For Those Interested in Archaeology

Love the way they're able to keep pushing back the boundaries.
"Modern man left Africa earlier than previously thought - and in multiple waves, new research has found.
Researchers say anatomically modern humans spread from Africa to Asia and Europe in several migratory movements, beginning 130,000 years ago.
They also found that there were several waves of migration, rather than the one previously believed to have occurred.
Man's move out of Africa: A first migration along the Indian Ocean rim occurred as early as 130 thousand years ago (green arrow) and was followed by a second, more recent migration wave into Eurasia.
WHERE THEY WENT
Most scientists agree that all humans living today are descended from a common ancestor population which existed 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa.
The first ancestors of today’s non-African peoples probably took a southern route through the Arabian Peninsula as early as 130,000 years ago, the researchers found.
They followed a coastal route through the Arabian Peninsula to Australia and the west Pacific region.
A team of researchers led by the University of Tübingen’s Professor Katerina Harvati analysed skull shapes to show that anatomically modern humans spread from Africa to Asia and Europe in several migratory movements.
The first ancestors of today’s non-African peoples probably took a southern route through the Arabian Peninsula as early as 130,000 years ago, the researchers found.
Scientists have previously suggested the exodus from Africa started between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago, although stone artifacts dating to at least 100,000 years ago that were recently uncovered in the Arabian Desert suggested that modern humans might have begun their march across the globe earlier than once suspected.
The latest study is published by Professor Katerina Harvati and her team from the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Ferrara, Italy, and the National Museum of Natural History, France.
The study appears in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2610571/How-man-left-Africa-130-000-years-ago-Humans-arrived-Europe-multiple-waves-earlier-previously-thought-researchers-claim.html#ixzz2zfNmBRAE

 

Like many things...i guessed this as a child...the story just didnt fit right...but who was i??

 

Eerie new underwater footage shows historic Arctic shipwreck — the northernmost known — in fresh detail

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/25/eerie-new-underwater-footage-shows-historic-arctic-shipwreck-the-northernmost-known-in-new-detail/

Canadian physician/author/Arctic underwater explorer Dr. Joe MacInnis planted a flag when filming the wreck of the Breadalbane
— a wreck Dr. MacInnis and a team of Canadians on a Canadian Coast Guard vessel discovered three years earlier, after a three-year search.

The Breadalbane was a wooden vessel with three masts that was involved in the hunt for Captain John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition when it got trapped
by the Arctic ice and sunk off Beechey Island in the Northwest Passage in 1853. The images of the wreck captured in 1983 were stunning.
They appeared on the cover of the National Geographic.

 

"An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University (Sweden) reports a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Mesolithic and Neolithic peoples.
A genomic analysis of eleven Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals from Scandinavia revealed that expanding farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers, who were historically lower in numbers.
The study is published in the journal Science.

Poorly understood
The transition between a hunting-gathering lifestyle and a farming lifestyle has been debated for a century. As scientists learned to work with DNA from ancient human material, a completely new way to understand more about the people in that period opened up. But even so, prehistoric population structure associated with the transition to an agricultural lifestyle in Europe remains poorly understood.
“For many of the most interesting questions, DNA-information from people today just doesn’t cut it, the best way to learn about ancient history is to analyse direct data—despite the challenges“, says Dr. Pontus Skoglund of Uppsala University, now at Harvard University, and one of the lead authors of the study.
“We have generated genomic data from the largest number of ancient individuals” says Dr. Helena Malmström of Uppsala University another of the lead authors. “The eleven human remains were between 5,000 and 7,000 years old and associated with hunter-gatherer or farmer life-styles” says Helena Malmström."
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2014/study-reveals-farmers-assimilated-hunter-gatherers?

 

Historian, I firmly believe the key to understanding the transition of human society from hunter gatherer to settled agriculturalist can be found in the diversity of modern human groups today. Hunter gathering neanderthals were also forrest dwellers, and as this type of terrain became less and less prevalent, so too did hunting and gathering. Further, it was replaced by nomadic societies, herding cattle or horses depending on the region. Its safe to say the further North one went the more horses there were, until you begin to see groups emerging that had no cattle and all horses.

These grasslands also exposed the human groups to a wider variety in plant life, and to the consequent cultivation thereof. It would have happened by accident at first, with groups stopping next to large patches of edible plant life, before tagging these areas for reoccupation when they came back next season. From here its only a small step to having several members of your group stay behind as they are unable or unwilling to drive the herd for another season. Natural to assume they would have observed these early wild crops and experimented with propagation themselves. As they drop out of herding altogether, the neophyte farmer is suddenly born.

