Archaeology

[Cheval]

Updated: 02:24 PM EST
Mystery Carnivore Possibly Discovered in Borneo

GENEVA (Dec. 6) - Environmental researchers are preparing to capture what they call a new, mysterious species of carnivore on Borneo, the first such discovery on the wildlife-rich Indonesian island in over a century.
Swiss-based environmental group WWF said on Monday its researchers photographed the strange animal, which looks like a cross between a cat and a fox, in the dense, central mountainous rainforests of Borneo.
''This could be the first time in more than a century that a new carnivore has been discovered on the island,'' said the WWF in a statement.
The mammal, slightly larger than a cat with red fur and a long tail, was photographed twice by a camera trap at night.
Locals and wildlife experts who viewed photographs of the animal, which has very small ears and large hind legs, said they had never seen such a creature before and were convinced that it was a new species, WWF said.
Researchers hope to confirm the discovery by setting cage traps to catch a live specimen, but warn that Indonesian government plans to clear the rainforest to create the world's largest palm oil plantation may interfere with plans, WWF said. The proposed plantation scheme, funded by the China Development Bank, is expected to cover an area of 1.8 million hectares, equivalent to about half the size of The Netherlands, said the WWF, formerly known as the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The potential new species of carnivore in Borneo would be the first since the discovery of the Borneo ferret-badger in 1895, the WWF said.
Pictures of the animal were first taken by WWF researchers in 2003, the photos kept unpublished by the WWF as research continued. The WWF decided to make public the photos with the release of a book about Borneo, to be published on Tuesday.
11:27 12-06-05

photos at:
aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051206133209990003&ncid=NWS00010000000001

[Kinslaughterer]

Ancient drought 'changed history'
By Roland Pease
BBC science unit, San Francisco



The sediments are an archive of past climate conditions
Scientists have identified a major climate crisis that struck Africa about 70,000 years ago and which may have changed the course of human history.

The evidence comes from sediments drilled up from the beds of Lake Malawi and Tanganyika in East Africa, and from Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana.

It shows equatorial Africa experienced a prolonged period of drought.

It is possible, scientists say, this was the reason some of the first humans left Africa to populate the globe.

Certainly, those who remained on the continent at that time would have had to be extremely resilient to make it through such hard times.

"This was a profound impact on the landscape," said Christopher Scholz, from Syracuse University, US.

"So it must have had a major impact, not just on humans but on all species in equatorial Africa at this time."



Dr Scholz presented data from the drilling project here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The cores reveal that prior to 75,000 years ago, Lake Malawi, which is currently an inland sea some 550km long and 700m deep, was reduced to a couple of pools no more than 10km across and 200m deep.


Worse still was Lake Bosumtwi. Currently a 10km-wide lake that fills an old space impact crater, it lost all of its water.

Only a prolonged continent-wide drought could have had this effect. What makes the timing so fascinating is that it ties in with the "Eve hypothesis" of human evolution.

Genetic studies suggest modern human society is descended from a group of around 10,000 individuals who lived in East Africa at the time of this crisis.

Immediately after its end, human populations started to expand rapidly - and many of our ancestors began moving out of Africa and into the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Scientists are increasingly convinced that tragedies in the deep past have shaped human evolution.

The intriguing thought is that we owe our existence to a small band of survivors who clung on to life during a crisis of epic proportions or who simply decided they had to move to find water.


Viewed from space: Lake Bosumtwi is in an old impact crater
"We think there may be a connection between this climatic release - that is the rise in lake levels following this major desiccation event - and the order of magnitude increase in early modern humans," Dr Scholz said.

"And, also, there may be a connection with the exodus of early modern humans out of Africa and this climatic release.

"There's been recognition that speciation of hominids is controlled by environmental factors - whether that's long-term changes in aridfication in Africa or perhaps the dramatic increase in variability in environmental conditions, such as in precipitation, temperature, and so forth."

[Kinslaughterer]

Study sheds light on early migration
Skulls raise questions on first Americans

By MIKE TONER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/13/05
A 10-year study of ancient human skulls from Brazil provides new evidence that two distinct populations of prehistoric people settled the Americas more than 12,000 years ago — a finding that raises new questions about the identity and origins of the first Americans.

Brazilian researchers say physical features of the skulls excavated from several limestone caves near Lagoa Santa in central Brazil differ sharply from the ancestors of today's Native Americans, who are thought to have migrated from Siberia to North America at the end of the last Ice Age.


