Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2

Subject: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 09:17 AM

I can't find the old one, even going back a year... I hope it's ok.
Anyway, here's a nice list of recent finds.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/art-archaeology-discoveries-2022/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 10:46 AM

Here it is. Do you want to go with this new thread or combine them?

I remember a few of these, but some are new. Nice year-end summary!

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 04:33 PM

Your choice...
Not sure why a year's update didn't find it...

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 05:48 PM

I was about to say: I suggest making this the new fork, as the old one causes my browser indigestion, and presumably much mewing at Max's end .... then I went to submit the reply, and the Cat had gone off for a brief nap. In the argot of the music-hall comedians: Badum, Tish.

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 07:29 PM

thanks for the link, Bill.

I'd prefer all posts in one thread, but if long threads are a problem, this new thread could have a link to the old thread posted above it, like other popular themes. A link inside a post will be lost.

When a decision is made, I'll post some more links I've collected

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 07:30 PM

my fist attempt to post my reply was made during the catnap!

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: DaveRo
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 02:47 AM

MaJoC: don't you use one of the two 'paged' views:
Latest post at the bottom
Latest post at the top

See the 'how to' under Mudcat Time at the bottom of the index page.

I use the 'latest on top' for threads I follow.

The old title - Armchair Archeology was much better.

And I'll mention my Simple Linkifier which works with long URLs.

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Rain Dog
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 03:03 AM

The old title was called 'Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)'

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: DaveRo
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 04:59 AM

The armchair is the important bit ;)

Sandra should choose. She is the main poster - SRS is next.

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 08:49 AM

I bookmarked the (old) thread some time back, & also have bookmarked your Linkifier as The Guardian likes long URLs & I like their archaeology pages!

I would like all archaeology posts together, but as Stilly has to do the work, it's really her decision.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Rain Dog
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 09:00 AM

A related thread link to the previous thread would make a lot of sense, as you suggested Sandra.

It has been mentioned before that long threads do put a strain on the mudcat site.

Subject: RE: BS: New thread on archeology
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 08:25 PM

rename thread? - Armchair Archaeologist, part 2 & add Related link

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 09:46 PM

I can fix the name. :)

"Armchair" seemed a natural because we can sit at our computers and pull up Google Earth and find these places. I've explored ancient wells in Croatia, Chinese dessert roads, spent tons of time poking around the pyramids and ruins in Egypt, and poked around the Middle East in general. All from the chair in my office.

Also, there are actual discoveries made by people who studied these online maps and noticed patterns or shadows that were remarkable and realized there was *something* there.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Dec 22 - 03:38 AM

great, mate!

are you able to put a related thread above our shiny new thread so enquiring minds can see where we've been?

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=163442&messages=461&page=1

meanwhile, here's a few articles I've been saving up - links crated using DaveRo's linkifier

Quarries, trade and Dark Emu: unearthing treasures from ‘Australia’s Silk Road’ Researchers continue the search for evidence of traditional Aboriginal food production.
In 2017, the Indigenous elder George Gorringe led a small research expedition in the Channel Country of south-west Queensland.
The expedition, on the traditional land of the Mithaka people, visited several sites including sandstone quarries, stone arrangements, and the remains of gunyahs – dwellings made from excavated structures covered with branches.
The region is archaeologically significant: the landscape has been dramatically altered by a huge network of quarries, which Mithaka people once used to make seed-grinding implements (read on)
===========
shock! horror! Iconic 30000-Year-Old Ancient Female Dubbed “Dangerous Pornography” By Facebook (2018)
==============
New evidence of a Roman road in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) based on high resolution seafloor reconstruction

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Dec 22 - 06:08 AM

As an aside, it's nice to see "archaeology," not "archeology." I love most American spellings and am a doughty defender thereof, but that one always looks like a mistake to me!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 22 - 12:46 PM

Just in time for news out of Nazca, Peru

Archaeologists Uncover Nearly 170 Nazca Lines Dating Back About 2,000 Years in Peru

Following the discovery of an enormous lounging cat in 2020, archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of additional geoglyphs on the Nazca Lines site in Peru. A team from Yamagata University has spent nearly a decade at the location 250 miles south of Lima, and a field study between June 2019 and February 2020 unveiled 168 previously hidden works. Spotted in aerial photos captured by drones, the drawings feature myriad creatures like birds, snakes, orcas, and people likely created between 100 B.C. and 300 A.D.

Researchers believe there are two types of geoglyphs on the Nazca Pampa, a linear and relief, although only five documented during this mission are linear. Prehistoric populations created the works by removing darker stones from the earth’s surface to reveal the lighter sand below, and the renderings are thought to be part of spiritual, astronomical rituals. Spreading across 170 square miles, the Nazca lines vary in size, although most are smaller than 30 feet in diameter.

Archaeologists have spotted 358 geoglyphs at the UNESCO World Heritage site so far, which is currently being studied to see how the works are distributed across the area. (via ArtNet)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Dec 22 - 10:28 AM

To Save a Ruin, Send in the Sheep
The archaeological park of Pompeii has found a low-tech way to prevent the site from being overrun by vegetation: hungry sheep.

In recent years, the vast archaeological park of Pompeii, a city buried alive by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, has turned to high-tech options to maintain its excavated ruins. A surveillance drone makes a monthly flight over the site’s roughly 10,000 exhumed rooms. Artificial intelligence programs analyze aerial images for new cracks, fallen stones and other signs of erosion. But to prevent the third of the park that remains hidden under pumice and meters of earth from becoming overgrown with thorn bushes, wild hedges and trees, Pompeii has found a more appropriately ancient, and inexpensive, solution in hungry sheep.

Without the sheep “you’d have some kind of jungle that would invade the archaeological structures and the site,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park’s director. He said that he came up with the idea of bringing in the sheep after seeing them maintain the land on top of dikes in the North Sea, and said that the Pompeii sheep would chomp down invasive vegetation, destructive roots and wild terrains that could lead to the city’s reburial under landslides.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Dec 22 - 09:11 PM

Scientists claim first discovery of mammal eaten by dinosaur Paleontologists say they have identified foot of mouse-sized mammal in fossilised rib cage of predatory microraptor

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Dec 22 - 03:54 PM

Archaeologists have linked Graham Hancock's claims to "racist" and "white supremacist" ideologies from the 19th century, which they say are insulting to the ancestors of indigenous peoples who built the monuments. A Maltese archaeologist who appeared in the episode said that her interview had been manipulated. The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) objected to the classification of the series as a documentary and requested that Netflix reclassify it as science fiction. The SAA also stated that the series repeatedly and vigorously dismisses archaeologists and the practice of archaeology with aggressive rhetoric, willfully seeking to cause harm to our membership and our profession in the public eye; ... the theory it presents has a long-standing association with racist, white supremacist ideologies; does injustice to Indigenous peoples; and emboldens extremists.

While it is true Graham is a polemicist and media hound much like Michiu Kaku or Professor Dyson I think a prehistoric advanced building civilization is a 'holy grail' worth searching for that existed prior to the latest ice age. The ancient Egyptians called these people the Zep Tepi. It is also true That Hitler and Himmler did search for some archeological evidence of a master race but that is certainly not what Hancock wishes to do.

In short we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Dec 22 - 04:30 PM

What do/did Donna Haraway or Annette Kolodny think of him? I'd trust their opinions.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Dec 22 - 08:27 AM

Young Sudanese archaeologists dig up history as ‘west knows best’ era ends On a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, a wave of young people are now exploring sites.
A late morning in Khartoum. Inside a low, dusty building in the centre of the Sudanese capital, there are crates of artefacts, a 7ft replica of a 2,000-year-old stone statue of a Nubian god, and students rushing through the corridors. Outside is noisy traffic, blinding sunlight and both branches of the Nile.

Heading down one staircase are Sabrine Jamal, Nadia Musa, Athar Bela and Sabrine al-Sadiq, all studying archaeology at Khartoum University. Not one of them is older than 24 and they see themselves as pioneers, breaking new ground on a continent that has long attracted western expeditions, specialists and adventurers but whose own archaeologists have received less attention overseas.