Suffice to say its also easier to defend your group if it sits in one spot. Mobility is the advantage of the attacker, but a defended position that robs an attacking group of this advantage is going to prosper, particularly if they can store their harvest without it spoiling.

Thus, the birth of modern society, and fuedalism...........unfortunately religon as well

 

Lot of truth in that, but religious beliefs are going to predate just about everything else, since we can assume hunter-gatherers would have had them in some shape or form.

 

Hunter-gatherers are nomadic.

I think the conversion of humans to pastoralism / agriculture was more complex than that suggested. It could've been something that happened over a very long time (and brought through population pressure), or, if it was sudden, brought about by some external threat (drought). Only irrigation labour would then save the plants the group relied upon. The effort of farming is such that it is not a very attractive alternative to the nomadic lifestyle. Furthermore staying in one place permanently increases challenges (waste and water management, security from raiders (everyone now knows where there is plunder) As such, it needed to provide something very valuable (reliability of food, safety in numbers).

Witness tribal groups existing even today: in New Guinea, Brazilian rainforest, etc. They grow food, some even keep animals, as well as practise hunter-gathering technics, and migrate when the wildlife has declined, space permitting. It is not unlikely that this mixed behaviour continued for some time, hedging bets, and playing both sides.

 

Thhere is a lot to be said for Mr. Slime's comments. Observe Amer-Indian tribes on both continents. Some are pure hunter gatherers, like Amazon forrest dweellers. Some are herders, like many Great Plains tribes; some are settled farmers, lke Navajos, and some are raiders of all these groups who have shunned cultivation and rely exclusively on plunder to provide for the group, like Apaches.

Then you have the Empire builders, who combine all elements of the above into the one people, like the Maya . These people farm large tracts of land to provide for neophyte urban population. The also have raiding groups that fan out to destabilize other tribes, or in the case of the Aztec, capture slaves for religious and other reasons.

These Empire builders tended to have much more complex religious beliefs as well. Look at the difference between the simple beliefs of the Plains Indians and their Amazonian cousins, as compared to the complex religiosity, pomp and ceremony of the Aztec. The Indians must have found it incomprehensible. Lets face it, a lot of ordinary Aztec folk found their religion hard to fathom, and relied on a small community of priests for suitable interpretation. It is even easy to assume that it was the same situation as ancient Egypt, where the aristocracy and priesthood held and practiced the beliefs, but these beliefs were not shared by the wider community.

One other thing, whilst deriding static dwellings for whatever reason, the one most important aspect of human society that sitting in one spot made a hell of a lot easier was CHILDREARING. Eventually, this alone was to gurantee the ascendency over nomadic herding/raiding, for as Napolean was to observe in a later era, "God is on the side of the bigger battalions."

 

"Archaeologists are ecstatic after uncovering a “really significant” Bronze Age burial site in Perthshire.
Arrowheads believed to date back to between 2,500BC and 800BC have already been found at the site of the new Crieff Primary School, and experts hope to unearth more historic items.
One “definite” prehistoric burial site, known as a cursus — a Bronze Age ceremonial monument walkway — has been identified and archaeologists are hopeful there will be more finds to come.
Sarah Malone, a heritage officer with Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, said archaeologists had been at the Crieff site since last year.
“We have identified one definite prehistoric Bronze Age burial site here,” she added.
“Last year we discovered Bronze Age arrowheads and some kists.”"
http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/archaeologists-ecstatic-over-bronze-age-finds-in-perthshire-1.340999?

"An ancient caribou hunting ground has been discovered submerged beneath Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes of North America.
The 9,000-year-old hunt area, which is constructed on limestone bedrock, was discovered by researchers from the University of Michigan's Museum of Anthropology. It consists of an elaborate array of linear stone lanes and V-shaped structures, thought to be the most complex display of hunting structures and techniques ever discovered.
John O'Shea, an anthropological archaeology professor at the University of Michigan, told the Newark Advocate: "One reason this area was so valuable is that it provided predictability for ancient hunters."
He said that hunters of the late Paleoindian-Early Archaic periods were confident the animals would have to pass through the area. "If you guessed wrong about where the animals are, you may very well be dead. There was a lot of pressure on getting it right," O'Shea added."
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/9000-year-old-caribou-hunting-ground-beneath-lake-huron-reveals-ancient-hunting-techniques-1446510?

 

As long as certain balances can be maintained. The Mound Builders for instance look to be a case study in what happens if they can't. It's now thought, by at least some, that they collapsed due to poor nutrition. They grew to the point where they were dependent on agriculture but grew only one crop maize. As long as it was supplemented by other sources things went find but when the population density reached the point where most of the wild animals were gone as were many of the other vegitable food sources and they didn't have domestic animals in sufficient quantity the whole civilization collapsed. Hard to rear children if you can't provide an adequate diet.

