Although both geological data5,6,7 and ice sheet models3,8 indicate that marine-based sectors of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet were unstable during Pliocene warm intervals, the ice sheet dynamics during late Pleistocene interglacial intervals are highly uncertain.
Here we provide evidence from marine sedimentological and geochemical records for ice margin retreat or thinning in the vicinity of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin of East Antarctica during warm late Pleistocene interglacial intervals.
The most extreme changes in sediment provenance, recording changes in the locus of glacial erosion, occurred during marine isotope stages 5, 9, and 11, when Antarctic air temperatures11 were at least two degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial temperatures for 2,500 years or more."
[Read The Full Story]
[Another excellent story from Nature! The authors are correct of course. Until we understand the many rhythms of nature we will never see the fuller picture, so will never be able to realistically project those patterns onto the future.
That there have been much warmer periods in the past than it is at present is well-known to many scientists. Only open-minded and multidisciplinary research will show us that fuller picture. It really is well worth a visit to read the full paper but you will have to pay for access - Ed.]
The problem will be understanding what it tells us.
The design, reported in Nature this week, occurs on a lentil-shaped rock flake, and was found in Blombos Cave, on the southern shore of South Africa, by archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood and his colleagues.
The flake bears an abstract design drawn, the authors say, using a crayon made of red ochre.
It is hard to claim that the design is beautiful, dazzling or engrossing.
But the artwork is destined to be priceless and famous, because it seems to be the earliest evidence for a drawing in the archaeological record, by some margin."
[Read The Full Story]
[Excellent story again from Nature! It is likely that there are millions of similar artifacts either waiting to be found or else having been missed through lack of recognition over the past hundred+ years. It really is well worth a visit to read the full story and see the image of the find - Ed.]
An odd grouping of stones was observed at the popular swimming spot by Robert Harris and Finola Finlay.
Finola, who has a masters degree in archaeology from UCC, was struck by the rectangular stone-lined pit and felt pretty sure it wasn't just a natural phenomenon.
She used social media to put out feelers and almost immediately confirmed it was a fulacht fia, or open-air kitchen."
[Read The Full Story]
[A good discovery in Ireland. It's likely Bronze Age peoples ate al fresco whenever weather permitted, and what a lovely view they had on Ireland's west coast while enjoying their food. It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"Did the people buried at Stonehenge come from Wales?" Current Archaeology (UK)
"Recent analysis of cremated human remains excavated from Stonehenge has shown that some of the individuals buried at the Neolithic monument may have spent some of their lives in western Britain, or even west Wales - the same region where the Stonehenge bluestones are believed to have come from.
During William Hawley's excavations of the famous monument between 1919 and 1926, up to 58 individual cremations were unearthed.
These were subsequently reinterred in a single pit, which was re-excavated in 2008.
At least 25 individuals were identified from the recovered remains - a task made difficult as they had been co-mingled during their re-interment - and all were radiocarbon dated to between 3180-2965 and 2565-2380 BC.
This places the burials in the earlier stages of the monument's construction - a period when cremation was a common funerary practice in Britain."
[Read The Full Story]
[This is a very interesting story. But the author, as well as those doing the survey, don't seem to appreciaite that in those far-off times the people who now inhabit a country called Wales were spread all over these islands, and controlled the natural resources. For them it was nothing to travel 200/300 miles and further on a regular basis.
They were pushed into the western and northern extremities of these islands by successive invasions of other peoples from the continent, and later the islands were split into Wales, Scotland, Ireland (currently divided) and England.
People who drive motorised vehicles seem to find it difficult to comprehend the distances ancient peoples would travel on foot as they rarely walk far themselves.
It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
Probably made mostly from sheep or goats milk, the cheese was found several years ago by archaeologists in the ancient tomb of Ptahmes, who was a high-ranking Egyptian official.
The substance was identified after the archaeology team carried out biomolecular identification of its proteins.
This 3,200-year-old find is exciting because it shows that the Ancient Egyptian's shared our love of cheese - to the extent it was given as a funerary offering.
But not only that, it also fits into archaeology's growing understanding of the importance of dairy to the development of the human diet in Europe."
[Read The Full Story]
[Amazing story! Not just about how ancient peoples also enjoyed cheese, but also how it may have altered our digestive processes. It's really worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"Archaeological inspection unearths a partial Ptolemaic necropolis in Alexandria" Ahram Online (Egypt)
"An Egyptian archaeological mission discovered a Ptolemaic necropolis in Alexandria’s western cemetery while carrying out a preliminary archaeological inspection before erecting an iron gate around a workshop at the Gabal Al-Zaytoun railway station in Alexandria.
Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the ministry has allocated money for an excavation and to uncover the remaining part of the cemetery.
He added that the mission found a collection of rock-hewn tombs with stairs leading to a small hall that may had been used as a resting area for visitors, as well as another open court surrounded by burial recesses."
[Read The Full Story]
[A great story from Ahram Online with some really good photos of the many finds. Well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"Were there two routes into North America? Genetics meets archaeology" Genetic Literacy Project (USA)
"Popular accounts of the peopling of North America paint a picture of a lone long-ago trek across the Bering Land Bridge and then south along the Pacific coast, a view based largely on DNA evidence.
But other clues point to people also traversing 'ice-free corridors' that emerged from melting glaciers like terrestrial tentacles.
A new paper in Science Advances reviews the evidence for more than one way into North America.
It concludes that people followed at least two routes, coastal and interior, and that the view over the land bridge 'commonly disseminated in the popular press is a prematurely narrow interpretation of current evidence'.
The journal held a news conference with three of the investigators.
'We've seen conflicting narratives about the timing and the nature of the peopling of the Americas. We wanted to evaluate this claim and provide a framework to discuss the process - not based on speculation but on a critical review of current evidence'.
'Rather than confusion, there is growing congruence of the archeological, paleoecological, and genetic records', said co-author and archaeologist Ben Potter, professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks."
[Read The Full Story]
[This is one of the best stories we've encountered so far this year on the confusion surrounding the peopling of the Americas. The explanation of the various routes taken, with diagrams to illustrate the points made, is superb and enlightening. We highly recommend a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"Archaeology from Afar in Uzbekistan" NASA Earth Observatory (Earth Orbit)
"The Surkhandarya province in southern Uzbekistan was once the heart of Bactria, a prosperous kingdom that flourished along the Amu River between 600 B.C.E. and 600 C.E.
Teams of archaeologists from the Soviet Union began visiting the province in the 1950s to catalogue its archaeological riches—remnants of towns, irrigation networks, burial mounds, pottery, weapons, and many other items.
In the past decade, satellites have made a contribution from above as well.
Since 2008, Ladislav Stanco of Charles University has led a team that used satellite imagery to systematically survey the area for archaeological sites."
[Read The Full Story]
[Great story from NASA! The assistance that satellite imagery can offer to archaeology shouldn't be underestimated. It is becoming an invaluable tool to locate ancient remains that aren't at all visible from the ground. It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"The debate over people’s pathway into the Americas heats up" Science News (USA)
"Despite recently getting a cold shoulder from some researchers, a long-standing idea that North America's first settlers entered the continent via an ice-free inland corridor boasts more scientific support than any other proposal, an international team says.
New World colonizers from Asia may also have travelled by canoe down the Northwest Pacific Coast and perhaps much farther, as critics of the ice-free corridor hypothesis have argued.
But less evidence supports that possibility, archaeologist Ben Potter of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and colleagues argue in a research review published online August 8 in Science Advances.
Whatever route they took, people didn't reach North America until after 16,000 years ago as temperatures rose near the end of the Ice Age and shoreline food sources expanded, the interdisciplinary group concludes.
Widespread human occupations appeared in the Americas by about 13,500 years ago. Sites from this time were inhabited by the Clovis people, best known for long, triangular spearpoints used in hunting big game."
[Read The Full Story]
[Another interesting story from Science News! The battle between those who believe in the 'ice-free corridor' and those who believe in 'coastal seafarers' migrations has been raging for many years, but a combination of the two is just as likely. This study shows the merits of both methods as well as the combination of both. However it concludes that the 'ice-free corridor' is the most likely. It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
It is many millennia older than Stonehenge or Egypt's great pyramids, built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period before writing or the wheel.
But should Göbekli Tepe, which became a Unesco World Heritage Site in July, also be regarded as the world's oldest piece of architecture?
Archaeologists are fascinated by Göbekli Tepe, an artificial mound spread across eight hectares at the top end of the Fertile Crescent near the present-day city of Sanliurfa.
It features a series of circular sunken structures that had been occupied for a thousand years before they were back-filled and abandoned."
[Read The Full Story]
[This is an important question asked by The Art Newspaper. The enigma that is the Göbekli Tepe complex is surely a fine example of the artistic style of the times (12,000 years+ ago), and by the little we have seen of it so far it certainly does qualify for the title of "world's oldest piece of architecture?". It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
"New temples, stones found in Turkey's Gobeklitepe site" Anadolu Agency (Turkey)
"Archeologists have discovered new temples and standing stones in Gobeklitepe, an archeological site located in Turkey's southeastern Sanliurfa province.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Mehmet Onal, the head of the Archeology Department at Harran University in Sanliurfa, said at least 15 more mega monumental temples and more than 200 standing stones were discovered as part of geophysical surveys in the region.
