The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
15-09-2022
IS DIT DE ECHTE REDEN DAT TWEE GROTE OUDE BESCHAVINGEN ZIJN VERDWENEN?
IS DIT DE ECHTE REDEN DAT TWEE GROTE OUDE BESCHAVINGEN ZIJN VERDWENEN?
Jeannette Kras
Het is vaak gissen hoe het oude beschavingen is vergaan. Verdwenen ze door klimaatverandering, rampen, oorlogen of ziektes? Een nieuw onderzoek werpt licht op de ondergang van het Oude Rijk in Egypte en het Akkadische Rijk.
Een onderzoeksteam van het Max Planck Institute en de British School in Athene heeft bewijs gevonden dat beide beschavingen vermoedelijk niet ten onder zijn gegaan door klimaatverandering, maar door ziekten. Ze vonden daarvan sporen in de tanden van menselijke resten uit de bronstijd. Deze tanden zijn gevonden in de grot Hagios Charalambos op het eiland Kreta.
Droogte Eerder onderzoek toonde aan dat de bevolking van het Oude Rijk in Egypte (2639-2216 voor Christus) en van het Akkadische Rijk (2350–2170 voor Christus) plotseling sterk slonk. Klimaatverandering in de vorm van extreme droogte werd aangewezen als een van de oorzaken. Dit zou ook hebben geleid tot schade aan infrastructuur, een ingestorte handel en grote culturele veranderingen. Maar in deze nieuwe studie hebben onderzoekers ontdekt dat ziektes mogelijk ten grondslag lagen aan de ondergang van beide beschavingen.
De onderzoekers bestudeerden tanden van menselijke resten die teruggaan tot 2290 en 1909 voor Christus. Daarin vonden ze bewijs van de typische mondbacteriën die ook nu nog in onze mond zitten en die kunnen leiden tot tandbederf. Maar belangrijker: ze vonden tekenen van de Yersinia pestis, de pestbacterie en van salmonella, de bacterie die verantwoordelijk is voor buiktyfus. De bevindingen doen dus vermoeden dat een epidemie kan hebben geleid tot de ondergang van een of beide beschavingen uit de bronstijd.
Andere bacteriën Er is wel een kleine kanttekening: de pestbacterie die is gevonden in de tanden van de oude Egyptenaren was niet dezelfde als die Europa eeuwen later zou teisteren. De bacterie is uitgestorven, net als de gevonden salmonellavariant. Daardoor is onduidelijk hoe besmettelijk de bacteriën waren of hoe dodelijk. Toch betekent het bewijs van de bacteriën dat geschiedkundigen de mogelijkheid mee moeten nemen dat ziektes de oorzaak waren van de val van twee grote beschavingen. Verder genetisch onderzoek van oude menselijke overblijfselen moet uitwijzen hoe wijdverspreid de ziektes waren.
Het Oude Rijk Met het Oude Rijk wordt een periode in de tijd van het grote Egyptische rijk aangeduid tussen grofweg 2700 en 2200 voor Christus. Het omvat de derde tot de zesde dynastie en staat ook bekend als de ‘Eeuw van de Piramides’, omdat in die tijd de grote piramidebouwers uit de vierde dynastie heersten, zoals koning Sneferu en de koningen Khufu, Khafre en Menkaure, die de piramides van Gizeh bouwden. Het oude Egypte bereikte zijn eerste beschavingspiek in deze periode. Het rijk liep van de Nijldelta naar het zuiden tot Abu en tot de Sinaï-woestijn in het oosten. De ondergang van het rijk werd ingeluid door een tanende macht van de farao en toenemende controle van regionale heersers. In de decennia na de dood van farao Pepi II werd het rijk geteisterd door burgeroorlogen. De extreme droogte in de 22ste eeuw voor Christus deed er nog een schepje bovenop en leidde tot hongersnood. Maar mogelijk waren het dus ziektes, die het definitieve einde betekenden van het Oude Rijk.
Het Akkadische Rijk Het Akkadische rijk omvatte tussen 2350 en 2170 voor Christus grote delen van Mesopotamië, in de regio, waar nu Irak, Iran en Syrië liggen. Sargon de Grote heeft de stad Akkad, waarnaar het rijk vernoemd is, waarschijnlijk machtig gemaakt. Van daaruit breidde hij zijn rijk uit. Daaropvolgende heersers gingen zich koning van Sumer en Akkad noemen, omdat het zuidelijke deel van Mesopotamië, Sumer (een van de oudste beschavingen ter wereld), ook bij het rijk ging horen. De Goeteeërs, een bergvolk, zouden het Akkadische rijk hebben vernietigd en de stad Akkad zo erg hebben verwoest dat er nooit meer iets van is teruggevonden. Dezelfde droogte die het Oude Rijk in Egypte in ellende stortte zou ook het Akkadische rijk in de problemen hebben gebracht. Maar mogelijk waren het dus ook hier ziektes die de oude beschaving echt de das omdeden.
Once again, advances in technology have forced archaeologists to change their interpretations of history. A new study published in Antiquity has concluded that the world-renowned Machu Picchu site in Peru was in use more than 20 years earlier than previously thought.
So, What’s the Real Age of Machu Picchu?
One of the top tourist destinations in the world, Machu Picchu in Peru is known not only for its ancient Inca ruins, but for its stunning natural setting. Hiking the Inca Trail has become a pilgrimage for backpackers from all over, so much so that the authorities have had to put strict limits on the number of tourists who can hike the trail per day (500). The ruins itself are visited by about 6,500 people per day, according to BD Destinations .
Although it has become known as the “lost city” discovered by American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1911, in reality it was never “lost” as locals knew it was there all along. What is surprising is that with such a huge influx of visitors, and income, there is still more to be learned about this stunning World Heritage Site, including its age and ancient origins.
The construction of an Indiana Jones-style narrative, in which American explorer Hiram Bingham found the “lost” Inca city of Machu Picchu, has added to its allure.
The legendary story of the Inca ruler Pachacuti has been told and retold for generations, and repeated as part of the tours of Machu Picchu . It is believed that he rose to power thanks to a vision involving Inti, the Sun god, who inspired him to defend the city of Cusco from the Chanca. The first Inca ruler with imperialistic aspirations for an Inca Empire he has been recognized as the creator of “the most powerful empire in pre-Colombian America,” explains an Antiquity press release.
Pachacuti has also been credited with building Machu Picchu , located to the north of Cusco. In fact, the ancient ruins are often described as having been his private estate. The Inca citadel was chosen as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World in a contest organized by the New7Wonders Foundation back in 2007, alongside Petra and the Great Wall of China. It was famously built using differently-shaped polished stones which fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to create walls without the use of mortar.
Researchers at Machu Picchu in 1911, shortly before the remains dated in the new study were recovered.
Applying New Technology to Discover the Age of Machu Picchu
“Determining a site’s archaeological age isn’t always easy,” explained Erin Blakemore in a National Geographic article which gave a simple run-through of the ways in which archaeologists calculate the date of ancient sites. Assessing the age of Machu Picchu is no different.
Richard Burger, a professor from Yale University and the lead author of the paper published in Antiquity explained why the famed Peruvian ruins have been labeled with the incorrect age in the past. “Until now estimates of its antiquity and the length of its occupation were based on contradictory historical accounts written by Spaniards in the period following the Spanish conquest,” he stressed. Remember, the Inca themselves had no written language, apart from a system of knotted cords known as khipu.
A team made up of professionals from several institutions in the United States decided to apply the technique of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) in order to more precisely date the human remains which have been exhumed at Machu Picchu. This technology has been successful in dating human remains when minimal organic matter has been left behind.
Most history books state that Machu Picchu was built by Pachacuti in the mid-1400s. Nevertheless, the team used AMS dating technology to date bone and teeth from 26 skeletons found in cave burials which had been excavated back in 1912. Although past attempts had failed to provide consistent results, this new research concluded that Machu Picchu was actually in use from 1420 to 1530 AD.
The construction date of Machu Picchu has now been pushed back thanks to dating technology.
Changing the History of the Inca Empire and the Age of Machu Picchu
If this is true, it would mean that the scripted guided tours of Peru’s top tourist destination have been mistaken for decades. If Machu Picchu was in use from 1420, then this would push back the date of Pachacuti’s rise to prominence, as well as the age of the ancient citadel, by at least two decades.
The Antiquity study also puts into sharp relief the importance of continued application of groundbreaking technology to archaeology and ancient history. “The results suggest that the discussion of the development of the Inca empire based primarily on colonial records requires revision,” emphasized Burger.
“Modern radiocarbon methods provide a better foundation for understanding Inca chronology than the contradictory historical records,” explained the lead author of the study. The idea that our understanding of history is versatile and apt to change as technology evolves assures that the study of famous sites like Machu Picchu will continue to be an adventure as we unravel the “lost” reality of the past.
Top image: Experts are reassessing the age of the Peruvian ruins at Machu Picchu.
The Mystery of Egyptian Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings
The Mystery of Egyptian Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings
Tomb KV55 in the Valley of the Kings was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton on January 6, 1907. Ayrton’s sponsor, Theodore M. Davis, published a summary of the excavation (The Tomb of Queen Tiye) in 1910.
KV55 is from the 18th dynasty, being a problematic archaeological site as it seems to have been used for several burials: the first is attributed to Queen Tiye, based on the broken wooden shrine dedicated to her (Tiye was brought here after the abandonment of Amarna, and finally brought to KV35).
The mummy found here may be that of her son, the pharaoh Akhenaten, although that of his successor, Smenkhkare (if this was a man) was also considered.
In 1923, Harry Burton used it as a darkroom to develop his photographs during the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter.
Egyptian Tomb KV55: Description
KV55 is a relatively small royal tomb, its total length is only 27.61 meters. It is located next to KV6, the tomb of Ramses IX , above KV7 (of Ramses II) and near KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Its entrance is open in the rock, heading east. It leads to a system of stairs that lead to a slightly sloping corridor and the burial chamber.
On the south side of this chamber there is passage to a small antechamber, and red masonry markings on the east wall indicate the planning of another room, which had it been built would have matched the layout of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Although the walls of the tomb are laid out in plaster, which is unusual for a royal tomb, they are not decorated. A drawing on an ostracon found by Lyla Pinch Brock in 1993, has been interpreted as the plan of the tomb, suggesting that its original entrance had been enlarged, corroborated by the marks found on the walls of the tomb.
The place was altered in antiquity, and therefore it is difficult to interpret. Evidence from the tomb complicates its attribution.
The door seals bore Tutankhamun’s name, evidently from the time its tenant was buried a second time; the canopic jars found in the tomb are similar to those of Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya; the broken shrine, whose panels are distributed throughout the chamber, bear the name and representations of Akhenaten‘s mother, Queen Tiye.
Akhenaten’s name appears in a series of “magical bricks” found in the tomb, as well as that of his father, Amenhotep III, and his daughter and wife.
All these data are reminiscent of the main figures of the Amarna period, hence the popular name of the tomb: the Amarna cache.
It is thought that the tomb was initially designed for the burial of some nobleman or official, using it later for a royal burial, as later happened with the tomb of Tutankhamun.
One of the four Egyptian alabaster canopic jars found in KV55, depicting what is thought to be the likeness of Queen Kiya
Identification of the mummy
When the tomb was opened in 1907 the only mummy found inside was that of a male. This mummy was thought to be Akhenaten, due to the presence of some funerary items (mainly magical bricks) as well as the vandalism of the sarcophagus (Akhenaten was later vilified as a heretic).
The cartouches with the mummy’s name are erased and the uraeus removed. In addition, the mummy has several similarities to that of Tutankhamun.
Profile view of the skull recovered from KV55
This identification was not fully accepted because although KV55 does not contain any mention of Smenkhkare, some insisted on identifying the mummy with him. DNA analysis in 2010 confirmed that it was the remains of the famous Akhenaten.
Nicholas Reeves suggests a theory: Akhenaten and his mother, Queen Tiy, were originally interred in the new capital, Amarna, but their bodies were transferred to KV55 during the reign of Akhenaten’s son Tutankhamun and his secondary wife, Kiya.
The door was sealed with the name of Tutankhamun. There the mummies remained for about 200 years, until the tomb was discovered by workers excavating the nearby tomb of Ramses IX..
At that time Akhenaten was despised as the heretic king, so the sarcophagus of Queen Tiye was hastily removed from his desecrating presence, except for the gilded wooden shrine that covered it, which had to be dismantled to remove the sarcophagus. .
