Archaeological News: Shaman 'Rainmaking' Center Discovered in South Africa: archaeologicalnews:
A...
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Archaeological News: Shaman 'Rainmaking' Center Discovered in South Africa
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laboratoryequipment: Scientists Discover Colors of Ancient...
Scientists Discover Colors of Ancient Ivory Sculptures
The fabled ivory carvings from the ancient Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — literally meaning “Stone Lion” — may appear a dull monochrome in museums today, but they glittered with brilliant blue, red, gold and other colors 2,800 years ago, a new study has confirmed after decades of speculation. It appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/scientists-discover-colors-ancient-ivory-sculptures
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"I have a room all to myself; it is nature."
“I have a room all to myself; it is nature.” - Henry David Thoreau (via fuckyeahyoga)
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mothernaturenetwork: Man calls 911 with proof of Bigfoot...
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Archaeological News: Finland refuses to return ancient artefacts to Iraq
Archaeological News: Finland refuses to return ancient artefacts to Iraq: archaeologicalnews:
Many...
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Archaeological News: Archaeologists unearth more clues from ancient Cahokia civilization
Archaeological News: Archaeologists unearth more clues from ancient Cahokia civilization:...
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deconversionmovement: Want to Hear a Neanderthal Say the...
Want to Hear a Neanderthal Say the Letter “E”?
Other neanderthals would probably also like to hear that — but one researcher thinks that the average neanderthal would have a problem with that vowel. A reconstructed vocal tract indicates that there are some vowel sounds that neanderthals just couldn’t say.
Robert McCarthy, an anthropology professor at Florida Atlantic University, wanted to hear a neanderthal’s voice, so he made, as best as he could estimate, a neanderthal vocal tract. What he found was a surprising limitation of the neanderthal’s voice. It seems that they weren’t able to pronounce quantal vowels. Quantal vowels take a base sound and tune it, using the configuration of the mouth and vocal tract, to different vowel sounds. So, for example, humans can pronounce the vowel in “beat,” and the vowel in “bit,” differently. The neanderthal, McCarthy thinks, could not.
This would have cut them off from quite a few words that humans can pronounce, and may have limited their speech. Alternatively, it may have caused them to rely more heavily on tone, making their language more sing-song than most human languages.
McCarthy used a vocal synthesizer to simulate a neanderthal voice. If you want to hear an neanderthal pronouncing the letter “e,” click here.
Top Image: James Gordon
Via FAU, New Scientist, Last Ape Standing
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theneverendingroads: Anthropology Major...
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georgy-konstantinovich-zhukov: A mobile siege tortoise, used by...
georgy-konstantinovich-zhukov:
A mobile siege tortoise, used by Alexander as he besieged Halicarnassus in 334 BCE. The machines allowed about a dozen workers each to be protected as they filled in the protective ditch that ringed the city, and to thus allow offensive siege engines to approach up to the walls.
(Brian Delf)
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laphamsquarterly: How often do you get to spend a Friday...
How often do you get to spend a Friday afternoon with the brightest minds of animal science? Not often? That’s about to change!
This episode of the Lapham’s Quarterly podcast features Jane Goodall, Frans de Waal, and others who journey into the hearts and minds of furry and feathered friends.
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blamoscience: Today’s Google doodle is composed of interactive...
Today’s Google doodle is composed of interactive petri dishes in celebration of Julius Petri’s 161st birthday!
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thenewenlightenmentage: Here’s What Pangea Looks Like Mapped...
Here’s What Pangea Looks Like Mapped with Modern Political Borders
Pretty wild, right? It’s a map of Pangea — a supercontinent that formed roughly 300 million years ago — mapped with contemporary geopolitical borders.
What you see here is an anachronistic mashup — a modern map, complete with geological features that did not exist 300-million years ago, with its various parts relocated to the general position they would have occupied before Pangea began rifting apart some 200-million years ago. It’s a view of the supercontinent not often seen, and a mind-bending way of relating to the world on a geological time scale. [Hi-res]
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nypl: NYPL’s Aguilar Library in Harlem is one of the oldest...
nypl:
NYPL’s Aguilar Library in Harlem is one of the oldest branch libraries in New York, founded in 1886. This beautiful branch is a great place for inspiration, as well as education: it has a Center for Reading and Writing for adults. Currently open 6 days a week, Aguilar’s service to the community - like all of NYPL’s local libraries - will be affected by the proposed $47 million budget cut. Help us help NYC’s communities and support your branch today!
If you would like to learn more about NYC’s local libraries, stop by Mid-Manhattan Library tomorrow to hear photographer Elizabeth Felicella talk about her current exhibition Reading Room.
