thecosmosmadeconscious:

The Antikythera Mechanism

What is it? It was found at the bottom of the sea aboard an ancient Greek ship. Its seeming complexity has prompted decades of study, although some of its functions remained unknown. X-ray images of the device have confirmed the nature of the Antikythera mechanism, and discovered several surprising functions. The Antikythera mechanism has been discovered to be a mechanical computer of an accuracy thought impossible in 80 BC, when the ship that carried it sank. Such sophisticated technology was not thought to be developed by humanity for another 1,000 years. Its wheels and gears create a portable orrery of the sky that predicted star and planet locations as well as lunar and solar eclipses. The Antikythera mechanism, shown above, is 33 centimeters high and therefore similar in size to a large book.

archaeologicalnews:

In a necropolis in Spain, archaeologists have found the remains of a Roman woman who died in her 30s with a calcified tumor in her pelvis, a bone and four deformed teeth embedded within it.

Two of the teeth are still attached to the wall of the tumor researchers say.

The woman, who died some 1,600 years ago, had a condition known today as an ovarian teratoma which, as its name indicates, occurs in the ovaries . The word Teratoma comes from the Greek words “teras” and “onkoma” which translate to “monster” and “swelling,” respectively. The tumor is about 1.7 inches (44 millimeters) in diameter at its largest point.

“Ovarian teratomas are bizarre, but benign tumors,” writes lead researcher Núria Armentano, of the ANTROPÒLEGS.LAB company and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in an email to LiveScience. 

Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have proved for the first time that people started living in the Didcot area as early as 9,000 years ago.

Oxford Archaeology has been excavating land at Great Western Park, where more than 3,300 homes are being built, to detail the site’s history.

The two-and-a-half-year dig has uncovered the remains of a Roman villa, and early Bronze Age arrowheads which will now go on display.

Rob Masefield – director of archaeology at RPS Planning, which is managing the investigation – said one of the most important discoveries was hundreds of flints dating back over 9,000 years to the Mesolithic period.

He said: “There might have been one or two finds from the Mesolithic period in the past but they have not been scientifically dated in such a significant way before – these were working flints used around campfires about 9,000 years ago. 

Read more.

earthisalie:

“Researchers have been able to trace a line between some of the earliest modern humans to settle in China and people living in the region today.

The evidence comes from DNA extracted from a 40,000-year-old leg bone found in a cave near Beijing.

Results show that the person it belonged to was related to the ancestors of present-day Asians and Native Americans.

The results are published in the journal PNAS.

Humans who looked broadly like present-day people started to appear in the fossil record of Eurasia between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago.

But many questions remain about the genetic relationships between these early modern humans and present-day Homo sapiens populations.

For example, some evidence hints at extensive migration into Europe after the last Ice Age.

And fossil finds from Red Deer Cave, also in China, and Iwo Eleru in Nigeria point to a hitherto unappreciated diversity among Late Pleistocene humans.

The team managed to extract genetic material from an ancient leg bone found in 2003 at the site of Tianyuan Cave outside Beijing.

They managed to extract the type of DNA found in the nuclei of cells (nuclear DNA) and genetic material from the cell’s “powerhouses” - known as mitochondria.

They used new techniques that can identify ancient genetic information from an archaeological find, even when large amounts of DNA from soil bacteria are also present.

Analysis of the person’s DNA showed that they were related to the ancestors of present-day Asians and Native Americans. But the analysis showed that this individual had already diverged from the ancestors of present-day Europeans.

“More analyses of additional early modern humans across Eurasia will further refine our understanding of when and how modern humans spread across Europe and Asia”, said co-author Svante Pääbo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Research in the last few years has shown that early modern humans interbred with ancient human species such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans as they migrated from Africa and settled across the world.

Around 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals and Denisovans were being replaced by Homo sapiens. Genetic studies of people living at this important crossover period could help scientists understand when and how this interbreeding took place.

The researchers found that the person from Tianyuan cave carried about the same proportion of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA as people in the region today.”

Fascinating to think about how interbreeding with other “species” of hominid has resulted in modern humans.

Source.

myancientworld:

Claudius was the fourth Roman emperor, who reigned between 41- 54 CE 

Although he reigned for over a decade, Claudius is often perceived as one of the unpopular emperors- not because he was ‘evil’ or ‘mad’ like Caligula or Nero, but because he did not possess the qualities recognisable in an emperor. He had a limp and a speech impediment which made his family believe him not to be a good future emperor, and the Senate originally held out against him for two days before accepting him. Although he did not have a great military reputation, as emperors were expected to, it was under Claudius that Britain was conquered- even Caesar had failed to conquer Britain! He also added Mauretania, Thrace, and Lycia to the Roman Empire. He died in 54 AD, supposedly poisoned by his wife Agrippina the Younger, so that her son could become the next emperor, instead of Britannicus. Her son was Nero.

ancientart:

Offering Four from La Venta, an Olmec site.