"These earliest South Americans tend to be more similar to present-day Australians, Melanesians and sub-Saharan Africans," Brazilian anthropologist Walter Neves reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neves said the findings suggest a "complex scenario in regards to the influx of humans to the New World," but he skirted controversial new theories that the first people to reach the Americas came by boat from Asia, the South Pacific or perhaps even Europe, rather than crossing a land bridge spanning the Bering Strait, as most archaeologists believe.

"No transoceanic migration is necessary to explain our findings," he said.

Instead, he said the South American population might have come by the same route used by the ancestors of modern Native Americans.

The age of the Lagoa Santa skulls does not clearly establish which of the two populations entered the Americas first — or when — but Neves said it is plausible to think that the South American population arrived first and then moved, or was pushed southward by the Asian ancestors of present-day Native Americans, whose genetic makeup and linguistic patterns today are dominant in both continents' native peoples.

Some genetic studies comparing ancient remains and modern humans have suggested there might have been anywhere from one to four separate migrations of prehistoric peoples to the Americas.

Human skeletal remains older than 8,000 years are rare in the Americas, but isolated examples of skulls with seemingly "un-Asian" features have been found and reported in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Florida and California.

But the analysis by Neves, of the University of Sao Paulo's Laboratory of Human Evolution, and his colleague Mark Hubbe is the first to look comprehensively at a large number of remains from a single location.

Naturalists, amateurs and professional archaeologists have been digging up human remains in excavating the Lagoa Santa caves — located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais — since the 1840s. But because the remains were scattered among museums in London, Copenhagen and Rio de Janiero, no overall study of their physical characteristics was ever performed until Neves tracked them down.

Neves says individual skulls may vary widely, but in the aggregate, the 81 South American skulls show a clear pattern that differs markedly from the features of modern Native Americans.

He says today's Native Americans and their ancestors have narrow and long skulls, squarish jaws, and relatively high noses and eye sockets. The South American skulls tend to have short and wide skulls, jutting jaws, and relatively low noses and eye sockets.

[Kinslaughterer]

Tooth marks link Vikings, Indians
study: 1,000-year-old skeletons: Decorative groove technique likely learned in America Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, January 13, 2006

A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson.

The marks are believed to be decorations meant to enhance a man's appearance, or badges of honour for a group of great warriors or successful tradesmen. They are the first historical examples of ceremonial dental modification ever found in Europe, and although similar customs were practised in Asia and Africa over the centuries, the Swedish anthropologist who studied the Viking teeth is exploring the possibility that trips to Newfoundland and other parts of the New World a millennium ago introduced the Norsemen to tooth-carving styles being carried out at that time in the Americas.

"The cases from the North American continent are from the time period," Caroline Arcini, a researcher with the National Heritage Board in Lund, Sweden, told CanWest News Service. "So it is within the same timespace as the Swedish ones that are dated from 800-1050 A.D."

In a paper published by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Ms. Arcini details the horizontal etchings across the front teeth of about 25 young men whose remains were found at several Viking Age burial sites in Sweden and Denmark. The "furrows" -- some teeth have several parallel grooves -- "are so well made that it is most likely they were filed by a person of great skill," Ms. Arcini writes.

But "the reason for, and importance of, the furrows are obscure. The affected individuals may have belonged to a certain occupational group, or the furrows could have been pure decoration."

Examples of tooth modification have been found at archeological sites around the world -- with the exception, until now, of Europe.

The study notes a similarity in style between the Scandinavian specimens and dental markings common about 1,000 years ago in parts of North America, including Mexico and the present-day United States as far north as Illinois.

Tales of Viking visits to North America held a largely mythical status among scholars until the 1960s, when archeologists discovered and excavated the remains of a 1,000-year-old Norse encampment at the northern tip of Newfoundland. Today, the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site commemorating voyages by Norse explorers from Greenland and Iceland some 500 years before Christopher Columbus reached the New World.

Led by Ericsson, the Newfoundland colonizers are believed to have made several southern voyages -- it's not known exactly how far -- before repeated clashes with natives, whom the Vikings called "skraelings," forced the newcomers to abandon their settlement.

But researchers at the Canadian Museum of Civilization have also found artifacts that suggest a centuries-long trading relationship between Norse seafarers and native people in the Arctic until about the 14th century.

