For Those Interested in Archaeology

"COOPERS FERRY, Idaho (AP) – Archaeological digs along the lower Salmon and North Fork Clearwater rivers are expanding what scientists know about the prehistory of the Pacific Northwest and may help revolutionize what is known about the first people to inhabit North America.
STEVE HANKS/Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune
Laura Longstaff, a graduate student at the University of Idaho, catalogs artifacts uncovered at an archaeological dig near Kelly Creek in the Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho.
To a large extent, that revolution already is under way. Recently published discoveries at Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon knocked holes into a long-held theory about the peopling of the New World.
And an excavation at Coopers Ferry, near Cottonwood along the lower Salmon River, and another dig near the confluence of Kelly Creek with the North Fork Clearwater River, may bolster a competing theory about who the first Americans were and teach us about the way they lived.
In 1997, Oregon State University archaeologist Loren Davis discovered a cache of stone tools at Coopers Ferry that, according to radio carbon dating, are more than 13,000 years old."
The Durango Herald 08/19/2012 | Archaeologists seek answers at latest Idaho excavations

 

"The Indo-European languages belong to one of the widest spread language families of the world. For the last two millenia, many of these languages have been written, and their history is relatively clear. But controversy remains about the time and place of the origins of the family. A large international team, including MPI researcher Michael Dunn, reports the results of an innovative Bayesian phylogeographic analysis of Indo-European linguistic and spatial data.
The majority view in historical linguistics is that the homeland of Indo-European is located in the Pontic steppes (present day Ukraine) around 6,000 years ago. The evidence for this comes from linguistic paleontology: in particular, certain words to do with the technology of wheeled vehicles are arguably present across all the branches of the Indo-European family; and archaeology tells us that wheeled vehicles arose no earlier than this date. The minority view links the origins of Indo-European with the spread of farming from Anatolia 8,000 to 9,500 years ago.
Lexicons combined with dispersal of speakers
The minority view is decisively supported by the present analysis in this week's Science. This analysis combines a model of the evolution of the lexicons of individual languages with an explicit spatial model of the dispersal of the speakers of those languages. Known events in the past (the date of attestation dead languages, as well as events which can be fixed from archaeology or the historical record) are used to calibrate the inferred family tree against time."
Indo-European languages originated in Anatolia, research suggests

 

"A tablet found at the Ziyarettepe excavation area has stirred excitement among scientists and archaeologists. The tablet, which belongs to third century has writings in unknown language. Currently, scientists are working on itThe translator of the tablet, Dr. John MacGinnis of Cambridge University, says the tablet was written in Assyrian cuneiform and was very significant for historians.
A tablet from the eighth century BC in an unknown language found at the Ziyarettepe excavation has stirred excitement among scientists.
“The tablet in Ziyarettepe is quite important. The first evaluations and translation of the tablet were done in England. However, the first announcements are being made at our museum in Turkey,” said Nevin Soyukaya, director of the Diyarbakır Museum, which is supervising the excavation.
Soyukaya said the Ziyarettepe excavation had revealed a lot of knowledge. “Human history repeats with every excavation, as scientists say. The region provides important knowledge, and these important findings are brought to the Diyarbakır Museum.”
ARCHAEOLOGY - Mysterious tablet

"ST. MATTHEW ISLAND — “Oh look, another tooth,” said Dennis Griffin, dressed in raingear and caked with wet soil.
Griffin, the state archaeologist with Oregon’s State Historic Preservation Office, has traveled to one of the least-walked hillsides in Alaska to search for evidence of his species. On a tundra rise with a gorgeous view of Hall Island and a nice panorama of St. Matthew Island, he has today found a fox tooth in a decaying jaw, chips of rock where someone made tools, pottery, a plate-size anvil stone and a yellowed walrus tusk cut with deep grooves.
“I’m very glad I extended this plot,” Griffin says.
In two days of digging into a square depression on soft ground near where someone long ago dragged the 20-foot jawbone of a whale, Griffin has unearthed what Native people who probably lived on this lonely island around the time the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock left behind. In foggy wet weather typical for St. Matthew —more than 200 miles from the closest Alaska village — Griffin is gathering details that will help him flesh out why people lived in this place so far from any other known ancient encampment."
On remote Alaska island, archaeologist looks for signs of human life | Alaska Dispatch

