.

(Levy's research was funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. National Geographic owns National Geographic News.)

The study appears in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the Bible, God chose King Solomon to build Jerusalem's first temple.

Hundreds of tons of copper were given to the project, as well as smaller amounts of gold and silver, the Bible says. Some English versions of the Old Testament use the word bronze instead of copper as a result of a mistranslation, Levy said.

If the biblical account is historical, King Solomon and his father King David would have had to rule Israel during the tenth century B.C., scholars agree.

Solomon's Temple and other projects would have required great quantities of metal.

"If he built the temple during the tenth century B.C., he—according to the Bible—had to bring a lot of copper to Jerusalem, and the copper had to come from somewhere," said Amihai Mazar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who was not involved with the study.

If the Bible's accounts of David and Solomon are rooted in reality, it's reasonable to figure the copper came from the closest known source—the contemporaneous site excavated by Levy and Jordanian archaeologist Mohammad Najjar in the area the Bible calls Edom.

Historical Extremes

Seventy years ago American archaeologist Nelson Glueck declared he'd found "King Solomon's mines" around the area Levy's team is excavating.

"He was in the 'Golden Age' of biblical archaeology between the World Wars," Levy said of Glueck.

"He literally mapped everything that he saw archaeologically to the biblical narrative."

By the mid- to late-20th century, the tide had turned: Many academics were finding no verifiable connection between the Old Testament and actual history from the 12th through 9th centuries B.C.

Some believe that any useful historical accuracy in the holy book was lost during a period of revisions that is believed to have occurred between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C.

Research beginning in the 1970s determined Glueck's mine site became active only in the 7th century BC—hundreds of years after David and Solomon would have lived.

To this day, little archaeological evidence has been found to confirm the reigns of either King David or King Solomon.

"To what extent the Bible really recalls ancient historical reality from the tenth century is hard to say," said the Hebrew University's Mazar, who has been to the site but was not involved with the study.

Striking a Balance

Levy believes his study is a model for archaeologists working in areas described in ancient, sacred texts.

He avoided over-reliance on the biblical chronology, but also did not reject it.

His team created sophisticated, three-dimensional digital recording methods to map the layout of the site and the location of all the artifacts to determine ancient settlement patterns. Organic remains were radiocarbon dated at a lab in the U.K.

According to Mazar, the science is solid.

Levy argues that archaeologists should consider wide-ranging sources of information when examining a site from historical texts and ecological information to cultural materials, anthropology, and sacred texts.

"I think that with archaeology, we need to use every possible source of data at our disposal," he said.

"If you were interested in ancient India, you'd want to have an objective look at the Mahabharata," he said, referring to the set of sanskrit epics thought to date back to the eighth century B.C. And Icelandic archaeologists might consider the Sagas of Iceland, written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D.

"We try to create an objective historical archaeology," Levy said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/....e-missions.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 4:06am

Dinosaur Smelling Skills Open New Angle On Bird Evolution


Model of a Tyrannosaur in the Dinosaur Park Münchehagen, Germany. Tyrannosaurus rex had the best nose of all meat-eating dinosaurs. It may have used its sense of smell to strike at night in search of its next victim. (Credit: iStockphoto/Klaus Nilkens)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2008) — Although we know quite a bit about the lifestyle of dinosaur; where they lived, what they ate, how they walked, not much was known about their sense of smell, until now.

Scientists at the University of Calgary and the Royal Tyrrell Museum are providing new insight into the sense of smell of carnivorous dinosaurs and primitive birds in a research paper published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The study, by U of C paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky and Royal Tyrrell Museum curator of dinosaur palaeoecology François Therrien, is the first time that the sense of smell has been evaluated in prehistoric meat-eating dinosaurs. They found that Tyrannosaurus rex had the best nose of all meat-eating dinosaurs, and their results tone down the reputation of T. rex as a scavenger.

The researchers looked at the importance of the sense of smell among various meat-eating dinosaurs, also called theropods, based on the size of their olfactory bulbs, the part of the brain associated with the sense of smell. Although the brains of dinosaurs are not preserved, the impressions they left on skull bones or the space they occupied in the skull reveals the size and shape of the different parts of the brain. Zelenitsky and Therrien CT-scanned and measured the skulls of a wide variety of theropod dinosaurs, including raptors and ostrich-like dinosaurs, as well as the primitive bird Archaeopteryx.

"T. rex has previously been accused of being a scavenger due to its keen sniffer, although its nose may point to alternative lifestyles based on what we see in living animals" says Zelenitsky, the lead investigator on the study. "Large olfactory bulbs are found in living birds and mammals that rely heavily on smell to find meat, in animals that are active at night, and in those animals that patrol large areas. Although the king of carnivorous dinosaurs wouldn't have passed on scavenging a free dead meal, it may have used its sense of smell to strike at night or to navigate through large territories to find its next victim."

In addition to providing clues about the biology and behavior of the ancient predators, the study also reveals some surprising information about the sense of smell in the ancestors of modern birds.

Therrien and Zelenitsky found that the extinct bird Archaeopteryx, known to have evolved from small meat-eating dinosaurs, had an olfactory bulb size comparable to most theropod dinosaurs. Although sight is very good in most birds today, their sense of smell is usually poor, a pattern that does not hold true in the ancestry of living birds.

"Our results tell us that the sense of smell in early birds was not inferior to that of meat-eating dinosaurs," says Therrien. "Although it had been previously suggested that smell had become less important than eye sight in the ancestors of birds, we have shown that this wasn't so. The primitive bird Archaeopteryx had a sense of smell comparable to meat-eating dinosaurs, while at the same time it had very good eye sight. The sense of smell must have become less important at some point during the evolution of those birds more advanced than Archaeopteryx."

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081028205650.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 4:09am

Real Robinson Crusoe: Evidence Of Alexander Selkirk’s Desert Island Campsite


A scene from Robinson Crusoe, showing Crusoe and Friday. (Credit: iStockphoto/Duncan Walker)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — Cast away on a desert island, surviving on what nature alone can provide, praying for rescue but fearing the sight of a boat on the horizon. These are the imaginative creations of Daniel Defoe in his famous novel Robinson Crusoe. Yet the story is believed to be based on the real-life experience of sailor Alexander Selkirk, marooned in 1704 on a small tropical island in the Pacific for more than four years, and now archaeological evidence has been found to support contemporary records of his existence on the island.

An article in the journal Post-Medieval Archaeology presents evidence from an archaeological dig on the island of Aguas Buenas, since renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, which reveals evidence of the campsite of an early European occupant. The most compelling evidence is the discovery of a pair of navigational dividers which could only have belonged to a ship’s master or navigator, as evidence suggests Selkirk must have been. Indeed Selkirk’s rescuer, Captain Woodes Rogers’ account of what he saw on arrival at Aguas Buenas in 1709 lists ‘some practical pieces’ and mathematical instruments amongst the few possessions that Selkirk had taken with him from the ship.

The finds also provide an insight into exactly how Selkirk might have lived on the island. Postholes suggest he built two shelters near to a freshwater stream, and had access to a viewpoint over the harbour from where he would be able to watch for approaching ships and ascertain whether they were friend or foe. Accounts written shortly after his rescue describe him shooting goats with a gun rescued from the ship, and eventually learning to outrun them, eating their meat and using their skins as clothing. He also passed time reading the Bible and singing psalms, and seems to have enjoyed a more peaceful and devout existence than at any other time in his life.

David H Caldwell, National Museums Scotland, is pleased with the results of the dig: “The evidence uncovered at Aguas Buenas corroborates the stories of Alexander Selkirk’s stay on the island and provides a fascinating insight into his existence there. We hope that Aguas Buenas, with careful management, may be a site enjoyed by the increasing number of tourists searching for the inspiration behind Defoe’s masterpiece.”

Alexander Selkirk was born in the small seaside town of Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland in 1676. A younger son of a shoemaker, he was drawn to a life at sea from an early age. In 1704, during a privateering voyage on the Cinque Ports, Selkirk fell out with the commander over the boat’s seaworthiness and he decided to remain behind on Robinson Crusoe Island where they had landed to overhaul the worm-infested vessel. He cannot have known that it would be five years before he was picked up by an English ship visiting the island.

Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is one of the oldest and most famous adventure stories in English literature. Whilst it is unclear whether Defoe and Selkirk actually met, Defoe would certainly have heard the stories of Selkirk’s adventure and used the tales as the basis for his novel.

Journal reference:

1. Takahashi et al. Excavation at Aguas Buenas, Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile, of a gunpowder magazine and the supposed campsite of Alexander Selkirk, together with an account of early navigational dividers. Post-Medieval Archaeology, 2007; 41 (2): 270 DOI: 10.1179/174581307X236157

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029105803.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 9:27am

"Spider God" Temple Found in Peru

José Orozco in Caracas, Venezuela
for National Geographic News
October 29, 2008


A 3,000-year-old temple found recently in Peru may have been part of an ancient capital of divine worship, archaeologists said in October 2008. The Collud temple (above, a red outline at the excavation site traces the temple's previous location) also featured a spider deity that served as both a religious and political figure.

Photograph by Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum

A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru.

People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru's north coast.

The adobe temple, found this summer and called Collud, is the third discovered in the area in recent years.

The finds suggest that the three valley sites may have been part of a large capital for divine worship, said archaeologist Walter Alva, director of the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum.

Alva and colleagues started the dig in November 2007, when they discovered a 4,000-year-old temple and a mural painting at the Ventarrón site in the valley. Both the temple and mural were the oldest ever found in the Americas.

The entire religious complex houses every ancient Peruvian architectural style up to the Inca, Walter Alva said, one of only a few sites in Peru that spans so many cultures.

Several Meanings

The spider-god image appears often in other sites created during Peru's Early Formative Period, 1200 to 400 B.C.

For instance, the Garagay temple in Lima and the Limón Carro site in northern Peru both include the imagery, according to Ignacio Alva, Walter Alva's son and colleague.

At the newfound Collud, the spider god carried several meanings, experts say.

The image combines a spider's neck and head, the mouth of a large cat, and a bird's beak, Ignacio Alva said.

The spider is also carved with lines radiating from its neck, creating a web-like appearance.

The web symbolizes hunting nets, a sign of human progress and prosperity, Ignacio Alva said. Traps set with nets caught more prey than spear hunting, he added.

The spider figure also had political significance, Ignacio Alva said. "Any emergent political group would have to be associated with this god."

Richard Burger, an expert on the Chavin culture that followed the Cupisnique, first identified the spider deity in stone bowls found at the Limón Carro site.

The importance of spiders owed partly to their connection with life-giving rain, he said.

"They were associated with divination of rainfall because spiders come out before rain," said Burger, an archaeologist at Yale University who was not involved with the Lambayeque excavation.