The portraits of Akhenaten were erased with a chisel, in his sarcophagus the golden mask was torn and the cartouche with his name removed, to condemn him to eternal oblivion. As a final insult, a large rock was thrown at the coffin, smashing the supports of the lion-shaped sarcophagus.
At the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty,Sneferu wanted to go one step further in achieving a perfect pyramid to be his abode of eternity. In this search, the pharaoh built at least three of these great monuments.
Contrary to what might be thought, the greatest pyramid builder in the history of Egypt was not Khufu, the pharaoh to whom the Great Pyramid of Giza is owed.
That title actually corresponds to his father Sneferu, who, according to scholars have calculated, used for the construction of the three pyramids that are attributed forty percent more cubic meters of stone than his son Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Furthermore, Sneferu was the first Egyptian pharaoh to build a perfect pyramid with smooth faces and to develop the classical structure of Egyptian funerary complexes, which would last for several centuries.
The three great funerary monuments created by Sneferu crowned the sensational development of Egyptian funerary architecture from Dynasty III onwards.
King Djoser, thanks to his well-known architect Imhotep, was the first to build his tomb entirely in stone, thus offering a sense of eternity to buildings that were previously made of adobe and therefore soon faded away.
In addition, in this great work that he carried out in Saqqara (a necropolis near Memphis, the capital of Egypt), Imhotep dispensed with the typical mastaba, a rectangular funerary building with sloping walls.
He replaced it with a stepped pyramid, made up of a total of six levels that reached 62 meters in height. It should be noted that this was the tallest building in the world until Sneferu’s reign.
Engineering feat and embodiment of the power of the pharaonic state, the stepped pyramid had a characteristic structure, in which scholars have seen the reflection of a stellar symbolism typical of Egyptian culture at that time.
Thus, the main axis of the complex, 544 meters long, is oriented from north to south and the entrance to the pyramid is located on the north side, as is the funerary temple of the pharaoh, attached to the pyramid on a base of two meters high.
Furthermore, the so-called serdab – a room on the north side of the pyramid in which the statue of the pharaoh’s ka (his spirit or life force) was placed – had two openings through which a statue of Djoser could observe Dubhe and Kochab, two important circumpolar stars.
Sneferu, The pharaoh who built three pyramids
During Dynasty III, the kings Sekhemkhet and Khaba erected buildings in Saqqara and Zawiyet el-Aryan similar to the step pyramid of Djoser.
The same did Sneferu at his pyramid at Meidum, a necropolis located 55 kilometers south of the stepped pyramid at Saqqara. There the pharaoh erected a great funerary monument in the form of an eight-step pyramid, with a central masonry tower and sloping walls, to which superimposed layers were added, also sloping with a 75º inclination.
However, at the end of his reign Sneferu launched a third constructive phase that would radically change the appearance of the Pyramid of Meidum.
At the base, the workers raised a leveled platform of limestone blocks, and on this they were placing successive horizontal courses of stone.
Finally, the entire construction received an exterior cladding of fine limestone from Tura. In this way, a perfect pyramid was obtained, with four smooth faces of 51º inclination, 144 meters in base and 92 in height.
The pyramids of Dahshur. The image shows the Bent pyramid in the foreground, rising out of the Dahshur plain; in the background the Red pyramid can be seen. Both were built by Sneferu.
The pyramid of Meidum
The architectural innovation promoted by Sneferu in Meidum is related to the rise of the solar cult during Dynasty IV, which promoted the identification of the pharaoh with the sun god Ra.
It is no coincidence that Huni, Sneferu’s predecessor, was the first monarch to inscribe his name and titles on a cartouche, the oval that symbolizes Ra’s journey; nor that Djedefre, Sneferu’s grandson, was the first pharaoh to be called Son of Ra.
According to this vision, the pyramid would symbolize the benben, the primordial hill, that first piece of land that, after the creation of the solar god Atum, emerged from the waters of the nun, the inert, dark and silent primordial ocean.
The pyramid, like the primeval hill, represents creation and rebirth and becomes the vehicle for the revitalization of the deceased pharaoh.
If the pyramids of Dynasty III symbolized stairs to the starry sky, now the pyramid, as a solar element, could also express the idea of the rays of the Sun that allowed the king to rise to the solar divinity.
With their smooth faces that glowed thanks to their coating with white limestone from Tura.
According to this new conception, the main construction axis of the funerary complex became the east-west, instead of the previous north-south.
This is how it was intended to promote the union of the king with the solar god in his daily journey, from when he appeared in the east in the form of the Khepri beetle, passing through its culmination at noon as Ra, in the form of a solar disk, and its sunset by the west in the form of a ram, Atum.
The pyramid of Meidum marked the definitive triumph of this new model of funeral ensemble. Sneferu’s work includes for the first time all the characteristic elements of pharaonic funerary complexes from then on:
A satellite pyramid next to the main one, a funerary temple, another temple located on the river bank and a ramp that linked these two buildings. .
According to the solar model, the funerary temple was attached to the eastern face of the pyramid, instead of the northern one, although access to the interior was still from the north side, as in the pyramid of Djoser.
From this entrance, about 18 meters high, a descending corridor of almost 60 meters in length and an inclination of 28º starts.
The Bent Pyramid
Sneferu built a second pyramid at the Dashur necropolis, 45 kilometers north of Meidum. The final form this monument took is unique. Started as a pyramid with a 60º inclination, later an envelope made of blocks inclined 6º inwards and a reduction of the slope by five degrees was added.
From 47 meters in height, the slope of the faces of the pyramid was reduced to 43º, thus giving it the peculiar appearance of a “rhomboid pyramid”or the Bent Pyramid, as it is known.
It is not known whether this change in slope was due to structural problems that had to be solved on the fly or if it had a symbolic meaning:
The double slope would represent, for example, the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt. Once completed, the pyramid reached 105 meters in height, with a base of 188 meters on each side.
The Red pyramid of Dahshur
The internal structure of the Bent pyramid is unusual because of its two entrances. One is, as was customary, on the north side, 12 meters high, and leads to a corridor 80 meters long that leads to a horizontal corridor; this, in turn, leads to a chamber with a false vault 17 meters high.
The second entrance, originally camouflaged behind a cladding block, is on the west side, 33 meters high. It opens onto a descending corridor that continues as a horizontal corridor after 65 meters, where two chambers with closing blocks were arranged and, finally, a burial chamber with a false vault 16 meters high.
The third pyramid of Sneferu, popularly known as the “Red pyramid“, was built two kilometers north of the previous one, in Dahshur.
It is the second pyramid with the highest base (220 meters), only ten meters less than that of the Great Pyramid. However, it is also the one with the lowest slope of its faces (43º), so it only reached 105 meters in height.
Its access is 28 meters high on the north side, and from there starts a descending corridor of 63 meters that ends in a horizontal corridor.
This passes through two chambers with a false vault and then gives access to a burial chamber, located at a higher level, also with a false vault and almost 15 meters high. Perhaps the pharaoh was buried there.
Big Difference Between Neanderthal and Modern Human Brains Discovered
Big Difference Between Neanderthal and Modern Human Brains Discovered
Neanderthals, a subspecies of archaic humans who split from modern humans sometime between 300,000 and 80,000 years ago, have been the subject of a new study. This study has revealed the presence of a single amino acid difference possessed by modern humans that dramatically increased the number of brain cells created, leading to a split in development and providing a cognitive edge for Homo sapiens over their Neanderthal cousins. This is being claimed as the first physical proof modern humans were smarter than Neanderthals.
How Did Modern Human Brains Outcompete Their Older Cousins?
For a long time, scientists and historians have been perplexed about the question – what makes modern humans unique? What sets them apart from other cousins on the evolutionary spectrum ? The study, published in Science, shows an increase in brain size and subsequent neuron production during brain development, even though Neanderthals and modern humans had brains of a roughly similar size.
“One concrete fact is that wherever Homo sapiens went, they would basically out-compete other species there. It’s a bit weird,” said Professor Laurent Nguyen, of the University of Liège, who was not involved in the latest research. “These guys [Neanderthals] were in Europe a long time before us and would have been adapted to their environment, including pathogens. The big question is why we would be able to out-compete them,” he said, quoted in a Guardian report.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) focused on a variation that was identified in Homo sapiens brains. This variation, occurring in our neocortex, boosts the brain progenitor cell counts, which implies that as a species, we made more neurons during the development process, compared to the Neanderthals during theirs, around 130,000 to 40,000 years ago.
“Making more neurons sets the basis for higher cognitive function ,” said Wieland Huttner, who led the work at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. “We think this is the first compelling evidence that modern humans were cognitively better than Neanderthals.”
Detailed wax figure of Neanderthal prehistoric caveman. Faster development of modern human brains eventually helped Homo sapiens out-compete Neanderthals
Comparing Modern Human Brains vs. Neanderthal Brains
For the study, the scientists inserted a Neanderthal brain gene into mice, ferrets, and blobs of lab-grown tissue called organoids. Organoids are tiny, self-organized three-dimensional tissue cultures derived from stem cells, sometimes called ‘mini brain structures’, reports Nature.
They focused on the gene TKTL1 (protein transketolase-like 1), which is heavily involved in the neuronal production in a developing brain. The Neanderthal version of this same gene differs by one letter from the modern human version. In modern humans, TKTL1 contains an arginine at the sequence position, whereas in the Neanderthals, it is the related amino acid lysine.
"We found that with the Neanderthal-type of amino acid in TKTL1, fewer basal radial glial cells were produced than with the modern human-type and, as a consequence, also fewer neurons. This shows us that even though we do not know how many neurons the Neanderthal brain had, we can assume that modern humans have more neurons in the frontal lobe of the brain, where TKTL1 activity is highest, than Neanderthals,” concluded Anneline Pison, first author of the study.
From these experiments, it was determined that the Neanderthal version of the gene created neurons slowly during the brain’s cortex development. This slower pace could be a huge factor that explains the superior cognitive abilities of modern humans. It wouldn’t be farfetched to say that it was all in the mind!
Therefore, if the production of neurons in the neocortex is greater during fetal development, it can be speculated that modern humans cognitive abilities associated with the frontal lobe were promoted, leading to better tools, weaponry, language, art, symbolism, and ultimately, smarter brains. Moving forward, Pinson hopes to understand the mechanisms through which TKTKL1 drives the birth of brain cells.
Dinosaur-Eating Galloping Crocodiles Once Existed in the Sahara Desert
Dinosaur-Eating Galloping Crocodiles Once Existed in the Sahara Desert
Believe it or not, but 100 million years ago the area of the present-day scorching hot Sahara Desert was a lush swamp home not just to dinosaurs, but also to several kinds of prehistoric crocodilians. But that’s not all. These diverse ancient crocodiles came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were galloping crocodiles, able to chase after prey on land, while others were so big and powerful that they were effective dinosaur hunters.
During excavations beginning in the 1990s, the famed paleontologist and dinosaur hunter, Paul Sereno, came across a staggering find when he and his team uncovered the fossilized skeleton of a giant prehistoric crocodile in the African Sahara known as a Sarcosuchus imperator or SuperCroc. While fragments of this majestic monster had already been discovered in 1966, Sereno unearthed several partial skeletons dating back 110 million years in Niger. With a head as big as Sereno was tall, the team estimated that this SuperCroc had measured about 40 ft long (12.19 m).
A lot of things viewed as unusual by the people from the present day used to take place in ancient Egypt. While some of these aspects are fascinating, others can be simply regarded as odd. Going beyond this, ancient Egypt has proven to be a fantastic civilization which continues to inspire individuals even today. Out of the countless lesser-known aspects regarding ancient Egypt, some interesting ones are revealed here.
1. World's First Known Female Pharaoh
Ancient Egypt gave the world the first female pharaoh who is still known in the present day. Her name was Merneith. She lived around 5000 years ago, belonging to the First Dynasty. She died around 2950 BC, after ascending to the throne once her husband, Pharaoh Djet, died. The son of the couple, Den, should have become pharaoh, but he was too young. So, around 2990 BC, his mother's reign began. Merneith (who had royal blood, being a descendant of Pharaoh Narmer who had unified Egypt and started the First Dynasty in the past) took care of state matters. Even though not much is really known about her, one thing remains certain: during her administration the ancient Egyptian economy thrived and, later on, thanks to his mother's guidance, Den came to be regarded as the greatest pharaoh of the First Dynasty.