“It is very important that Africans do African archaeology … because then we will have our own archaeological cultures. There is a lot we understand because we are from here. The idea that people from the west know best is changing,” said Sadiq.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Dec 22 - 07:36 AM

Eight Historic Lies about the Ancient World that will Blow Your Mind

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 07:40 PM

I haven't tried this yet, but here is a link to, of all people, Martha Stewart, about You Can Now Use Google Maps' Street View to Travel Back in Time—Here's How to Use the Interactive Feature. While it isn't archaeology or ancient history, it is another hole we can dive down exploring places included in this feature.

If you've ever used the tool to view your own home, you know that Google updates these photos regularly. Now, the technology company is using its database of street level photography to allow users to see what a particular area looked like years ago, according to a report by Wired.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jan 23 - 10:59 AM

Material Evidence of Silk Road Found In Israel

A joint team from the Israel Antiquities Authority, Ben-Gurion University, Hildebrandt of Göttingen University, and Nofar Shamir of Haifa University, have uncovered cotton and silk fabrics that date from the Early Islamic Period, which were imported from India and China around 1,300-years-ago along the Silk Road.

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes for exotic goods, which derives its name from the highly lucrative trade of silk textiles. During its 1,500 years of existence, the Silk Road endured the rise and fall of numerous empires, and major events such as the Black Death and the Mongol conquests.

The researchers have been excavating rubbish deposits in the Aravah that date back to the late 17th century AD. Excavations uncovered a treasure trove of finds, including fabrics, clothing, and leather, preserved in the arid climate that reveals new insights into the material culture and the daily lives of the people that inhabited the region.

Previous excavations also revealed decorative fabrics from India and silk from China, in which a Carbon-14 analysis has dated to between the 7th to 8th century AD. The archaeologists suggest that the cotton fabrics probably came from India and Nubia, and that the silk fabrics provide strong evidence for trade with China.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Jan 23 - 02:07 AM

‘3D medieval puzzle’: Newport ship to be reassembled from 2,500 pieces of timber Oak and beech 15th-century vessel is being returned to Welsh city where it was found in riverside mud in 2002 ...

The ship was a three-masted craft measuring more than 30 metres in length and capable of carrying about 200 tonnes of cargo. Examination of the artefacts found onboard suggests it probably sailed the Lisbon to Bristol trade route.
Through the study of tree-ring data, it has been concluded that the trees used to construct the ship were felled around 1449 in the Basque Country. It was brought to Newport for repairs or refit in about 1469 but was taken to bits after being damaged when a cradle supporting it collapsed and it did not sail again.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 09:29 AM

This is not the time to visit Machu Pichu.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64037002

Friends made it to Peru only 2 weeks ago and were OK but now its a mess.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jan 23 - 09:55 AM

btw my childhood hometown was named after the American discoverer of Machu Pichu. Binghamton

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Jan 23 - 06:13 PM

Digital scan unwraps secrets of mummy from 2,300 years ago Team at Cairo University conclude teenager was rich and he may point to evidence non-Egyptians were mummified
Matthew Weaver
Tue 24 Jan 2023 16.15 AEDT

A new digital scan has revealed intimate details about a teenage boy who was mummified about 2,300 years ago.

A team of scientists led by Sahar Saleem, a professor of radiology at the faculty of medicine at Cairo University, concluded that the boy and his family were rich and of high social status because his body was adorned with 49 precious amulets.

Saleem said: “Many were made of gold, while some were made of semi-precious stones, fired clay or faience. Their purpose was to protect the body and give it vitality in the afterlife.”

The team dubbed the mummy the Golden Boy. He was first discovered in 1916 at a cemetery used from 332BC to 30BC in Nag el-Hassay in southern Egypt. Until now it had been stored unexamined in the basement of Cairo’s Egyptian museum. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jan 23 - 07:36 PM

Modern mummification is more complex than the Egyptian book of the dead.
https://patents.google.com/patent/CA1087101A/en

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jan 23 - 08:32 PM

One of those intimate details is that the lad wasn't circumcised! Speculation is rife!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 23 - 01:39 PM

LIDAR discoveries and speculations

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jan 23 - 04:11 PM

‘Incredible’ Roman bathers’ gems lost 2,000 years ago found near Hadrian’s Wall Intricately carved stones that fell down drain at ancient pool uncovered by archaeologists in Carlisle

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 03:27 PM

Not archaeology, but you can still travel to Mauritius on your map and look around.

Resurrecting the Dodo: How Scientists Plan to De-Extinct an Iconic Species
The dodo's demise was caused by humans. Now scientists think they can bring the bird back. But should they?

The wildlife of Mauritius, a tropical island in the Indian Ocean just 500 miles east of Madagascar, could not have known the giant shadows cast across the bay in 1598 would signal their doom. The fleet of Dutch ships was akin to the Chicxulub asteroid that had arrived in the Yucatan peninsula some 66 million years earlier.

That rogue rock ended the reign of the dinosaurs in dramatic fashion. The threat posed to their modern-day relatives — creatures like the blue pigeon, the scops owl and the broad-billed parrot — by the Dutch fleet was much more insidious. It wasn't an explosive end. It was a slow burn: The sailors who colonized the island destroyed the natural habitat and introduced alien species like rats, pigs and monkeys, pests that could outcompete the island's native residents for resources.

Some species disappeared before anyone even noticed.

The most enduring emblem of the island's extinct species is, without doubt, the dodo (Raphus cucullatus). It was wiped out no more than a century after the Dutch arrived.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 05:46 PM

Metal detectorist unearths Tudor gold pendant linked to Henry VIII in Warwickshire ... What the Birmingham cafe owner had discovered was a huge and quite spectacular early Tudor pendant and chain, made in gold and enamel and bearing the initials and symbols of Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon.

When Rachel King, curator of Renaissance Europe at the British Museum, first heard about the discovery, she had to sit down. Nothing of this size and importance from the Renaissance period had been found in Britain for more than 25 years, she said.

The heart-shaped pendant, attached to a chain of 75 links and made of 300 grams of 24-carat gold, is decorated with a bush bearing the Tudor rose and a pomegranate, Katherine’s symbol, and on the reverse the initials H and K. Ribbon motifs carry the legend TOVS and IORS, which King called “a beautiful early English Franglais pun” on the French word “toujours” and “all yours” ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 06:04 PM

It is not that the Dutch found Dodo indescribably delicious it was that the ground nesting bird became prey to the rats the Dutch inadvertently brought.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 09:43 PM

See if this opens.

Wall Street Journal Vast Maya Kingdom Is Revealed in Guatemalan Jungle
Archaeologists identify a sprawling network of ancient ruins using laser mapping technology

The WSJ has a robust paywall.

Airborn laser mapping technology was used in this project. (Lidar)

Nestled in the jungle of northern Guatemala, a vast network of interconnected Maya settlements built millennia ago has been mapped in unprecedented detail.

The civilization featured towering pyramids, palaces, terraces, ball courts and reservoirs connected by a sprawling web of causeways, an international group of archaeologists reported during a presentation at Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City this month.

Their findings reveal a “level of infrastructure that is just mind-boggling,” said Dr. Timothy Beach, a professor of geography at the University of Texas at Austin who wasn’t involved in the research.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E really long file and link to the original paper.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Feb 23 - 04:40 PM

Embalming recipes used on Egyptian mummies at ancient workshop near pyramids decoded Researchers analysed embalming vessels found at a mummification workshop dated between 664 BC and 525 BC near the Saqqara pyramid
They found several different ingredients were used for different parts of the body
Some of the ingredients were sourced from as far away as South-East Asia

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Feb 23 - 02:18 PM

I wish the artist had been told that the ancient Egyptians performing this work probably DIDN'T look like tall European men with really short hair, or that perhaps it was women who did some of this work.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Feb 23 - 05:31 PM

I wonder how old the image is

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 02 Feb 23 - 07:33 PM

I remember reading an account of the time that stated that the Dodo was actually not that tasty, just easy to catch.