The spider deity was also associated with textiles, hunting, war, and power, Burger added. "There is an image of spider deities holding nets filled with decapitated human heads, so there was an analogy with successful warriors and claims of power."

Intense Interaction

The Chavin people who came after the Cupisnique built a temple adjacent to Collud, Zarpan, about three hundred years later.

The new temple finds may help explain a cultural shift from Cupisnique to Chavin, said team leader Walter Alva.

"Cupisnique and Chavin shared the same gods and the same architectural and artistic forms, showing intense religious interaction among the cultures of the [Early] Formative Period from the north coast to the Andes and down to the central Andes," he said.

The temples are similar in size, roughly 1,640 feet (500 meters) long and 984 feet (300 meters) wide.

Collud has a monumental clay staircase with 25 steps, perhaps the inspiration for the later Zarpan temple's clay staircase, Ignacio Alva said.

The Chavin did not build clay structures in the Andes, where significant rainfall threatened their stability. (See Andes photos.)

But clay structures were typical of the Cupisnique culture, which developed on the arid north coast.

It's unknown how the two cultures interacted, if at all, experts say.

"This place is the testimony of two cultures overlapping and will help clarify what is Cupisnique and what is Chavin," Walter Alva said.

Mystery Decline

Pieces of structures found at the site may lead to the discovery of a fourth or fifth temple, according to the team.

Yale's Burger wonders if the ongoing excavations will demonstrate what happened to the site as north-coast cultures declined between 900 and 700 B.C.

"The far north coast in earlier times was very important, but it has been largely ignored because there's so little information," Burger said. "This could change that."

"Does this center continue to be important or does it collapse?" he asked. "Does the Cupisnique continue to flourish independently or in close contact with the Chavin?"

Ignacio Alva predicts the site will show that the temple complex transformed itself, but did not collapse.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081029-peru-temple.html

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 9:34am

Significant Fossil Discovery In Utah Shows Land Plants Of 200 Million Years Ago


A significant archeological site in Utah provides evidence that a variety of land plants were present at this location about 200 million years ago. (Credit: Image courtesy of St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2008) — The importance of a new archeological site in St George, Utah, U.S. was recently highlighted by Andrew Milner, Paleontologist, City of St. George, Jim Kirkland, State Paleontologist and Sidney Ash, Paleo-botanists. The site is significant because it is the only early Jurassic land flora known in the western United States. It provides evidence that a variety of land plants were present in the area about 200 million years ago.

The site was originally studied and written about in 2006, after a developer found the plant fossils while excavating the land for an industrial park. Now, developers along with scientists are working together to preserve the fossils. "This plant site is extremely important to help us examine further the vegetation recovery of plant life during the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic epoch," states Jim Kirkland, Utah State Paleontologist.

Staff from the City of St. George and the State of Utah, along with developers Bob Anderson, Kastle Rock Excavation, and the Wadman Corporation, who are developing the Office Park at Dinosaur Crossing, are working together in hopes of finding more evidence of plant fossils.

The excavation marks importance by showing that there was a mass extinction that occurred in the late Triassic, where many competing organisms went extinct. This set the stage for dinosaurs to become the dominant land animals on earth. Abundant plant life thrived around the early Jurassic lake known as Lake Dixie, 198 million years ago.

Dinosaur tracks were discovered in the same area in February 2000 at Johnson Farm.

"The developers have all been wonderfully supportive and helpful to us in our efforts to help find more pieces of the puzzle to help us study the environment of that time," states Anneli M. Segura, Museum Coordinator.

Universities and institutions from across the country are interested in carrying portions from this collection at their organizations. Some of these include: the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, the Smithsonian, the Museum of Natural History in New York, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Wyoming and the University of Kansas.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029115137.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 30, 2008, 7:37pm

Small Islands Given Short Shrift In Assembling Archaeological Record


Small islands dwarf large ones in archaeological importance, says a University of Florida researcher, who found that people who settled the Caribbean before Christopher Columbus preferred more minute pieces of land because they relied heavily on the sea. (Credit: iStockphoto/Alexander Hafemann)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — Small islands dwarf large ones in archaeological importance, says a University of Florida researcher, who found that people who settled the Caribbean before Christopher Columbus preferred more minute pieces of land because they relied heavily on the sea.

“We’ve written history based on the bigger islands,” said Bill Keegan, a University of Florida archaeologist whose study is published online in the journal Human Ecology. “Yet not only are we now seeing people earlier on smaller islands, but we’re seeing them move into territories where we didn’t expect them to at the time that they arrived.”

Early Ceramic Age settlements have been found in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Montserrat, for example, but are absent from all of the larger islands in the Lesser Antilles, Keegan said. And all of the small islands along the windward east coast of St. Lucia have substantial ceramic artifacts — evidence of settlement — despite being less than one kilometer, or .62 mile, long, said Keegan, who is curator of Caribbean archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

It was thought that people preferred larger islands because the land mass of bigger islands could support a more diverse range of habitats and greater numbers of animal species for humans to subsist on, Keegan said. In addition, the focus of long-term evolutionary patterns has favored large islands, he said.

But small islands had coastlines rich with fish, and the absence of dense woodlands made them more suited to farming and hunting small prey such as iguanas, tortoises and hutias, a cat-sized rodent, he said.

“In the short term, small islands often are superior to larger islands, and for a variety of reasons, they were actually people’s first choice,” Keegan said. “They had better wind flow, fewer mosquitoes and more plentiful marine resources. With sufficient water and a relatively small amount of land to grow certain kinds of crops, they had everything one would need.”

Because prehistoric people were drawn to these small islands, they may tell scientists more than settlements on larger islands about early patterns of life, Keegan said. To date, most archaeological excavations have taken place on bigger islands in such countries as Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, he said.

Much of Keegan’s research focused on Grand Turk, Middle Caicos and very small cays in the Turks and Caicos Islands, along with Carriacou in the Grenadine Islands, he said.

Pottery remains he found that were analyzed at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s ceramic technology lab shows that humans often left large islands for small ones, probably initially to take advantage of abundant marine resources along the coastline, he said.

Ceramic pottery sherds recovered from the smaller Turks and Caicos islands, for example, were actually found to have come from Haiti, he said. “Traveling to the Turks and Caicos gave these people an opportunity to get sources of food that weren’t locally available to them,” he added.

In another case, pottery remains were found on an extremely tiny island in the Turks and Caicos that had little soil and was accessible only by a sand spit, Keegan said.

“The island looks just like a rock,” he said. “To think that anyone would have any reason to be out there is just beyond believability. But the island is named Pelican Cay, so people may have gone there to capture sea birds and their eggs.”

People were drawn by the large varieties of fish, tortoises, iguanas and sea turtles that were in much greater supply on Grand Turk than the island of Hispaniola at the time, Keegan said. Remains from loggerhead turtles as big as 1,000 pounds were excavated from Grand Turk, although sea turtle sizes eventually declined to 60 pounds with overexploitation, he said.

“The high rates of return from capturing these animals far outweighed the costs of getting to Grand Turk,” he said. “Such human migration patterns made good economic sense.”

It was probably easier to sail to other islands than traverse from one end of an island to the other through the overgrown vegetation of tropical woodlands, he said.

“Most island archaeologists today, including those in the Caribbean, recognize that the sea was their ancient highway,” he said.

And the smaller the island, the better. “Based on our work, it is clear that marine resources on smaller islands in the Caribbean were abundant, heavily exploited and even sought after by the native peoples,” Keegan said. “You could say that ‘small is beautiful’ or ‘size doesn’t matter.’”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081030144633.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Oct 31, 2008, 10:51am

Extinct Sabertooth Cats Were Social, Found Strength In Numbers, Study Shows


A reconstructed scene in the Pleistocene of western North America, showing a group of sabertooth cats of the species Smilodon fatalis, with several adults and cubs. (Credit: Artwork by Mauricio Antón)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2008) — The sabertooth cat (Smilodon fatalis), one of the most iconic extinct mammal species, was likely to be a social animal, living and hunting like lions today, according to new scientific research. The species is famous for its extremely long canine teeth, which reached up to seven inches in length and extended below the lower jaw.

Instead of relying on the bones and teeth of the sabertooths to make their findings, scientists from UCLA and the Zoological Society of London concluded that the sabertooth cat was social by using a novel technique: They compared numbers of present-day carnivores competing for kills in Africa with those of mainly extinct species found in a North American fossil deposit.

The research is published in the current issue of the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters (Oct. 28). Co-authors also included scientists from South Africa's Tshwane University of Technology and University of Pretoria.

Smilodon existed in North and South America between 1.8 million and 10,000 years ago and is one of the most common species preserved at the Rancho La Brea tar pits of Los Angeles, a fossil deposit in which dying herbivores trapped in sticky asphalt attracted numerous dire wolves and sabertooth cats, some of which also died there.

Because most living cats are solitary, controversy has persisted over the social life of Smilodon.

The study reported in Biology Letters took a new approach to the question by comparing data from the La Brea fossil record and data obtained from "playbacks" used in Africa, in which the recorded calls of distressed prey and the sounds of lions and hyenas are used to attract carnivores. This technique has been used by scientists to estimate carnivore densities in eastern and southern Africa.

Results showed that large social species made up a far larger proportion of the animals attracted than one would expect, considering their population size compared to other carnivores. Large social carnivores were, in fact, found to attend approximately 60 times more often than expected on the basis of relative abundance. When these results were compared with the records at the tar pits of California, the scientists found that the proportion of Smilodon records matched the proportion of the large social carnivores in the playbacks.

"It absolutely makes sense that social species will predominate at carcasses, both now and in the past," said Blaire Van Valkenburgh, UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and senior author on the paper. "Why approach a situation where you are likely to encounter dangerous competitors without having a few friends along?"

The same social advantage, she said, would apply to all scavengers, including early humans, who began consuming more meat about 2 million year ago, some of which they probably scavenged.

Although commonly called the "sabertoothed tiger," the species is actually not closely related to the tiger, which is part of a different subfamily. However, the sabertooth cat was large and muscular, similar in size to a modern-day tiger.

"The extinct sabertooth cat, Smilodon fatalis, has been something of an enigma, with almost nothing known of its behavior," said Chris Carbone, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London and lead author of the paper. "This research allowed us to use the behavior of its present-day relatives to conclude that this extinct cat was more likely to roam in formidable gangs than as a secretive, solitary animal."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031102304.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 13, 2008, 9:41am

Google Earth revives ancient Rome



Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome.

Google has reconstructed the sprawling city - inhabited by more than one million people as long ago as AD320.

Users can zoom around the map to visit the Forum of Julius Caesar, stand in the centre of the Colosseum or swoop over the Basilica.