Thanks for reading Ancient Origins UNLEASHED! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
The tomb of the female pharaoh was discovered at Abydos. It was very unusual for the tomb of a woman, being identical to other tombs that had been constructed for great male pharaohs. It included 40 sacrificed servants, many sacrificed animals, and a boat on which the soul of the female pharaoh could sail in the afterlife to meet the Sun god, Ra. In this way, Merneith set the ground for other great female pharaohs who are probably a little more well-known such as Hatshepsut and Cleopatra. However, the reality of female pharaohs is not the only fascinating and lesser-known fact about ancient Egypt. So, let the adventure into the old world of gods and mummies begin!
2. Tutankhamun’s Beard
In ancient Egypt, having hair on one's body was seen as dirty and a sign one was lacking in personal hygiene. Because of this, both men and women shaved off all the hair from their bodies. This included shaving their heads. After doing this, women would wear beautifully adorned wigs with complex designs according to the fashion of the times. In the case of the pharaoh, the beard was a symbol of masculinity and power. But, obviously, the pharaoh could not grow a beard because hair on the body implied uncleanliness. So, an artificial beard would be attached to the pharaoh's face using strings to keep it in place. The funerary gold mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun presents an example of such a beard.
In the case of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, Carter and his team had not been the best archaeologists. Instead, they were much closer to the image of treasure hunters. As a result, while handling the solid gold funerary mask they managed to break off the beard. Unable to use the same method applied by the ancient Egyptians who had crafted the mask, around the year 1944 the beard was fixed back onto the mask using a piece of wood. That was how the relic was displayed until August 2014 when the beard was accidentally broken off again by some Egyptian employees from the museum. Obviously, these museographers realized the gravity of the situation, so they decided to hide their mistake by gluing the beard back on using adhesive. To make it look even better, they removed the visible remains of the adhesive substance by using some metal tools to scrape them off. Ultimately, the mask ended up looking really bad.
To fix the relic, a restoration commission from Germany showed up. They worked for nine weeks just to remove the adhesive substance. They masked the scratches and reattached the beard using beeswax, the exact substance that had originally been used in this regard by the ancient Egyptians. The eight museographers, including the museum's director, were sent to trial and they will have to pay a large fine.
The famous burial mask of King Tutankhamun on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt
On the 24th of November 1922, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. This was thought to have been sealed and untouched, the only tomb of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh that had escaped the action of tomb raiders. Wrong!
Carter understood that others had entered the place before him. Officially, he promised that the tomb would only be unsealed and opened in the presence of Egyptian officials. So, of course, he illegally entered the tomb the night before the grand event. This was no big deal, because others had been there before him, twice actually. The proof of this was a large crack in the exterior door. This had been sealed back up. Also, the pharaoh's belongings from the antechamber were found in disorder, as the tomb raiders had robbed the place in haste. This had happened shortly after the pharaoh's burial. These thieves had been interested in jewelry and precious metal items. Also, they had come for the things which had to be stolen immediately. This refers to perfumes, precious oils, and clothing items. These could not last for years inside the tomb, so if the thieves wanted to sell them for profit, they had to remove them quickly.
Other cracks on the doors of the tomb clearly suggested the second tomb raiding event. The first grave robbers had only broken into the antechamber. The second ones had a larger team and they had been better organized. Their purpose was to access all of the funerary chambers. There was a written inventory detailing everything that had been placed inside the tomb. Carter discovered it. After consulting it, he understood that, in 1922, less than half off all the jewelry and precious metal items originally deposited inside the tomb had remained. This suggests that the tomb raiders had to get out of there quickly, only taking what they could carry.
Not even the seal on the tomb had been the original one. Instead, this had been replaced by the one of Horemheb. This pharaoh had received the throne from Ay (the vizier who had succeeded Pharaoh Tutankhamun). To hide all of this, repairs were made, and the cracks were covered. However, everything had to be done in great haste due to the lack of time, just as the tomb raiders had previously operated. After the second grave robbing event, the tombs of Ramesses II and Ramesses IV were built close to the tomb of Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun was thought to lack importance as a pharaoh, so his tomb no longer attracted interest. Also, the entry to the tomb was covered by sand and, in time, the place was forgotten. The grave robbers switched their attention towards the tombs of other more important pharaohs which had more to offer.
A lot has been discussed about the process of mummification and its stages. However, fewer people have knowledge regarding the costs of this process. It is obvious that nobody got mummified for free in ancient Egypt. Also, it must be mentioned that ancient Egyptians did not use money. The first coins from the area were introduced around 360 BC, but, despite this, ancient Egyptian priests were highly aware of the value of luxury goods and precious metals. These priests were actually the inventors of the mummification business. Their purpose was to obtain profit, as every person had to be mummified after death if he or she wanted to even have an afterlife.
According to Herodotus, Egyptian priests had come up with three main types of mummification. The first was meant for the rich who had to pay what would be equal to about 20,000 euros today for a premium mummification process. The brain was taken out through the nose, the corpse was eviscerated, bathed in expensive wines, spices and oils, kept with salt for around 70 days, the eyes were replaced with two onions and the organs were nicely placed in specialized canopic jars. After the corpse dried up, it would be wrapped in expensive cloth along with specific amulets and sealed with wax and resin. The mummy was given to the family who also had to pay for a sarcophagus, a pyramid or a tomb, some slaves to kill for the mummy to have servants in the afterlife and a few mummified animals. With a relatively decent sarcophagus costing around five goats or a slave, this entire luxury mummification package proved to be really costly.
The type of mummification meant for the middle-class cost around half the price of the luxury package. In this case, the body was not eviscerated. It was just injected with a certain cedar oil which had the effect of dissolving the internal organs. Because this could get messy, a stopper was introduced in the anus of the corpse until the liquefaction was complete. After that, the stopper was removed and all the liquid allowed to flow out of the corpse which was afterwards kept with salt for 70 days. The mummy was then given to the living family members who took it to a common cemetery. The last type of mummification was reserved for the poor and it was paid by the state. The guts were removed, the corpse was washed and kept with salt for 70 days. After this, it was taken out to the desert and buried there without any amulets on it.
Criminals in ancient Egypt were always burned at the stake to prevent them from having an afterlife. As for nobles who had committed crimes during life, they were allowed to kill themselves and their corpses underwent a simple mummification procedure. The major blasphemers were mummified in goat skin, so that the gods from the world beyond could know of their actions. As for pets, animal mummification cost between 1000 and 5000 euros in today’s money. Those who wanted to impress others would mummify larger animals such as crocodiles or bulls.
Corruption has always existed, and even ancient Egypt had to confront this reality. Horemheb ruled Egypt as a pharaoh between the years 1319/1306 and 1292 BC. He was the first ancient Egyptian ruler who led a serious fight against corruption. During the reign ofAkhenatenand that of his son, Tutankhamun, corruption had increased and gotten out of control. Starting as a commoner, Horemheb managed to become a general and, later on, he sat on the throne as pharaoh.
Tutankhamun had died at the age of 18 in suspicious circumstances. He was succeeded by the vizier Ay who was murdered. Horemheb did not want to share their fate. As a pharaoh, he issued drastic laws and worked hard to eradicate corruption. To be sure he was in control, he personally replaced all judges and state officials. He also made bribery punishable by death. This had never been applied before in this regard, the harshest punishment for bribery until the time of Horemheb was a threat that the god Anubis would be very upset with the individual in the afterlife. As he thought Anubis had more important issues to attend to, Horemheb radically changed the system and dealt with punishments personally.
Death was the sentence given to thieves. Mutilation was inflicted upon those who committed fraud and those who set taxes too high for the population. The mutilation referred to here consisted of cutting off the nose and the ears of the trespasser. The person would then be exiled to Tharu, a region ancient Greeks began to refer to as Rhinocolura, because a lot of people who lived there had no noses.
Detail of a statue of Horemheb, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
To a certain extent, the fight against corruption undergone by Pharaoh Horemheb proved successful for a time. The ancient Egyptian ruler actually died a natural death, but, afterwards, his example was no longer followed.
Top image: Ancient columns at the Temple of Horus at Edfu, Egypt.
The ancient city of Lacedaemon – is it the legendary Atlantis?
The ancient city of Lacedaemon – is it the legendary Atlantis?
Artist’s depiction of Atlantis. Credit: BigStockPhoto
The name Lacedaemon is derived from the verb, λαγχάνω (lachano), to assign somebody something by lot, and δαίμων (daemon), which means God in ancient Greek. Lacedaemon therefore denotes the divine lot, a piece of the world given to the God Poseidon, according to Plato, who identifies Lacedaemon with Atlantis.
I consider it worthwile to mention a remark by J. Spanuth in his book, ‘ Atlantis: Heimat, Reich and Schicksal der Germanen ’, (Tuebingen 1965), that Atlantis is “the oldest, most disputed, most hazardous and clearly most thankless, but still the most rewarding and most intriguing matter that Antiquity has bequeathed to us”.
There is a vast bibliography about Atlantis, but the modern scholarship concluded that to locate Atlantis and to prove the validity of its identification, four points of agreement must be met and generally accepted. (See E.Bloedow. ‘ Fire and Flood from Heaven: Was Atlantis at Troy ?’ La Parola del Passato 48, 1993, pp.109-160.
Atlantis was an island.
It lay beyond the “Pillars of Hercules”.
It was larger than Asia and Libya together.
Its destruction (sinking) produced a barrier of impassable mud.
These four prerequisites are completely fulfilled in the case of Lacedaemon.
The name, features, and location of Lacedaemon have been hotly debated from Antiquity to modern times. Lacedaemon was mentioned for the first time in the second Book of Iliad, in the so-called Catalogue of the Ships, verse 581, as the first city of the Kingdom of Menelaos in Lakonia – “Οι δ’ είχον κοίλην Λακεδαίμονα κητώεσσαν” (‘E de ichon kili Lacedaemon kitoesan’). Κοίλη (‘kili’) and κητώεσσα (‘kitoesan’) are the two traditional epithets steadily connected with Lacedaemon. ‘Κili’ means hollow, everybody agrees on that, but the epithet ‘kitoesan’ has been variously interpreted. It might refer either to its geological formation and identity – that it is full of ravines and subterranean caustic splits – or to its island nature, in this case abounded with κήτη (‘kiti’), sea monsters or big fish (dolphins, turtles, whales, seals etc.).
The Iliad by Homer.
Credit: BigStockPhoto
Taking for granted that in northern Lakonia there once existed a huge lake from the Pleiocene period, measuring 35 square kilometres, the epithet ‘kitoesan’ may well fit the geology of the site of Lacedaemon. The lake is now dry and contains big deposits of lignite layers, similar to those in the adjacent plain of Megalopolis. The date of dessication or draining of the lake in the area of mount Taygetos is of paramount importance for the history of Lacedaemon, its identity, and identification with Atlantis.
Plato, in Timaeus and Critias, describes Atlantis as an island in what he calls a ‘Pontos’, a word meaning Sea or Sea-lake (Timaius 24E Critias 113-114 B). The other geological and geographical coordinate of the area is the Πέλαγος (‘Pelagos’), erroneously interpreted by Atlantologists as ‘Ocean’. Pelagos in Greek signifies a large and extensive area, such as the Aegean Pelagos or the Ionian Pelagos. Pontos was the huge lake of Lacedaemon, Pelagos was the large and navigable river Eurotas.
The inhabitants of Atlantis, known by various names, like Hyperboreans, Phaeakes, Phoinikes, Atlantes, Minyans etc, were thought to live in a remote area, safe in their natural environment, reluctant to be visited by other people. There they lived a whole millenium, eternally young, and they were beloved to the Gods. Tyndareos, the father of Helen and the divine Twins Kastor and Polydeukes lived where Lakonia ended, very close to Arcadia - “εν τοις εσχάτοις της Λακεδαιμονίας” (‘En tis eshatis tis Lacedaemonias’).
We have reasons to suppose that the area of the lake was covered by small islands, some natural, others artificial, founded upon wooden tree trunks, taken from the densely forested mount Taygetos, an activity described by Plato in reference with the works of the Atlantians in the main island in the Pontos. The work and the plan may be paralleled with the miraculous achievements of the Venetians in the large Lagoon in the Adriatic. This “Civitas Serenissima” was built entirely upon wooden trunks and was composed of numerous islands, constructed densely to each other.
The city of Venice was built on wooden foundations.