Courtesy & currently located at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico. Photo taken by Jami Dwyer

archaeologicalnews:

Turkey has been accused of cultural chauvinism and attempting to blackmail some of the world’s most important museums in the wake of its demands for the return of thousands of archaeological treasures.

According to cultural chiefs in Berlin, Paris and New York, Turkey has threatened to bar foreign archaeologists from excavation sites in the country by not renewing their digging permits if governments refuse to return artifacts that Ankara says were unlawfully removed from Turkish soil. It has also threatened to halt the lending of its treasures to foreign museums, they say.

The government in Ankara, emboldened by the country’s growing diplomatic and economic clout, has repeatedly said that the retrieval of the artifacts is part of a policy it intends to pursue for years, if necessary, calling it a “cultural war”. However, it denies withholding permits as a form of leverage. 

Read more.

northeastasiaarchaeology:

An extremely large burial(?) has been excavated at the Chojeon-dong site in Jinju and it dates to the Mumun (aka Bronze) Period, c. 1500-300 BC. It appears very much like a burial but lacks an actual interment space. Perhaps it disappeared during site formation processes? However it appears much like a cobble platform-style megalithic burial, only much larger in scale. In the Korean Yonhap story, archaeologists from the Dongseo Cultural Properties Institute state that they estimate the feature dates to the 4th to 5th centuries BC. This is a little on the conservative side. We tend to see this and other large-scale platform-style megalithic burials dating to as early as the 6th century BC based on our interpretation of the material cultural record and AMS radiocarbon dates.

Chojeon-dong is a large site at which many phases of excavation have taken place since the late Noughties. As a side note, we should mention that this is the same site at which the first joint international archaeological excavations in more than 40 years took place in May and June 2011. The partners were the Dongseo Cultural Properties Institute, Harvard University Early Korea Project, and University of Michigan Department of Anthropology.

Korean (more detail, photos): http://bit.ly/XUkuI4
English (very brief): http://bit.ly/VhMOqS

92wordsaday:

We all learn to communicate from within our own cultures, and we may well live our whole lives without realizing how deeply this affects the way we process words, sentences and texts, or the expectations we bring to reading. When faced with a text from another, different culture, we may be inhibited from truly grasping the meaning of this text if we are unaware of how communication processes develop and differ based on social settings. In his 1976 book “Beyond Cultures”, anthropologist Edward T. Hall identified two types of societies: High-context and Low-context.

Low-context cultures produce written documentation that is highly detailed, descriptive, and without much scope for imagination. These tend to be societies “of law” such as the United States and much of Northern Europe. They also tend to be more diverse, more individualistic; places where the shared-experiences upon which communication is built can differ greatly between a single generation and the next. The precision and detail with which these societies communicate is perhaps due in part to the need to communicate across ethnically and socially diverse groups. One of the downsides of a low-context culture is that you tend to find, for example, a jar of peanuts with the warning label “may contain nuts”. We are providing people with information we don’t need, patronizing them, often extending to law-making.

On the other hand, high-context cultures, found in much of Asia, the Mediterranean and the Middle-East (as well as elsewhere), often contain more shared perceptions and behaviourisms as a result of lower diversity and greater collectivist and relational tendencies. There may be greater tradition and shared history allowing for better communication between generations. These societies produce texts that leave more open to the imagination and in which fewer things are detailed or spelled-out. This can have the unfortunate affect of not providing enough information, “mystifying” the reader, leaving them searching for “hidden meaning”. 

So how does somebody from a low-context culture interpret correctly, a text from a high-context culture? This is the problem many Western, low-context readers of the bible face, as the bible was the product of a high-context culture. The “gaps” that a low-context reader, use to greater detail and exposition, might find in the bible are often filled-in with anachronisms and ethnocentrisms. Eventually these anachronisms and ethnocentrisms that have been added to the text build up and become ingrained in the reading. The only way to demystify the text is to try and understand the culture and social system / environment in which it was created. To try and read outside of our own context and within another. Though this will never be fully achievable, that should not prohibit the attempt.

Hall, Edward T., Beyond Culture. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983).

Malina, Bruce J. The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels. (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 24-6.

archaeologicalnews:

The northwestern province of Çanakkale’s Ayvacık district is home to one of the most important areas of Turkey’s textile industry. The district is famous for kilim carpets produced in different colors and designs, but as of late 2,500-year-old loom weights recently found in the ancient city…within the borders of the district, have brought the district even more fame. 

Ayvacık was one of Turkey’s significant centers, especially in regards to stockbreeding, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMU) Archaeology Department Chairman and head of the Assos excavations, Professor Nurettin Arslan said. The region is home to many small and large cattle breeds, Arslan said. “We have claimed that the most important means of existence in Assos in ancient times was stockbreeding. This is why the leather trade was such a developed job in Assos. The fact is that the head of a cow or an ox shows us the importance of stockbreeding in the town.” 

Read more.

Prehistoric cinema:

Cave art as early animation?

“Think of “Stone Age animation” and Fred Flintstone driving his car by foot power is likely the image that comes to mind. But a new analysis of prehistoric art in Spain and France is casting a new light on the cave wall. According to New Scientist, the static images found in sites such as Lascaux, France, and El Castillo, in northern Spain, are actually sequences of images that create the illusion of movement — much like the frames used in modern-day cartoons.”