Researchers behind the project say it adds to five centuries of knowledge.

"This is another step in creating a virtual time machine," said Bernard Frischer of the University of Virginia, which worked with Google on the Roman reconstruction.

"The project is a continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects and artists since the Renaissance, who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images," he said.

Also involved was Past Perfect Productions, which reconstructs archaeological and historical sites through virtual reality.

Joel Myers, the firm's chief executive, said: "Cultural heritage, although based in the past, lives in the present, as it forms our identity.

"It is therefore our responsibility to ensure its conservation, to nourish it and make it accessible, with the objective of promoting global understanding. Ancient Rome in 3D is a major step towards this goal," he added.

'Ideal allies'

Ancient Rome is the first historical city to be added to Google Earth. Google's blog said the model contains more than 6,700 buildings, with more than 250 place marks linking to key sites in a variety of languages.

"Whether you are a student taking your first ancient history class, a historian who spends your life researching ancient civilisations, or just a history buff, access to this 3D model in Google Earth will help everyone learn more about ancient Rome," said Bruce Polderman, Google Earth 3D production manager.

Within ancient Rome there are some 200 buildings scholars know a lot about - classified as Class 1 -which Google says have been rendered as faithfully as possible.

The 3D models are based on a physical model of the city called the Plastico di Roma Antica.

The model was created by archaeologists and model-makers between 1933 to 1974 and housed in a special gallery in Rome's Museum of Roman Civilisation.

The new map was unveiled at an event in the Italian capital, and the modern day Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, praised the project.

"It's an incredible opportunity to share the stunning greatness of ancient Rome, a perfect example of how the new technologies can be ideal allies of our history, archaeology and cultural identity," Mr Alemanno said.

More than 400 million people have downloaded Google Earth since it was launched in June 2005.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7725560.stm

Published: 2008/11/12 20:48:48 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 13, 2008, 9:56am

New pyramid found



Egyptian archaeologist at site of new pyramid in Saqqara, south of Cairo, on 11 November 2008

Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered another pyramid - the country's 118th so far - from the sands at Saqqara, just south of the capital Cairo.



All that remains of the pyramid is a square-shaped structure. The site is already known as one of the most famous burial grounds for rulers of ancient Egypt.

A senior Egyptian official said the 16ft-high (five-metre) remains originally stood about three times that height. In the coming weeks, experts expect to enter the burial chamber.



The 4,300-year-old monument probably belonged to the queen mother of King Teti, the founder of Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, several hundred years after the building of the famed Great Pyramids of Giza.



But they say the monument - which lies next to the previously-found pyramids of King Teti's two wives - is likely to have been looted by tomb raiders a long time ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7723477.stm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 10:01am

Human ancestors born big brained

A new Homo erectus fossil suggests that females had large, wide pelvises in order to deliver large-brained babies.


The pelvis was reconstructed from ancient bone fragments

Being born with a larger brain meant our ancestor became independent far more quickly than modern human infants.

The new finding, published in Science magazine, conflicts with earlier ideas that suggest they had a tall, thin body shape adapted for running.

Homo erectus is thought to be the first human-like creature to move out of Africa to colonise the world.

The now extinct hominid species may also have been the first to control fire.

Wide hips

The near-complete 1.4 million-year-old female pelvis was found near Gona in northern Ethiopia. As it was pieced together, the archaeologists were struck by the unusual width of the pelvis.

Scott Simpson, a palaeontologist from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, US, was one of those who made the discovery.

"Proportionally her hips are wider than those of modern humans," he says.


Pelvis size indicates how large the newborn's head could be.

Earlier hominids such as the three-million-year-old Australopithicus afarensis , made famous by the "Lucy" skeleton found in 1974, have a much narrower pelvic opening. In comparison, more recent hominids found in China, Israel and Spain have wider pelvises.

The researchers say the wider pelvis meant H. erectus could have given birth to babies that were 30% bigger than previously thought.

Having a larger brain size meant the young hominid was dependent on its mother for less time than a modern human baby, a useful survival adaptation in the African savannah where they lived.

Out of Africa

The researchers say the erectus brain probably grew quickly before birth; but after birth, growth-rate then slowed to somewhere between that of modern humans and chimpanzees.

But Dr Simpson points out that H. erectus was much more like a human than a chimp.

" Homo erectus was the first hominid species that left Africa; they were technologically sophisticated with stone tools; they hunted animals. Many behaviours we consider unique to [modern] humans were present in Homo erectus ."

The new finding casts doubt on the accuracy of previous theories about Homo erectus .


The Goma pelvis has a more rounded shape than modern humans

The most famous H. erectus find is the "Turkana Boy", a young male discovered in Kenya in 1984 . His reconstructed skeleton - with a narrow pelvis and tall, thin body - is interpreted as showing adaptation to the hot climate and the need to run long distances.

In comparison, this new find is from a shorter female with a wider chest - a feature more commonly found now in humans from colder, even Arctic climates.

The wide pelvis suggests the birth canal and brain size were co-evolving, as H. erectus adapted to the need to give birth to larger babies above the need to adapt to the pressure of external environmental factors.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7721999.stm

Published: 2008/11/14 14:20:26 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:32am

Tools Give Earlier Date For ‘modern-thinking’ Humans


A Howieson's Poort segment from Ntolana Tsoana, in Lesotho, made in opaline, a fine-grained flint-like rock. Recent work suggests such artefacts would have been fitted into wooden or possibly bone handles. A variety of designs are possible, for example putting several of them in series to form an extended cutting edge, using them to barb spears or possibly to arm arrows. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2008) — An international team, including Oxford University archaeologists, has dated two explosions of sophisticated stone tool making in southern Africa much more precisely than has previously been possible.

The team dated the two events, known as the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort industries, to around 80,000 and 60,000 years ago respectively.

This provides further evidence that humans (Homo sapiens) in southern Africa were ‘behaviourally modern’ – that is, thought and behaved like modern humans – before any migration of biologically modern humans to the rest of the world: most likely dated at around 60,000 years ago according to the ‘out of Africa 2’ theory.

‘These new findings reinforce the understanding that we have to massively expand the timeframe over which people in southern Africa were no different from people today,’ said Professor Peter Mitchell of Oxford University’s School of Archaeology. ‘We will now have to think much more creatively about the past and what sorts of sophisticated human behaviours were going on in Africa over this vast new landscape of tens of thousands of years.’

The evidence comes from archaeological sites in Lesotho and South Africa. Characteristic of the older Still Bay objects are generally spearhead-shaped forms with sharp edges that may have seen them function as spear points or knife blades. The younger Howieson’s Poort objects are typically no more than a few centimetres long and have been worked into half-circles or other geometric shapes – they were probably set into bone or wooden shafts as points or barbs for spears and, possibly, even arrows.

‘What is particularly exciting is that recent research is also now suggesting that some of the Howieson’s Poort objects may have been used for arrowheads – if this is correct then our dating would push archery, and the invention of the bow and arrow, back to 60,000 years ago, perhaps even before modern humans left Africa,’ said Professor Peter Mitchell.

As part of the research Professor Mitchell and colleagues from Oxford helped to take samples of sediment from a number of sites in Lesotho where their excavations had revealed Howieson’s Poort objects. These samples, and others, were then analysed by scientists from The University of Wollongong, Australia, and University College London using a luminescence technique that provided the new dates.

Oxford University is the only UK university to specialise in archaeological research in southern Africa. Professor Mitchell has been investigating sites in Lesotho for 25 years and believes these findings will stimulate further research into the neglected history of early modern humans in southern Africa.

Journal reference:

1. Jacobs et al. Ages for the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Implications for Human Behavior and Dispersal. Science, 2008; 322 (5902): 733 DOI: 10.1126/science.1162219

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/10/081031102630.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:35am

Earliest Known Hebrew Text In Proto-Canaanite Script Discovered In Area Where 'David Slew Goliath'


The ostracon with the oldest known Hebrew inscription. (Credit: Photo by Gabi Laron)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2008) — The earliest known Hebrew text written in a Proto-Canaanite script has been discovered by Hebrew University archaeologists in an ancient city in the area where legend has it that David slew Goliath – the earliest Judean city found to date. The 3,000 year old finding is thought to be the most significant archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls – predating them by 1,000 years.

The ostracon (pottery shard inscribed with writing in ink) comprises five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 x 15 cm. and was found at excavations of a 10th century B.C.E. fortress - the oldest known Judaic city.

The ostracon was found lying on the floor inside a building near the city gate of the site, known as the Elah Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Excavations are being led by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his partner Saar Ganur, in partnership with Foundation Stone, a non-profit educational organization which works to provide a contemporary voice to ancient stories. The excavations and analysis are also being supported by J.B. Silver and the Brennan Foundation.

Why is this inscription so special?

Carbon-14 dating of organic material found with the ostracon, administered by Oxford University, along with pottery analysis dates this inscription to the time of King David ca. 3,000 years ago – predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by approximately a millennium, and placing it earlier than the famed Gezer Calendar.

It is hoped the text inscribed on the 'Qeiyafa Ostracon' will serve as an anchor in our understanding of the development of all alphabetic scripts.

While the inscription has yet to be deciphered, initial interpretation indicates the text was part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge", "slave" and "king". This may indicate that this is a legal text that could provide insights into Hebrew law, society and beliefs. Archaeologists say that it was clearly written as a deliberate message by a trained scribe.

What is the Elah Fortress?

Dating to the 10th century B.C.E., the Elah Fortress is the earliest known fortified city of the biblical period in Israel. Excavations began on the site in June 2008.

Comprising 23 dunams [2.3 hectares], the Elah Fortress (Khirbet Qeiyafa) was situated on the border between Philistia and the Kingdom of Judea (5 kilometers south of current day Bet Shemesh.). It is thought to have been a major strategic checkpoint guarding the main road from Philistia and the Coastal Plain to Jerusalem, which was just a day's walk away.

Nearly 600 square meters of the Elah Fortress have so far been unearthed. Surrounded by a 700 meter-long massive city wall, the fortress was built with megalithic stones - some weighing four to five tons. The city wall is four meters wide, constructed with casemates. Archaeologists estimate that 200,000 tons of rock were hewn, moved and used in the construction of these fortifications.

A four-chambered gate, 10.5 meters across, is the dominant feature of the massive fortifications. Further excavations will reveal whether it is really six chambers and whether there are other gates. The larger rocks in the gate structure weigh five to eight tons.

To date, only four percent of the site has been excavated, promising many more incredible discoveries in the remaining 96 percent in the future.

How do we know this is a Judean fortress?

The early Hebrew ostracon, Judean pottery similar to that found at other Israelite settlements, and the absence of pig bones among the animal bones found at the site all point to this fortress being a city of the Kingdom of Judea.