Patricia Sutherland, a CMC archeologist whose findings at ancient Baffin Island native settlements point to a prolonged period of contact with Norse traders, says she's skeptical that Viking travellers ever reached more southerly tribes that practiced the kind of dental modification found in the Swedish skeletons.

© National Post 2006

[lucimay]

yo Kins!! nice to see you!! always enjoy reading these articles you post!!

[Avatar]

Nice to see you back Kins, and interesting article.

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

I'm glad I wasn't forgotten...

Archaeologists from Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Austria, and Slovenia will begin excavation work in April on the Visocica hill, 32 kilometres north-west of Sarajevo.

The hill is quite symmetrical, and the theory that it was once a pyramid is supported by preliminary investigations.
If true, it would rewrite world history, putting Europe alongside South America and of course Egypt as homes of ancient pyramids.

Bosnian Semir Osmanagic put forward his theory last year that a 100 metre geometrically-shaped hill with evenly shaped sides and corners that point north, south, east and west is an ancient man-made edifice.

Osmanagic, who has spent 15 years studying the pyramids of the Americas is convinced the hill is a genuine man-made pyramid from an ancient civilization.

His preliminary excavations shows what he believes is evidence that the earth has been shaped to form a pyramid and covered in prehistoric concrete and stone blocks.

"We have already dug out stone blocks which I believe are covering the pyramid," Osmanagic said.

"We found a paved entrance plateau and discovered underground tunnels.

"You don't have to be an expert to realise what this is."

Osmanagic's assertions have been supported by experts studying aerial and satellite images.

Theorists believe the Illyrian people who inhabited the Balkan region before the conquering Slavic tribes overran them about 1,400 years ago had the sophistication to shape a hill into a pyramid.

Excavation work to test Osmanagic's theory will begin on April 14 in the Visoko region and is expected to continue until October and the rugged mountainous area has become an archaeological park.

[Kinslaughterer]

New Discoveries in Jiroft May Change History of Civilization
Jan 26, 2006



Latest archeological excavations in Jiroft, known as the hidden paradise of world archeologists, resulted in the discovery of a bronze statue depicting the head of goat which dates back to the third millennium BC. This statue was found in the historical cemetery of Jirof where recent excavations in the lower layers of this cemetery revealed that the history of the Halil Rud region dates back to the fourth millennium BC, a time that goes well beyond the age of civilization in Mesopotamia




"One of the reasons the archeologists and historians give for Mesopotamia to be the cradle of civilization is that the most ancient historical evidence and relics which have been discovered in Jiroft so far date back to the third millennium BC or nearer, and therefore they argue that this region could not have been the place where civilization began. However, some cultural evidence and ancient artifacts belonging to the fourth millennium BC were traced while digging a trench beneath the Matot Abad cemetery which gave proof to the fact that the history of this region goes back to the sixth millennium BC. Aside from these ancient articles found so far, archeologists were able to unearth a bronze statue of the head of a goat from one of the graves of Jiroft cemetery which raised new questions about the history of this region and whether or not the civilization that lived here is older than that of Mesopotamia," said Yousof Majidzadeh, head of excavation team in Jiroft.

"Two different kinds of clays were discovered in this cemetery, some belong to third millennium BC while the others go back to the fourth millennium BC. It was supposed that this area was a cemetery in both periods, but the trenches dug under the cemetery indicate that the region was a residential area during the sixth millennium BC. After this area was covered by different sediments and layers little by little over the period of 1000 years, the cemetery was established on the remains of the previous settlement area. The team of archeologists who are working in this area at the present is determined to continue the excavations to study more about the lower layers," added Majidzadeh.

According to Majidzadeh, geophysical operations by French experts in the region indicate the existence at least 10 historical and archaeological periods in the region belonging to different civilizations who lived in this area during different periods of time in history. According to the French experts who studied this area, the evidence remained from these civilizations may be traced up to 11 meters under the ground.

"What is obvious is that the evidence of Tal-i-Iblis culture in Bardsir can be traced in all parts of the region. Tal-i-Iblis culture, known as Ali Abad period (fourth millennium BC) was revealed by Joseph R. Caldwell, American archaeologist," said Majidzadeh.

Plunder of Matot Abad cemetery by the smugglers, which caused an unbelievable disaster in the history of archaeology, attracted the attention of public opinion to this region. Only from one of the cemeteries 30 stone dishes were plundered. Some metal and clay dishes as well as some gold articles were plundered by smugglers as well.