 

Still want to actually go there though.
"Orkney is world-famous for its spectacular Neolithic archaeology, and now visitors from all over the globe will be able to explore one of its most enigmatic monuments, after a new virtual tour of Maeshowe chambered tomb went live today (29 August).
In a video unveiled yesterday by Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the structure of the 5,000 year old monument has been recreated using 3D laser-scans carried out by the Scottish Ten project – a collaboration between Historic Scotland, Glasgow School of Art and CyArk, to document Scotland’s five UNESCO World Heritage Sites and five international sites using cutting-edge digital technology. This data will be used to help research and conserve the monuments."
Chamber of secrets: Historic Scotland launches virtual tour of Maeshowe

 

"More than hundred bones of animals, now extinct, that thrived over 10,000 years ago (the late Pleistocene period), have been discovered in the state of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico.
The discovery was made at a construction site of a wastewater treatment plant near the river El Salto in the city of Atotonilco de Tula, archaeologists at the National Institute of Anthropology and History."
Staggering Number of Bones of Extinct Ice Age Animals Found in Mexico - IBTimes UK

 

"BURLINGTON, Vt. — Archeologists have recovered evidence of 9,000 years of human occupation ranging from Native American settlements to portions of a French fort at the Chimney Point State Historic Site in West Addison, Vt.
The excavations were done as part of the construction of a new bridge between Vermont and New York.
Archaeologists say the historic and archaeological research shows the significance of Chimney Point to the Native American and European history of the Champlain Valley and Vermont.
John Crock, associate professor of anthropology and director of the University of Vermont's Consulting Archaeology Program, will present the findings at a talk in Burlington this month.
The free event will be held Sept. 16 at 4 p.m. at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum."
Archaeologists find 9,000 years of human occupation at Vt.'s Chimney Point State Park

 

"EUGENE, Ore. — (Sept. 18, 2012) — An interdisciplinary team of scientists from seven U.S. institutions says a disregard of three critical protocols, including sorting samples by size, explains why a group challenging the theory of a North American meteor-impact event some 12,900 years ago failed to find iron- and silica-rich magnetic particles in the sites they investigated.
Not separating samples of the materials into like-sized groupings made for an avoidable layer of difficulty, said co-author Edward K. Vogel, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon.
The new independent analysis — published this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — did, in fact, isolate large quantities of the “microspherules” at the involved sites where the challengers previously reported none. Lead author Malcolm A. LeCompte, an astrophysicist at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, said the findings support the climate-altering cosmic impact, but his team stopped short of declaring this as proof of the event.
The Clovis-age cosmic-impact theory was proposed in 2007 by a 26-member team led by Richard B. Firestone. That team included University of Oregon archaeologists Douglas J. Kennett and Jon M. Erlandson. While other groups have found corroborating evidence of a potential cosmic event, other groups reported difficulties doing so. One group, led by Todd A Surovell of the University of Wyoming, did not find any microspherule evidence at five of seven sites they tested, including two previously studied locations where Firestone reported large numbers of microspherules."
Archaeology News : Challengers to Clovis-age impact theory missed key protocols, new study finds | Heritage Daily - Latest Archaeology News and Archaeological Press Releases : Archaeology Press Releases

 