Elah Fortress proof of United Monarchy

The Elah Fortress archaeological site could prove the existence of the United Monarchy, which scholars often question ever existed. The artifacts found at the site thus far all indicate that there was most likely a strong king and central government in Jerusalem - earlier than any discovered until now - rather than a number of small villages scattered throughout Judea. This would verify descriptions and narratives found in Samuel and Chronicles.

Over 100 jar handles bear distinct impressions which may indicate a link to royal vessels. Such a large quantity of this feature found in one small locale is unprecedented.

David & Goliath

The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is situated among four biblical cities in Judea's inheritance chronicled in the Book of Joshua 35:15 - Azeka, Socho, Yarmut and Adulam. The biblical narrative located the battle between David and Goliath between Socho and Azeka. According to legend, David selected five stones from the nearby Elah Creek with which to slay Goliath.

According to Prof. Garfinkel, this is the only site in Israel where one can investigate the historical King David. "The chronology and geography of Khirbet Qeiyafa create a unique meeting point between the mythology, history, historiography and archaeology of Kind David."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103091035.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:40am

Skeleton Of 12,000-Year-Old Shaman Discovered Buried With Leopard, 50 Tortoises And Human Foot


Diagram of the shaman's grave. (Credit: Diagram by Peter Groszman)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2008) — The skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian Shaman has been discovered in northern Israel by archaeologists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The burial is described as being accompanied by "exceptional" grave offerings - including 50 complete tortoise shells, the pelvis of a leopard and a human foot. The shaman burial is thought to be one of the earliest known from the archaeological record and the only shaman grave in the whole region.

Dr. Leore Grosman of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, who is heading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit in the western Galilee, says that the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest that this woman had a very high standing within the community. Details of the discovery were published in the PNAS journal on November 3, 2008.

What was found in the shaman's grave?

The grave contained body parts of several animals that rarely occur in Natufian assemblages. These include fifty tortoises, the near-compete pelvis of a leopard, the wing tip of a golden eagle, tail of a cow, two marten skulls and the forearm of a wild boar which was directly aligned with the woman's left humerus.

A human foot belonging to an adult individual who was substantially larger than the interred woman was also found in the grave.

Dr. Grosman believes this burial is consistent with expectations for a shaman's grave. Burials of shamans often reflect their role in life (i.e., remains of particular animals and contents of healing kits). It seems that the woman was perceived as being in close relationship with these animal spirits.

Method of burial

The body was buried in an unusual position. It was laid on its side with the spinal column, pelvis and right femur resting against the curved southern wall of the oval-shaped grave. The legs were spread apart and folded inward at the knees.

According to Dr. Grosman, ten large stones were placed directly on the head, pelvis and arms of the buried individual at the time of burial. Following decomposition of the body, the weight of the stones caused disarticulation of some parts of the skeleton, including the separation of the pelvis from the vertebral column.

Speculating why the body was held in place in such a way and covered with rocks, Dr. Grosman suggests it could have been to protect the body from being eaten by wild animals or because the community was trying to keep the shaman and her spirit inside the grave.

Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman's gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.

Fifty tortoises

Most remarkably, the woman was buried with 50 complete tortoise shells. The inside of the tortoises were likely eaten as part of a feast surrounding the interment of the deceased. High representation of limb bones indicates that most tortoise remains were thrown into the grave along with the shells after consumption.

The recovery of the limb bones also indicates that entire tortoises, not only their shells, were transported to the cave for the burial. The collection of 50 living tortoises at the time of burial would have required a significant investment, as these are solitary animals. Alternatively, these animals could have been collected and confined by humans for a period preceding the event.

Shaman graves in archaeology

According to Dr. Grosman, the burial of the woman is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods. "Clearly a great amount of time and energy was invested in the preparation, arrangement, and sealing of the grave." This was coupled with the special treatment of the buried body.

Shamans are universally recorded cross-culturally in hunter-gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural societies. Nevertheless, they have rarely been documented in the archaeological record and none have been reported from the Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.

The Natufians existed in the Mediterranean region of the Levant 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Dr. Grosman suggests this grave could point to ideological shifts that took place due to the transition to agriculture in the region at that time.

Natufian grave site

Hilazon Tachtit is a small cave site next to Carmiel that functioned first and foremost as a Natufian burial ground for at least 28 individuals representing an array of ages.

The collective graves found at the site likely served as primary burial areas that were later re-opened to remove skulls and long bones for secondary burial – a practice common to the Natufian and the following Neolithic cultures.

Only three partially complete primary burials were recovered at Hilazon Tachtit. One was a skeleton of a young adult (sex unknown) reposed in a flexed position on its right side with both hands under his face. The scattered bones of a newborn were found in the area of the missing pelvis and it appears that the newborn and the young adult, possibly the mother, were buried together.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081105083721.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:48am

Death By Hyperdisease: How DNA Detective Work Explains Extinction Of Christmas Island's Native Rats


Rattus nativitatis went extinct on Christmas Island by 1908. (Credit: P. Wynne/patriciawynne.com)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2008) — It took less than a decade for native rats to become extinct on the Indian Ocean's previously uninhabited Christmas Island once Eurasian black rats jumped ship onto the island at the turn of the 20th century. But this story is more than the typical tale of direct competition.

According to new genetic research published in PLoS One on November 5, black rats carried a pathogen that exterminated two endemic species, Rattus macleari and R. nativitatis. This study is the first to demonstrate extinction in a mammal because of disease, supporting the hypothesis proposed a decade ago that "hyperdisease conditions"—unusually rapid mortality from which a species never recovers—can lead to extinction.

"This study puts into play pathogenic organisms as mediators of extinction," says Alex D. Greenwood of the Biological Sciences Department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Division of Vertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History. "Our study is the first to correlate a pathogen with an extinction event in mammals, although we know about disease-associated extinction in snails and disease-associated population declines in amphibians."

Black rats were introduced to Christmas Island via the S.S. Hindustan in 1899. A parasitologist noted a few years later that fleas on these rats carried a pathogenic protozoan related to the same organism that causes sleeping sickness in humans. The black rats were well adapted to this protozoan, known as Trypanosoma lewisi, but quite clearly, R. macleari and R. nativitatis were not. The native species were soon seen staggering around on footpaths, evidently very ill, and by 1908 it was clear to biologists on the island that both were extinct. Extinction of island-bound mammals is not uncommon: more than 80% of the mammals that have gone extinct in the last 500 years hailed from islands.

Although the parasitologist's findings have occasionally been cited in the specialist literature, scientists have been unable to agree that disease—rather than hybridization or competition between rat species—was the actual culprit. Greenwood and colleagues used ancient DNA procedures to determine if a rat-specific trypanosome could be detected in Museum samples and if trypanosomiasis could have caused the extinction of these species.

The team collected samples from 21 specimens (virtually all extant) to see if the infectious agent existed in the population before and after contact with black rats. None of the three pre-contact samples were infected with the protozoan, but six of the 18 post-contact samples were infected. This suggests a very high rate of infection.

Results were confirmed by sending a subset of the samples to a laboratory at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark for independent testing. Finally, the group investigated the possibility of hybridization by testing for the distinctive genomes of the native rats in black rat species, but no evidence of this was found.

"This is not a case of humans over-hunting—I don't think anyone was that hungry," says Ross MacPhee, a Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History who proposed "hyperdisease conditions" as a mediator of extinction in 1997. "Within nine years of contact, these abundant, endemic species were evidently completely knocked out by an introduced disease—nothing else was around at the time that could have done the job. This study puts something else on the table as a reason for extinction."

The results of this study contrast with most scientists' view of the effect of pathogens on species. Most pathogens are self-limiting either because the disease burns itself out as the number of new hosts reduces, or because resistant individuals increase proportionally as susceptible individuals die out. Yet at least one mammalian species, the Tasmanian devil, shows every sign of undergoing a very severe collapse due to disease right now (in this case, from an apparently infectious form of cancer). At least a quarter of the total population has died out within the past decade, and some biologists predict the Tasmanian devil's extinction within a few years if the cancer continues to spread.

Another famous Australian mammal, the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is also thought to have suffered severe decline around 1910 because of disease, although the culprit has never been identified and interpretation of its final collapse is complicated by population decline due to bounty hunting.

"This study should get people to think about the spread of pathogen pollution," says Greenwood. "Pathogen pollution is the introduction of animal or plant diseases into a new environment. This pollution could affect many species that are in decline or in small numbers, ranging from accidental to active introduction like the building of Pleistocene Park in Russia or the repopulation of species for conservation purposes."

The research in this paper was funded by The National Science Foundation. In addition to Greenwood and MacPhee, authors include Kelly Wyatt and Wayne Hynes of the Biological Sciences Department at Old Dominion University; Paula Campos and Thomas Gilbert of the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen; Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis and Rob DeSalle of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History; and Peter Daszak of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine at the Wildlife Trust.

Journal reference:

1. Wyatt et al. Historical Mammal Extinction on Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) Correlates with Introduced Infectious Disease. PLoS ONE, 3 (11): e3602 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003602

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081105081955.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:50am

Being Unique Has Advantages: 'Rareness' Key To Some Insects Being Favored By Evolution

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2008) — As the saying goes- blondes have more fun, but in the world of insects it may actually be the rare 'redheads' that have the last laugh….at least in terms of evolution.

A new study at the University of Melbourne has discovered that genetic variation in an asexual insect – insects that reproduce by cloning themselves – is maintained by rare clones being chosen for the next generation, a phenomenon known as frequency-dependent selection.

In the study conducted by Dr Andrew Weeks and Prof Ary Hoffmann from the University of Melbourne, the reproduction of a major agricultural pest, the blue oat mite (Penthaleus major) was examined.

"We found that although the mites reproduce asexually, essentially by cloning themselves, some genetic differences were occurring via mutation. These new variants or clones, which start off rare, become common because they are favoured by natural selection" says Dr Weeks, from the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research (CESAR) in the Department of Genetics at the University of Melbourne.

"Essentially, the rarer you are, the more offspring you will leave in the next generation".

To determine how clones were being selected, they set up a series of enclosed plots in several pasture sites in Victoria. They then introduced unique clones of the mites in varying frequencies into the enclosures. The clones that were initially rare became common in the next generation, while the common clones produced fewer offspring.

"This can be a cycling process, where the common clones become rare and then they are at an advantage and become common again" says Dr Weeks.

"Our study has revealed new insights into the ability for asexual organisms to maintain genetic variation" says Prof Hoffmann from CESAR, based at the Bio21 institute. "These mites are problematic for farmers to control and this mechanism means that the species can evolve to counter control measures like the application of chemicals or the introduction of predators."