The excavations in the lower layers of Jiroft's cemetery indicate that the history this region goes back to the fourth millennium BC. This further provided the proof to the claim that Jiroft was the cradle of civilization long before civilization first appeared in Mesopotamia, although this claim has not yet been approved by world organizations.




Analytical studies on relics found in Jirof in a research center in the United States indicate that the discovered materials in this region date back to the third millennium BC. Considering an inscription found earlier in the region, archeologists believe that the writing language of Jiroft is more ancient than that of Mesopotamia, and that the script language was spread to Mesopotamia from this region.

[danlo]

Where is Jiroft? Iraq? --edit: just Googled, ah! Southern Iran.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I always ask myself when these sites are found, is that farmer now a rich man?
I mean, if it's his land then he should own it, right?
Or have those countries with a rich archaeology history made allowances for that in thier land ownership laws?


www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/13/D8FOAJNG0.html

Archaeologists Find Massive Tomb in Greece


By COSTAS KANTOURIS
Associated Press Writer

THESSALONIKI, Greece

Archaeologists have unearthed a massive tomb in the northern Greek town of Pella, capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and birthplace of Alexander the Great.

The eight-chambered tomb dates to the Hellenistic Age between the fourth and second century B.C., and is the largest of its kind ever found in Greece. The biggest multichambered tombs until now contained three chambers.

The 678-square-foot tomb hewn out of rock was discovered by a farmer plowing his field on the eastern edge of the ancient cemetery of Pella, some 370 miles north of Athens, archaeologists said.

"This is the largest and most monumental tomb of its kind ever found in Greece," said Maria Akamati, who led the excavations.

Archaeologists believe the tomb _ filled with dozens of votive clay pots and idols, copper coins and jewelry _ will shed light on the culture of Macedonia in the period that followed Alexander's conquest of Asia.

Alexander's empire, which stretched from Greece to Asia, broke into separate kingdoms upon his death in 323 B.C., as his generals battled over the remains of the ancient world's greatest empire.

Similar tombs from the same era have been discovered on Crete, Cyprus and Egypt, which was ruled by a Greek dynasty founded by Ptolemy, Alexander's general.

The tomb's size suggests it belonged to a a wealthy Macedonian family, Akamati said.

The tomb, believed to have been used for two centuries, was probably plundered in antiquity as most of the artifacts were strewn by the entrance to the chambers, Akamati said.

The complex is dominated by a central area surrounded by eight chambers colored in red, blue and gold dyes. Three inscribed stone slabs inside bear the names of their female owners _ Antigona, Kleoniki and Nikosrati. A relief on one of the slabs depicts a women and her servant.

The discovery was confirmed on Friday by a senior archaeologist responsible for the Pella site and will be presented at an Archaeological Conference in Thessaloniki that begins Thursday.

[danlo]

What's all this about the new tomb discovered by accident near King Tut's Kins?

[Kinslaughterer]

Take a look

Lots of pictures...

[Kinslaughterer]

ST. LOUIS—The first humans to spread across North America may have been seal hunters from France and Spain.

This runs counter to the long-held belief that the first human entry into the Americas was a crossing of a land-ice bridge that spanned the Bering Strait about 13,500 years ago.


The new thinking was outlined here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


The tools don’t match


Recent studies have suggested that the glaciers that helped form the bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska began receding around 17,000 to 13,000 years ago, leaving very little chance that people walked from one continent to the other.


Also, when archaeologist Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution places American spearheads, called Clovis points, side-by-side with Siberian points, he sees a divergence of many characteristics.


Instead, Stanford said today, Clovis points match up much closer with Solutrean style tools, which researchers date to about 19,000 years ago. This suggests that the American people making Clovis points made Solutrean points before that.


There’s just one problem with this hypothesis—Solutrean toolmakers lived in France and Spain. Scientists know of no land-ice bridge that spanned that entire gap.


The lost hunting party


Stanford has an idea for how humans crossed the Atlantic, though—boats. Art from that era indicates that Solutrean populations in northern Spain were hunting marine animals, such as seals, walrus, and tuna.


They may have even made their way into the floating ice chunks that unite immense harp seal populations in Canada and Europe each year. Four million seals, Stanford said, would look like a pretty good meal to hungry European hunters, who might have ventured into the ice flows much the same way that the Inuit in Alaska and Greenland do today.