Robin

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Feb 23 - 11:05 AM

The Oldest Door from the Association of English Cathedrals (link to Facebook page)

The oldest door. It has lasted pretty well.

Hidden away in Westminster Abbey is Britain's oldest door in the passage leading to the Chapter House.

Dated for the first time in 2005 by the process known as dendrochronology. It showed that the wood was felled after 1032 AD and that the door was constructed sometime in the 1050s. This was during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, who built the Norman Abbey which was consecrated in 1065.

The ring-pattern of the timber indicates that the tree grew in eastern England, most probably coming from the extensive woodland owned by the Abbey in this area, and possibly from Essex.

The door is made of five vertical oak planks held together with three horizontal battens and iron straps. Most unusually the battens are recessed into the planks so that the door is flush on both sides. Normally medieval doors have a flat front and the back has projecting ledges and braces. The construction of this door is unique and shows that it was intended to communicate between spaces of equal importance in the Abbey. But its original position is not known. The boards are from a single tree and rings on them show growth during the years from AD 924 to 1030. As the bark was trimmed when the planks were made into a door it means the exact year of felling cannot be known.

Source - Westminster Abbey

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Feb 23 - 04:46 PM

Half–bull, half-truth… How English archaeologist claimed credit for discovering home of the minotaur Oxford museum aims to ‘set the record straight’ about the discovery of Knossos Palace in Crete.
Sir Arthur Evans, the renowned English archaeologist, stands guilty of pouring concrete into what he claimed was the lost palace of Knossos on Crete, of spinning the story of the Labyrinth, and of cutting out the local man who first discovered the famous site.

Yet today he is widely admired in Greece, by contrast with Lord Elgin, the Scottish nobleman whose seizure of part of the Parthenon’s marble frieze has long branded him an enemy of Greek culture.
Knossos locator map

Now the full history of Knossos, reputed home of the minotaur – the half-man, half-bull monster of legend – is to be displayed for the first time in a major British exhibition. While it will acknowledge Evans’s positive legacy, it belatedly gives full recognition to Minos Kalokairinos, the Cretan businessman and scholar who originally found the famous ruins. (read On)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 09:52 AM

I haven't checked Sandra's link (the Grauniad web site gives my browser indigestion), but Sir Arthur Evans also did damage to the understanding of Linear B, by insisting it was a native Cretan language; such was his authority that nobody dare contradict him. Only in the 1940s, after Evans was long dead, did Alice Kober get hold of samples and start cracking Linear B from scratch; Michael Ventris then found it to be Greek after all.

Reference: Simon Singh: The Code Book, ch 5 ("The language barrier"). Read the whole saga (pp 217--242) for the connection with Bletchley Park.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 10:24 AM

That is a rather fraught story, isn't it? Thanks, Sandra!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 07:12 AM

Such is the nature of the narcissist expert who claims the authority of the past and declares the impossibility of anything new. The enemy of discovery or invention is a bevy of Ph.D. status quo experts compared to open minded researchers.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Feb 23 - 04:40 PM

Discovery of 3m-year-old stone tools sparks prehistoric whodunnit Presence of teeth from extinct hominin challenges view that only members of Homo genus used complex tools.
The discovery of stone tools dating back nearly 3m years has raised questions about which hominin species was behind the ancient technology.

The artefacts, found at a site in Kenya, are thought to be the oldest known example of a specific set of stone tools used for butchery and pounding plant material. The emergence of the so-called Oldowan toolkit is viewed as a milestone in human evolution and was assumed to be an innovation of our ancestors.

However, the latest excavation revealed a pair of massive molars belonging to Paranthropus, a muscular-jawed hominin on a side branch of our evolutionary tree, alongside the tools. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Feb 23 - 04:51 PM

Paleo religion, acheo pharmacology and chromospectography to identify the residue in archeologic cups are subjects that you might expect I would broach.
Brian Muraresku wants to be very clear: the book 'immortality key' is not about psychedelics per say, nor has he tried them.. He’s referring to the concept of “dying before dying,” a mystical, near-death state spiritual experience.
-during a recent interview,
“Certainly, psychedelics seem to be an awfully fast-acting, reliable way to enter into that state—that state between life and death.
But it’s not the only one, and I want to be very, very clear about that.”

Still, “The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion With No Name” is kind of about psychedelics. The main thesis of Muraresku’s exceptional investigative work: the modern Eucharist is a placebo variation of a psychedelic brew that originally represented the body and blood of Christ, as was likely practiced during the secret Eleusinian Mysteries. Unlike other religions and mythologies (which acknowledge prior influences), Christian leaders have remained steadfast in the assertion that Christianity emerged whole-cloth as a unique (and, in the eyes of believers, true) faith.

That’s just not how religion works. Nothing is created in a vacuum.

What are the foundations of Western civilization to Christianity? The real lineage belongs to Greece. Muraresku, who holds a degree in Latin, Greek,and Sanskrit, spent 12 years investigating this book due to his longstanding love of the Classics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-bWymbT04 This link is a discussion among classicists on the subject of psychedelics.

The shamanic journey is a religious experience that will expose most modern western concepts of God as ridiculous and replace them with mysteries that are profound..
Being an initiated enlightened person will make them an atheist to current western religion but replace that religion with a far more spiritual understanding.
The Dionysian journey and the Elesian mysteries are being found to be from 200 million year old fungi, like Ergot rye in which beer and wine were 'dosed' as well as with psilocybin mushrooms. The ancient Greeks h ad more experience and influence from an altered state of consciousness than mere imagination and curiosity. There is a certainty in discovering who you are in the shamanistic experience that without the experience a life is only half lived. It is the experience of the God within, which has nothing to do with an egotistical view. It is not just the Mayans but it is western civilization itself that has visionary roots going back to the ancient Greeks and perhaps the Egyptians. A way to see the difference between people who have had visionary experiences and those who have not
is to compare Carl Jung and all his works and Freud. Carl Jung spent an undocumented year in Taos where he discovered psilocybin and Freud
was hung up on cocaine.
Pre Greecian civilization that has known this transcendence go back as far as Gobekli Tepi which was not a farm or temple but may have been a a brewery that made beer with rye. Was it ergotized beer? Beer residue has been found.
THERE HAS ONLY BEEN A DECADE OF ARCHEOCHEMISTS LOOKING AT ANCIENT DENTAL CALCULUS TO SEE WHAT DIET WAS EATEN. Only a few dozen are doing research. It is a new window in the archeological spectrum.

more on Brian Muraresku and Dionysian sacrements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYQh1ZNkC70
At minimum, Brian has a hypothesis worth a second look.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Feb 23 - 04:15 PM

Myth-Busting Study Reveals Vikings Were More Genetically Diverse Than We Thought

Over a period of six years, the study authors sequenced the genomes of 442 Viking age skeletons, dating from 2400 BCE to 1600 AD. In doing so, they shed new light on the genetic origins of the Viking populace, while also revealing how different factions within the Viking world spread through Northern Europe.

“We found that Vikings weren't just Scandinavians in their genetic ancestry, as we analysed genetic influences in their DNA from Southern Europe and Asia which has never been contemplated before. Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, which suggest ongoing gene flow across Europe,” explained study author Martin Sikora in a statement.

What it also suggests is that their women went along on the ships or they brought back women from other countries. At the very least.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Feb 23 - 04:24 PM

interesting article, thanks for posting it.

I wonder if the Hollywood Vikings will stay blond, or will diversity come into casting! And will audiences accept it?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Feb 23 - 04:31 PM

I knew I had a few interesting article just waiting to be posted - however these have been waiting for 12 months (well, 11 months & 3 weeks to be exact) I really must clear up my email drafts! Some are actually real emails addressed to someone, others are just info.