"Controlling pests is like an arms race between us and the pests – normally we don't expect asexuals to do well in this race, but in this case the asexuals might even win out".

The study is published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103192316.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 15, 2008, 11:55am

Paleontologists Doubt 'Dinosaur Dance Floor'


University of Utah geologist Winston Seiler walks among hundreds of what appear to be dinosaur footprints in a "trample surface" that likely was a watering hole amid desert sand dunes during the Jurassic Period 190 million years ago. The track site, which also appears to include some dinosaur tail-drag marks, is located in Coyote Buttes North area along the Arizona-Utah border. (Credit: Roger Seiler)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2008) — A group of paleontologists visited the northern Arizona wilderness site nicknamed a "dinosaur dance floor" and concluded there were no dinosaur tracks there, only a dense collection of unusual potholes eroded in the sandstone.

So the scientist who leads the University of Utah's geology department says she will team up with the skeptics for a follow-up study.

"Science is an evolving process where we seek the truth," says Marjorie Chan, professor and chair of geology and geophysics, and co-author of a recent study that concluded the pockmarked, three-quarter-acre site in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was a 190-million-year-old dinosaur "trample surface".

"We went through the proper scientific process of careful study, comparisons with other published works and peer review" of the study by independent scientists, Chan adds. "We gave the project considerable critical thought and came up with a different interpretation than the paleontologists, but we are open to dialogue and look forward to collaborating to resolve the controversy."

On Oct. 30 – more than a week after the Utah study was publicized worldwide – four scientists hiked to the remote wilderness-area site: paleontologist Brent Breithaupt, director and curator of the University of Wyoming's Geological Museum; U.S. Bureau of Land Management paleontologist Alan Titus and geologist Rody Cox; and paleontologist Andrew Milner of the St. George (Utah) Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.

They saw dinosaur tracks en route, but none in the pockmarked "dance floor."

"There simply are no tracks or real track-like features at this site," Breithaupt says. "We will be investigating the formation of these features in the upcoming study. Science works best when scientists work together."

Chan and Winston Seiler, who conducted the research as part of his master's thesis, say they are not retracting their study, which was published in the October issue of Palaios, an international paleontology journal. But they acknowledge there are strong arguments for the features being potholes rather than dinosaur tracks. The original study cited the possibility that the features were potholes and outlined arguments against it.

Chan says if the features are potholes, they are extremely unusual compared with typical potholes on the Colorado Plateau – and their formation still needs to be explained fully. She will work with Breithaupt and the others to examine the site in greater detail.

"A reinterpretation could emerge, but those conclusions have not yet been written as a scientific paper and need to be submitted to a journal for publication after peer review by other scientists," she says.

Nevertheless, the University of Utah geologists feel obligated to inform the public of the difference of opinion because of wide publicity about the "dinosaur dance floor."

"The public interest has been tremendous, and fortunately there are many other fantastic, accessible, documented dinosaur track sites than can be visited in the area," Breithaput says.

Seiler spent considerable time at the unusual site. He acknowledges that the dinosaur track interpretation is controversial, further study is warranted, and if the paleontologists turn out to be correct, "that's part of science."

Chan adds: "This is how science works, and we'll have to see how it shakes out in the end."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081107163306.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 18, 2008, 9:15am

Oldest nuclear family 'murdered'
By Julian Siddle
Science Reporter, BBC News


All adult bodies were buried facing south. The graves contained mainly women and children.

The oldest genetically identifiable nuclear family met a violent death, according to analysis of remains from 4,600-year-old burials in Germany.

Writing in the journal PNAS, researchers say the broken bones of these stone age people show they were killed in a struggle.

Comparisons of DNA from one grave confirm it contained a mother, father, and their two children.

The son and daughter were buried in the arms of their parents.

Dr Wolfgang Haak, from The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, in Adelaide, conducted the DNA analysis. He says the scientific evidence supports the idea that they were indeed a family.

"We're really sure, based on hard biological facts not just supposing or assuming."


The bodies of the family were intertwined

In total, the four graves contain 13 bodies, eight children aged six months to nine years and five adults aged 25 to 60.

In two graves, DNA was well preserved, which allowed comparisons between the occupants. One of these contained the nuclear family, while the other grave contained three related children and an unrelated woman. The researchers suggest she may have been an aunt or stepmother.

Corded Ware

These stone age people are thought to belong to a group known as the Corded Ware Culture, signified by their pots decorated with impressions from twisted cords. In their burial culture all bodies usually face south.

In the family grave the adults did face south, but the children they hold in their arms face towards them. The researchers say an exception to the cultural norm was made so as to express the biological relationship.

The care with which the bodies were laid out shows that whoever buried them must have known who they were says Dr Haak. He adds he was moved the first time he saw the grave.

"You feel some kind of sympathy for them, it's a human thing, somebody must have really cared for them. Normally you should be careful in archaeological research not to allow feelings in that make us base judgements on modern ideas, we don't know how hard daily life was back there and if there was any space for love."

Teeth hold clue

As well as looking at the DNA of each individual the researchers examined deposits of the element strontium in their teeth.

Found in rocks and soils, strontium is taken in from food as teeth grow in childhood. It can act as an indicator of where people came from.


Life in central Europe could be violent in the stone age

The children and adult males had the same type of strontium - which was also found locally, but the nearest match to the women's teeth was at least 50km away, suggesting they had moved to the area.

Dr Alistair Pike from Bristol University, who carried out the strontium analysis, says this indicates a culture of exogamy or marrying out.

"It's a bit like kings and queens in Europe in the past, creating an alliance by marrying out sons and daughters. This creates a bond between communities - useful if your harvest fails or if you need help fighting a war."

Broken bones

The most grisly aspect of the find is the manner of their death. Dr Pike says it was violent.

"They were definitely murdered , there are big holes in their heads, fingers and wrists are broken."


Stone weapon embedded in a vertebra - They suffered a violent death

At least five of the individuals show the effects of a violent attack, one even had the tip of a stone weapon embedded in a vertebra.

Wolfgang Haak says that as most of the people in the graves were women and children it is probable that most of the adults were elsewhere at the time of the attack, perhaps out fighting or working in their fields.

"They returned home to the village and found their loved ones dead. It's an assumption, but the most plausible explanation."

Researchers say such violence fits with what we know about life in central Europe at the time - the area had fertile soils, a stable climate and natural access routes. This made it a desirable place to live, but also created competition amongst its inhabitants, leading to violent confrontations when one community tried to displace another.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7733372.stm

Published: 2008/11/18 08:11:42 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 18, 2008, 10:13am

Woolly rhino's ancient migration
By Paul Rincon
Science Reporter, BBC News


Woolly rhino spread west into Europe during a cold snap

Palaeontologists have pieced together the fossilised skull of the oldest example yet found of a woolly rhinoceros in Europe.

The 460,000-year-old skull, which was found in Germany, had to be reconstructed from 53 fragments.

The extinct mammals reached a length of three-and-a-half metres in adulthood and, unlike their modern relatives, were covered in shaggy hair.

Details of the work appear in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

The team says the find from Germany fills a gap in our understanding of how these animals evolved.

First on the scene

"This is the oldest woolly rhinoceros found in Europe," said Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Weimar, Germany.

He added: "It gives us a precise date for the first appearance of cold-climate animals spreading throughout Asia and Europe during the ice ages."

The skull was discovered around 1900, in a gravel pit at the foot of the Kyffhauser mountain range near the city of Bad Frankenhausen.

But for more than one hundred years, no one ventured to put the pieces together until Dr Kahlke and his colleague Frederic Lacombat, from the Crozatier Museum in Puy-en-Velay, France, made their recent reconstruction.

After examining the cranium, they assigned the specimen to Coelodonta tologoijensis, an Asian woolly rhino species that had not previously been described in Europe.

Woolly rhino (Coelodonta) first appeared about 2.5 million years ago in the northern foothills of the Himalayas.

And for much of their evolutionary existence, these mammals were confined to steppe environments in continental Asia.

The key was their diet, which started off being rather mixed - including the leaves of shrubs and trees.

But as conditions became increasingly arid, the woolly rhino evolved into a specialist in browsing for steppe food that grew nearer to the ground.


Coelodonta skull from Bad Frankenhausen, Germany
Changes in the animals' anatomy enabled them to tolerate cold, arid conditions

The animals probably migrated from Asia into East and Central Europe when cold, arid conditions held sway between 478,000 and 424,000 years ago.

Their territorial advances were paralleled by changes in anatomy.

"Analysis of the Frankenhausen specimen shows that Coelodonta tologoijensis... carried its head low along the ground and had a lawnmower-like mouth with a huge set of grinding teeth," said Mr Lacombat.

"As the climate became colder, these animals became more efficient at utilising the available food."

The researchers propose that the species represented at Bad Frankenhausen, C. tologoijensis, was ancestral to the "true" woolly rhino, C. antiquitatis, which was common across Eurasia during ice ages.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7733997.stm

Published: 2008/11/17 23:42:27 GMT

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 2:39am


Colossus of Rhodes to be rebuilt as giant light sculpture

* Helena Smith in Athens
* guardian.co.uk, Monday November 17 2008 00.01 GMT
* The Guardian, Monday November 17 2008


Details from The Colossus of Rhodes, an 18th century engraving by George Balthasar Probst, from the Stapleton Collection. Photograph: Bridgeman Art Library

It may not straddle the port as its predecessor once did, but in terms of sheer luminosity and eye-catching height the new Colossus of Rhodes will not disappoint. Nor will it fall short of the symbolism that once imbued the ancient monument.

Twenty-three centuries after craftsmen carved the legendary statue that has inspired legions of painters, poets, playwrights and politicians, a new world wonder, built in the spirit of the original Colossus, is about to be born on the Aegean island.

After decades of dashed hopes, the people of Rhodes will fulfil a long-held dream to revive one of the world's seven ancient wonders - thanks to the promise of international funding and the East German artist Gert Hof.

"It will be a unique architectural creation," said the island's mayor, Hatzis Hatziefthimiou, presenting what is likely to become one of the 21st century's largest artistic projects in Dubai last week.

"We want to make it a work of global appeal and significance."

Like the original, erected in homage to the sun god Helios by the master sculptor Chares of Lindos, the new Colossus will adorn an outer pier in the harbour area of Rhodes, and be visible to passing ships.

And like its ancient namesake, the modern-day wonder will be dedicated to celebrating peace and built, at least in part, out of melted-down weapons from around the world.

But unlike the ancient Colossus, which stood 34 metres high before an earthquake toppled it in 226BC, the groundbreaking work of art is slated to be much taller and bigger. And unlike previous reconstruction efforts, officials say the Cologne-based design team is determined to avoid recreating a replica.