"Eight extremely well preserved spears, at least 300,000 years old, have been recovered from a site in north-central Germany. Just goes "to show that human ingenuity is nothing new," and was shared by many now-'extinct' species of humans.
Researchers from the University of Tübingen discovered "eight extremely well-preserved spears - an astonishing 300,000 years old, making them the oldest known weapons anywhere." Along with the spears, the other artifacts and animal remains found at the research site make it clear that their users "were highly skilled craftsmen and hunters, well adapted to their environment - with a capacity for abstract thought and complex planning comparable to our own." The researchers think that they were likely members of the 'species' 'Homo heidelbergensis' - human remains have yet to be found at the site though.This discovery is following on the heels of the now oldest-known musical instruments, discovered in southern Germany.
"The project is headed by Prof. Nicholas Conard and the excavations are supervised by Dr. Jordi Serangeli, both from the University of Tübingen's Institute of Prehistory, which has been supporting the local authority's excavation in an open-cast brown coal mine in Schöningen since 2008. They are applying skills from several disciplines at this uniquely well-preserved site find out more about how humans lived in the environment of 300,000 years ago.""The bones of large mammals - elephants, rhinoceroses, horses and lions - as well as the remains of amphibians, reptiles, shells and even beetles have been preserved in the brown coal. Pines, firs, and black alder trees are preserved complete with pine cones, as have the leaves, pollen and seeds of surrounding flora."
Before the mining started 30 years ago, all of these artifacts and bones were lying below the water table. As the archeologists say, what they are now doing is "underwater archaeology without the water." The excavation has been going on nearly year round, and the very rich site is continuing to yield discoveries almost everyday."
300,000-Year-Old Spears Discovered In Germany

 

Just had to share this one!

"You may not want to try this at home. A simple wax cap that was applied to a broken tooth 6500 years ago is the oldest dental filling on record. It adds to evidence that Neolithic communities had a surprisingly sophisticated knowledge of dentistry.
The recipient of the treatment was most likely a 24 to 30-year-old man, living in what is now Slovenia. His fossilised jawbone was found early last century near the village of Lonche. At the time, the find – one of the oldest human bones ever found in the region – was described, catalogued and filed away in a museum in nearby Trieste, Italy."The jawbone remained in the museum for 101 years without anybody noticing anything strange," says Claudio Tuniz at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. That was until Tuniz and his colleague Federico Bernardini happened to use the specimen to test new X-ray imaging equipment, and spotted some unusual material attached to a canine."
Oldest dental filling is found in a Stone Age tooth - life - 19 September 2012 - New Scientist

While this one may put Von Daniken and his kind out of business-

"The story of human ancestors used to be writ only in bones and tools, but since the 1960s DNA has given its own version of events. Some results were revelatory, such as when DNA studies showed that all modern humans descended from ancestors who lived in Africa more than 100,000 years ago. Others were baffling, suggesting that key events in human evolution happened at times that flatly contradicted the archaeology.
Now archaeologists and geneticists are beginning to tell the same story, thanks to improved estimates of DNA’s mutation rate — the molecular clock that underpins genetic dating. “It’s incredibly vindicating to finally have some reconciliation between genetics and archaeology,” says Jeff Rose, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham, UK. Archaeologists and geneticists may now be able to tackle nuanced questions about human history with greater confidence in one another’s data. “They do have to agree,” says Aylwyn Scally, an evolutionary genomicist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK. “There was a real story.”"
http://www.nature.com/news/studies-slow-the-human-dna-clock-1.11431

 

Wow!

Drought reveals loot at bottom of Vistula river in Warsaw Poland

Loot lost by 17 century Swedish invaders of Poland has been revealed at the bottom of the Vistula river by record low water levels. Elaborate marble stonework lies in the mud of the river bed.
A huge cargo of large blocks of the marble stonework apparently sank to the bottom of the Vistula river almost four centuries ago. The blocks were likely being transported back to Sweden by Swedish invaders. Record drought and low water levels have revealed the blocks. They are are covered in a yellow foul-smelling mud.

