Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient bathhouse dating back to the Byzantine era.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/1600-year-old-bath-unearthed-in-israel
(via 1,100-year-old Mayan ruins found in North Georgia | The Raw Story)
“Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city in the mountains of North Georgia believed to be at least 1,100 years old. According to Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, the ruins are reportedly what remains of a city built by Mayans fleeing wars, volcanic eruptions, droughts and famine…
Speculation has abounded for years as to what could have happened to the people who lived in the great Meso-American societies of the first century. Some historians believed that they simply died out in plagues and food shortages, but others have long speculated about the possibility of mass migration to other regions.”
JERUSALEM (AP) — A rare clay seal found under Jerusalem’s Old City appears to be linked to religious rituals practiced at the Jewish Temple 2,000 years ago, Israeli archaeologists said Sunday.
The coin-sized seal found near the Jewish holy site at the Western Wall bears two…
“The term “social entrepreneur” has seen a lot of usage in recent years…”
Top 10 of 2011! Coming Jan/Feb 2012! Thank you Archaeology Magazine!
Israeli archaeologists have found an ancient seal, which provides unique evidence of Jewish activity on the Temple Mount during the Second Temple era.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/unique-second-temple-era-seal-discovered-in-jerusalem
“Only 52 weeks and a day are left before Dec. 21, 2012, when some believe the Maya predicted the end of the world.
Unlike enthusiasts of other doomsday theories who suggest putting together survival kits, southeastern Mexico, the heart of Maya territory, plans a yearlong celebration.
Mexico’s tourism agency expects to draw 52 million visitors by next year only to the regions of Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche. All of Mexico usually lures about 22 million foreigners in a year.”
A 70-million-year-old nest of the dinosaur Protoceratops andrewsi has been found with evidence that 15 juveniles were once inside it, according to a paper in the latest Journal of Paleontology.
While large numbers of eggs have been associated with other dinosaurs, such as the meat-eating Oviraptor or certain duck-billed hadrosaurs, finding multiple juveniles in the same dino nest is quite rare.
“I, for one, cannot think of another dinosaur specimen that preserves 15 juveniles at its nest in this way,” lead author David Fastovsky told Discovery News.
Fastovsky, who is chair of the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Geosciences, and his colleagues analyzed the dinosaur remains along with the nest, which measured about 2.3 feet in diameter and was round and bowl-shaped. All were found at Djadochta Formation, Tugrikinshire, Mongolia, where it’s believed sand “rapidly overwhelmed and entombed” the youngsters while they were still alive.
The researchers conclude that the 15 dinosaurs all show juvenile characteristics. These include short snouts, proportionately large eyes, and an absence of adult characteristics, such as the prominent horns and large frills associated with adults of this species. At least 10 of the 15 fossil sets are complete.
The nest and its contents imply that Protoceratops juveniles remained and grew in their nest during at least the early stages of postnatal development. The nest further implies that parental care was provided.
The large number of offspring, however, also suggests that juvenile dinosaur mortality was high, not only from predation, but also from a potentially stressful environment.
“Large clutches may have been a way of ensuring survival of the animals in that setting — even if there was extensive parental care,” Fastovsky said. “Mongolia was, at the time, a place with a variety of theropod dinosaurs, some of whom likely ate babies such as these.”
“The most obvious of these, found in the same deposits, is the (in)famous Velociraptor, a smallish nasty theropod with bad breath, for whom babies such as these would have made a nice bon bon,” he continued.
Yet another discovery previously found at the same locality is the famous “fighting dinosaurs” specimen in which a Protoceratops and Velociraptor appear to have been preserved together “locked in what was evidently mortal combat,” Fastovsky added. Parents and other adults of the sheep-sized herbivorous species may then have spent much of their time fighting off such hungry predators.
In a separate study, Lars Schmitz of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, and colleagues studied bones surrounding what would have been the eyes of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs. The results allowed Schmitz and his team to conclude that this dinosaur and additional plant eaters were active both day and night. Velociraptor, on the other hand, was primarily a nocturnal carnivore, so night raids on Protoceratops nests must have taken place during the Late Cretaceous.