Inuit use large, open hunting boats constructed from animal skins for longer trips or big hunts. These boats, called umiaq, can hold a dozen adults, as well as several children, dead seals or walruses, and even dog-sled teams. Inuit have been building these boats for thousands of years, and Stanford believes that Solutrean people may have used a similar design.


It’s possible that some groups of these hunters ventured out as far as Iceland, where they may have gotten caught up in the prevailing currents and were carried to North America.


“You get three boats loaded up like this and you would have a viable population,” Stanford said. “You could actually get a whole bunch of people washing up on Nova Scotia.”


Some scientists believe that the Solutrean peoples were responsible for much of the cave art in Europe. Opponents of Stanford’s work ask why, then, would these people stop producing art once they made it to North America?


“I don’t know,” Stanford said. “But you’re looking at a long distance inland, 100 miles or so, before they would get to caves to do art in.”

Ancient People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says
North America Settled by Just 70 People, Study Concludes
Possible Fire Pit Dated to Be Over 50,000 Years Old
Early Man Was Hunted by Birds

[Kinslaughterer]

Giant Ancient Egyptian Sun Temple Discovered in Cairo
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News

March 1, 2006
Archaeologists announced Sunday that they have discovered an ancient sun temple containing large statues of the pharaoh Ramses II under an outdoor marketplace in Cairo, Egypt.

The temple was found in a suburb of Cairo called Ain Shams. The site was once part of the ancient city of Heliopolis, which served as the center of sun worship in ancient Egypt. The chief sun god, Re, was the patron sun god of Heliopolis.


Ramses II, who is believed to have ruled Egypt from around 1279 to 1213 B.C., is known for his military exploits and monumental building projects. To celebrate his victories, he erected statues and temples to himself all over Egypt.

"The area where we are excavating now is where Ramses II of the 19th dynasty [1320 to 1200 B.C.] built an enormous temple for Re, the largest temple of Ramses II ever found," said Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo.

Hawass is also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.

An Egyptian team has been cooperating with a team from the German Archaeological Institute on the excavations in the Ain Shams and Matariya neighborhoods of Cairo.

Egyptologists not involved with the discovery said it confirms suspicions that much of ancient Egypt has been buried under modern cities and still remains to be found.


The temple was built of limestone, and the archaeologists have uncovered the remains of one pillar bearing inscriptions of Ramses II.

The researchers are currently excavating the entrance area and the west side of the temple site.

They have found chambers for the storage of wheat, a kiln for making amulets, part of a large statue—the head of which weighs 5 tons (4.5 metric tons) and would have stood almost 20 feet (6 meters) tall—and another head of granite, weighing 2 tons (1.8 metric tons).

"Perhaps the most exciting [find] is an unusual seated statue that shows Ramses II in the leopard skin of a priest, showing that he built this temple as the high priest of Re," Hawass said. This statue is in the style of dynasty 12 [1991 to 1786 B.C.] and may have been usurped by Ramses II," he added, meaning that it may have been altered to resemble Ramses II.

"This is an important discovery, giving us information about the cult of Re."


Ramses II, who made a name for himself by battling the Hittites and the Syrians, is traditionally believed to have been the Pharaoh of Exodus, the biblical figure from whom Moses demanded that his people be released.

Ramses II erected monuments to himself up and down the Nile with records of his achievements. His most famous temple is Abu Simbel, which was carved into a sandstone mountain on the banks of the Nile, near what is now Egypt's southern border. (See photo gallery: "Towering Treasures of Ramses.")


Numerous temples to Egypt's many sun gods—particularly the chief god Re—were also built in ancient Heliopolis.

"This was the center for the worship of the sun god Re," Hawass said.

"A number of important remains have been discovered here, and there is evidence that this cult went back at least to the Old Kingdom [from about 2700 to 2200 B.C.] if not before and was active to the end of Egyptian history."

The German excavations show that lakes or swamps dominated the area in ancient times.

Most of the temples of ancient Heliopolis were later plundered, and the area is now covered with residential buildings.

The discovery of the sun temple may shed light on the status of Heliopolis in ancient Egypt.

"We do not know enough about Heliopolis, which was one of the main cities in Egypt and moreover a religious and, let us say, intellectual center," said French archaeologist Alain Zivie, leader of a team that has been excavating Saqqara, the cemetery of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, for more than two decades.

Zivie says the discovery also shows that much of ancient Egypt's treasures are still buried under modern cities, particularly Cairo and its suburbs.