Drought reveals loot at bottom of Vistula river in Warsaw Poland

Poland river drought reveals proof of Swedish invasion - The Globe and Mail

 

"Ancient humans used complex hunting techniques to ambush and kill antelopes, gazelles, wildebeest and other large animals at least two million years ago. The discovery – made by anthropologist Professor Henry Bunn of Wisconsin University – pushes back the definitive date for the beginning of systematic human hunting by hundreds of thousands of years.
Two million years ago, our human ancestors were small-brained apemen and in the past many scientists have assumed the meat they ate had been gathered from animals that had died from natural causes or had been left behind by lions, leopards and other carnivores.
But Bunn argues that our apemen ancestors, although primitive and fairly puny, were capable of ambushing herds of large animals after carefully selecting individuals for slaughter. The appearance of this skill so early in our evolutionary past has key implications for the development of human intellect.
"We know that humans ate meat two million years ago," said Bunn, who was speaking in Bordeaux at the annual meeting of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE). "What was not clear was the source of that meat. However, we have compared the type of prey killed by lions and leopards today with the type of prey selected by humans in those days. This has shown that men and women could not have been taking kill from other animals or eating those that had died of natural causes. They were selecting and killing what they wanted.""
Humans hunted for meat 2 million years ago | Science | The Observer

 

Sometimes nothing beats a Cheeseburger!

 

"The people who built Stonehenge 5000 years ago probably had the same pallid complexion of many modern inhabitants of the UK. Now it seems that the humans occupying Britain and mainland Europe only lost the darker skins of their African ancestors perhaps just 6000 years earlier, long after Neanderthals had died out. The finding confirms that modern Europeans didn't gain their pale skin from Neanderthals – adding to evidence suggesting that European Homo sapiens and Neanderthals generally kept their relationships strictly platonic.
There is a clear correlation between latitude and skin pigmentation: peoples that have spent an extended period of time at higher latitudes have adapted to those conditions by losing the skin pigmentation that is common at lower latitudes, says Sandra Beleza at the University of Porto in Portugal. Lighter skin can generate more vitamin D from sunlight than darker skin, making the adaptation an important one for humans who wandered away from equatorial regions.
Those wanderings took modern humans into Europe around 45,000 years ago– but exactly when the European skin adapted to local conditions had been unclear."
Europeans did not inherit pale skins from Neanderthals - life - 26 September 2012 - New Scientist

 

I saw a paper once (on line I think) where they estimatd how long it took for skin color to change.
This article suggest that 100-200 generations are enough for skin color to change. Your Family May Once Have Been A Different Color : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR
I think the article I read mentioned 100.

 

"The Lozoya River Valley, in the Madrid mountain range of Guadarrama, could easily be called "Neanderthal Valley," says the paleontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga.
"It is protected by two strings of mountains, it is rich in fauna, it is a privileged spot from an environmental viewpoint, and it is ideal for the Neanderthal, given that it provided the with good hunting grounds."
This is not just a hypothesis: scientists working on site in Pinilla del Valle, near the reservoir, have already found nine Neanderthal teeth, remains of bonfires and thousands of animal fossils, including some from enormous aurochs (the ancestor of cattle, each the length of two bulls), rhinoceros and fallow deer.
The Neanderthal is a human species that is well known and unknown at the same time. It is well known because numerous vestiges have been found from the time when they lived in Europe, between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. But it is also unknown because of the many unresolved issues that keep cropping up, including, first and foremost: why did they become extinct just as our current species made an appearance on the continent?"
A Neanderthal trove in Madrid | In English | EL PAÍS

 

[h=3]"A SKULL FRAGMENT UNEARTHED BY ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN TANZANIA SHOWS THAT OUR ANCIENT ANCESTORS WERE EATING MEAT AT LEAST 1.5 MILLION YEARS AGO, SHEDDING NEW LIGHT INTO THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT.
“Meat eating has always been considered one of the things that made us human, with the protein contributing to the growth of our brains,” said Charles Musiba, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, who helped make the discovery. “Our work shows that 1.5 million years ago we were not opportunistic meat eaters, we were actively hunting and eating meat.”[/h]The study was published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.
The two-inch skull fragment was found at the famed Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, a site that for decades has yielded numerous clues into the evolution of modern humans and is sometimes called `the cradle of mankind.’
The fragment belonged to a 2-year-old child and showed signs of porotic hyperostosis associated with anemia. According to the study, the condition was likely caused by a diet suddenly lacking in meat."
Archaeology News : Anthropologist finds evidence of hominin meat eating 1.5 million years ago | Heritage Daily - Latest Archaeology News and Archaeological Press Releases : Archaeology Press Releases