Even if the juvenile dinosaurs and their parents “had a good sensory system to notice a predator closing in, the success rate of a nocturnal attack may be higher than a diurnal attack,” Schmitz told Discovery News.
Given the chances then of literally biting the (sand) dust or becoming dinner, it’s no wonder that some small dinosaurs had so many kids.
“This story certainly isn’t your parents’ dinosaurs-living-in-the-lush-Cretaceous-steaming-jungles that was in vogue a generation or two ago,” Fastovsky said. “We now know that dinosaurs lived everywhere and did just about everything terrestrial.”
The nest and its dinosaur family contents are currently housed at the Paleontological Center of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulan Baatar, Mongolia.
Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped.
Israeli diggers who uncovered a complex of rooms carved into the bedrock in the oldest section of the city recently found the markings: Three “V” shapes cut next to each other into the limestone floor of one of the rooms, about 2 inches (5 centimeters) deep and 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. There were no finds to offer any clues pointing to the identity of who made them or what purpose they served.
The archaeologists in charge of the dig know so little that they have been unable even to posit a theory about their nature, said Eli Shukron, one of the two directors of the dig.
“The markings are very strange, and very intriguing. I’ve never seen anything like them,” Shukron said.
The shapes were found in a dig known as the City of David, a politically sensitive excavation conducted by Israeli government archaeologists and funded by a nationalist Jewish group under the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem. The rooms were unearthed as part of the excavation of fortifications around the ancient city’s only natural water source, the Gihon spring.
It is possible, the dig’s archaeologists say, that when the markings were made at least 2,800 years ago the shapes might have accommodated some kind of wooden structure that stood inside them, or they might have served some other purpose on their own. They might have had a ritual function or one that was entirely mundane. Archaeologists faced by a curious artifact can usually at least venture a guess about its nature, but in this case no one, including outside experts consulted by Shukron and the dig’s co-director, archaeologists with decades of experience between them, has any idea.
There appears to be at least one other ancient marking of the same type at the site. A century-old map of an expedition led by the British explorer Montague Parker, who searched for the lost treasures of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem between 1909 and 1911, includes the shape of a “V” drawn in an underground channel not far away. Modern archaeologists haven’t excavated that area yet.
Ceramic shards found in the rooms indicate they were last used around 800 B.C., with Jerusalem under the rule of Judean kings, the dig’s archaeologists say. At around that time, the rooms appear to have been filled with rubble to support the construction of a defensive wall.
It is unclear, however, whether they were built in the time of those kings or centuries earlier by the Canaanite residents who predated them.
The purpose of the complex is part of the riddle. The straight lines of its walls and level floors are evidence of careful engineering, and it was located close to the most important site in the city, the spring, suggesting it might have had an important function.
A unique find in a room beside the one with the markings — a stone like a modern grave marker, which was left upright when the room was filled in — might offer a clue. Such stones were used in the ancient Middle East as a focal point for ritual or a memorial for dead ancestors, the archaeologists say, and it is likely a remnant of the pagan religions which the city’s Israelite prophets tried to eradicate. It is the first such stone to be found intact in Jerusalem excavations.
But the ritual stone does not necessarily mean the whole complex was a temple. It might simply have marked a corner devoted to religious practice in a building whose purpose was commonplace.
With the experts unable to come up with a theory about the markings, the City of David dig posted a photo on its Facebook page and solicited suggestions. The results ranged from the thought-provoking — “a system for wood panels that held some other item,” or molds into which molten metal would could have been poured — to the fanciful: ancient Hebrew or Egyptian characters, or a “symbol for water, particularly as it was near a spring.”
Remains found near the Arctic Circle in May 2011 are characteristic of the Mousterian culture and have recently been dated at over 28,500 years old, which is more than 8,000 years after Neanderthals are thought to have disappeared.
A team of scholars has discovered what might be the oldest representation of the Tower of Babel of Biblical fame, they report in a newly published book.
Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the Tower of Babel stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE.
It was found in…
“Primitive-Archaeology”
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