Plato himself speaks of other islands, besides Atlantis, in the same Pontos. Atlantis lay at the eastern fringes of the sea, near the exit of the river, beyond the Pillars of Hercules and was surrounded by islands, which were approached from Atlantis both by sea and land (Timaeus: “εξ ης επιβατόν επί τας άλλας νήσους τοις τότε εγένετο πορευομένοις”). Plato seems to know well not only the geophysical conditions of the area of Lacedaemon, he also knew the geography of the island group and most probably the names of the islands, at least of some of them.
Taking that into consideration, we may come to the solution of the most difficult of the Platonic references to Atlantis, which is described by Plato as being larger than Asia and Libya together. What was known as ‘Asia’ and ‘Libya’ at the time were small islands in the lake of Lacedaemon, and we know that Asia and Libya were Laconian toponymics (see my book LACEDAEMON, volume II, p. 399 ff).
Accordingly, we fix one of the four points of agreement posed by Atlantologists. Plato’s trustworthines is strengthened by the reference in ‘The Odyssey’ that Ithaca, the original homeland of Odysseus, lay in a similar landscape. It is described as “χθαμαλή εν αλί, πανυπερτάτη προς ζόφον”, i.e. hollow and the most remote to North-West, though many other islands that were close to each other, lay to the East and South (“νήσοι πολλαί, μάλα σχεδόν αλλήλησιν”, Odyssey, book 9, 22-3).
Arethusa fountain old view, Ithaca island, Greece. Created by Provost, published on L'Illustration. Credit: BigStockPhoto
Odysseus, the Argonaut, was at home in Lacedaemon, where he acquired the famous composite-bow of Iphitos and it was not a mere coincidence that his descendant Telemachos came to Lacedaemon many years or centuries thereafter to visit Menelaos and Helen in order to be informed about his farther’s return to Ithaca.
Featured image: Artist’s depiction of Atlantis. Credit: BigStockPhoto
Indonesia’s 31,000-year-old Amputee Shatters the History of Surgery
Indonesia’s 31,000-year-old Amputee Shatters the History of Surgery
Archaeologists in Borneo, Indonesia have unearthed the skeleton of a man who was an amputee, and he underwent his complicated medical procedure some 31,000 years ago!
Until now, all archaeological evidence has suggested the first medical procedures began when humans started inhabiting agricultural settlements during the so-called Neolithic Revolution, which began around 10,000 years ago. Historians of human physiological development generally agree that having bodies designed to walk over 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) a day, for foraging, hunting and fishing, would have been subjected to multiple medical issues when farming began.
Archaeologists in China and Egypt have discovered ancient remains with signs of amputated toes and fingers, with one prosthetic toe dating back 3,000 years . And in 2016 StatNews reported on the discovery of a 6th-century-AD skeleton found in a Frankish Empire-era cemetery in Austria. With an “iron-and-wood prosthetic foot,” this amputee represented the oldest skeleton found in Europe with a prosthetic limb.
Now, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature, a team of researchers has identified the oldest evidence of an amputee surgery, in Borneo, dating way back to 29000 BC.
Liang Tebo burial features of the 29000 BC amputee of Borneo, Indonesia: a) A single adult inhumation (TB1); the skull is to the right of the scale bar; b) in situ nodule of red ochre (a natural earth pigment) next to the mandible; c) Maxilla and mandible. Scale bar, 5 centimeters or 2 inches.
The Assumption That Farming Led to Amputee Tech is False
When humans first turned to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, no matter where on the globe or what type of crops were being grown, the height, strength and general health of the people rapidly declined. This demonstrable fact has led to the widely-accepted assumption that the onset of farming also brought about the necessity of more advanced surgical procedures.
In this new study, however, lead researcher and author, Professor Tim Ryan Maloney of Griffith University, Australia demonstrates that the “assumption” couldn’t have been further from the truth. His new study on the discovery of a 31,000-year-old amputee in Borneo demonstrates the origins of surgery began in prehistoric times, way before farming.
Legacy of Borneo’s 31,000-year-old Amputee Surgeons
The new paper focuses on a discovery made in 2020 on the Sangkulirang–Mangkalihat Peninsula of East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Approximately 2.5 kilometers (15.53 miles) from the Marang River, a matrix of caves and rock shelters are peppered across the karst terrain. Excavations in the vast three-chambered Liang Tebo limestone cave revealed evidence of prehistoric human occupation, including rock art that was painted at least 40,000 years ago, representing some of the earliest rock art ever created.
In 2020, archaeologists dug a trench in which they discovered an adult skeleton (TB1) who had “the distal third of their left lower leg surgically amputated.” The scientists write in their paper that the amputation most probably occurred when the person was a child and that they lived for another 6–9 years after the operation. And dating to “at least 31,000 years ago” this find changes everything that was previously assumed about the origins of surgical procedures.
Surgically amputated site of the left tibia and fibula showing the evidence of amputation.
The Liang Tebo cave skeleton’s limb amputation suggests groups of modern humans foraging in Asia “had developed sophisticated medical knowledge and skills long before the Neolithic farming transition,” according to the new Nature study. The paper says the surgical amputation of TB1’s left lower leg 31,000 years ago “has important implications for our understanding of the evolution of pre-Holocene (the last 11,700 years) human medico-socio-cultural practices.” Until now, scientists generally assumed that complex surgical procedures like this were way beyond the capabilities of foraging cultures .
What is perhaps most interesting about this discovery is that until about 100 years ago in Western medicine, successful surgical amputations without antibiotics generally resulted in blood infections and often death. But in the 31,000-year-old case of TB1, the new study implies that “the Late Pleistocene ‘surgeon(s)’ who amputated this individual’s lower left leg must have possessed detailed knowledge “of limb anatomy and muscular and vascular systems to have prevented fatal blood loss and infection.”
Artist ‘s impression of Tebo1, the oldest amputee on record. The individual had their lower left leg amputated as a child and survived into early adulthood in an artistic community 31,000 years ago in Borneo, Indonesia.
Now that the “great assumption” about Neolithic tech has been shattered, some new assertions are being made based on the discovery of the 31,000-year-old amputee.
The ancient surgeons must have used plants (and perhaps maggots) to clean, dress and disinfect the man’s severed leg wound. They must also have administered some kind of pain relief while controlling their patient’s temperature, diet and recovery movements, to have prevented post-op infection.
Furthermore, the fact that the man recovered after the amputation in what is a very challenging karst stone terrain suggests a very caring community of people looked after him after the operation, and for the rest of his life.
The scientists concluded their paper by suggesting early human colonists in what are today the rainforests of Borneo were challenged by the warmer and much more humid climate. Experiencing an increase in wound infections the people responded by making rapid advances “in medical technology.” Thus, they must have developed new pharmaceuticals from the bountiful and biodiverse environment in which they lived as hunter-gatherers.
Top image:Left: Liang Tebo burial features of the 29000-BC amputee of Borneo, Indonesia: a) A single adult inhumation (TB1); the skull is to the right of the scale bar; Middle: Artist ‘s impression of Tebo1, the oldest amputee on record; Right: Surgically amputated site of the left tibia and fibula showing the evidence of amputation.
Source: Maloney, et al. / Nature; Jose Garcia ( Garciartist) and Griffith University / Nature; Maloney, et al. / Nature
MYTHISCH VERZONKEN EILANDENRIJK BIJ WALES BESTOND WELLICHT ECHT: OUDE LANDKAART KOMT OVEREEN MET BODEMVONDSTEN
MYTHISCH VERZONKEN EILANDENRIJK BIJ WALES BESTOND WELLICHT ECHT: OUDE LANDKAART KOMT OVEREEN MET BODEMVONDSTEN
Jeannette Kras
Verdwenen eilanden die in oude literatuur worden beschreven, spreken ook nu nog tot de verbeelding. Zo zijn er twee eilanden voor de westkust van Wales die op een belangrijke landkaart uit de Middeleeuwen zijn weergegeven en die opduiken in de lokale folklore en poëzie.
Het is heel aannemelijk dat deze eilanden echt hebben bestaan, maar door de zee zijn opgeslokt ergens rond de zestiende eeuw na Christus. Wetenschappers hebben nieuw bewijsmateriaal gevonden en dat aan elkaar gekoppeld. Daarmee wordt er meer bekend over de mogelijke evolutie van de kustlijn van West-Wales.
Op basis van geologische gegevens en een middeleeuwse landkaart maken onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Swansea en de Universiteit van Oxford een reconstructie van het ontstaan en de ondergang van de twee mythische eilanden die waarschijnlijk niet ver van de Britse kust af hebben gelegen en mogelijk generaties lang bewoond zijn door mensen. Er werd in de folklore gesproken over Cantre’r Gwaelod (‘The Lowland Hundred’), een gezonken koninkrijk.
De studie is geïnspireerd op de Gough Map, de oudste bewaard gebleven kaart van Groot-Brittannië. Deze bijzondere kaart vindt waarschijnlijk zijn oorsprong in de dertiende eeuw na Christus en wordt bewaard in de Bodleian Library van de Universiteit van Oxford.
Vergaan eilandrijk De middeleeuwse cartografen verantwoordelijk voor de Gough Map gingen uiterst zorgvuldig te werk. De kaart toont twee eilanden in Cardigan Bay in het westen van Wales, die niet meer bestaan. Elk eiland is afgebeeld op ongeveer een kwart van de grootte van het eiland Anglesey in Noord-Wales. De ene ligt tussen Aberystwyth en Aberdovey en de andere tussen Aberdovey en Barmouth in het noorden.
De studie, gepubliceerd in vakblad Atlantic Geoscience, onderzoekt cultuurhistorische bronnen en geologisch bewijs van de kustlijn en de zeebodem. Zo komen de wetenschappers tot een model van hoe de kust is geëvolueerd sinds de laatste ijstijd, die ongeveer tienduizend jaar geleden eindigde. Al met al biedt het team een plausibele verklaring voor de ‘verloren’ eilanden.
Gletsjerafzettingen en erosiekrachten De eilanden zouden de overblijfselen zijn geweest van laaggelegen land dat bedekt was met relatief zachte gletsjerafzettingen, die zijn ontstaan tijdens de laatste ijstijd. In de duizenden jaren daarna heeft erosie het land uitgesleten en bleven de eilanden over, waarna die rond de zestiende eeuw ook waren weggesleten en verdwenen.
Wanneer fijnere sedimenten van gletsjerafzettingen in de loop van de tijd door erosie verdwijnen, blijven het grovere grind en de keien op de zeebodem achter. De ligging van de eilanden valt samen met de locatie van onderzeese ophopingen van grind en keien, die lokaal ook wel ‘sarns’ worden genoemd.
Ptolemaeus “We weten dat de kust van West-Wales in de loop van de tijd aanzienlijk is veranderd. Bewijs van de Romeinse cartograaf Ptolemaeus suggereert dat de kustlijn tweeduizend jaar geleden misschien zo’n dertien kilometer verder in zee lag dan nu het geval is”, legt professor Simon Haslett van Swansea University uit. “De Gough Map is buitengewoon nauwkeurig als je bedenkt welke primitieve middelen de middeleeuwse cartografen slechts tot hun beschikking hadden. De makers hebben de twee eilanden duidelijk gemarkeerd op de landkaart.”
Eerste klimaatvluchtelingen “Dit onderzoek vergroot ons begrip van de mogelijke processen die langs de kust van Cardigan Bay plaatsvonden en die ertoe hebben geleid dat het er nu zo uitziet. Het kan ook helpen bij toekomstig onderzoek naar de postglaciale evolutie van vergelijkbare laaglanden in andere delen van Noordwest-Europa”, vertelt Haslett.
“Het begrijpen van de kustlijndynamiek is nog nooit zo belangrijk geweest. Sommige steden in het gebied dat we hebben bestudeerd, zijn extra kwetsbaar voor klimaatverandering. Het zou goed kunnen dat dit gaat leiden tot de eerste klimaatvluchtelingen in het Verenigd Koninkrijk”, aldus de onderzoeker.
The Lowland Hundred Onderzoeker professor David Willis van de Universiteit van Oxford voegt hier nog aan toe: “Ons bewijsmateriaal biedt een verklaring voor het ontstaan van het verhaal van Cantre’r Gwaelod (‘The Lowland Hundred’). Dit verloren land zou in een ver verleden verwoest zijn door een catastrofale overstroming. Er wordt in de middeleeuwse poëzie naar verwezen in het Black Book of Carmarthen en neemt ook in latere folklore een belangrijke plaats in.” Hoe bijzonder is het dat dit eilandenrijk niet alleen in sprookjes, maar wellicht ook in het echt heeft bestaan.