Has The “Red Bag” That Once Held Sir Walter Raleigh’s Decapitated Head Been Discovered At An Old Family Manor? ... But, But… How does leather transform into velvet?

Bedsheet Lovingly Embroidered With Hair Likely From A Severed Head

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Feb 23 - 05:33 PM

Discovery of 4,500-year-old palace in Iraq may hold key to ancient civilisation Sumerian Lord Palace of the Kings found in archeological collaboration with British Museum

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 10:33 PM

This is a baby in terms of history, but it's something a lot of people have probably wondered about. FBI records deepen mystery of dig for Civil War-era gold

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 10:33 PM

There's a glitch right now and Mudcat isn't allowing for multiple paragraphs so I'll keep it all here. From the Seattle Times: Dennis Parada waged a legal battle to force the FBI to turn over records of its excavation in Dents Run, Pennsylvania, where local lore says an 1863 shipment of Union gold disappeared on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. The FBI, which went to Dents Run after sophisticated testing suggested tons of gold might be buried there, has long insisted the dig came up empty.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 02:22 AM

interesting story, thanks for posting it

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 05:11 AM

It’s not a darning tool, it’s a very naughty toy: Roman dildo found Two thousand-year-old object found at Roman fort in Northumberland in 1992 has been reassessed by archaeologists

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 03:25 PM

India

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 02:54 AM

Evidence of Bronze Age neurosurgery found in remains of wealthy brothers buried in Israel

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 04:15 PM

Russian scientists dissect nearly 3,500-year-old bear discovered in Siberian permafrost A brown bear that lay almost perfectly preserved in the frozen wilds of eastern Siberia for almost 3,500 years has undergone an autopsy by a team of scientists after it was discovered by reindeer herders on a desolate island in the Arctic.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 10:22 PM

Bows Were Being Used in Europe 40,000 Years Earlier Than We Thought (here's part of the story)

A cave in southern France has revealed evidence of the first use of bows and arrows in Europe by modern humans some 54,000 years ago, far earlier than previously known. The research, published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, pushes back the age of archery in Europe by more than 40,000 years. The use of the bow-and-arrow in Africa has been documented to date back some 70,000 years. But the oldest previous evidence of archery in Europe was the discovery of bows and arrows in peat bogs of Northern Europe, notably Stellmoor in Germany, dating back 10,000 to 12,000 years.

The new research comes from the Mandrin rock shelter overlooking the middle valley of the Rhone River in southern France. The Grotte Mandrin site, which was first excavated in 1990, includes layer upon layer of archaeological remains dating back over 80,000 years. The researchers who conducted the latest study have documented previously that Neanderthals and their modern "cousins" – Homo sapiens – alternated in inhabiting the Mandrin cave. A level known as the "Layer E" has been attributed to the presence of Homo sapiens some 54,000 years ago and is interposed between layers of numerous Neanderthal occupations.

The researchers conducted a functional analysis of flint artifacts found in Layer E that were more finely executed than the points and blades in the layers above and below. Tiny flint points were the key because other elements of archery technology such as wood, fibers, leather, resins and sinew are perishable and rarely preserved in European Paleolithic sites.

The article is made of teeny-tiny single-sentence "paragraphs" combined here so it looks somewhat normal. The rest at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 06:50 PM

Modern and ancient simultaneously. Nashtifan, Iran: The Ancient Windmills That Have Stood the Test of Time

Deep in the desert of Iran, there is a small town called Nashtifan. What makes this town unique is that it is home to some of the world’s oldest windmills, dating back over a thousand years. These vertical-axis windmills, also known as panemone windmills, have been used for centuries to grind grain and pump water in the arid region.

Despite their age, the windmills in Nashtifan are still in use today. The locals have maintained and preserved the structures, recognizing their value not only as a piece of history, but as a crucial part of their daily lives. The windmills continue to harness the power of the wind to grind grain and pump water, just as they have done for centuries.

Don't ask how I landed on this - the serendipity of the Internet!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Feb 23 - 06:17 AM

How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries Deciphering ancient texts with modern tools, Michael Langlois challenges what we know about the Dead Sea Scrolls

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Feb 23 - 11:28 AM

There are 3 job openings at Vindolanda Trust in the UK for our readers in that area. In case you're interested!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Feb 23 - 04:24 PM

further to my post of 20 Feb 23 - 05:11 AM

It’s not a Roman dildo, it’s a drop spindle

Linsey Duncan-Pitt offers another explanation for the 2,000-year-old artefact that’s being touted as a sex toy

As an avid spinner of yarn who uses a drop spindle, a dildo was not the first explanation that came to mind when I perused your article and the accompanying image (It’s not a darning tool, it’s a very naughty toy: Roman dildo found, 20 February). The artefact looks very much like the dealgan or farsadh, a type of drop spindle.

The tip looks a little glans-like, but it is also like the notch at the pointed end of the dealgan, used to secure the spun fibre with a half-hitch. The spindle is then rotated to add twist to the drafted fibres, and the spun fibre is wound around the shaft. The base of the artefact is wider than the tapering shaft; that would help stop the fibre slipping off. Some dealgans have a notch on the base, but not all.

Given that it was found among other crafting materials, this would seem to be a much more feasible explanation for this object than a dildo. It’s a bit understated as a dildo, and would no doubt make for a more satisfying spin than anything else.

Modern spinners like me love a decorative and unusual spindle, and so it seems more logical that this was a cheeky Roman design.

Linsey Duncan-Pitt
Telford, Shropshire

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Antique French drop spindles see 3rd image

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Feb 23 - 04:48 PM

yet another interesting article - Australia's most intact Cooyoo australis fossil discovered in Richmond with specimen in its belly ... about 1.6 metres long ...

see also the pic of the 2.6m specimen!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 04:56 PM

Scientists Map an Unexplored Corridor of Egypt's Great Pyramid Using Cosmic Rays
Thanks to cosmic rays, secrets of the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World are being revealed.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of Egypt's famous landmarks, has stood tall for around 4,500 years. But the 2 million blocks that make up the tomb and fortress have not been impenetrable. Looters robbed the structure of its ancient treasures thousands of years ago and scientists have probed its interiors either by studying its corridors or with more advanced measuring techniques like thermal scanners.

The structure still holds many secrets, but since 2015 an international team of scientists, the ScanPyramids team, has been using subatomic particles to probe the unknowns of the monument. In 2017, they revealed a huge void -- creatively dubbed the Big Void -- situated above the pyramid's gallery, though the purpose of this void remains unknown.

On Thursday, in a study published in the journal Nature Communications, the team characterizes the structure of this corridor by taking advantage of the cosmic rays that constantly smash into the Earth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 09:44 AM

A tunnel is just now discovered behind the entrance to the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 10:07 AM

"? Freud's mystic world of meaning needn't have us mystified
It's really very simple what the psyche tries to hide:
A thing is a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide
As the id goes marching on
Glory glory psychotherapy, glory glory sexuality
Glory glory now we can be free as the id goes marching on.?"

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Mar 23 - 02:03 AM

Well-preserved spices found in 500-year-old Gribshunden shipwreck in Baltic Sea off Sweden

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Mar 23 - 08:12 PM

Minature Sphinx found

An interesting article in yesterdays Guardian

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 11:21 AM

Same basic story on CNN

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 01:00 PM

Roman ‘shrine’ found in Leicester Cathedral graveyard

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 01:02 PM

Ancient Restaurant Highlights Iraq's Archeology Renaissance

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 04:49 PM

Roman Shrine ... Continue reading Enjoy unlimited digital access. £1 for 6 months. (I do have an Australian £1 note!! My parents found it among stuff when they retired & moved out of Sydney in 1978, tho I don't think it could be used to subscribe, alas.)