'As archaeological excavations continue in the coming years, we will come across new constructions', said Onal.
He noted that the excavations in Gobeklitepe are estimated to continue for at least 150 years."
[Read The Full Story]
[An excellent story from Anadolu Agency! There is so much more yet to be discovered at the Gobeklitepe megalithic complex that is still buried and which informs us about the real start of civilisation. And much, much more to be discovered once competant astroarchaeologists begin analysing the complex in full. It's well worth a visit to read the full story - Ed.]
The Iceman, known as Ötzi, was found on September 19, 1991 in the Tyrolean Alps, on the border between Austria and Italy.
He lived roughly 5,300 years ago and died on a frozen glacier.
Scientists at the Eurac Research centre in Bozen-Bolzano in Italy were able to determine the exact composition of his diet, when a radiological examination identified Otzi's completely filled stomach.
This is the first time scientists have been able to fully reconstruct a Copper Age meal."
[Read The Full Story]
[Yet another good story from ABC News, Australia! Over the years there had been alot of speculation that Ötzi was vegetarian, but 'new' research has shown he was eating a typical hunter-gatherer's diet - lots of meat and high in animal fat, as were they all in those far-off days.
Another presumption bites the dust. It's well worth reading the full story - Ed.]
"The New Story of Humanity's Origins in Africa" The Atlantic (USA)
"There is a decades-old origin story for our species, in which we descended from a group of hominids who lived somewhere in Africa around 200,000 years ago.
Some scientists have placed that origin in East Africa; others championed a southern birthplace.
In either case, the narrative always begins in one spot.
Those ancestral hominids, probably Homo heidelbergensis, slowly accumulated the characteristic features of our species-the rounded skull, small face, prominent chin, advanced tools, and sophisticated culture.
From that early cradle, we then spread throughout Africa, and eventually the world.
But some scientists are now arguing that this textbook narrative is wrong in its simplicity, linearity, and geography.
Yes, we evolved from ancestral hominids in Africa, but we did it in a complicated fashion-one that involves the entire continent."
[Read The Full Story]
[A great story from The Atlantic! That Homo sapiens are now thought to have developed in several areas of Africa, and at different times, opens a new window on the bigger picture, and this article goes a long way to introducing this frame of thought to a wider public.
It's really well worth reading the full story. I enjoyed it - Ed.]
The dogs were not domesticated North American wolves, as some have speculated, but likely followed their human counterparts over a land bridge that once connected North Asia and the Americas, the study found.
This is the first comprehensive genomic study of ancient dogs in the Americas to analyze nuclear DNA, which is inherited from both parents, along with mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from mothers to their offspring.
By comparing genomic signatures from 71 mitochondrial and seven nuclear genomes of ancient North American and Siberian dogs spanning a period of 9,000 years, the research team was able to gain a clearer picture of the history of the first canine inhabitants of the Americas."
[Read The Full Story]
[A really interesting story! Whatever happened to ALL the dogs after Europeans arrived? Did they eat them? You can access the original Press Release
HERE
Well worth reading the full story and seeing the images and diagram - Ed.]
"The tale of the magnificent Pharaonic mastaba of Hesy-Ra" Egypt Today (Egypt)
"The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is currently displaying a panel from the Mastaba of Hesy-Ra at Saqqara. Hesy-Ra was a high official holding many titles in the era of King Djoser, including chief of dentists and physicians.
The panel is made of wood with height 115 cms and dates back to the Old Kingdom's Third Dynasty, ca. 2686-2613 BC.
Archaeologists still don't know the original purpose or meaning of the Neolithic stone balls, which are recognized as some of the finest examples of Neolithic art found anywhere in the world.
The panel is one of six panels from the Mastaba of Hesy-Ra at Saqqara.
Hesy-Ra mastaba depicts magnificent wall paintings and marvellous Old Kingdom wood carvings; such as its outstanding relief panels made from imported Lebanese cedar.
The mastaba is the only known example of a painted tomb from the Third Dynasty.
The mastaba was discovered by Egyptologists Auguste Mariette and James Edward Quibell in 1861; then its wooden panels and valuable artifacts were brought to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo."
[Read The Full Story]
[Another realy great story from Egypt Today! Little is really known about this period, and this is a welcome addition to what we are discovering about Imhotep and Pharaoh Djoser himself.