Human and Neanderthal brains were roughly the same size.
Credit: Adapted from Alamy
More than 500,000 years ago, the ancestors of Neanderthals and modern humans were migrating around the world when a fateful genetic mutation caused some of their brains to suddenly improve. This mutation, researchers report in Science1,2, dramatically increased the number of brain cells in the hominins that preceded modern humans, probably giving them a cognitive advantage over their Neanderthal cousins.
“This is a surprisingly important gene,” says Arnold Kriegstein, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco. However, he expects that it will turn out to be one of many genetic tweaks that gave humans an evolutionary advantage over other hominins. “I think it sheds a whole new light on human evolution.”
When researchers first fully sequenced a Neanderthal genome in 20143, they identified 96 amino acids — the building blocks that make up proteins — that differ between Neanderthals and modern humans in addition to a number of other genetic tweaks. Scientists have been studying this list to learn which of these helped modern humans to outcompete Neanderthals and other hominins.
Cognitive advantage
To neuroscientists Anneline Pinson and Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, one gene stood out. The gene, TKTL1, encodes a protein that is made when a fetus’s brain is first developing. A single genetic mutation in the human version of TKTL1 changed one amino acid, resulting in a protein that is different from those found in hominin ancestors, Neanderthals and non-human primates.
The team suspected that this protein could be driving neural progenitor cells — which develop into neurons — to proliferate as the brain develops, specifically in an area called the neocortex, which is involved in cognitive function. That, they reasoned, could be a contributor to modern humans’ cognitive advantage over human ancestors.
To test this, Pinson and her team inserted either the human or ancestral version of TKTL1 into the brains of mouse and ferret embryos. The animals with the human gene developed significantly more neural progenitor cells. When the researchers engineered neocortex cells from a human fetus to produce the ancestral version, they found that the fetal tissue produced fewer progenitor cells and fewer neurons than it normally would. The same was true when they inserted the ancestral version of TKTL1 into brain organoids — mini-brain-like structures grown from human stem cells.
Brain size
Fossil records suggest that human and Neanderthal brains were roughly the same size, meaning that the neocortices of modern humans are either denser or take up a larger portion of the brain. Huttner and Pinson say that they were surprised that such a small genetic change could affect neocortex development so drastically. “It was a coincidental mutation that had enormous consequences,” Huttner says.
Neuroscientist Alysson Muotri at the University of California, San Diego, is more sceptical. He points out that different cell lines behave differently when made into organoids and would like to see the ancestral version of TKTL1 tested in more human cells. Furthermore, he says, the original Neanderthal genome was compared with that of a modern European — human populations in other parts of the world might share some genetic variants with Neanderthals.
Pinson says that the Neanderthal version of TKTL1 is very rare among modern humans, adding that it’s unknown whether it causes any disease or cognitive differences. The only way to prove that it has a role in cognitive function, Huttner says, would be to genetically engineer mice or ferrets that always have the human form of the gene and test their behaviour compared with animals that have the ancestral version. Pinson says she is now planning to look further into the mechanisms through which TKTKL1 drives the birth of brain cells.
Most Mysterious Recent Archaeological Finds Scientists Still Can't Explain
Most Mysterious Recent Archaeological Finds Scientists Still Can't Explain
Archaeologists put in relentless efforts to discover new historically significant sites and artifacts every single day. The discovery of such sites is always a remarkable achievement but the next job for archaeologists commences here onward as they have to explain its purpose, importance and history. It is not an easy job for them as well as other experts working with them in related fields. At times they get stuck in pursuing an answer to certain questions and they may not be successful for quite a long time. Resultant, certain archaeological sites and artifacts remain unexplained. This means there are several recent discoveries which are still without any logical explanation
The Black Pyramid of Ukraine & Other Lesser-Known Ancient Constructions. Zohar Stargate 9-1-2022
The Black Pyramid of Ukraine & Other Lesser-Known Ancient Constructions. Zohar Stargate 9-1-2022
The Black Pyramid of Ukraine & Other Lesser-Known Ancient Constructions. Zohar Stargate 9-1-2022
9,610 views
Premiered 15 hours ago
It is claimed that the remains of an ancient pyramid structure can be found in Ukraine. Efforts to research the site, however, have allegedly been thwarted by strange entities who have forced investigators to turn back. Here we digdeeper…
August 10 612 BC: Nineveh, the Largest City in the World, Fell
August 10 612 BC: Nineveh, the Largest City in the World, Fell
On this day, 2,632 years ago, the ancient metropolis of Nineveh fell. “ ABC 3” is a historiographical text from ancient Babyloniawhich records August 10th 612 BC as the date of this dramatic occurrence. At that time, Nineveh was the largest city in the world and the capital of Assyria. This all came to an abrupt end when Nabopolassar, the Chaldean king of Babylonia and a central figure in the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, siezed Nineveh. This marked what historians know as one of the most shocking events in ancient history: The “First” Fall of Nineveh. The “second” Fall of Nineveh occurred in 2015 with more destruction by ISIS.
The Discovery of Nineveh: A Unparalleled Archaeological Find
Ancient Mesopotamia was a cradle of civilization in the northern part of western Asia’s Fertile Crescent, corresponding to modern Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and areas along the Turkish–Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. In 1839, Paul-Émile Botta of France excavated a series of mounds in the Iraqi desert that led to the incredible discovery of Nineveh, the vast ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia located on the outskirts of modern-day Mosul in northern Iraq.
This discovery in mid-19th-century Europe was truly amazing, because it meant that at least one of the ancient cities and cultures mentioned in the Bible actually existed. This gave the Holy Bible a breath of newfound esteem at a time when scientists were demanding the empirical testing of supernatural claims, replacing time worn myths with logic and reason. The discovery of ancient Nineveh changed everything.
Ancient Nineveh: A Royal City Envied Far And Wide
The Assyrian Empire started to become unstable after the death of King Aššurbanipal in 631 BC when the Babylonians ended their independence. Around 627 AD the Babylonian general Nabopolassar defeated the Assyrians in a battle near Babylon and became king, marking the beginning of the Babylonian Empire which lasted until Nineveh was captured by the Persian Cyrus the Great in October 539 AD.
Assyrian military campaign in southern Mesopotamia, 640-620 BC, from an alabaster bas-relief located in the South-West Palace at Nineveh.
(Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin / CC BY-SA 4.0)
Although he had liberated Babylonia, Nabopolassar also wanted destroy its capital cities including the religious center at Aššur, the first Assyrian city, and the administrative center at Nineveh. To prevent this, which would have caused a major shift of power in the Near East, the Egyptians offered military support to Assyria. The Fall of Nineveh Chronicle says that on 25 July 616 AD Nabopolassar defeated an Assyrian force on the banks of the Euphrates to the south of Harran. However, soon after he retreated when an Egyptian army closed on his forces. By at the end of the following year, the Medes, a tribal federation living in modern Iran, seized the moment, amidst all the unrest, and had took control of Nineveh.
This image, taken in April 2017 during a UNESCO mission to Nineveh, which was heavily destroyed and excavated by ISIS in the "second" Fall of Nineveh in 2015.
Nabopolassar tactfully signed a treaty with the Medes king Umakištar (Cyaxares). The Babylonian crown prince Nabû-kudurru-usur (Nebuchadnezzar) is said to have married Amytis, who many historians hold to have been the daughter of Cyaxares' son Astyages. The joint Medes-Babylonian army invaded Nineveh in May 612 AD the city finally fell in July. According to an article on Livius after the suicide of King Sin-šar-iškun, “the looting of Nineveh continued until 10 August, when the Medes finally went home,” and that the fall of Nineveh “shocked the ancient world.” From distant Greece, the poet Phocylides of Miletus reported of the destruction of this ancient city.
ISIS soldiers in the Museum of Mosul destroying ancient Nineveh artifacts with sledgehammers in 2015.
2015: The “Second” Fall of Nineveh By ISIS Destruction
While Nineveh fell for the first time over 2500 years ago, destruction of the ancient city continued in 2015 when a priceless Assyrian winged bull was demolished at the Nineveh site. An article in The Guardian discussing the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) described the destruction as a “war crime.” At the same time, the terrorist organization attempted to attract a sympathetic audience to gain new recruits in their homeland, while provoking reactions in the West.
A 2015 Aljazeera video shows the destruction of several 7th century artifacts from Nineveh on February 26 2015, when ISIS publicly destroyed the Mosul Museum. Many other artifacts were stolen and put up for sale in foreign markets. However in 2019, the BBC announced that since Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul in 2017, part of the Mosul Museum has been restored and reopened to exhibit contemporary art, while the rest of the museum remains closed “to protect what is left,” said the museum director. If the first Fall of Nineveh was incredible, the second fall of Nineveh was both tragic and disturbing.
Top image: Assyrian soldiers carry beheaded heads of their prisoners as depicted on a wall in the South-West Palace at Nineveh, during the “First” Fall of Neneveh.
Greek Goddess Rhea: Mother of the Gods & Queen of the Titans
Woman and lion drawing, representative of Rhea.
Source: jozefklopacka/ Adobe Stock
Greek Goddess Rhea: Mother of the Gods & Queen of the Titans
Rhea is one of the most important ancient Greek gods. Although a Titan, she was responsible for both the birth and survival of the most famous Greek Gods such as Zeus and Hera. However, today while people with even a passing knowledge of Greek mythology know many Greek gods’ names, Rhea rarely gets the respect she deserves. Learn more about Rhea, Mother of the Gods, and Queen of the Titans.
Rhea in Mythology
Most major Greek gods have long and complicated histories. Most of the Titans on the other hand do not; they’re usually little more than narrative devices used to introduce more important gods. Rhea is interesting because she sits somewhere in between. She plays an important enough role to receive more characterization than the other Titans, but she doesn’t appear in many myths.
The family tree of the gods is a complicated and incredibly incestuous one. Greek mythology begins with the two primordial parents, Uranus and Gaia. Uranus represented the sky while Gaia represented the Earth. Greek mythology gets incredibly complicated, with different ancient historians and poets giving different takes on the same old tales. For the sake of simplicity, we will focus on Hesiod’s telling, naming other versions where and when applicable.
Uranus and Gaia (depending on the version) had quite a few children together. The most important were the 12 (or 13) Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Cronus and the Titanides- Theia, Rhea, Thermos, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys.
In addition to the Titans, they had various monsters together, such as the Cyclopes, the Hecatoncheires (three massive 50-headed, hundred-handed giants), giants, Meliae (nymphs), and the Erinyes (also known as the Furies, female gods of vengeance).
In the most common versions of the myth, such as Hesiod’s, Uranus feared his children would rise up against him, and so he imprisoned them. Uranus was right to be worried. As soon as he came of age, his youngest son, Cronus, rebelled, and overthrew Uranus with the help of his mother.
In doing so, he became king of Titans and freed his siblings. To celebrate, Cronus married his sister, Rhea. Rhea and Cronus would go on to have an infamously antagonistic marriage.
Thus followed the age of the Titans. The Titans were the gods prior to the Olympians, and ruled over land, sea, and sky together. Of all the Titans, Cronus and Rhea were the most important. Despite being brother and sister, they had children, and Rhea gave birth to the first Olympians: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera.
This was not a happy coupling though. Both Gaia and Uranus warned Cronus that history would repeat itself. He would be overthrown by his children, like his father before him. Knowing from his own history that simply imprisoning his children was no guarantee of safety, Cronus opted for eating his offspring instead.
Perhaps unsurprisingly Rhea did not take well to Cronus devouring her babies. Rhea teamed up with both Gaia and Uranus to hatch a plan to save the youngest child, Zeus. Rhea fled and gave birth to Zeus in a cave on the island of Crete. She then tricked Cronus with a rock wrapped in swaddling, which he quickly gobbled up.
Rhea hid her favorite son in a cave on Mount Ida, one of the two Greek sacred mountains. There, he was protected by the Kouretes and the Dactyls, two warrior races who worshipped the Titans. Zeus would later grow up and start the Titanomachy, the ten-year war between the Olympian gods and the Titans.
Aside from her role in raising Zeus, there are two other pre-Titanomachy myths that involve Cronus and Rhea. The first takes part while Zeus was still hidden away in Crete.
In this story, Rhea caught Cronus enjoying some time with his mistress Philyra (an Oceanid). Upon being discovered, Cronus panicked, transformed into a horse, and fled. His transformation into a horse in mid-coitus caused Philya to give birth to Chiron, usually mentioned as the first and greatest centaur.