Folktale becomes reality as Roman altar unearthed at Leicester Cathedral

thanks for the links, Bill

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 06:33 PM

I went elsewhere to find the story also: Roman shrine discovered near Leicester cathedral graveyard from BBC.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 23 - 01:34 PM

sill more"https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/uk/roman-burial-garforth-scn-scli-gbr-intl/index.html

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Mar 23 - 03:25 PM

ancient mudcat tavern

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 06:03 PM

Western Australian archaeological project to connect 60,000 years of desert history Traditional owners and leading archaeologists hope a five-year exploration project will uncover a rich history and find connections between Aboriginal communities across a huge stretch of Western Australia.

Baiyungu elder Hazel Walgar said within her traditional land of the Ningaloo coast there was evidence of trade with groups from other parts of Australia.

"Artefacts from my traditional area, Ningaloo, are found in the Central Australia, artefacts like the marnargee, the baler shell, and we find cutting tools in our area that don't come from here," she said.

"Those artefacts come from inland, from Martu country ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 12:56 PM


‘The stuff was illegally dug up’: New York’s Met Museum sees reputation erode over collection practices
An investigation identified hundreds of artifacts linked to indicted or convicted traffickers. What does this mean for the future of museums?

In the village of Bungmati, Nepal, above an ancient spring, stand two stone shrines and a temple. On the side of one of those shrines is a large hole where a statue of Shreedhar Vishnu, the Hindu protector god, used to be.

Carved by master artisans nearly a thousand years ago, the sandstone relic was carefully tended and worshipped by local people. Sometime in the early 1980s that tradition abruptly ended when thieves removed the 20-inch statue. A Bungmati resident, Buddha Ratna Tuladhar, recalls how the community was “overwhelmed by melancholy” over its loss. “We kept hoping the statue would be restored, but it never was,” he said.

About a decade after the theft, and on the other side of the world, a wealthy American collector donated the statue to New York City’s celebrated Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it would remain for nearly 30 years, until an anonymous Facebook account called the Lost Arts of Nepal finally identified it, in 2021. Although the Met has since removed the statue from its publicly listed collection, signaling that it may soon be returned, the damage to the Bungmati community was already done.

“Nepal has a living religion where these idols are actively worshiped in temples. People pray to them and take them out during festivals for ceremonies,” said Roshan Mishra, a volunteer with the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign, a coalition formed to restore the country’s lost heritage. “When relics are stolen, those festivals stop. Each stolen statue erodes our culture. Our traditions fade and are eventually forgotten.”

In the antiquities trade, the Met’s reputation has also begun to erode. Over the last two years, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its news media partners have reported on the Met’s acquisition practices – often in relation to a trove of items obtained from Cambodia in an era when that country’s cultural heritage was sold off wholesale to the highest bidder. A broader examination of the Met’s antiquities collection, conducted by ICIJ, Finance Uncovered, L’Espresso and other media partners over recent months, raises new concerns over the origin of the museum’s inventory of ancient statues, friezes and other relics.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in 1880, long after its counterparts in Paris and London. The museum started out with a purchase of 174 paintings, placing it far from the scale of France’s palatial Louvre’s galleries already holding thousands of works, many inherited from the nation’s colonial exploits.

The rest is at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 05:40 PM

I read that article last night - very interesting! Very immoral, but only money counts (counted?) in acquisitions for this young institution.

... New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in 1880, long after it's counterparts in Paris and London ...

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 06:53 PM

The archaeological museum in Naples is stunning. But it contains many mosaics and frescoes hacked out of Roman ruins in the area. We visited two amazing Roman villas in the ancient Roman town of Stabiae, a few miles from Vesuvius (Pliny the Elder witnessed the eruption from there in 79 AD as the town was inundated by ash - he died there, though probably not from the eruption). As of 2013 when we visited, the villas had not been developed for tourism, though a local man gave the two of us a superb guided tour for a few euros. There were plenty of impressive artefacts, but achingly notable were the dozens of missing frescoes, just huge holes in the plaster left in the walls. There was no doubt that many of them ended up in museums.

And don't get me started on the Elgin Marbles.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 06:54 PM

Just noticed that that was post no.79 in the thread!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 07:55 PM

Private collections of billionaires would shock you.
Items naturally go to the highest bidders. What you can see in museums is often on a temporary loan privately or from another museum.
I could not say whose collection is larger, billionaires or all museums.

Questionable ownership is an ever-lasting tricky ethical conundrum.

10 years after the Nazi art theft many items ended up in fancy restaurants, not museums. Times are changing and slowly even the Smithsonian is repatriating some artifacts only after a big stink.
Museums that have obviously stolen art use methods to tie up an item until the true owners have died. Of course its a nasty business dealing with 'priceless' things.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 08:06 PM

Lets just look at new artifacts. Of the 270 Apollo 11 Moon rocks and the Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks that were given to the nations of the world by the Nixon Administration, approximately 180 are unaccounted for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_and_missing_Moon_rocks#:~:text=Of%20the%20270%20Apollo%2011,away%20in%20storage%20for%20decades.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 08:30 PM

Yup. :-(

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 04:02 AM

Spears stolen by Captain Cook from Kamay/Botany Bay in 1770 to be returned to traditional owners Held by Cambridge University for more than 250 years, the spears mark ‘first point in shared history’

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 11:26 AM

Souvenirs and graffiti. Both part of the experience of European travelers. Taking stuff and leaving a mark of our passing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 12:58 PM

Yep. Some museums trouble me almost as much as zoos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 05:43 AM

In a Roman Tomb, ‘Dead Nails’ Reveal an Occult Practice Forty-one bent or twisted iron nails, unearthed from a second-century imperial burial site, were meant to keep the deceased in their place.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Mar 23 - 09:26 AM

On the show CBS Sunday Morning March 23 the subject was stolen antiquities in New York museums There were over 4,000 items from the looted Iraq museum, a gold sarcophagus from Cairo and an entire museum of returned art in Italy. A link may someday follow.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Apr 23 - 12:45 PM

It is probably 20 years or more since a science and writers conference introduced me to the amazing abilities of Lidar.

I don't think this was shared yet: The big archaeological digs happening up in the sky Here's part of it:

Laser technology called lidar is helping archaeologists complete years of fieldwork sometimes in the span of a single afternoon

Archaeology is facing a time crunch. Thousands of years of human history risk imminent erasure, from tiny hamlets to entire cities - temples, walls and roads under grave threat of destruction. Urban sprawl and industrial agriculture are but two culprits, smothering ancient settlements beneath car parks and cattle pastures. International conflict and climate change are also damaging vulnerable sites, with warfare and water shortages destroying pockets of history across the world.

The endless excavations of yesteryear are no longer the best solution. Big digs aren’t the big idea they once were: mapping the human archaeological record is now moving upward, into the sky.

Lidar – short for light detection and ranging – has emerged as one of the most widely used technologies for rapid archaeological documentation. Lidar works by sending pulses of light out from a transmitter often mounted to the skid of a helicopter, then recording how long it takes for those pulses to return to a sensor. A virtual 3D map can be generated from a single large-scale survey in less than a day. Archaeological sites that would require years and years of fieldwork to excavate can now be mapped in a single afternoon, their every surface feature captured down to millimeter-scale resolution.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 05:56 AM

From yesterday's Guardian:

Smuggled Iranian carving worth £30m seized at airport by UK border patrol

The ancient treasure has been restored and will go on show at the British Museum before going back home.

It was carved almost 2,000 years ago and is such an important sculpture that if it appeared on the art market today it could fetch more than £30m.

But this is a previously unrecorded antiquity that can never be sold. For the large fragment of a Sasanian rock relief – which depicts an imposing male figure carved in the 3rd century AD – has been freshly gouged from a cliff in Iran with an angle grinder.