"Cairo is the child of three cities: Memphis, [the Roman fortress of] Babylon of Egypt, and Heliopolis," Zivie said. "Expanding more and more, it swallows now its three mothers, especially Babylon and Heliopolis. But these [ancient cities] are not completely lost. They continue to exist in the underground Cairo."

Leo Depuydt, an Egyptologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, agrees.

"The recent find of a giant temple built by Ramses II, ancient Egypt's greatest builder pharaoh, in Cairo again reminds us of how archaeological discovery would increase exponentially—almost beyond imagination—if digging under urban centers and dismantling buildings of later date ever becomes, technically and politically, even more feasible," he said.

[Avatar]

Saw this one the NatGeo site. Very interesting.

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

Tools 'may be 250,000 years old'

Archaeologists found the flint tools in Pan last summer
Stone tools found at one of the South's most important early prehistoric sites could date back 250,000 years, archaeologists claim.
The historic finds were uncovered at a former gravel quarry on the Isle of Wight during digs last summer.

Flint axes found near Great Pan Farm, Newport, are thought to be of the sort used by Neanderthal man. Elephant teeth from the same period were also found.

Specialists are now to carry out further investigations of the site.

The Great Pan Farm site now looks set to unlock our knowledge of Neanderthal society



A spokeswoman for Isle of Wight Council said the tools found at the site opened up "the possibility that this site may well date to 250,000 years ago".

"These fascinating results have led leading specialists from the Boxgrove Project team to commit to future studies of the site.

"The Great Pan Farm site, one of only a handful of such early sites in Britain, now looks set to unlock our knowledge of Neanderthal society and technology," she added.

The digs were launched at the site as it has been earmarked for future housing development.

The last time the area was examined was in the 1920s when other tools were found that also dated back to the Stone Age.

[Avatar]

Hey, I see your Crow Canyon guys have a South African project going Kins.

Unrelated:

World's Oldest Ocean Vessels Discovered in Egypt
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
March 7, 2006

Massive wooden planks, ropes, and cargo boxes found in a series of caverns near the Red Sea have been identified as parts of the oldest seafaring ships ever discovered.

The find supports evidence that ancient Egyptian mariners set sail on ocean waters as much as 4,000 years ago on voyages that spanned about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) each way.

Previously, the world's oldest known seafaring ship dated from 1300 B.C., and only small fragments of it are left.

The newly found ships likely carried sailors on missions to obtain incense and other treasures from a mysterious place the Egyptians called God's Land, or Punt.

"It's very exciting," said Steven Snape, an Egyptologist at Britain's University of Liverpool, who was not involved in the work.

Historians have long known about the Egyptians' visits to Punt, he says, but there has been "huge debate" about whether they got there by land or sea.

"It looks as though they created ships in kit form, carried them over the desert, sailed to Punt, got what they required, and abandoned the ships," Snape said.
Ancient Shipyard

Ancient Egyptians are often depicted as a river people, plying the Nile in flat-bottomed barges that hauled everything from pharaohs to construction materials up or downstream.
But periodically pharaohs would send thousands of soldiers across the forbidding deserts east of the Nile to a temporary port on the Red Sea.

This port lay at a location known as Wadi Gawasis, about 13 miles (21 kilometers) south of the modern city of Port Safaga.

The ancient port's location had been known for some time, but prior surveys had led to the conclusion that there was no hope of finding sunken vessels in the offshore waters.
"There was just too much sand," said Cheryl Ward, an anthropologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Then, last December, Ward and other archaeologists working at the site found pieces of the vessels in a set of six caverns.

Egyptian troops had likely hacked the caves into a sand-covered bluff for use as storerooms and workrooms.

The planks had been salvaged from decommissioned vessels as building materials for the caverns.

There is no doubt that the planks are from oceangoing ships, Ward says, because they show damage from a type of wood-boring mollusk called a shipworm, which only lives in salt water.
And the extent of the damage indicates that the ships were in the water for several months—long enough to make a journey of several thousand miles.

Between visits to Wadi Gawasis, the ancient Egyptians carefully closed everything up, like a mothballed military base. Eventually the sailors stopped visiting the site.
Where's Punt?

The Wadi Gawasis finds are revealing major insights into how the vessels were put together.

"They look like river ships, but scaled up," Ward said. The ships, she says, were built with a type of joint known as mortise-and-tenon, which resembles a plug and its socket.