Now, who is Aguilar Library named after?
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theolduvaigorge: An Investigation into the LSA of the...
PhD Dissertation, St. John’s College, University of Cambridge (2012)
- by Dr. Alex Wilshaw
“The Late Stone Age (LSA) of East Africa is a diverse period of recent human prehistory. Despite the temporal proximity to today, these prehistoric people and their technological traditions are still poorly described and little understood. The Nakuru-Naivasha Basin, Kenya, has the bestdocumented examples of the East African LSA (Eburran, nee Kenya Capsian), the diversity of which is manifested in an abundance of archaeological sites that show a confusing complexity of unexplained technological variation. Research stagnated at the end of the 1980‟s, after the Kenya Capsian classification system (phases A-E) was replaced with the Eburran (phases I-V) which confined the Nakuru-Naivasha industry to within 25 km of Mount Eburru. Modern research techniques within a novel research paradigm are applied to revitalise the study of this important prehistoric period. Firstly, historically collected evidence which lacks vital research information is modernised using archival investigation and mapping software. Secondly, the temporal and spatial variation of lithic artefacts and sites (12.5-2.5 kya) are described using univariate statistical analyses of attributes taken from a diverse sample of 36 LSA occurrences from 30 sites (2200 lithic tools and 220 cores); 6 further sites are included as a comparative framework of other localised technological traditions (SPN, Elmenteitan and Lukenya Hill). Thirdly, the relationship between the LSA technology and the shifting Holocene palaeo-environment is examined using multivariate statistics. Finally, technological characteristics that exhibit little ecological plasticity are used in a cultural cladistic analysis to infer information about prehistoric populations. Geometric microlith and core sizes show high levels of environmental plasticity (72.7% and 80.4%), and should not be used to define industrial boundaries in this area; as a result, the Eburran classification system ischallenged. Likewise, the industry extends outside of the imposed 25 km boundary. It is argued that the original name of Kenya Capsian should be reinstated for this LSA industry, but not the phases defined within it. Instead, a clade based system is suggested, which is able to cope with the variation exhibited by the technology until a comprehensive classification system can be created;this will only be possible with greater research investment and novel evidence. Ultimately, the prehistoric people of the Kenya Capsian exhibit similar population patterns to the tribal system inKenya today, which would explain why the LSA is so beautifully diverse and complex in this area” (read more/open access).
(Open access source:Alex Wilshaw: St. John’s College, University of Cambridge UK 2012)
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funquotations: As the archaeology of our thought easily shows,...
As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end. - Michel Foucault
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Archaeological News: UNESCO temporary list includes Laodicea
Archaeological News: UNESCO temporary list includes Laodicea: archaeologicalnews:
The largest...
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Smuggler's Shipwrecked Steamer Found
Smuggler's Shipwrecked Steamer Found:
U.S. explorers announced today that they found a 19th-century...
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theolduvaigorge: Earliest fire in Africa: towards...
- by John A.J. Gowlett and Richard W. Wrangham
“Issues of early fire use have become topical in human evolution, after a long period in which fire scarcely featured in general texts. Interest has been stimulated by new archaeological finds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and also by major inputs from other disciplines, including primatology and evolutionary psychology. Evidence for fire is, however, often disputed, especially with regard to the early cases in Africa. Interpretations often struggle to take into account the implications of a huge bias in archaeological preservation, which means that our surviving evidence does not accurately map the past. Additionally, there is often a ‘yes-no’ presence/absence approach to fire, which does not recognise that earliest hominin fire use may have occurred in interaction with natural fire, and may not even have included deliberate hearth use in its first stages. Here we examine the need to integrate different approaches to the issues of early fire-use, considering especially the earliest archaeological evidence and the ‘cooking hypothesis’, while also tackling the issues of apparent differences in early African and European fire records” (read more/open access).
(Open access source:Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 48(1):5-30, 2013; top image: The Daily Conversation on YouTube)
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holgerlonze: Making Late Bronze Age cauldrons during the...
Making Late Bronze Age cauldrons during the 2013 Umha Aois experimental archaeology symposium at the Feile na Bealtaine in Dingle. Billy Mag Fhloinn is finishing his riveted cauldron made from the copper sheet of an old hot water cylinder. To seal the seams, 2kg of porridge is cooked as a first meal… Doolin-based jeweller Brian Hackett is working on the rim of a cauldron, using cast spike rivets.
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BBC News - 'Hairdo archaeologist' solves ancient fashion mystery
BBC News - 'Hairdo archaeologist' solves ancient fashion mystery: vaganto:
Janet Stephens earns a...
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