It was heading for the black market in Britain when it was seized at Stansted airport. Border Force officers became suspicious when they saw its haphazard packaging, perhaps intended to suggest that it was a worthless item. The antiquity, which is over one metre in height, was hacked out of living rock or rock that has been carved in situ.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:02 AM

That is heartbreaking - and I hope they identify the source of that carving and can protect the rest of it. Throw the book at the smugglers.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:16 AM

It's 42 BC and what appears on a scroll recovered in Rome are a compendium of dad jokes like "there's a rumor going around about butter. What is it? I'm not going to spread it."
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/01/1167432458/archaeology-students-found-dad-jokes-from-ancient-rome

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 10:42 AM

The show aired April 1st.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 07:10 PM

My favorite NPR April Fools post had to do with bowdlerizing opera. Alice Furlaud I think did the piece on All Things Considered. I can't find it right now, but it's probably still in the archives.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 08:48 PM

mine is from the 70s when a UK scientific organisation put out a press release for a new instrument (really a 12" ruler) with such a wonderful description that an overseas scientific organisation wrote to them some years later wanting it.

Wouldn't happen in The Days of the Internet (or would it?)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 12:24 AM

I found it! Darned Google was insisting on spelling her name wrong.

One Man's Sad Goal? Make Opera Positive

From 2006. That's how big an impression it made on me.

On Cape Cod, an impresario seeks rewrites of the world's great tragic operas. He wants to give them a happy ending for performances by his children's opera company. Some might call it a fool's errand.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 07:02 AM

My parents bought a 15 volume Reference Library Art Encyclopedia that had photos of art from great museums around the world. Only photos remain for almost all the Bagdad objects that it featured.
   
I've had fun giving photos to friends whose portraiture greatly resembles them. Sometimes the resemblance is amazing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 23 - 05:00 PM

Not archaeology, just the occasional pleasure of looking around fancy neighborhoods. I read this article about Ann-Margret putting out a rock album at age 81 (more power to her!) and they mention that she has lived in the same home since 1968 in Benedict Canyon in LA. Start looking around - it's in a nice area on several acres but in fact a 5,400sf house in Beverly Hills terms is modest. Four bedrooms, four baths. There's a pool, but not a lot of parking. That may refer to garaged parking. Also, the surrounding buildings probably aren't included in that number. It was built in 1938 and has History - Bacall and Bogart lived in that house when then were first married, and then Hedy Lamarr lived there, apparently who Ms. Olsson bought it from. A blurb on a Hollywood website says

This lovely home, lavishly expanded to enlarge the living room, atop a lower floor entertainment, has been owned by Ann-Margret and her late husband Roger Smith, since their marriage in 1967. Previously, it was the home of Hedy Lamarr, who purchased the home from Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.
The Smiths added a private gym, a two-bedroom home for their live-in cook and chauffeur, a 20-seat screening room, and two guest houses.

Anyway, sometimes I read a story about someone who has stayed in the same place for a long time and I wonder how they've made it their own and what about the area makes it right for them - not keeping up with the Joneses and buying new bigger places over time.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Apr 23 - 06:54 PM

Well, Rita & I lived in the same house for 42 years. We 'made it our own' with art, friends, music and love. (Nice neighborhood, too.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:02 AM

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/ancient-roman-winery-found-ruins-villa-of-quintilii-rome

An Amazing 2nd -3rd century Winery is being excavated just outside Rome.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Apr 23 - 07:57 AM

It's been 20 years in this modest home. I've rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic many times.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Apr 23 - 08:54 AM

Roman gateway rebuilt in ‘exact spot’ at site of invasion of Britain Reconstructed rampart structure that stood almost 2,000 years ago will open to visitors in Richborough, Kent. An 8-metre-high rampart and gateway built almost 2,000 years ago at the spot where Roman forces invaded Britain has been reconstructed for 21st-century visitors.

The original structure was built to allow soldiers a clear view of any threat to the military base they created at Richborough in Kent, the main entry point to Britain from mainland Europe and often referred to as the “gateway to Britannia”.

Built by English Heritage, the charity that looks after more than 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites, the reconstructed gateway opens on Wednesday alongside a display of items found at the site ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: DaveRo
Date: 18 Apr 23 - 02:32 PM

The gateway looks like a copy of the one at The Lunt

The wooden ballustrade, with its X pattern, looks just like the ones English Heritage, who maintain these sites, build to stop visitors falling off their castles.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Apr 23 - 05:28 PM

surely visitors would have more sense than to do stuff that puts them at risk of falling???? (irony alert)

Divers find wreckage of experimental submarine built in 1907 in Connecticut

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 22 Apr 23 - 02:11 AM

Rare hoard of
1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Apr 23 - 10:54 AM

Quite a tour of the Old World this morning, visiting these links.

In particular, interesting about the winery near Rome:

Lying on the ancient Appian Way as it runs south-east from Rome, the villa had its own theatre, an arena for chariot races and a baths complex with walls and floors lined in sumptuous marble.

But the story of the villa, whose origins lie in the second century AD, has just become even more remarkable, with the discovery of an elaborate winery unparalleled in the Roman world for lavishness.

The facility included a series of luxurious dining rooms with a view on to fountains gushing with young wine.

Sounds like what tourists see today (without the slavery that kept the older establishments going).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 May 23 - 07:17 PM

Archaeologists discover 4,000-year-old temple in western Peru

so I went looking got more info - not yet mentioned here, but there are lots of other interesting articles to check out

It's so new that I can't find anything more. Peru has a number of very old sites up to 4000 years old but I can't find anything about this one - yet

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 23 - 07:50 PM

It's easy to dive down the rabbit hole with some of the links off of those pages. And a brief tour of the Rio Chancay in Peru on Google Earth. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 May 23 - 07:42 AM

they have a lot of great articles + some that are a bit fringe (& some that are very fringe) but I don't read those.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 May 23 - 11:43 PM

Bones of two more victims of the Mount Vesuvius volcano eruption found in Roman ruins of Pompeii Two more skeletons have been found in the ruins of Pompeii — the ancient Roman city wiped out by a Mount Vesuvius eruption nearly 2,000 years ago — the Italian Culture Ministry has said.
The remains are believed to be of two men in their mid-50s, who died in an earthquake that accompanied the volcano eruption in 79AD, a ministry statement said ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 May 23 - 11:48 PM

Two Victims Found To Be Killed By Earthquake In Pompeii Disaster Zone - lots of pics & video

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 May 23 - 11:05 AM

‘She has stories to tell’: digital scan of Titanic wreck could reveal its secrets 'Digital twin’ of ship created by deep-sea mapping firm may help shed new light on 1912 sinking
The Titanic has been depicted in unprecedented detail in the first full-sized digital scan of the wreck.
The unique 3D view of the entire vessel, seen as if the water has been drained away, could reveal fresh clues about how she came to sink on her maiden voyage in 1912. The scans also preserve a “digital twin” of the ship, which is rapidly being destroyed by iron-eating bacteria, salt corrosion and deep ocean currents ... related articles below this article

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 May 23 - 05:13 AM

something a little different!

‘Ancient’ vase repatriated from UK to Greece faces fresh forgery claim Exclusive: Archaeologist says 5th-century BC wine vase with modern decoration widely regarded as fake.
Days after Greece announced the recovery of hundreds of antiquities from a disgraced British dealer, its ministry of culture faces the accusation that one of those artefacts, a vase of the early 5th-century BC, bears a decoration that is in fact a “modern forgery” created in the 1990s.

Christos Tsirogiannis, an archaeologist based in Cambridge, expressed astonishment that the ministry had included the olpe – a vase for wine – among treasured ancient objects that will be coming home.