The second myth focused on Rhea and Cronus is a story of married Greek gods actually working together for a change. In this story, the children of Oceanus take control of Mount Olympus at an early age and start to rule as the first gods. Cronus and Rhea can’t abide by this and decide to fight them. Ultimately, they throw them back into the ocean they came from. In this myth, Rhea is portrayed as a skilled wrestler.
Rhea after the Titanomachy
The Titanomachy ends with Zeus hurling his mighty lightning bolt at the Titans, defeating them and sending them plummeting into Tartarus (the part of the underworld saved for the wicked). However, it has never been clear exactly which Titans ended up in Tartarus besides Cronus.
Of the male Titans, it seems Oceanus remained free because he had helped the Olympians in their fight. It also seems apparent that the female Titans were allowed to remain free.
Rhea certainly remained free following the Titanomachy, since she crops up in several different myths. She is usually portrayed as having a somewhat antagonistic relationship with Zeus’ wife, her daughter Hera. Rhea had a habit of turning up to save her grandchildren.
Apollo was the bastard son of Zeus and Leto (Zeus’s previous wife and/or mistress). Hera, the goddess of childbirth, refused to attend Apollo’s birth out of jealousy/ spite, leaving Leto in agony. Rhea chose to attend the birth in Hera’s stead. As the original goddess of motherhood, Rhea’s presence eased Leto’s suffering.
Later, Dionysus (another bastard son of Zeus) was inflicted with madness by the spiteful Hera. When Dionysus’s mother died, Rhea took him under her wing and raised him. She later cured his madness and gifted him an amethyst that prevented drunkenness.
Rhea also made an important appearance in the story of Hades and Persephone. In most versions of the story, such as the Homeric Hymns, it is Rhea who visited Demeter after Persephone's kidnapping and persuaded her to meet with the Olympians to find a solution.
However, in one Orphic version of the myth, Rhea’s role was much more unpleasant. In this version, Zeus wished to marry his mother. Rhea refused his incestuous advances and transformed into a snake to escape him. This did little to deter Zeus, who responded by also taking the form of a serpent and raping his mother. Persephone is the result of this rape.
According to the Orphic myth, after Persephone’s birth, Rhea transformed and became Demeter. It could be that this version of the myth is an attempt to explain Rhea’s decreased prominence in Greek mythology after a certain point.
Etymology of the name Rhea
No one is entirely sure where the name Rhea comes from, but there are several popular theories. Some ancient etymologists believed Rhea came from the old Greek words for ground or earth. Some modern scholars have also supported this theory, pointing to the traditional connection between the portrayal of mother gods and the earth.
Other Greeks, such as Plato, pointed towards a different origin word for Rhea. Plato claimed Rhea was the feminine version of the Greek word rheō, for flow, discharge, or stream. The thought process here was that women sustain their babies through the flow of breast milk and experience the flow of blood during the menstrual cycle.
We will likely never know for certain the true etymology. Most modern etymologists support the flow theory, which is the one put forward in A Greek-English Lexicon .
Rhea and her Historical Twin Cybele
Ancient civilizations had a habit of adopting and/or bastardizing each other’s’ gods and mythology. As these civilizations interacted, they would take aspects of the religions they liked and incorporate them into their own.
Cybele is a prime example of this. Once her own entity, originating from Anatolia, by the 4th century BC, Rhea and Cybele's names were being used interchangeably in Greek literature and worship. As such, the attributes and depictions of the two goddesses became almost completely indistinguishable.
Both are usually depicted as wearing a tall crown or veil and sitting on a throne, surrounded by lions. When not sitting on a throne they are usually either riding a lion or on a chariot drawn by lions. Although both are depicted as mother gods, there are two important differences.
First, in her own mythology, Cybele was the Phrygian Great Mother, a universal mother. Rhea, on the other hand, was only ever portrayed as the mother of gods, not a universal mother. The Greeks had other mother deities on top of Rhea, like Gaia, Hera, and Demeter.
Second, their origins are very different. Cybele started her life as a hermaphrodite god called Agdistis. The other Phrygian gods feared Agdistis and cut off their male genitalia, creating the female mother god Cybele. The severed genitalia then grows into a beautiful young man from Phrygia named Agdistis. Cybele fell in love with Agdistis, but he was unfaithful so she drove him mad, causing him to castrate himself.
Although Cybele and Rhea are often closely linked, no part of Cybele’s hermaphrodite origin or love story with Agdistis ever made it into Rhea’s mythology. As time went on people simply tended to forget Cybele’s unique history, and she became synonymous with Rhea.
The Cult of Rhea
In general, the Titans didn’t get their own cults in ancient Greece and were not worshipped. They simply functioned as a genealogical origin story for the Olympian gods, whom the Greeks did worship. Rhea, however, is slightly different. Although she does not appear to have had a strong cult of her own, she does appear to have been worshipped, especially early on.
Rhea was first worshipped in Crete, the site of Zeus’ birth. Her worship here was loud, raucous, and rhythmic. Worshippers would dance to the sound of the tympanon (a large drum) to provoke religious ecstasy. The loud and energetic worship of Rhea is often connected to her role in raising Dionysus, whose worshippers were similarly enthusiastic.
The Greeks often called Rhea the “Mother of Gods” or Meter Theon . Several temples in ancient Greece appear to have been dedicated to Meter Theon . A Greek traveler and geographer from the second century AD named Pausanias mentioned temples located in Attika, Arkadia, Corinth, Olympia, and Athens dedicated to her. Besides her own temples, her role in birthing and then protecting the Olympians meant that statues of her often stood in the sanctuaries of other gods.
Conclusion
Rhea’s importance to Greek mythology cannot be underestimated. She played a major role not just in the birthing of the Olympian gods but also in the Titanomachy and the overthrow of the old gods. Next to Cronus, she is also one of the very few Titans who actually received any characterization and appears to have been the only Titan with her own loyal worshippers.
Rhea is also a rare example of positive female representation in Greek mythology. She is portrayed as the ultimate mother, betraying her cruel spouse to ensure the survival of her children. Hera the Olympian mother god is often portrayed as being cruel and jealous; however, Rhea is never portrayed in that way. Rhea repeatedly comes to the aid of the grandchildren that Hera seeks to punish.
Rhea truly deserved her name Meter Theo , Mother of the Gods.
Top image: Woman and lion drawing, representative of Rhea.
Study Shows Humans and Neanderthals Interbred Primarily in the Near East
Study Shows Humans and Neanderthals Interbred Primarily in the Near East
Study Shows Humans and Neanderthals Interbred Primarily in the Near East
Multiple research projects have proven that Neanderthal DNA can be found in the genome of modern humans. This likely happened as a result of many interbreeding events that took place in the various locations where Neanderthals and early modern humans shared resources and living space. But researchers tracing the twisting pathways of human evolution don’t have to rely exclusively on genetic studies to learn about interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Anatomical studies of prehistoric skeletal remains can also disclose valuable information about this fascinating aspect of human genetic history, as has now been demonstrated by a new study just published in the journal Biology.
In this innovative research project, a team of geneticists and anthropologists from North Carolina State and Duke Universities in the United States and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa analyzed the facial structure of more than 300 modern human and Neanderthal skulls, which had been recovered from different locations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. The purpose of the analysis was to search for signs of Neanderthal influence on human facial anatomy, which would result from interbreeding events.
Some of the ancient skulls did in fact show evidence of human and Neanderthal interbreeding. The cumulative results of this anatomical comparative analysis suggest that much of the interbreeding took place in the Near East, a region ranging from North Africa eastward to Iraq. This sharing of genetic material would have occurred between approximately 50,000 and 40,000 years ago, when Paleolithic-era (Old Stone Age) modern humans lived at the same time as and in some of the same regions as the Neanderthals.
How Interbreeding Evolution is Reflected in the Face
"Ancient DNA caused a revolution in how we think about human evolution," Steven Churchill, co-author of the new study and a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, explained in a North Carolina State University press release announcing the results of the comparative facial structure study. "We often think of evolution as branches on a tree, and researchers have spent a lot of time trying to trace back the path that led to us, Homo sapiens . But we're now beginning to understand that it isn't a tree—it's more like a series of streams that converge and diverge at multiple points."
In this instance, the “multiple points” referenced would be marked by both place and time. The migratory movements of both early modern humans and Neanderthals would have determined when and where the convergences took place, and consequently when and where the possibilities for interbreeding were most abundant.
"The picture is really complicated,"Churchill explained."Modern Asian populations seem to have more Neanderthal DNA than modern European populations, which is weird because Neanderthals lived in what is now Europe. That has suggested that Neanderthals interbred with what are now modern humans as our prehistoric ancestors left Africa, but before spreading to Asia. Our goal with this study was to see what additional light we could shed on this by assessing the facial structure of prehistoric humans and Neanderthals."
At the species level, changes in facial morphology (facial shape and development) can be a reflection of changes in genetic makeup. Both types of changes occurred as a result of early modern humans and Neanderthals interbreeding .
Map of western Eurasia showing areas and estimated dates of possible Neandertal–modern human hybridization (in red) based on fossil samples from indicated sites.
"By evaluating facial morphology, we can trace how populations moved and interacted over time,"noted Ann Ross, a professor of biology from North Carolina State University and another co-author of the new study."And the evidence shows us that the Near East was an important crossroads, both geographically and in the context of human evolution ."
The scientists used data on cranial and facial morphology obtained from the recovered remains of 233 prehistoric (early modern) humans, 83 modern humans, and 13 Neanderthals. They compared measurements taken from similar facial structural features, to see if signs of interbreeding were evident. Other factors that might have caused changes in facial features were accounted for, to make sure that any revealing features identified could be definitively linked to Paleolithic-era interbreeding.
"We found that the facial characteristics we focused on were not strongly influenced by climate, which made it easier to identify likely genetic influences,"Ross said. "We also found that facial shape was a more useful variable for tracking the influence of Neanderthal interbreeding in human populations over time. Neanderthals were just bigger than humans. Over time, the size of human faces became smaller, generations after they had bred with Neanderthals. But the actual shape of some facial features retained evidence of interbreeding with Neanderthals."
The researchers weren’t sure if their anatomical comparisons would produce significant results. But their study revealed many clear links, which were especially notable in skeletons that had been collected in the Near East region where Asia, Africa, and Europe converge. This would have been a crossroads for early modern humans leaving Africa, regardless of what direction they were heading. If they bred with Neanderthals in the region, they could have later carried Neanderthal DNA to other parts of the world, such as Asia, where humans carrying Neanderthal genetic materials have been found.
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal woman’s face but reconstructions are not enough; we need more skulls from prehistory to determine more about primary Neanderthal-Sapiens’ interbreeding sites.
The researchers do acknowledge some limitations in the scope of their study. Their comparison included just six variables, reflecting the overall size and shape of the face and the shape of the eye socket and nasal openings. Also, only a relatively small number of the skulls studied showed obvious indications of a Neanderthal genetic influence, and many that did were from individuals who’d lived long after the proposed Neanderthal-modern human breeding events.
Nevertheless, the researchers believe their study “shows the utility of analyzing facial morphology for the information it may contain about population relationships and potential Neanderthal–modern human interbreeding.”
In two cases it was clear the samples they examined were either intermediate between Neanderthals and modern humans or emerged from an evolutionary branch that included both early modern humans and Neanderthals. One of these represented Middle Paleolithic early modern humans from the Near East, while the other represented early modern humans who lived in the Upper Paleolithic period in the Near East and Northeast Africa.
“While caution should be used in interpreting the results of analyses based on small sample sizes, these results could be considered consistent with the Near East being a substantial locus of Neanderthal–modern human hybridization,” the authors stated in their Biology journal study.
The scientists hope to address the small sample size issue in subsequent research. "To build on this, we'd like to incorporate measurements from more human populations, such as the Natufians, who lived more than 11,000 years ago on the Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Jordan and Syria," Churchill said.
Additional research certainly won’t disprove the new findings that identify the Paleolithic Near East as a key early modern human-Neanderthal interaction point. But they could provide additional evidence that will reveal more detailed information about the specifics of various interbreeding events.
Top image: Neanderthals or Homo Sapiens or both cooking animal meat over a bonfire, and the latest study shows the greatest Neanderthal and Homo sapiens interbreeding occurred in the Paleolithic Near East.
It's a question that's been thrown up by a mysterious gigantic rock there - that looks like it's been cut in half by a laser beam.