In the past, new Colossus aficionados have persistently run up against the objections of Greece's powerful lobby of archaeologists.

A proposal to recreate the legendary statue in the run-up to the 2004 Athens Olympics whipped up such controversy that opponents claimed its glitzy, we're-bigger-than-you overtones were not only offensive but defiled rather than boosted the country's cultural heritage.

"Monumental works can't be copied for the simple reason that they risk becoming caricatures," insisted Hatziefthimiou.

Instead, in the spirit of the 21st century the new Colossus has been conceived as a highly innovative light sculpture, a work of art that will allow visitors to physically inspect it by day as well as enjoy - through light shows - a variety of stories it will "tell" by night.

"We are talking about a highly, highly innovative light sculpture, one that will stand between 60 and 100 metres tall so that people can physically enter it," said Dr Dimitris Koutoulas, who is heading the project in Greece.

"Although we are still at the drawing board stage, Gert Hof's plan is to make it the world's largest light installation, a structure that has never before been seen in any place of the world."

The statue is also expected to cost up to €200m according to yesterday's Vima newspaper. But, in another first that has also been welcomed by the people of Rhodes, international organisations led by the World Trade Centre Association, a network of exporters who promote peace through trade, have weighed in with financial help.

"The new Colossus has been the dream of Rhodians for many years," said Yannis Hadzimarkos, president of the Dodecannese Islands' Chamber of Commerce which is also supporting the project. "It will be a marvellous opportunity for the economy of the region even if it is naive to think it will be easy."

Backstory

Carved by Chares of Lindon, one of antiquity's greatest sculptors, the original Colossus was erected in homage to the Sun god Helios. It is believed to have been about 120ft high on a 25ft white marble plinth (compared with the Statue of Liberty's 151ft on a 159ft plinth). For almost seven decades it stood over Rhodes before being destroyed by an earthquake in 226BC. In later years, its huge bronze and marble parts were carted off by Arab tradesmen. "Even lying on the ground, it is a marvel," wrote Pliny the Elder. It was so big, he said, that "few people can get their arms around its thumb". Although historians have spent years arguing about the wonder's exact location, artists have always depicted it straddling Rhodes' imposing harbour. Unlike the original statue, which took Chares 12 years to carve in situ, the new statue could be built in less than half that time if adequate funding is found, project organisers say. While the Statue of Liberty was built in France and then assembled in New York, the new Colossus is expected to be built by locals on the island. The Colossus was included in Sidon's list of the Seven Wonders of the World compiled some 2,137 years ago along with the Pyramids, the Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in modern Turkey, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Lighthouse at Alexandria.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2....reece-sculpture

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 3:06am

Marine Plankton Found In Amber


Diatom in amber. (Credit: Copyright Laboratoire géosciences Rennes)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — Marine microorganisms have been found in amber dating from the middle of the Cretaceous period. The fossils were collected in Charente, in France. This completely unexpected discovery will deepen our understanding of these lost marine species as well as providing precious data about the coastal environment of Western France during the Cretaceous.

This work was carried out by researchers at the Géosciences Rennes laboratory (CNRS/Université de Rennes 1), together with researchers from the Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnement laboratory in Paris (CNRS/Muséum national d’histoire naturelle/Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and the Centre de Géochimie de la Surface in Strasbourg (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg 1). It was published in the 11 November 2008 issue of PNAS.

Amber is a fossil resin with a reputation for preserving even the most minute details of insects and other terrestrial arthropods (spiders, scorpions, mites) that lived in resiniferous trees. The forest-based provenance of amber in theory makes it impossible for marine animals to be trapped in the resin. Nonetheless, researchers from the Géosciences Rennes laboratory have discovered various inclusions of marine plankton in amber from the Mid-Cretaceous (100 to 98 million years BP). These micro-organisms are found in just a few pieces of amber among the thousands that have been studied, but show a remarkable diversity: unicellular algae, mainly diatoms found in large numbers, traces of animal plankton, such as radiolaria and a foraminifer, spiny skeletons of sponges and of echinoderms.

Carried out together with researchers at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, the study of diatoms pushed back by 10 to 30 million years the known date for the appearance of certain marine forms of this type of algae. This new information, taken together with recent data on molecular phylogeny, marks a huge advance in our understanding of the complex evolutionary history of diatoms.

The presence of these marine organisms in the amber is an ecological paradox. How did these marine species become stuck and then trapped in the conifers’ resin? The most likely scenario is that the forest producing the amber was very close to the coast, potentially shrouded by plankton-bearing mist or flooded by sea water during storms.

The preservation of marine organisms in amber is an exceptional asset, allowing us to deepen our understanding of these lost species and to have a clear idea about the coastal environment of Western France during the Cretaceous.

Journal reference:

1. V. Girard, A. R. Schmidt, S. Saint Martin, S. Struwe, V. Perrichot, J-P. Saint Martin, D. Grosheny, G. Breton and D. Néraudeau. Evidence for marine microfossils from amber. PNAS, 11 November 2008

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081112161206.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 4:05am

Mineral Kingdom Has Co-evolved With Life, Scientists Find


Elrathii kingii trilobite from the middle Cambrian period, approximately 550 million years BCE. Found in a sandy shale formation south of Salt Lake City, Utah. (Credit: iStockphoto/Russell Shively)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — Evolution isn't just for living organisms. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found that the mineral kingdom co-evolved with life, and that up to two thirds of the more than 4,000 known types of minerals on Earth can be directly or indirectly linked to biological activity.

The finding, published in American Mineralogist, could aid scientists in the search for life on other planets.

Robert Hazen and Dominic Papineau of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with six colleagues, reviewed the physical, chemical, and biological processes that gradually transformed about a dozen different primordial minerals in ancient interstellar dust grains to the thousands of mineral species on the present-day Earth. (Unlike biological species, each mineral species is defined by its characteristic chemical makeup and crystal structure.)

"It's a different way of looking at minerals from more traditional approaches," says Hazen. "Mineral evolution is obviously different from Darwinian evolution—minerals don't mutate, reproduce or compete like living organisms. But we found both the variety and relative abundances of minerals have changed dramatically over more than 4.5 billion years of Earth's history."

All the chemical elements were present from the start in the Solar Systems' primordial dust, but they formed comparatively few minerals. Only after large bodies such as the Sun and planets congealed did there exist the extremes of temperature and pressure required to forge a large diversity of mineral species. Many elements were also too dispersed in the original dust clouds to be able to solidify into mineral crystals.

As the Solar System took shape through "gravitational clumping" of small, undifferentiated bodies—fragments of which are found today in the form of meteorites—about 60 different minerals made their appearance. Larger, planet-sized bodies, especially those with volcanic activity and bearing significant amounts of water, could have given rise to several hundred new mineral species. Mars and Venus, which Hazen and coworkers estimate to have at least 500 different mineral species in their surface rocks, appear to have reached this stage in their mineral evolution.

However, only on Earth—at least in our Solar System—did mineral evolution progress to the next stages. A key factor was the churning of the planet's interior by plate tectonics, the process that drives the slow shifting continents and ocean basins over geological time. Unique to Earth, plate tectonics created new kinds of physical and chemical environments where minerals could form, and thereby boosted mineral diversity to more than a thousand types.

What ultimately had the biggest impact on mineral evolution, however, was the origin of life, approximately 4 billion years ago. "Of the approximately 4,300 known mineral species on Earth, perhaps two thirds of them are biologically mediated," says Hazen. "This is principally a consequence of our oxygen-rich atmosphere, which is a product of photosynthesis by microscopic algae." Many important minerals are oxidized weathering products, including ores of iron, copper and many other metals.

Microorganisms and plants also accelerated the production of diverse clay minerals. In the oceans, the evolution of organisms with shells and mineralized skeletons generated thick layered deposits of minerals such as calcite, which would be rare on a lifeless planet.

"For at least 2.5 billion years, and possibly since the emergence of life, Earth's mineralogy has evolved in parallel with biology," says Hazen. "One implication of this finding is that remote observations of the mineralogy of other moons and planets may provide crucial evidence for biological influences beyond Earth."

Stanford University geologist Gary Ernst called the study "breathtaking," saying that "the unique perspective presented in this paper may revolutionize the way Earth scientists regard minerals."

Journal reference:

1. Robert M. Hazen, Dominic Papineau, Wouter Bleeker, Robert T. Downs, John M. Ferry, Timothy J. McCoy, Dimitri Sverjensky and Hexiong Yang. Mineral evolution. American Mineralogist, 2008

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081113181035.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:18am

Floppy-footed Gibbons Help Us Understand How Early Humans May Have Walked


Gibbon. The modern human foot first appeared about 1.8 million years ago, but our ape-like ancestors probably took to walking several million years earlier, even though their feet were more 'floppy' and ape like than ours. (Credit: iStockphoto/Chanyut Sribua-rawd)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2008) — The human foot is a miracle of evolution. We can keep striding for miles on our well-sprung feet. There is nothing else like them, not even amongst our closest living relatives. According to Evie Vereecke, from the University of Liverpool, the modern human foot first appeared about 1.8 million years ago, but our ape-like ancestors probably took to walking several million years earlier, even though their feet were more 'floppy' and ape like than ours.

Vereecke explains that modern ape feet have a flexible joint midway along the foot (we retain this joint, but have lost the flexibility), which made her wonder how well our predecessors may have walked on two feet. Lacking a time machine, Vereecke and Peter Aerts from the University of Antwerp decided to look at the flexible feet of modern gibbons to find out more about how they walk.

But working with gibbons is notoriously hard. 'You can't touch them and you can't work with them in the lab' says Vereecke. Fortunately she and Aerts had access to a troop of the semi-wild apes just down the road at Belgium's Wild Animal Park of Planckendael. Having set up her camera outside the animals' enclosure at foot height, Vereecke simply had to sit and wait for the animals to walk past, hoping that the camera would capture a few footfalls. Eventually after several weeks of patience, Vereecke had enough film footage to begin digitalising the animals' foot movements and build a computer model to find out how they walk.

The first thing that Vereecke noticed was that the animals don't hit the ground with their heels at the start of a stride. They move more like ballerinas, landing on their toes before the heel touches the ground. Analysing the gibbon foot computer model, Vereecke realised that by landing on the toes first they were stretching the toes' tendons and storing energy in them. According to Vereecke, this is quite different from the way that energy is stored in the human foot. She explains that our feet are built like sprung arches spanned by an elastic tendon (aponeurosis) along the sole of the foot. When we put weight on our feet, the arch stretches the aponeurosis, storing elastic energy to power the push off at the end of a stride.

And there were more differences between the gibbon and human walking patterns at the end of a stride. Instead of lifting the foot as one long lever, the gibbon lifted its heel first, effectively bending the foot in two to form an upward-turned arch, stretching the toes' tendons even further and storing more elastic energy ready for release as the foot eventually pushes off.