 

Ditto for Ireland in the 1840s.

 

Well that wasn't quite the same. Ireland did grow other crops and indeed a fair amount was exported during that period. The potato however was the staple of the less well off and its faiure due to disease meant that the poor were without both food and the resources to buy more.
From: http://www.usbornefamilytree.com/irishfoodexports.htm

Althoug this site tends to disagree: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml
saying:

This site actually gives some numbers by year http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Famine
For 47 and 48 it does appear that more grain was entering Ireland than leaving although I'm not sure grain used in alchohol produciton is included. The "almost 3 times" bit seems to be an exageration though. This one http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/yourview/famine-food-facts-dont-add-up-228979.html
Goes into a bit more detail and for grain in 1947 that looks to be accurate but I suspect calories exported may still have surpassed calories imported and due to distribution and processing problems not all the imports were available as quickly as desired. Some other references that illustrate it's more complex than most seem to admit:
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/food-exports-from-ireland-1846-47/
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ireland_great_famine_of_1845.htm

However while it had long term impacts it didn't result in the dissolution of a whole society.

 

It's a damned sight more complicated than most folks want to admit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Potato_Famine

 

Irish society may not have dissolved altogether, but the resulting diaspora of it's new talent emmigrating to the far corners of the earth may well have retarded Irish society for over 150 years, maybe longer.

The 'Brain Drain' ensured that Ireland continued to be a back-water, keeping it 'beyond the Pale', as it were. One good result of this, however, was to preserve Ireland's landscape from industrialization, something I'm sure the modern Irish are thankful for. It also preserved much of their history as well, something modern scholars and theologians are probably very grateful to recieve.

 

What "new talent"/"brain drain"? They may...SOME of them...have prospered once they reached the U.S.....but they certainly weren't going to do so in Ireland, with their social position and potential restricted by the remains of the penal laws

Could you actually BE more insulting??? You do realise that at the time of the Famine, Trinity College Dublin, for example, was among the foremost in Europe? And Dublin "the second city of the Empire"? Ireland was no Iceland, with its cultural and historical heritage intentionally robbed or rubbed out, a suprising amount was preserved in its academical institutions AND by the Church....let alone the whole canon of British history in Ireland - which although the Irish may not like it, was the history of Ireland for nearly a millenium!

 

"SELKIRK, SCOTLAND—Work on water pipes in the Scottish Borders has uncovered pivot stones used as hinges for doors, coins, imported pottery, and stone game pieces from a medieval village thought to have been known as Philiphaugh. Clay pipes for tobacco and glass bottles from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were also found."
http://www.archaeology.org/news/2074-140430-scotland-pivot-stone?

 

Intriguing!
"From the country's enormous riches to its complex religious rituals, there is an enduring fascination with Ancient Egypt.
But now a 5,600-year-old tomb has been discovered that could shed light on a time before the First Dynasty of pharoahs.
Archaeologists in southern Egypt unearthed a mummy that predates the unification of Egypt, the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry has announced.+5

The tomb was built before the rule of King Narmer, the founder of the First Dynasty who unified Upper and Lower Egypt in the 31st century BC, the ministry said in a statement.
It was discovered in the Kom al-Ahmar region, between Luxor and Aswan, on the site of Hierakonpolis."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2623299/Archaeologists-5-600-year-old-tomb-mummy-PREDATING-First-Dynasty-pharaohs.html#ixzz31AvV7elC

 

Interesting...i dont think mummification started until the pharoes? Probably rightly call it a "tomb"...hope they find plenty of clues! (and an ancient video camera manual).

 

An interesting article both due to the use of DNA to look at culture and because it suggest that two distinct cultures shared an island for a significant period of time:
http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-faeces-reveal-origins-of-puerto-rican-natives-1.15203

 

"One of the world’s oldest complete human skeletons has been found in a cave in Mexico - and sheds new light on who the first Americans were.
Named ‘Naia’, the remains belong to a 15-16 girl who went underground to seek water 13,000 years ago during the last ice age.
She plunged to her death in a large pit known as ‘Hoyo Negro’, Spanish for ‘black hole’, in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
[SIZE=1.2em]Her almost complete remains, including an intact skull and preserved DNA, were lying 130 feet below sea level near a variety of extinct animals, such as an elephant like creature called a gomphothere.[/SIZE][SIZE=1.2em]She roamed Earth up to 13,000 years ago when the now flooded cave systems in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula were much the same, apart from the water level being much lower than it is now."[/SIZE]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2629505/Was-Naia-American-Teenage-girls-skeleton-dating-ice-age-13-000-years-ago-oldest-Americas.html#ixzz31pnkO0t0