One geologist says that the split could have been caused by ‘freeze thaw’ weathering, but others say the split is too precise and smooth to have natural causes.
The Al Naslaa rock formation, pictured, has become a popular tourist attraction thanks to its unusual split
The baffling sandstone boulder - the Al Naslaa rock formation - sits in Saudi Arabia's arid Tayma oasis and has, not surprisingly, become a popular photo opportunity, along with being a hot topic of debate on the internet.
It is approximately 30ft (9m) tall and 25ft (7.6m) wide, and it has been embellished with a petroglyph - a rock carving made using a chisel and a hammerstone - of what appears to be a man and a horse.
However, it was the rock formation's defining feature - its split - that has sparked fierce debate.
On Reddit, one user, 'El_Hombre_Siniestro', said: 'I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.'
'Definitely aliens', agreed another, named Mrkim420.
One user speculated that the divide was created when an alien messed 'with a super laser pointer on some random planet their species found and accidentally cut a rock in half'.
A second theory suggests ancient civilisations were more advanced than previously thought. One YouTube video speculates that the formation is evidence of early 'high technology'.
In the same vein, user Ricopantalones wrote in the online forum: 'Why do we attribute aliens? There are mountains of evidence that state ancient technology was at a level significantly advanced from where we think it was. We are not on the first upward curve of technology in society. We are more likely on the second.'
Another compared the formation to the pyramids of ancient Egypt, which were constructed some 4,500 years ago. User NicholasPileggi claimed the split was carved in 'the same way they cut the blocks for the pyramids - a rope and sand'.
User Borg2 theorised that the slit was crafted by someone with 'a saw and lots of patience'. A few Star Wars references were also thrown into the mix, with one Reddit user wondering whether the rock was chopped in two by 'someone testing a lightsaber'.
Bringing these theories back down to earth, geologist Cherry Lewis tells MailOnline Travel the split may simply be the work of Mother Nature.
Geologist Cherry Lewis says the smooth front surface of the rock formation may have been created by a 'sandblasting effect'
Lewis, who is an honorary research fellow at the University of Bristol, describes the unusual formation as a 'remarkable sight'. She says: 'It [the split] could have formed due to a process called "freeze-thaw" weathering, which occurs when water gets into a small crack in the rock. As temperatures drop, the water freezes and expands which causes the crack to widen and lengthen.
'As the ice melts, water makes its way deeper and deeper into the crack. The process repeats itself over thousands, or even millions, of years until the rock eventually splits. This process, coupled with wind erosion - which, in a desert environment, is like sandblasting - could also explain why the boulder is standing on its own like that.'
Lewis says the 'sandblasting effect could also have created the smooth front surface if that faces the prevailing wind'.
Given that past civilisations created Stone Henge and the sculptures on Easter Island with the most basic of tools, it doesn't seem out of the question that it could be man-made
Geologist Cherry Lewis
While weathering and erosion could be to blame, Lewis agrees there may be truth to the theory the rock was painstakingly sliced by humans. She says: 'Given that past civilisations created Stone Henge and the sculptures on Easter Island with the most basic of tools, it doesn't seem out of the question that it could be man-made.'
Her verdict? 'On first appearance, the crack looks man-made, as does the very smooth front surface, but I see a photo that shows a parallel crack on the back, so it is possibly natural.'
Geologist and geophysicist Professor Tim Reston of the University of Birmingham also shared his thoughts on the strange formation.
He tells MailOnline Travel the split is 'probably a joint, which is a natural fracture in the rock typically caused by pressure release and expansion, formed when the rock layer was more continuous, and now left exposed by erosion of the surroundings'.
Reston adds: 'If [it is] a joint it might have beautiful "plumose" structures on both sides of the crack - they look like feathers - unless these have been widened by wind erosion.'
The rock formation is an eight-hour drive from Riyadh, and it can be accessed by car. Archaeological digs in the area have uncovered flint that dates back to the 4th millennium BCE. Rich in history, Tayma was the residence of the Babylonian king Nabonidus in the mid-6th century BCE. The oasis, which featured on the trade route from modern-day Medina to al-Jawf, subsequently became a popular spot for traders.
The stretch of desert was mapped by Charles M Doughty in 1877 - he described his visit to the Tayma oasis in his 1888 book Travels In Arabia Deserta. The area later attracted French explorer Charles Huber, who visited the site in 1883.
The “Al-Naslaa” rock in Tayma oasis of Saudi Arabia looks like it’s been cut in half perfectly with a laser technology. The rock is over 4,000 years old, and no one knows how it happened.
How could we really know if industrial civilizations existed on Earth long before human beings appeared? That is the question posed in a scientific thought experiment by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt and astrophysicist Adam Frank. Credit: Michael Osadciw University of Rochester
One of the creepier conclusions drawn by scientists studying the Anthropocene—the proposed epoch of Earth’s geologic history in which humankind’s activities dominate the globe—is how closely today’s industrially induced climate change resembles conditions seen in past periods of rapid temperature rise.
“These ‘hyperthermals,’ the thermal-maximum events of prehistory, are the genesis of this research,” says Gavin Schmidt, climate modeler and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Whether the warming was caused by humans or by natural forces, the fingerprints—the chemical signals and tracers that give evidence of what happened then—look very similar.”
The canonical example of a hyperthermal is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 200,000-year period that occurred some 55.5 million years ago when global average temperatures rose by five to eight degrees Celsius (nine to 14 degrees Fahrenheit). Schmidt has pondered the PETM for his entire career, and it was on his mind one day in 2017 when University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank paid him a visit.
Frank came to his office to discuss the idea of studying global warming from an “astrobiological perspective”—that is, investigating whether the rise of an alien industrial civilization on an exoplanet might necessarily trigger climate changes similar to those we see during Earth’s own Anthropocene. But almost before Frank could describe how one might search for the climatic effects of industrial “exocivilizations” on newly discovered planets, Schmidt caught him up short with a surprising question: “How do you know we’re the only time there’s been a civilization on our own planet?“
Frank considered a moment before responding with a question of his own: “Could we even tell if there had been an industrial civilization [long before this one]?“
Their subsequent attempt to address both questions yielded a provocative paper on the possibility that Earth might have spawned more than one technological society during its 4.5-billion-year history. And if indeed some such culture arose on Earth in the murky depths of geologic time, how might scientists today discern signs of that incredible development? Or, as they put it in the paper: “If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today?“
Schmidt and Frank began by forecasting the geologic fingerprints the Anthropocene is likely to leave behind—such as hints of soaring temperatures and rising seas laid down in beds of sedimentary rock. These features, they noted, are very similar to the geologic leftovers of the PETM and other hyperthermal events. They then considered what tests could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from otherwise naturally occurring climate changes. “These issues have never really been addressed to any great extent,” Schmidt notes. And that goes not only for scientists but evidently for science-fiction writers as well, he adds: “I looked back into the science-fiction literature to try to find the earliest example of a story featuring a nonhuman industrial civilization on Earth. The earliest I could find was in a Doctor Who episode.“
That 1970 episode of the classic TV series involves the present-day discovery of “Silurians”—an ancient race of technologically advanced, reptilian humanoids who predated the arrival of humans by hundreds of millions of years. According to the plot, these highly civilized saurians flourished for centuries until Earth’s atmosphere entered a period of cataclysmic upheaval that forced Homo reptilia to go into hibernation underground to wait out the danger. Schmidt and Frank paid tribute to the episode in the title of their paper: “The Silurian Hypothesis.”
LOST IN STRATA
Any plausibility of the Silurian hypothesis stems chiefly from the vast incompleteness of the geologic record, which only gets sparser the further back in time you go.
Today less than 3 percent of Earth’s surface is urbanized, and the chance that any of our great cities would remain over tens of millions of years is vanishingly low, says geologist Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester in England. A metropolis’s ultimate fate, he notes, mostly depends on whether the surrounding surface is subsiding (to be locked in rock) or rising (to be eroded away by rain and wind). “New Orleans is sinking; San Francisco is rising,” he says. The French Quarter, it seems, has much better chances of entering the geologic record than Haight-Ashbury.
“To estimate the odds of finding artifacts,” Schmidt says, “the back-of-the-envelope calculation for dinosaur fossils says that one fossil emerges every 10,000 years.” Dinosaur footprints are rarer still.
“After a couple of million years,” Frank says, “the chances are that any physical reminder of your civilization has vanished, so you have to search for things like sedimentary anomalies or isotopic ratios that look off.” The shadows of many prehuman civilizations could, in principle, lurk hidden in such subtleties.
But exactly what we would look for depends to some degree on how an Earthly but alien technological culture would choose to behave. Schmidt and Frank decided the safest assumption to make would be that any industrial civilization now or hundreds of millions of years ago should be hungry for energy. That means any ancient industrial society would have developed the capacity to widely exploit fossil fuels and other power sources, just as we did. “We’d be looking for globalized effects that would leave a worldwide trace”—planetary-scale physical-chemical tracers of energy-intensive industrial processes and their wastes, Schmidt says.
Next comes the issue of longevity—the longer a civilization’s energy-intensive period persists and the more its demands increase, the more obvious its presence should become in the geologic record. Consider our own industrial age, which has existed for only about 300 years out of a multimillion-year history of humanity. Now compare that minuscule slice of time with the half a billion years or so that creatures have lived on land. Humanity’s present rapacious phase of fossil-fuel use and environmental degradation, Frank says, is unsustainable for long periods. In time, it will diminish either by human choice or by the force of nature, making the Anthropocene less of an enduring era and more of a blip in the geologic record. “Maybe [civilizations like ours] have happened multiple times, but if they each only last 300 years, no one would ever see them,” Frank says.
Taking all this into consideration, what remains is a menu of diffuse long-lived tracers including fossil-fuel combustion residues (carbon, primarily), evidence of mass extinctions, plastic pollutants, synthetic chemical compounds not found in nature and even transuranic isotopes from nuclear fission. In other words, what we would need to look for in the geologic record are the same distinctive signals that humans are laying down right now.
SIGNS OF CIVILIZATION
Finding signs of an altered carbon cycle would be one big clue to previous industrial periods, Schmidt says. “Since the mid-18th century, humans have released half a trillion tons of fossil carbon at high rates. Such changes are detectable in changes in the carbon isotope ratio between biological and inorganic carbon—that is, between the carbon incorporated into things like seashells and that which goes instead into lifeless volcanic rock.”
Another tracer would be distinctive patterns of sediment deposition. Large coastal deltas would hint at boosted levels of erosion and rivers (or engineered canals) swollen from increased rainfall. Telltale traces of nitrogen in the sediments could suggest the widespread use of fertilizer, fingering industrial-scale agriculture as a possible culprit; spikes in metal levels in the sediments might instead point to runoff from manufacturing and other heavy industry.
More unique, specific tracers would be nonnaturally occurring, stable synthetic molecules such as steroids and many plastics, along with well-known pollutants, including polychlorinated biphenyls (toxic chemical compounds from electrical devices) and chlorofluorocarbons (ozone-eating molecules from refrigerators and aerosol sprays).
The key strategy in distinguishing the presence of industry from nature, Schmidt notes, is developing a multifactor signature. Absent artifacts or convincingly clear markers, the uniqueness of an event may well be seen in many relatively independent fingerprints as opposed to the coherent set of changes that are seen to be associated with a single geophysical cause.
“I find it amazing that no one had worked all this out before, and I’m really glad that somebody has taken a closer look at it,” says Pennsylvania State University astronomer Jason Wright, who in 2017 published “a fluffy little paper” exploring the counterintuitive notion that the best place to find evidence of any of Earth’s putative prehuman civilizations may well be off-world. If, for instance, dinosaurs built interplanetary rockets, presumably some remnants of that activity might remain preserved in stable orbits or on the surfaces of more geologically inert celestial bodies such as the moon.
“Look, 200 years ago the question of whether there might be a civilization on Mars was a legitimate one,” Wright says. “But once the pictures came out from interplanetary probes, that was settled for good. And that view became ingrained, so now it’s not a valid topic for scientific inquiry; it’s considered ridiculous. But no one’s ever put the actual scientific limits on it—on what may have happened a long time ago.”
Wright also acknowledges the potential for this work to be misinterpreted. “Of course, no matter what, this is going to be interpreted as ‘Astronomers Say Silurians Might Have Existed,’ even though the premise of this work is that there is no such evidence,” he says. “Then again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Could There Be a Civilization Prior to Ours in the Solar System?
Could There Be a Civilization Prior to Ours in the Solar System?