Such an assembly method would allow the ships to be hauled 90 miles (145 kilometers) across the desert in pieces, then put together at the port.

Inscriptions found in other parts of the Wadi Gawasis complex indicate that battalions of 3,700 men carried enough planks across the desert to make entire fleets of five or six ships at a time.

In addition to the ship remains, the caverns contained cargo boxes with inscriptions revealing that Punt had indeed been the vessels' destination.

Nobody is sure where Punt was located. But the trip there would probably have followed the coast rather than striking out across any large expanses of open water.
That's because the Egyptians, at home on the waters of the Nile, were not great ocean navigators.

"Wherever possible they followed the coast," Snape, of the University of Liverpool, said. "But they were willing to go long distances to get the things they required."

At other points in their civilization, Snape says, the ancient Egyptians even went as far as equatorial Africa for ostrich eggs and animal skins.

Most likely, Punt lay somewhere in modern Ethiopia or Yemen.

Other researchers from Boston University and the University of Naples are scouring the Red Sea shore for additional traces of Egyptian shipping that might give better hints to the ancient sailors' destination.

--A

[Kinslaughterer]

Palace of Homer's hero rises out of the myths
From John Carr in Athens

ARCHAEOLOGISTS claim to have unearthed the remains of the 3,500-year-old palace of Ajax, the warrior-king who according to Homer’s Iliad was one of the most revered fighters in the Trojan War.
Classicists hailed the discovery, made on a small Greek island, as evidence that the myths recounted by Homer in his epic poem were based on historical fact.

The ruins include a large palace, measuring about 750sq m (8,000sq ft), and believed to have been at least four storeys high with more than thirty rooms.



Yannos Lolos, the Greek archaeologist who made the discovery, said he was certain that he had come across the home of the Aiacid dynasty, a legendary line of kings mentioned in the Iliad and the Classical Greek tragedies. One of the kings, Ajax (or Aias), was described by Homer as a formidable fighter who, at one point in the Trojan campaign, held off the Trojans almost singlehandedly while his fellow Greek Achilles sulked in his tent because his slave-girl had been taken away from him.

The city of Troy is believed to have fallen about 1180BC — at about the same time, according to Mr Lolos, that the palace he has discovered was abandoned and left to crumble. Ajax, therefore, would have been the last king to have lived there before setting off on the ten-year Trojan expedition.

“This is one of the few cases in which a Mycenaean-era palace can be almost certainly attributed to a Homeric hero,” Mr Lolos said.

Fellow archaeologists said that they believed that the ruins were indeed those of a Mycenaean palace. Curtis Runnels, Professor of Archaeology at Boston University, said: “Mr Lolos has really delivered the goods.”

The Mycenaean ruins appear to be at the site where Homer records a fleet of ships setting out to take part in the war on Troy. The Iliad is believed to portray conditions at the close of the dominance of Mycenae, the prime Greek power of the second millennium BC.

The ruins have been excavated over the past five years at a site near the village of Kanakia on the island of Salamis, a few miles off the coast of Athens.

The palace was built in the style of those of the period, including the vast acropolis at Mycenae.

“The complex was found beneath a virgin tract of pine woods on two heights by the coast,” Mr Lolos said. “All the finds so far corroborate what we see in the Homeric epics.”

Homer compares Ajax to a wall and describes him carrying a shield made of seven layers of thick oxhide. Unlike other heroes, he fights without the aid of deities or the supernatural. According to Sophocles, who wrote 800 years after the Trojan War, Ajax committed suicide after the fall of Troy without seeing his homeland again.

Several relics of oriental and Cypriot origin were found at the site at Kanakia, such as bronze armour strips stamped with the emblem of Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt, indicating trade or possible war in the 13th century BC.

Salamis became famous as the site of a sea battle in 480BC in which the Greek navies destroyed the invasion fleet of the Persian king Xerxes and put paid to the Persian threat.

The other main site where archaeologists claim to have discovered relics of places recounted in the Iliad is at the castle of Pylos in southeastern Greece, believed to be the home of King Nestor.


FACT OR FICTION?

King and warrior who appears in Homer’s Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, and in Sophocles’ tragedy Ajax


In the Iliad, he is so big that when King Priam of Troy sees him, he says: “Who is that great and goodly warrior whose head and broad shoulders tower above the rest?”