He told the Guardian that if they had conducted adequate studies they would have known that it had been dismissed in 1998 by the foremost expert, among many examples of forged decorations on ancient vases – in this case, with an added modern design of a satyr and a goat ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 May 23 - 07:49 PM

Archaeologists say Moluccan boats depicted in Arnhem Land rock art, solving mystery At Awunbarna, also known as Mount Borradaile, the rock shelters are decorated with paintings of European ships, guns, fish, prawns and macropods.
But since the 1970s, two specific paintings of boats have stood out as different to western archaeologists.
Researchers from Flinders University have this month published findings that suggest the art depicts ships from the Maluku Islands — previously known as the Moluccas — in Indonesia, which could have reached Australian shores prior to colonisation.
The authors say the work deepens Australia's understanding of how its first people interacted with foreign visitors ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 May 23 - 06:21 PM

Oldest evidence of plague in Britain found in 4,000-year-old human remains Traces of Yersinia pestis bacteria were found in teeth of people buried at bronze age sites in Cumbria and Somerset

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 May 23 - 04:30 AM

oops, there's a little typo above!
Oldest evidence of plague in Britain found in 4,000-year-old human remains


Silver in ancient Egyptian bracelets provides earliest evidence for long-distance trade between Egypt and Greece

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 23 - 07:29 AM

Sandra, with genetic archaeology it has been deduced that in the last 12,000 years, the population of various human species was reduced to an extremely tiny gene pool caused by multiple disasters. It may why humans are now a single species. What is your take on this?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jun 23 - 06:46 PM

I've never heard of that theory

Ex-garbageman's flash of intuition leads to discovery of ancient statues in Tuscany further to this story - Etruscan and Roman statues pulled from the mud in Tuscany thanks in part to the intuition of a retired garbageman.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jun 23 - 10:50 PM

100,000 years ago there were about 5 species of humans. That homo sapiens survived is recently theorized that we were the most friendly.
Survival of the most friendly and cooperative is a new way of looking at evolution. Comparing dogs to wolves there is a mutation of chromosome 7 in dogs that make them more friendly. We have a similar shared trait of friendliness with dogs. Woof !

https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Friendliest-Understanding-Rediscovering-Humanity/dp/0399590668

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 04:17 AM

We don't all have that trait.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stanron
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 04:54 AM

We've noticed.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 06:06 AM

Friendliness is a side-effect: it's empathy that's the driver.

Oh, and dogs are friendly because we've bred them for that, and they've selected us for being able to do so.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 07:01 AM

Thats true but a mutation in wolves may be the beginning of dog breeding.
Friendliness and cooperation are at the heart of building projects be they neolithic or more complex architecture. We know homo sapiens by their buildings. I speculate some other human species are still in our chromosomes deep down like the Neanderthals. Not that short people are related to Hobbits but certain disease models may be related to archaic species.
The great mysteries still remain of how certain great stones were moved and manipulated.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 10:10 AM

> a mutation in wolves may be the beginning of dog breeding

It is (dog breeding is better called "unnatural selection"), but needs to be backed up by training. A domestic dog is something like three meals away from reverting to wolf, or less in the case of carnivorous penis extensions carefully mishandled macho dogs. It's a complicity, where humans selected domestic wolves, amongst other things, for susceptibility to training, while domestic wolves initially selected humans for the ability to train by granting them better hunting success.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 01:28 PM

The chromosome/evolution of dogs stuff isn't really an archaeology subject.

That Tuscan discovery of ancient statues (offerings) was pretty interesting. Thanks, Sandra!

Then, former bin man and amateur local historian Stefano Petrini had "a flash" of intuition, remembering that years earlier he had seen bits of ancient Roman columns on a wall on the other side of the public baths.

The columns could only be seen from an abandoned garden that had once belonged to his friend, San Casciano's late greengrocer, who grew fruit and vegetables there to sell in the village shop.

When Mr Petrini took archaeologists there, they knew they had found the right spot.

"It all started from there, from the columns," Mr Petrini said.

Later in the article "The statues found there were offerings from Romans and Etruscans who looked to the gods for good health, as were the coins and sculptures of body parts like ears and feet also recovered from the site."

Were I alive back then I guess I'd have had someone carve statue parts of each of my knees and toss them in as an offering, hoping they'd get better. Today, we go see the orthopedic surgeon.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 01:58 PM

Google map of the general area. I've been poking around on Google Earth to see if it might be one of the existing thermal pools or something else with Roman columns nearby, but I think they've wisely removed the location to try to protect the site. Google Earth has a "time slider" that can take the map back about 20 years - trying to push it back to 1985 didn't result in a visible map. The land has seen more development, but the same three thermal pools and one river area are the same all the way back.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 02:28 PM

This thread was getting humorous. Who knows 5,000 years from now we might be known as Google man, the last species before homo-sapiens became AI hybrids.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 11:34 PM

World's oldest-known burial site found in South Africa challenges understand of human evolution Paper is not yet peer reviewed - so might be challenged

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jun 23 - 07:09 PM

‘Astonishing’ Roman tomb unearthed near London Bridge station Some of the largest Roman mosaics found in 50 years were unearthed on same site last year.

The remains of a Roman mausoleum “with an astonishing level of preservation” – believed to be the most intact structure of its kind discovered in Britain – have been unearthed in London.

The “incredibly rare” find has been excavated at the The Liberty of Southwark development site, a stone’s throw from Borough Market and London Bridge station, the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) has revealed.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jun 23 - 06:04 PM

That mausoleum looks compact enough that they should be able to lift the entire thing and put it somewhere safe.

There are plans for the future public display of the mausoleum, which underwent significant modifications. A second mosaic directly beneath the first indicates it was raised during its lifetime. The two mosaics are similar, with a central flower surrounded by concentric circles.

Although the tomb was almost completely dismantled, probably during the medieval period, the signs are it was a substantial building, perhaps two storeys high, and would have been used by wealthier Romans, possibly as a family tomb.

Like peeling back layers of an onion.

There's another link on that same page about what appears to be the remains of a Roman alter that would have stood where the Leicester cathedral now stands. Folktale becomes reality as Roman altar unearthed at Leicester Cathedral. This was published in March, so apologies if I missed it the first time if it was shared here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 07:44 AM

German archaeologists unearth Bronze Age sword so well preserved it 'almost still shines'

For something sitting in mud & bones, it certainly shines, it's not an over-the-top description!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 08:44 AM

opinion:
As different as the Naldi homo species was from the Neanderthal, the Neanderthal was probably different from us. We may have viewed them as wildmen. 80% of Homo Sapiens possess the cooperative trait of empathy.
My hypothesis within the theory of Survival of the most cooperative is that Neanderthals were without empathy which made them by our definition psychopaths. Empathy is a nascent trait as is narcissistic psychopathy.
Prison populations contain over 30% psychopaths. Evolution may diminish that trait over time. Brain size is not the issue but the nature of the brain is most crucial. 20% of the current population are psychopaths may sound high but psychopaths in suits are a real problem. It is not an accident that Trump's base is also 20$.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Jun 23 - 10:09 AM

*Disagree*: istr reading about Neanderthals making toys for their children, and possibly being earlier than hom sap in producing certain sorts of artwork*, both of which suggest empathy. This "other => inferior" mindset is well attested, from ancient (and modern) racism up to MAGA, and is often a dominant driver for warfare and genocide.

Required reading: Asimov's essay "Nice Guys Finish First!" (exclamation mark in original), where he argues that he's being not-nasty out of pure self-interest, because co-operation and circumspection are vital for the long-term continuance of hom sap as a species. It's the last essay in The Sun Shines Bright.

* I originally had "musical instruments", but that might be a false memory.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Jun 23 - 06:49 PM

Virgil quote found on fragment of Roman jar unearthed in Spain Excerpt from the Georgics was carved into vessel used for olive oil 1,800 years ago

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 23 - 12:30 AM

Their theories are certainly all over the place about how that text came to be there. It's almost silly to try - it is what it is.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jun 23 - 12:41 PM

I was in a waiting room for a couple of hours last week. I overheard an Ethiopian gentleman on his phone and immediately equated his language with ancient Egyptian. Days later I googled this...
Ancient Ethiopian was spoken down to 1600 A. D., when it broke up into the modern dialects. These modern dialects are still the most primitive Semitic languages, and the closest thing existing to ancient Egyptian, Egyptian's direct descendant, Coptic, having become extinct.

Weird huh?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jun 23 - 04:56 PM

One of the most difficult undergraduate courses I took had the benign name "The History and Development of the English Language." You'd think if you speak it the course would be easy. Nope. One lecture included a discussion of the fragments of ancient Sanskrit that are peppered through European languages and are more prominent in languages spoken in India.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jun 23 - 05:08 PM

Step aside Latin, Sanskrit is it.