Scientists raise the possibility that a technological species may have existed somewhere in our Solar System before we occupy Terra.
One of the most difficult questions for Astrobiology is whether there are, somewhere in our Solar System, remnants of some extinct form of life. Some scientists like astrophysicist Jason Wright of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds even consider that a technological species may have existed in our planetary system at a time before the appearance of humans on Earth.
In 2016, Wright published an article discussing where the best place would be to look for the technological signs left behind by this civilization. Other astronomers, however, have suggested searching for “beacons” in Kuiper belt objects, that could serve as evidence of the existence of technologies and, therefore, of civilizations, extraterrestrials. For Wright, the most obvious for the demise of a technological species before our own would be “a cataclysm, either a natural event, such as an extinction-capable asteroid impact, or self-inflicted, such as a global climate catastrophe.” For the researcher, if we were talking about a species with space capabilities that would have settled in the Solar System, a single event would not have been enough to make it disappear.
Another possibility is that the settlements of this civilization were not completely self-sufficient and depended on supplies from abroad that, after the catastrophe, stopped arriving. “Alternatively, if a nearby gamma-ray burst were to occur unexpectedly, or a supernova it could also produce a cataclysm that would affect the entire system,” says Wright. From a strictly scientific point of view, says the researcher, it is perfectly reasonable wonder if life existed in our planetary system, or if it still exists today.
The problem is increasingly becoming the main reason for space agencies like NASA.
Much of the research work, however, focuses on the location of microbial life, or, at best, the lack of intelligence.
For Wright, technological artifacts, if they exist, would be much easier to find.
In fact, if ever a technological species before our own, perhaps from space, appeared in the Solar System, this species could have produced artifacts or other technological signals that would have survived to this day.
The search for these artifacts instead of microbes would be, for Wright, a potential way to solve once and for all the great problem of astrobiology.
In the case of Venus, for example, the arrival of a global greenhouse effect and the possible restructuring of its surface could have erased all traces of previous life.
“Even on Earth, erosion and ultimately tectonic plate movements could have erased all evidence of a civilization that emerged and developed a few million years ago.
years,” says Wright. Therefore, the possible signs of technologies from civilizations before our own, which would be extremely old, could only be found in a limited number of places in the Solar System, such as below the surface of Mars, or the Moon, or any of the numerous bodies of the System Solar Outside.
Titans Under the Earth: Evidence for The Tall Ones, and the Mounds of Pennsylvania
Titans Under the Earth: Evidence for The Tall Ones, and the Mounds of Pennsylvania
This article is dedicated to the memory of John William Dillon, who kept truth and dreams alive.
During the Early Woodland Period (1000—200 BC), the Adena people constructed extensive burial mounds and earthworks throughout the Ohio Valley in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Many of the skeletal remains found in these mounds by early antiquarians and 20th-Century archaeologists were of powerfully-built individuals reaching between 6.5 and eight feet in height (198 cm – 244 cm). It is the record of these remains which has given rise to the subject of the ancient “giants” of the Ohio Valley.
While doing research for a book on this subject over the last several years, the authors were struck by how little of the archaeology of some regions is freely accessible and available to the public. One of those areas is the state of Pennsylvania, where the Carnegie Museum destroyed countless burial mounds without filing comprehensive reports in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of the mounds wrecked by the Carnegie are only known to the public from old press reports, such as the following published in The Sun on December 8, 1893:
“This mound, which was originally about 100 feet long and more than 12 feet high, has been somewhat worn down by time. It is on the J.R. Secrist farm in South Huntington township…The most interesting feature in the recent excavation was the mummified torso of the human body…Portions of the bones dug up and the bones in the legs, Prof. Peterson declares, are those of a person between eight and nine feet in height.”
In order to add some clarity to the subjects of the mound builders and large skeletal remains from Pennsylvania, the authors reviewed a considerable amount of archaeological literature from the state and incorporated the information into several chapters of Ages of the Giants: A Cultural History of the Tall Ones in Prehistoric America (Serpent Mound Books and Press, 2017). Perhaps the most famous instance of press reports describing a large skeleton from a Pennsylvania mound is a case from Union Township in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
In 1932, archaeologist George Fisher excavated the mound after he was informed that amateurs were engaged in heavy looting at the site. This situation attracted hundreds of spectators, and Fisher’s work became a subject of daily discussion by the local media. One discovery in particular was regularly reported at this time:
“One of the most interesting reports that will go into the archives is that on the body of a giant, seven feet five inches tall. This titan was found on the fifth level of the clay mound where the bodies were sandwiched between 11 layers of sandstone. The majority of the adults measured between five feet 10 inches and six feet three inches in stature…” --The Daily Republican, 9/15/1932
“One of the skeletons of these mighty men is seven feet, five inches in length, and even the remains of the women and children show them to have been of tremendous stature. Heavy, primitive faces must have topped their mammoth bodies, Fisher says, for all of the skulls are heavy boned, with massive jaws and strong teeth that could have ripped meat into shreds…” --ThePittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/14/1932
A human effigy pipe created by the prehistoric Adena culture, which lived in the Ohio Valley between 800 BC and 100 AD.
Over the last decade, these types of press reports have caused several researchers to seek out more information on the mound excavated by Fisher, but until now it has remained largely a mystery. The authors found that the site is known in the archaeological literature as the Pollock’s Hill stone mound. There is some debate over the age and cultural affiliations of the mound. Archaeologist and Adena expert Don W. Dragoo considered the Pollock’s Hill Cairn to belong to an Adena stone mound sub-tradition. In more modern times, archaeologists have re-evaluated some of the mounds that Dragoo included in this cultural taxon and have suggested that they could actually date to Late Woodland times —several hundred years after the age of Adena.
One reason for the difficulty in finding professionally documented information on the Pollock’s Hill Cairn is the fact that Fisher himself did not publish the official report. Instead, Donald Cadzow published the report in 1933, utilizing information taken directly from Fisher’s field notes. According to Cadzow’s document, Fisher unearthed an extended adult skeleton covered with packed mud and rocks in the northwestern portion of the mound, which is numbered burial 39 in the field notes. Regarding this burial, Cadzow’s report states, “As the bones were in poor condition, it was impossible to obtain exact measurements. Their size, however, indicated a very large heavy person, much larger than the other burials in the mound.”
Bone size indicated a very large, heavy person.
(Public Domain)
Following the excavations, the bones of over 40 skeletons from Pollock’s Hill were transported to the Museum in Harisburg and then to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. On October 12, 1932, The Pittsburg Press reported that Donald Cadzow himself was the person in charge of transporting the skeletons from Finleyville to the museum, noting, “One skeleton making the trip with Cadzow to the capital is a giant 7 feet 5 inches in height.” The information in the article came from an interview with Cadzow, who took the opportunity to condemn the Carnegie Museum’s handling of Pennsylvania’s prehistory.
Artifacts on record from the Pollock’s Hill Cairn include two rolled copper tubular beads, bone hairpins, stemmed and tanged points, celts, one stone mortar, and perforated bear canine teeth.
Adena culture gorget ornaments always two holes at Grave Creek Mound Museum. Moundsville, WV.
Large skeletal remains were also recovered from the McKees Rocks Mound, which once overlooked the confluence of the Ohio River and Cartier’s Creek at Stowe Township in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Frank Gerodette excavated the McKees Rocks Mound on behalf of the Carnegie Museum in 1896. Unfortunately, several controversies lead to Gerodette’s resignation from the Carnegie and permanent retreat from archaeology before a complete report was filed for the excavations. In Ages of the Giants, we utilized Gerodette’s field notes, as well as the research of five different archaeologists who reviewed the field notes, artifacts, and bones from the mound to recreate the discoveries at this important site. Relevant sources for the information provided here—as well as much more info on the site—can be found in the book.
The McKees Rocks Mound was 16 or 17 feet (4.8 – 5.1 meters) in height at the time of excavation and 85 feet (26 meters) in diameter. There were over 30 burials in the mound of extended, cremated, and bone-bundled human remains, many of which were found in stone cist tombs. The mound was built up in three construction phases, each of which took an unknown length of time to complete. These phases span the time of Adena to the end of the Middle Woodland Period. The oldest or primary phase of the mound was a 3.5-feet-high (one-meter-high) tumulus made of river sand and clay, which covered the skeleton of an Adena female 6-foot-2-inches (188 cm) in length.
Artifacts with this burial include an adze, four deer or elk scapula awls, a copper sheath for an imitation bear canine, 357 columnella shell beads, 153 marginella shell beads, antler and bone flaking tools, and one slate reel-shaped gorget.
Burial 20 was a female in a sandstone cist tomb. Referring to this burial, Frank Gerodette’s field notes mention, “the person could not have been less than 6-foot-six-inches high” (198 cm). The skull of this burial had been crushed down into the breastbones, and the bones of the feet were missing. According to the historian George Thornton Fleming (who carefully documented the excavations), the remains would have “measured seven feet in height” with the feet and neck intact. There were several other skeletons from McKees Rocks, which measured between 6-feet-2-inches and 6-feet-f4- inches in length.
Squawkie Hill, Curious Burial Mound
In northwestern Pennsylvania, many burial mounds have been attributed to a Hopewell-influenced tradition, which some archaeologists have referred to as the Squawkie Hill Culture . Squawkie Hill mounds are also found in northeastern Ohio, the Upper Ohio Valley in West Virginia, and New York State. These mounds date to the Middle Woodland period, usually between 100 and 500 AD. Squawkie Hill sites in Pennsylvania include the Sugar Run, Corydon, Irvin, and Cornplanter mound groups.
At the Cornplanter Run site in Warren County, Edmund Carpenter investigated two surviving mounds in 1941. He found the mounds to contain circular stone vaults composed of stone slabs, also featuring stone roofing. The tombs were all empty, but one still contained a blade, red ocher, and calcined bone. According to Carpenter’s report, a local artifact collector named Dudley A. Martin had looted the tombs prior to his investigations. Fortunately, Martin himself had gone public with his findings in the January 27, 1937 issue of The Altoona Tribune :
“Dudley A. Martin, octogenarian and collector of Indian relics, states that he was present at the opening of some curious burial mounds on the Cornplanter Indian reservation in Warren County nearly fifty years ago. These barrows were walled up inside and had outlets to the air, so much so that on opening one mound it was found to be full of rattlesnakes…In one mound was found the skeleton of a chief seven feet tall, wearing much barbaric adornment and jewelry.”
There are many similar accounts from burial mounds featuring traits similar to the Cornplanter Mounds along the Pennsylvania—New York State border region:
“…just over the line in Genesee Township, a mound about fourteen feet in diameter, walled up by a stone cairn, about three or four feet high…Some curious persons dug into the side of this mound and brought to light the skeleton of a man of gigantic size, also the bones of a dog, nearly all of the bones crumbing upon exposure to the air…With the bones were found numerous flint arrow-heads, and some stone ornaments, and about a pint of small shells, which also soon disintegrated upon exposure.”
“In December, 1886, W. H. Scoville, of Andrews Settlement, discovered a mound at Ellisburg. On exploring it were found parts of the skeleton of a man measuring between seven and eight feet.”
--Michael A Leeson, History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, Pennsylvania , J.H. Beers & Co., 1860.
“This mound was opened by vandals about 25 years ago, and entire skeletons in a good state of preservation were tossed aside or carried off by schoolboys. Many of the remains were found near the surface, covered by broad flagstones, while others were found at a considerable depth. Great quantities of arrow heads, discoidals, stone axes and beads of various kinds were discovered with the bones. Some of the skeletons were of such large proportions as to indicate that the people who lived in the days when the mound was built were a race of giants.” --Pittsburgh Daily Post , October 7, 1895.
Archaeological research conducted in recent years indicates that the cultural history of Western Pennsylvania—including the Adena, Hopewell, and Late Woodland mounds—is in need of revision. Perhaps as these new investigations progress, more information on obscure and little-known sites will become available.
Top Image: Hopewell mounds from the Mound City Group in Ohio. Representative image (Heironymous Rowe/ CC BY-SA 3.0) Bones, and archaeological sketches of Adena sites. (Public Domain);Deriv.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
Revealed: Japan and Singapore still have the most powerful...
Asturias in northern Spain is home to the world's most...
The world's 10 best skyscrapers of 2021 revealed, from a...
British Airways to resume A380 services, with passengers...
We've got a ticket to ride! Discover the world in a whole...
Welcome to the land of the rising snow: Inside Japan's...
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