In Sophocles’ play, Ajax goes mad after losing the prize of Achilles’ armour and eventually kills himself

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Early Human Skull Discovered

Addis Ababa - Ethiopian and US scientists engaged in palaeo- anthropological field research announced on Friday the discovery of a human cranium in Gona, in Ethiopia's north-eastern Afar region.

The "significantly complete cranium" was believed to have stemmed from the Middle Pleistocene stage, making it 200 000 to 500 000 years old, said Dr Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Project.

The find consisted of a new hominid fossil. Semaw, who is based at Craft Stone Age Institute of Indiana University in the US, said the discovery in Gawis near Gona, "appears to be intermediate between earlier Homo erectus and later Homo sapiens and may be sampling a single lineage."

"I'm thrilled to have a complete cranium discovered from Gona that can provide key information for understanding the variation that existed during the Middle Pleistocene period," Semaw said.

The cranium was found on February 16 by Asahmed Humet, an Afari pastoralist working with the project scientists on archaeological reconnaissance survey.

"The Gawis cranium comes from a time of transition to modern humans from African Homo erectus that is poorly known. The fossil record from Africa for this period is sparse and most of the specimens are poorly dated," he said.

Semaw, who is attached to the state Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa, told reporters that the Gona Project area has sediments spanning the last 5.6 million years.

Significant archaeological collections of Late Acheulean stone tool-making tradition and numerous fossil animals were found in the area, "opening a widow into intriguing and important period in the development of modern humans. "

The Gona archaeological sites are known for the discovery of the oldest excavated stone tools in the world dating back 2.6 million years. Early in 2005, members of the Gona Project also announced the discovery of hominids assigned to Ardipithecus ramidus, among the earliest hominid genus in Africa dating between 4.3 million to 4.5 million years ago. - dpa

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[Kinslaughterer]

Artifacts in Ancient Chinese City Reveal Superb Technology
Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at site
Epoch Times Staff Apr 01, 2006


A worker looks over an excavation site. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)In Lingjiatan, Hanshan County of Anhui Province in China, archaeologists have discovered a primitive tribal site that was inhabited 5,000 years ago. Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at the site. Archaeology professor Zhang Jingguo said there are still many mysteries in the Lingjiatan ruins waiting to be solved.

The Lingjiatan ruins are located in Lingjiatan Village, Tongzha Township of Hanshan County in Chaohu City, Anhui Province, covering about 1.5 million square meters. Archaeologists say the 5,000 year old city was probably a prosperous city with developed construction, animal husbandry and handicrafts. Prior to the discovery of the Lingjiatan ruins, the oldest city in China acknowledged by archaeologists was in Dantu Village in Wulian County at Rizhao City, Shandong Province, which was built more than 4,000 years ago.

In the fall of 1985, a Lingjiatan villager by the name of Wan Chuancang found jade rings, stone axes and stone chisels when digging a grave for his mother. That was the beginning of the discovery of these most important ruins of the late Neolithic Age.

From 1987 to 2000, archaeologists performed four archaeological excavations at the site. They discovered more than 1,200 pieces of precious artifacts including: an altar, 66 graves, refined jade, stoneware and pottery dating back to the late Neolithic Age. Among these are the earliest Jade Dragon and the largest stone shovel discovered in China to date.

Archaeologists believe that 5,000 years ago, the area was highly developed, supporting the theory that Chaohu Lake Basin was a significant birthplace of Chinese culture.

Among catalogued pre-historic ruins, Lingjiatan has the most jade pieces. Professor Zhang Jingguo and his colleagues inspected these jade pieces with a stereomicroscope to research the jade treatment technology of that day. Under 50 times magnification, they found a little hole on the back of a jade statue. The diameter of the hole is only 0.15 millimeters. This would have required a drill with a diameter slightly thicker than a strand of hair. At that time, before metal was used for tools, the people in Lingjiatan, 5,000 years ago, already utilized such advanced technology.

Archaeologists also found a drill bit made of stone; it is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom with drills on both ends. This drill is screw shaped, indicating that the people in Lingjiatan knew about rotary power and centrifugal force. Their knowledge of physics, mathematics, geometry, and mechanics appears to have been quite developed. Many eminent archaeologists are surprised at how advanced the stone drill was.

Archaeologists also discovered huge stone relics as high as 10 meters (33 ft.) at Lingjiatan; built more than 1,000 years earlier than Britain's Stonehenge. Five thousand years ago, people of Lingjiatan should only have been using stone and wood tools; it is unknown how they cut and transported such huge and heavy stones.