It's well worth taking the time to read the full story, and access the amazing images of the carved wooded panels - Ed.]
"The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project" Cardiff/Athens Universites (Cymru/Greece)
[In October 1900, Captain Dimitrious Kondos was leading a team of sponge divers near the the island of Antikythera off the coast of Greece. They noticed a shipwreck about 180 feet below the surface and began to investigate. Amongst the artifacts that they brought up was a coral-encrusted piece of metal that later archaeologists found was some sort of gear wheel.
The rest of the artifacts, along with the shape of the boat, suggested a date around 2000 years ago, which made the find one of the most anomalous that had ever been recovered from the Greek seas. It became known as The Antikythera Mechanism.
In 2006 the journal "Nature" published a letter, and another paper about the mechanism was published in 2008, detailing the findings of Prof. Mike G. Edmunds of Cardiff University. Using high-resolution X-ray tomography to study the fragments of the anomalous Antikythera Mechanism, they found that it was in fact a bronze mechanical analog computer that could be used to calculate the astronomical positions and various cycles of the Moon - as seen from the Earth: - Ed]
"Researchers have many questions regarding both the Great Flood and Atlantis: Which areas were flooded? Where did the flood waters come from? What caused the flooding? How was Atlantis destroyed? Where was Atlantis located?
The short answers: Noah's Flood was caused by tsunami waves that covered all the costal areas around the Atlantic Ocean.
They also flooded the Mediterranean Basin temporarily raising sea level above 600 feet.
The tsunamis were created by comet fragments that landed in the ocean and within the Americas.
Some estimations claim that over 500,000 comet fragments hit the Americas. The craters are called Carolina Bays.
These craters are concentrated along the Atlantic seaboard within the coastal states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, and as far away as Nebraska.
Atlantis was part of Plato's boundless continent, North America. Plato: '. . .and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent."
"In this provocative collaboration from two Egyptology outsiders, Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., and Robert Bauval combine their decades of research to show how the Sphinx is thousands of years older than the conventional Egyptological timeline and was built by a long forgotten pre-Pharaonic civilization.
They examine the known history of the Sphinx, contrasting what Egyptologists claim with prominent historical accounts and new research, including updates to Schoch’s geological water weathering research and reanalysis of seismic studies.
Building on Bauval’s Orion Correlation Theory, they investigate the archaeoastronomical alignments of the monuments of the Giza Plateau and reveal how the pyramids and Sphinx were built to align with the constellations of Orion and Leo.
Analyzing the evidence for a significantly older construction phase at Giza and the restoration and recarving of the Sphinx during the Old Kingdom era, they assert that the Sphinx was first built by an advanced pre-Pharaonic civilization that existed circa 12,000 years ago on the Giza Plateau, contemporaneous with the sophisticated Göbekli Tepe complex."
"The 2300 BC Event takes a new look at an old puzzle: what happened
at this date to cause the various advanced societies on the Earth to simultaneously collapse?
Civilizations in Anatolia and Greece, through Egypt and the Middle East, and eastward to India and Central Asia were at their height. The collapse of these civilizations due to earthquakes and climatic changes has been mirrored by similar interruptions on all continents, in the Arctic, and extending to the Pacific.
The discontinuities have long puzzled archaeologists and historians. New religions and accompanying mythologies appeared at this time in all cultural regions describing bombardment and flooding from the skies.
Strangely, the dominant aspect of the mythologies, however, is the observation and worship of a ring appearing to surround the Earth, oriented to the two Ursa (Bear) constellations."
"Some time around 2300 BC the Earth encountered a dense clustering of space debris, the early Southern & Northern Taurid meteoroid stream. The result was an intense fall of meteoroids, some of them sufficiently large to cause surface destruction.
Simultaneous with the meteoroid fall was a huge downpouring of water which caused flash flooding. Extensive destruction and loss of life resulted. An astonishing aspect of the event was the formation of a ring surrounding the Earth, reflecting sunlight during the day, hiding some stars at night, and moving around the sky through a 24-hour period.
Following the 'main event', there were crustal movements which shifted the location of water sources, and caused earthquakes which destroyed settlements. Abrupt severe climate changes occurred."
"The ancient Britons were inspired by a profound knowledge of the heavens when they erected the monumental stones of Avebury.
Mann throws light on the motive behind the creation of its awe-inspiring mounds and megaliths by demonstrating that they were aligned to the cycles of the Sun, Moon and stars.
This book will help visitors and readers to see Avebury in a wholly new light - the light of the heavenly bodies that guided its Neolithic builders."