 

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[TD="class: newsheadline"][h=1]"'Significant' Archaeological Find At Crossrail Site[/h][/TD]
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[TD]Excavation work for the new Crossrail network may have uncovered evidence of a 3,500-year-old Bronze Age transport route through London.

In what has been described as a "very significant find", archaeologists at the Plumstead site have found wooden stakes which, they say, could have been used in the construction of a transport link.

Archaeologists had been searching for the pathway, which seems to have been built along the same route of the Crossrail link."
'Significant' Archaeological Find At Crossrail Site : UK Construction News[/TD]
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"Fully draped in a black veil, Irish blonde Angela Miskelly stares out in awe as she strolls through Al-Hijr, the ancient Saudi city of tombs carved into rose-coloured sandstone mountains.
"Spectacular... wonderful... breathtaking," she says. "But where are the tourists? If we had a site like this in my country, we would have millions of tourists!"
Dating back to the second century BC, the Nabataean archaeological site, also known as Madain Saleh, has long been hidden from foreign visitors in this ultra-conservative kingdom that rarely opens up to tourists.
Saudi Arabia is thought to have been wary of archaeologists and scientists seeking to study its ancient ruins for fear their findings could shine the spotlight on pre-Islamic civilisations that once thrived there.
In recent years, however, Saudis have increasingly ventured to these sites and the authorities are more tolerant of their curiosity.
Described as the largest and best preserved site of the Nabataean civilisation south of Petra in Jordan, Madain Saleh is the first Saudi archaeological site to be inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
It lies 320 kilometres (200 miles) north of Medina, the Islamic holy city of western Saudi Arabia, and extends for some 15 square kilometres (six sq miles).
According to UNESCO, it includes 111 tombs, most of which boast a decorated facade, cave drawings and even some pre-Nabataean inscriptions.
It also boasts intricately designed water wells that serve as a prime example of the Nabataeans' architectural and hydraulic genius."
Saudi eases access to long-hidden ancient ruins - Yahoo! News UK

 

"Europe’s oldest urban settlement is near Provadia, a town of about 13 000 people about 40km inland from Bulgaria’s Black Sea city of Varna, according to archaeology Professor Vassil Nikolov, citing evidence from work done at the Provadia – Solnitsata archaeological site in summer 2012.

The team of archaeologists headed by Nikolov excavated stone walls estimated to date from 4700 to 4200 BCE. The walls are two metres thick and three metres high, and according to Nikolov are the earliest and most massive fortifications from Europe’s pre-history.

There were about 300 to 350 people living at the site in those times, living in two-storey houses and earning their living by salt mining.

To this day, Provadia is an important salt centre, with a large-scale foreign investor represented in the area. Estimates are that salt has been extracted in the area for about 7500.

Nikolov said that salt was the currency of ancient times, both in terms of value and prestige.

As the only place in the Balkans used to produce salt at the time, Provadia –Solnitsatsa of the fifth century BCE was the “mint” of the region, Nikolov said."
Archaeology: Europe

 

"A CAMPAIGN is under way to have the remains of Richard III brought home to York.
Debate is growing over where the presumed remains of the king should finally rest after archaeologists working on a dig in Leicester discovered human remains widely believed to be those of the Plantagenet king.
An online petition called “Richard III: Come Home To York” has been launched by The Richard III Foundation, advocating the reburial of the remains in York.
Richard had planned to be buried at York Minster but he is believed to have been interred in Leicester after his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry Tudor in 1485."
Campaign to have Richard III remains reburied in York (From York Press)