“You know that dog biscuit shaped like a bone but made mostly of wheat? The fact that your dog is satisfied with it instead of going for a piece of your thigh may be one of the big reasons why its ancestors evolved from wolves to house pets.

A team of Swedish researchers has compared the genomes of wolves and dogs and found that a big difference between the two is a dog’s ability to easily digest starch. On its way from pack-hunting carnivore to fireside companion, dogs learned to love — or at least live on — wheat, rice, barley, corn and potatoes.

…In dogs, however, the increased amylase activity occurs only in the pancreas. The enzyme isn’t at work in their mouths, probably because the food doesn’t stay there long enough. Dogs may be able to eat human food, but they still wolf it down.”

Ancient Indians migrated to Australia and mixed with Aborigines 4,000 years ago, bringing the dingo’s ancestor with them, according to new research that re-evaluates the continent’s long isolation before European settlement.

The vast southern continent was thought to have been cut off from other populations until Europeans landed at the end of the 1700s, but the latest genetic and archaeological evidence throws that theory out.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, reported “evidence of substantial gene flow between Indian populations and Australia about 4,000 years ago”.

They analysed genetic variations across the genome from Australian Aborigines to New Guineans, Southeast Asians, and Indians, including Dravidian speakers from the south.

“The prevailing view is that until the arrival of Europeans late in the 18th century, there was little, if any, contact between Australia and the rest of the world,” the study released Tuesday noted.

However, analysis of genome-wide data gave a “significant signature of gene flow from India to Australia which we date to about 4,230 years ago,” or 141 generations back.

“Long before Europeans settled in Australia humans had migrated from the Indian subcontinent to Australia and mixed with Australian Aborigines,” the study said.

“Interestingly,” said lead researcher Irina Pugach, “this date also coincides with many changes in the archaeological record of Australia, which include a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies… and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record.”

The study explained that although dingo DNA appears to have a southeast Asian origin, “morphologically, the dingo most closely resembles Indian dogs.

“The fact that we detect a substantial inflow of genes from India to Australia at about this time does suggest that all of these changes in Australia may be related to this migration.”

The predatory wild dingo (canis dingo) has grown into something of an Australian legend alongside kangaroos, but is often treated as a pest attacking sheep and cattle.

They roam the outback, hunting alone or in packs, communicate with wolf-like howls and scavenge from humans.

The term is believed to have been picked up by early settlers from a similar sounding Aboriginal word for a tame dog.

A common origin was also discovered for the Australian, New Guinean and Philippine Mamanwa populations, who had followed a southern migration route out of Africa beginning more than 40,000 years ago.

The researchers estimate the groups split about 36,000 years ago when Australia and New Guinea formed one land mass.

“Outside Africa, Aboriginial Australians are the oldest continuous population in the world,” said Pugach, a molecular anthropologist.

Australia offers some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of humans outside Africa, with sites dated to at least 45,000 years ago.

archaeoprehistorica:

ancientart:

Dacian artifact from site Piatra Roşie. It is still a subject of debate as to if it is a umbo shield or a gate decoration.

Courtesy & currently located at the Romanian National History Museum. Photo taken by Cristian Chirita

jtotheizzoe:

The oldest portrait of a woman ever found, dating from 26,000 years ago, carved in mammoth ivory and proving that even our early ancestors could capture the expressive nature of the human face in a style that was uniquely meaningful to them.

Read more about how researchers are studying artifacts like these through the lens of art rather than solely through anthropology at Short Sharp Science.

archaeologicalnews:

The oldest surviving Buddhist texts, preserved on long rolls of birch-tree bark, are written in Gandhari, an early regional Indic language that is long extinct. The scrolls originate from the region known in ancient times as Gandhara, which lies in what is now Northwestern Pakistan.

For researchers interested in the early history of Buddhism, these manuscripts represent a sensational find, for a number of reasons.

The first is their age. Some of the documents date from the first century BC, making them by far the oldest examples of Indian Buddhist literature. But for the experts, their contents are equally fascinating. The texts provide insights into a literary tradition which was thought to have been irretrievably lost, and they help researchers to reconstruct crucial phases in the development of Buddhism in India. Furthermore, the scrolls confirm the vital role played by the Gandhara region in the spread of Buddhism into Central Asia and China. 

Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

Archaeologists have unearthed a trove of skulls in Mexico that may have once belonged to human sacrifice victims. The skulls, which date between A.D. 600 and 850, may also shatter existing notions about the ancient culture of the area.

The find, described in the January issue of the journal Latin American Antiquity, was located in an otherwise empty field that once held a vast lake, but was miles from the nearest major city of the day, said study co-author Christopher Morehart, an archaeologist at Georgia State University.

“It’s absolutely remarkable to think about this little nothing on the landscape having potentially evidence of the largest mass human sacrifice in ancient Meso-America,” Morehart said. 

Read more.