So what does all this mean for our ape-like ancestors? Vereecke is keen to point out that gibbons are not a perfect model for the ways that early humans may have walked; there are marked differences between modern gibbons and the fossilised remains of early humans. However, modern gibbons live in trees and walk on two flexible feet, just like our ancestors. Her work shows that it is possible to walk quite efficiently with a relatively bendy foot and that our ancestors may have used energy storage mechanisms that are similar to ours, despite their dramatically different foot shapes.

Journal reference:

1. Vereecke et al. The mechanics of the gibbon foot and its potential for elastic energy storage during bipedalism. Journal of Experimental Biology, 2008; 211 (23): 3661 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.018754

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117103735.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:24am

Dinosaur Whodunit: Solving A 77-million-year-old Mystery


Reconstruction of the dinosaur nest and the two possible theropod egg layers. (Credit: Copyright Julius T. Csotonyi)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — It has all the hallmarks of a Cretaceous melodrama. A dinosaur sits on her nest of a dozen eggs on a sandy river beach. Water levels rise, and the mother is faced with a dilemma: Stay or abandon her unhatched offspring to the flood and scramble to safety?

Seventy-seven million years later, scientific detective work conducted by University of Calgary and Royal Tyrrell Museum researchers used this unique fossil nest and eggs to learn more about how nest building, brooding and eggs evolved. But there is a big unresolved question: Who was the egg-layer?

"Working out who the culprit was in this egg abandonment tragedy is a difficult problem to crack," says Darla Zelenitsky, U of C paleontologist and the lead author of a paper published today in the journal Palaeontology. "After further investigation, we discovered that this find is rarer than we first thought. It is a one of a kind fossil. In fact, it is the first nest of its kind in the world."

Zelenitsky says she first saw the nest in a private collection which had been collected in Montana in the 1990s. The nest was labeled as belonging to a hadrosaur (duck-billed) dinosaur, but she soon discovered it was mistakenly identified. In putting all the data together, she realized they had a small theropod (meat-eating) dinosaur nest. "Nests of small theropods are rare in North America and only those of the dinosaur Troodon have been identified previously," says Zelenitsky. "Based on characteristics of the eggs and nest, we know that the nest belonged to either a caenagnathid or a small raptor, both small meat-eating dinosaurs closely related to birds. Either way, it is the first nest known for these small dinosaurs."

The nest tells scientists more about the behaviour of the animal as well as some valuable information relating to the characteristics of modern birds. "Our research tells us a lot about the dinosaur that laid the eggs and how it built its nest," says Francois Therrien, a co-investigator in the study and curator of dinosaur palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta.

The fossil nest is a mound of sand about half a metre across and weighing as much as a small person. The eggs were laid two at a time, on the sloping sides of the mound, and form a ring around its flat top, where the nesting dinosaur would have sat and brooded its clutch.

"Based on features of the nest, we know that the mother dug in freshly deposited sand, possibly the shore of a river, to build a mound against which she laid her eggs and on which she sat to brood the eggs," says Therrien. "Some characteristics of the nest are shared with birds, and our analysis can tell us how far back in time these features, such as brooding, nest building, and eggs with a pointed end, evolved – partial answers to the old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg."

http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/11/081113181200.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:25am

Thank Journalist, Rather Than Pilgrims, For Thanksgiving Feast

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Anne Blue Wills, assistant professor of religion at Davidson, explains that the current version of Thanksgiving was created by a journalistic crusader, and would have been unrecognizable to the Pilgrims it supposedly honors.

The holiday came about through fifty years of relentless promotion by Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine. She promoted it in columns and stories in her magazine until President Abraham Lincoln finally bestowed it national recognition.

Wills emphasized that Thanksgiving was never a regular ritualized holiday during the Pilgrim era. Instead, it was an occasional event declared as needed by clergy to thank God for good fortune. Likewise, clergy also called parishioners to church for fasting days in response to adverse events. “Puritans emphasized that you should never presume on the will of God, so they never would have scheduled Thanksgivings,” she said.

What we now recognize as “the first Thanksgiving,” therefore, was simply an occasion for the Pilgrims to express their thanks to God for allowing them to kill enough game and gather enough harvest to survive the winter. True to Puritan character, the Pilgrims would have spent all day not in feasting, but in church contemplating the mercies of God’s covenantal love.

Hale was a New Hampshire widow struggling to support five children by her writing when, in the late 1820s, she came to the attention of Louis Godey, who had plans to launch a women’s magazine. Godey hired Hale in 1827 to edit the publication, and she did so for fifty years until retirement in 1877. From the beginning, Wills explained, Hale was a crusading type. “She freely used her magazine to promote causes like women’s education, and to raise a monument to honor those who fought and died at Bunker Hill. And Thanksgiving was another of her big concerns.”

Hale was concerned over increasing factionalism in American society, and envisioned Thanksgiving as a commonly-celebrated, patriotic holiday that would unite Americans in common purpose and values. She viewed those values as rooted in domesticity, and rural simplicity over urban sophistication.

The magazine, whose circulation peaked in 1860 at 150,000 per month, gave Hale tremendous access and influence to achieve her dream.

Through a monthly column that focused each November on Thanksgiving, Hale featured the celebration as a pious, patriotic holiday that lived on in the memory as a check against temptation, or as a comfort in times of trial. Hale and Godey’s led the way in creating a standardized celebration, which in turn created a standardized celebrant—a standardized and true American.

Her umbrella vision of Americans included social classes not generally given that credit by the nation’s white Protestant elite, to which Hale belonged. The stories in Godey’s depicted black servants, Roman Catholics, and Southerners celebrating Thanksgiving, and becoming more American by doing so.

Her Thanksgiving also showcased American values to the outside world. It demonstrated national traits of piety, attachment to the land, recognition of heritage, and dedication to hard work to Europeans, whom she considered decadent and urbanized.

In addition to her column, she promoted the holiday in more circumspect fashion through the fictional stories that the magazine published. “A lot of those stories made the reader assume that everyone spent the fourth Thursday in November celebrating Thanksgiving,” Will said.

The stories told about how Thanksgiving changed people’s lives, and put them in touch with the virtues that Hale believed the country represented. Wills cited as an example one story of a young, spoiled city girl who cared for little beyond her finery and personal appearance until she spent the Thanksgiving holiday on her aunt’s farm. That experience showed her that rural people enjoy a more grounded lifestyle, and that there are more important things in life than dances and stylish shoes. “The message is that the simple, pure, honest rural life, away from the temptations of the city, puts you in touch with true values,” said Will. “If we can just travel back to the old home place once a year we’ll be protected from temptations and evil.”

Hale’s vision of Thanksgiving also showcased the talents of women as nurturers and cooks. Wills said the reason Hale selected Thursday for the celebration was so that women would have time to prepare a substantial meal for the holiday, and enough time afterward to prepare the traditional Sunday meal. However, Hale never associated turkey with the holiday, favoring instead chicken and oysters.

Hale early on began calling on the president and Congress to declare Thanksgiving as a nation-wide event, and she pushed harder and harder each year as the rift between north and south became more threatening to the national unity she cherished.

She urged readers to lobby their representatives, and to write to her about their Thanksgiving experiences. They did, and Hale kept count each year of the growing number of celebrants.

Godey’s was the major women’s magazine of its day, and Hale’s campaign eventually had its desired influence. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln made the first declaration for a national day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

Hale became wealthy through the Godey’s, and the magazine’s Thanksgiving began to take on more commercial overtones. As the century unfolded and transportation improved, the wider variety of foods available was showcased in the magazine’s Thanksgiving meals, and stories discussed the type of clothing and decorations appropriate for the holiday.

While Wills credits Hale for originating the way we celebrate Thanksgiving today, she pointed out that further developments have led to current traditions that Hale could never have imagined. “For instance, I don’t think football games and making the day after Thanksgiving the biggest shopping day of the year ever crossed her mind,” Wills said.

Wills said her research hasn’t spoiled the magic of the occasion. “In some ways, it makes it more enjoyable because I can see where it’s come from,” she said.

Wills also gained a respect for Hale. She explained, “I do admire her. I don’t know if I would have liked her, but I admire her tenacity and vision. On some level she understood that a nation, a community, needs a festival, a symbolic event to renew people, and remind them of their values.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117220543.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:30am

Jurassic Turtles Could Swim


The new turtle species is a missing link between land and water-based turtles

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2008) — Around 164 million years ago the earliest aquatic turtles lived in lakes and lagoons on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, according to new research.

Recent scientific fieldwork led by researchers from UCL and the Natural History Museum on Skye, an island off the north-western coast of Scotland, discovered a block of rock containing fossils that have been recognised as a new species of primitive turtle Eileanchelys waldmani.

Months of work at the Natural History Museum freed these skeletons from the rock, revealing four well-preserved turtles and the remnants of at least two others. These remains, and a beautiful skull found nearby, represent the most complete Middle Jurassic turtle described to date, offering substantial new insights into the early evolution of turtles and how they diversified into the varied forms we see today.

Investigation into the palaeoecology of the area – the relationship between these ancient turtles and their environment – shows that these turtles lived in conditions that were very different to modern-day Skye. The turtles were found alongside fossils of other aquatic species such as sharks and salamanders that would have lived in a landscape made up of low-salinity lagoons and freshwater floodplain lakes and pools.

The research team was led by Dr Susan Evans from UCL Cell and Developmental Biology (CDB) and Dr Paul Barrett (of the Natural History Museum and an honorary member of the CDB). The team included Jérémy Anquetin, PhD student in Vertebrate Palaeontology in Dr Evans’ lab and the Department of Palaeontology of the Natural History Museum. Anquetin, who is researching the development and classification of early turtles, led the fossils’ description – and believes these findings to be extremely significant to our understanding of primitive turtles.

“Although the majority of modern turtles are aquatic forms, it has been convincingly demonstrated that the most primitive turtles from the Triassic period, around 210 million years ago, were exclusively terrestrial. Until the discovery of Eileanchelys we thought that adaptation to aquatic habitat might have appeared among primitive turtles, but we had no fossil evidence of that. Now we know for sure that there were aquatic turtles in the Jurassic period, around 164 million years ago. This discovery also demonstrates that turtles were more ecologically diverse early in their history than had been suspected before.”

Journal reference:

1. Jérémy Anquetin et al. A new stem turtle from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland: new insights into the evolution and palaeoecology of basal turtles. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Online November 18, 2008 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1429

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119093227.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:32am

New Excavations Strengthen Identification Of Herod’s Grave At Herodium


Collapse of architectural elements of Herod's mausoleum. (Credit: Image courtesy of Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2008) — Analysis of newly revealed items found at the site of the mausoleum of King Herod at Herodium (Herodion in Greek) have provided Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeological researchers with further assurances that this was indeed the site of the famed ruler’s 1st century B.C.E. grave.

Herod was the Roman-appointed king of Judea from 37 to 4 B.C.E., who was renowned for his many monumental building projects, including the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the palace at Masada, the harbor and city of Caesarea, as well as the palatial complex at Herodium, 15 kilometers south of Jerusalem.

On the basis of a study of the architectural elements uncovered at the site, the researchers have been able to determine that the mausoleum, among the remains of which Herod’s sarcophagus was found, was a lavish two-story structure with a concave-conical roof, about 25 meters high – a structure fully appropriate to Herod’s status and taste. The excavations there have also yielded many fragments of two additional sarcophagi, which the researchers estimate to have been members of Herod’s family.

The mausoleum, says Prof. Ehud Netzer, director of the excavations, was deliberately destroyed by the Jewish rebels who occupied the site during the First Jewish Revolt against the Romans which started in about 66 C.E.

Also found in the latest excavations are the remains of an intimate theater just below and to the west of the mausoleum, with seats for some 650 to 750 spectators, and a loggia (a kind of VIP viewing and hospitality room) located at the top of the theater seats and decorated with wall paintings and plaster moldings in a style that has not been seen thus far in Israel. The style is known to have existed in Rome and Campania in Italy and is dateable between 15 and 10 B.C.E. Thus far only one wall painting scene has been found intact, though there are traces of others in the room. .

The dating of the wall paintings makes it reasonable to assume, says Prof. Netzer, that the construction of the theater might be linked to Roman general and politician Marcus Agrippa’s visit to Herodium in 15 B.C.E. The theater and its lavish loggia were deliberately destroyed for the creation of the conical artificial mount that constitutes the widely known popular image of the Herodium site and that apparently was built at the very end of Herod's reign.

Prof. Netzer is convinced that Herodium would never have been built had it not been for Herod’s known determination, made at the beginning of his career, to be buried in this isolated, arid area. He undoubtedly personally chose the exact location for his mausoleum since it overlooks Jerusalem and its surroundings. This led to his decision to make the entire complex the “crowning glory” of his outstanding building career and to name it after himself.

The extensive site, which probably will not be fully excavated for many years to come, if ever, includes a huge palatial complex, the theater, and a “country club” of sorts, including a large pool, baths and gardens, in addition to Herod’s burial installations and mausoleum. The palace was the largest of its kind in the Roman world of that time and must have attracted yearly hundreds, if not thousands, of guests, says Prof. Netzer.

A description of Herodium, as well as of Herod’s funeral procession there, can be found in the writings of the ancient Roman-era historian, Flavius Josephus.

Working with Prof. Netzer at the site have been Yaakov Kalman, Roi Porath and Rachel Chachy-Laureys of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Restoration work of the coffins was carried out by Orna Cohen, and the laboratory of the Israel Museum helped with the consolidation of the wall paintings.

Prof. Netzer is hopeful that with the further findings at Herodium, there will be increased visits to the site by Israelis and tourists, and that the overall area might be converted into a national park.

The excavations, on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, have been conducted with the assistance of the Israel Exploration Society, with contributions by individuals and Yad-Hanadiv foundation. There also has been financial aid from the National Geographic Society. Also collaborating in the excavations are the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Gush Etzion Regional Council. The Israel Museum will launch in 2010 an exhibition of the findings there.

Shaul Goldstein, head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, said that “the Gush Etzion Regional Council views the Herodium National Park as an important historic site worthy of great investment in order to assure its preservation. In recent years, the council has worked diligently in order to preserve and develop the site through the investment of millions of shekels, half of which has been devoted to the excavations by Prof. Netzer, and half in the development of the visitor facilities there. Additionally, the council also allocates significant sums every year in publicizing the site, along with the Nature and Parks Authority.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119084537.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 19, 2008, 11:34am

Funerary Monument Reveals Iron Age Belief That The Soul Lived In The Stone


A funerary monument recovered in southeastern Turkey reveals that people who lived in an important Iron Age city there believed the soul was separate from the body. They also believed the soul lived in the funerary slab. (Credit: Photo by Eudora Struble, University of Chicago)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2008) — Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.

University of Chicago researchers will describe the discovery, a testimony created by an Iron Age official that includes an incised image of the man, on Nov. 22-23 at conferences of biblical and Middle Eastern archaeological scholars in Boston.

The Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago found the 800-pound basalt stele, 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, at Zincirli (pronounced "Zin-jeer-lee"), the site of the ancient city of Sam'al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.

The stele is the first of its kind to be found intact in its original location, enabling scholars to learn about funerary customs and life in the eighth century B.C. At the time, vast empires emerged in the ancient Middle East, and cultures such as the Israelites and Phoenicians became part of a vibrant mix.

The man featured on the stele was probably cremated, a practice that Jewish and other cultures shun because of a belief in the unity of body and soul. According to the inscription, the soul of the deceased resided in the stele.

"The stele is in almost pristine condition. It is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features and thus provides an important addition to our knowledge of ancient language and culture," said David Schloen, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute and Director of the University's Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.

Schloen will present the Kuttamuwa stele to a scholarly audience at the meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research on Nov. 22 in Boston, the major annual conference for Middle Eastern archaeology. Dennis Pardee, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago, will present his translation of the stele's 13-line inscription the following day at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, also in Boston, in a session on "Paleographical Studies in the Near East."

German archaeologists first excavated the 100-acre site in the 1890s and unearthed massive city walls, gates and palaces. A number of royal inscriptions and other finds are now on display in museums in Istanbul and Berlin. Schloen and his team from the University of Chicago have excavated Zincirli for two months annually since 2006.

"Zincirli is a remarkable site," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. "Because no other cities were built on top of it, we have excellent Iron Age materials right under the surface. It is rare also in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age. Having all of that information helps an archaeologist study the ethnicity of the inhabitants, trade and migration, as well as the relationships of the groups who lived there."

The stele was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a "servant" of King Panamuwa of the eighth century B.C. It was found in the outer part of the walled city in a domestic area—most likely the house of Kuttamuwa himself—far from the royal palaces, where inscriptions had previously been found.

The inscription reads in part: "I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …" It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. It is of keen interest to linguists as well as biblical scholars and religious historians because it comes from a kingdom contemporary with ancient Israel that shared a similar language and cultural features.

The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or "soul" of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.

The stele was set against a stone wall in the corner of the small room, with its protruding tenon or "tab" still inserted into a slot in a flagstone platform. A handsome, bearded figure, Kuttamuwa wore a tasseled cap and fringed cloak and raised a cup of wine in his right hand. He was seated on a chair in front of a table laden with food, symbolizing the pleasant afterlife he expected to enjoy. Beside him is his inscription, elegantly carved in raised relief, enjoining upon his descendants the regular duty of bringing food for his soul. Indeed, in front of the stele were remains of food offerings and fragments of polished stone bowls of the type depicted on Kuttamuwa's table.

According to Schloen, the stele vividly demonstrates that Iron Age Sam'al, located in the border zone between Anatolia and Syria, inherited both Semitic and Indo-European cultural traditions. Kuttamuwa and his king, Panamuwa, had non-Semitic names, reflecting the migration of Indo-European speakers into the region centuries earlier under the Hittite Empire based in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), which had conquered the region.

But by the eighth century B.C., they were speaking the local West Semitic dialect and were fully integrated into local culture. Kuttumuwa's inscription shows a fascinating mixture of non-Semitic and Semitic cultural elements, including a belief in the enduring human soul—which did not inhabit the bones of the deceased, as in traditional Semitic thought, but inhabited his stone monument, possibly because the remains of the deceased were cremated. Cremation was considered to be abhorrent in the Old Testament and in traditional West Semitic culture, but there is archaeological evidence for Indo-European-style cremation in neighboring Iron Age sites, although not yet at Zincirli itself.

In future excavation campaigns, the Neubauer Expedition, under Schloen's direction, plans to excavate large areas of the site in order to understand the social and economic organization of the city and its cultural development over the centuries. Schloen hopes to illuminate Iron Age culture more widely, of which Zincirli provides a richly documented example.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081118071136.htm

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 21, 2008, 8:52pm


£350,000 gold collar hailed as best iron age find in 50 years

* Maev Kennedy
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 20 2008 00.01 GMT


Fabulous ... Iron age gold collar. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty

An iron age gold collar worth more than £350,000 that was found by an amateur metal detectorist in a muddy field in Nottinghamshire was described yesterday as the best find of its kind in half a century.

"I was only in the field because a customer kept me late," Maurice Richardson, a tree surgeon from Newark, said yesterday. "Normally I'd never want to go into this field because a plane crashed there in the last war, and the whole place is littered with bits of metal."

The first beep from his detector was indeed a chunk of wartime scrap metal, but as he bent down to discard it, his machine gave a louder signal. Expecting to find a bigger chunk of fuselage, he instead discovered the 2,200-year-old collar.

The piece, a near twin of one already in the British Museum, was the most spectacular of 1,257 finds reported over the last three years. Treasure reports have increased every year since the Portable Antiquities scheme was set up to record finds by the public in England and Wales.

"It's a fabulous thing, the best Iron Age find in 50 years," said JD Hill, head of the British Museum's iron age department. "When I first saw a picture of it I thought somebody was pulling my leg because it is so like the Sedgeford torc in our collection that it must have been made by the same hand.

"What is fascinating about it is that it turned up where no torc should be - to put it mildly, the Newark region is not known for major high-status iron age finds. This wasn't in a grave, wasn't on a hilltop - it opens up a whole new chapter of the history of this area."

Richardson has been metal detecting, not entirely to the delight of his wife, since he first spent £70 on a detector instead of buying a carpet for their new house just after they were married 40 years ago.

He should now have enough money for new wall-to-wall after sharing the reward with the landowner.

Unusually, the torc has been acquired by his local museum in Newark, after heroic fundraising efforts. Most such finds go to national museums. Sarah Dawes, head of leisure and culture at Newark and Sherwood district council, said: "I took one look and rang my chief executive to say, sit tight, don't leave the office, we've got something to tell you."

For archaeologists, professional and amateur, the greater treasure announced yesterday was the reprieve of the Portable Antiquities scheme itself. Last year there was an outcry in the profession when the scheme almost became collateral damage in swingeing cuts imposed by the government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/nov/20/heritage-art

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Re: Digging In The Dirt II
Post by bigbunny on Nov 21, 2008, 8:55pm


16th-century skeleton identified as astronomer Copernicus
Four-year investigation confirms that bones found beneath Polish cathedral are those of astronomer

* Owen Bowcott