I must have been exposed to Coptic at some point.
btW Ethiopian sounds absolutely beautiful and totally different.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Jun 23 - 05:12 PM

The stolen head A high school in regional Australia holds ancient human remains, which are a long way from home.
Inside Grafton High School — among the books and computers of the school library — there’s a box that has fascinated and perplexed generations of locals. Because inside this box, there’s an Egyptian mummified head. It’s not exactly clear how this head journeyed from Egypt to Grafton. And there are far bigger questions posed by these ancient human remains.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jun 23 - 06:24 PM

There is evidence ancient Egyptians sailed to Australia.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jun 23 - 06:48 AM

Ancient Aboriginal underwater site in Flying Foam Passage thought to be deepest in Australia In 2019, scientists from Flinders University discovered hundreds of ancient stone tools and grinding stones at the underwater site of Cape Bruguieres, off the Pilbara coast.

A second underwater site was also discovered at the nearby Flying Foam Passage, but only one artefact was found at the 8,500-year-old fresh spring.

But the recent discovery of four more ancient stone artefacts in the passage has given scientists the confidence to confirm its status as an ancient site (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jun 23 - 02:43 PM

I'm just musing but...The absence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of absolute absence. After a couple million years traces of archeological artifacts should be zero.
That leaves some big questions unanswered. How do we know we’re the only time there’s been an industrial civilization on our own planet?“
Could we even tell if there had been an industrial civilization [long before this one]. Evidence least seen is beneath today's ocean water.

An Atlantic ridge continent may have existed. Indonesia was a large contiguous area. Even Antarctica was tropical but now the European Space Agency has found evidence of prior continents beneath the ice and ocean. there is also a similar climate pattern to today back in the Pleistocene era.

We don't see any homo sapiens a million years ago but there were other species. We traced human footprints in New Mexico to 21,000 years ago and Africa suggests 70,000 years of habitation and don't get me started on ancient Turkey. Graham Hancock suggests after the last ice age and great flood it seems remnants of another pre-civilization that drowned, built pyramids worldwide with available resources.

200 years ago the question of whether there might be a civilization on Mars was a legitimate one, 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 VERY long time ago.

Roman history is only yesterday.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 23 - 12:53 PM

Don, there you have the basis for more than one science fiction novel or film.

From the Smithsonian, This Ancient Maya City Was Hidden in the Jungle for More Than 1,000 Years
Archaeologists surveying the ruins of Ocomtún found pyramids, stone columns and a ballgame court

Researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have discovered the remains of a centuries-old Maya city in the Balamkú ecological reserve on the Yucatán Peninsula.

In a statement, lead archaeologist Ivan Šprajc says the settlement probably served as an important regional center during the Maya Classic period, which spanned 250 to 1000 C.E. The team named the newly discovered ruins Ocomtún—“stone column” in Yucatec Mayan—in honor of the many columns found at the site.

“The biggest surprise turned out to be the site located on a ‘peninsula’ of high ground, surrounded by extensive wetlands,” says Šprajc in the statement, per Google Translate. “Its monumental nucleus covers more than [123 acres] and has various large buildings, including several pyramidal structures [nearly 50 feet] high.”

There are lots of links to things mentioned in the topic, and a nice photo of the LIDAR view of the location. (Ever since I learned about LIDAR at a conference in ~ 1999, I figured it was going to appear again and again in reports about the discovery of this kind of archaeological site.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 07:42 AM

Modern material science is uncovering an origin of some megalithic stones that could have been molded in place. Geopolymer cement stones are becoming a reality again. They account for perfect fit and mass' too heavy to move all at once. what are geopolymer cements?

A chemical method of melting Inca stones together is also a likely possibility chemical stone melting

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 02:32 PM

Things like geopolymers are examples of "counter-factual conditionals".... IF "X" was true, "Y" might have been the case. Just speculating that they "would" have explained megalithic curiosities "IF" ancient folks had them is interesting, but actual tests have shown how various 'impossible' stuff was done is in the Erich von Däniken realm.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 06:29 PM

Mesolithic pits found on Houghton Regis building site Archaeologists have discovered up to 25 Mesolithic pits on what has been described as a "nationally important prehistoric site".

The pits, found in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, are up to 5m (16ft) wide and 1.85m (6ft) deep.

Animal bones found at the bottom of the pits have been used to identify them as about 8,000 years old.

Prof Joshua Pollard, an expert of British prehistory, described the discovery as "very exciting" (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 02:37 PM

Surprisingly the Chinese used sticky rice as the ingredient in the stone mortar of the Great Wall.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 06:41 PM

"After a couple million years traces of archeological artifacts should be zero."

Why? We have fossil remains of organisms going back for about three billion years. When I was at university I extracted and studied epidermal cell material from ancient Araucaria species (modern-day equivalents would be monkey puzzle and Norfolk Island pine trees). Not big bones, not petrified stuff: soft leaf tissue from the Jurassic, the real McCoy. So why would you think that archaeological remains made of hard rock would disappear in a couple of million years? That sounds like the seven-stars pete school of mythology...

And not science fiction, Maggie. Just fiction.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Jul 23 - 07:50 PM

Maggie?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 06:16 AM

Pre flood civilizations before 20,000 years ago were possibly near ancient coastlines and now underwater.
Anomolies exist like Malta, the Bimini road and the ancient causeway off the west India coast. After the flood many projects sought to build refuge from rising water in mounds, pyramids, and mega structures. If the advanced cultures far ahead of hunter-gatherers were few it would not be surprising that we have not found them underwater. A handful of civic centers are few compared to billions of fossils.

SEEKING THE GOLDEN SPIKE
Even a small lake in Canada holds secrets.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 06:25 AM

What flood?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 07:12 AM

Regarding the evolution of limestone concrete to the geopolymer silicate based light weight concrete I would wager that the Oculous in Rome has geopolymer cement at the thin top of the dome. Its worth a closer look.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 07:17 AM

Rise in sea level after the end of the last Ice Age, perhaps? I remember rumours that there's archaeology to be found on the bed of the North Sea, and vague memories (not personal) of a Roman settlement somewhere under the sea in the middle of the Isles of Scilly.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 07:34 AM

A catastrophic megaflood separated Britain from France hundreds of thousands of years ago, changing the course of British history. For much of our pre-history, a permanent land bridge existed between Britain and France at the Dover Strait. How and when it was removed, however, was previously unknown.

At the end of the last Ice Age the Younger Dryas Event was probably an impact in combination with another great flood from melting ice sheets. There is more than one great flood. Over here the Badlands are the remnants of a great inland flood.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 09:00 AM

Be it Roman resorts or Cleopatra's temple complex, they are already deep underwater. For prehistory we are digging in all the wrong places.
Gobleki Tempi has partially excavated only one of the six buried complexes. The largest pyramid on Earth in China has been only minimally explored. I expect bigger surprises are in store.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 09:29 AM

Could be, who knows?
There's something due any day
I will know right away soon as it shows
It may come cannonballing down through the sky
Gleam in its eye, bright as a star
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach
Down the block, on a beach, under a tree
I got a feeling there's a miracle due
Gonna come true, coming real soon
Could it be? Yes, it could
Something's coming, something good
If I can wait
Something's coming and I don't know
What it is but it is gonna be great
With a click, with a shock
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock
Open the latch
Something's coming, don't know when
But it's soon, catch the moon
One handed catch
Around the corner
Or whistling down the river
Come on, deliver to me
Will it be? Yes, it will
Maybe just by holding still
It'll be there
Come on, something, come on in
Don't be shy, meet new sites
Pull up a chair
The air is humming
And something great is coming
I feel that (incomprehensible)
And something great is coming
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach
Down the block, on a beach
Beneath the sea or a deep lake

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 10:21 AM

"A catastrophic megaflood separated Britain from France hundreds of thousands of years ago, changing the course of British history."

Utter bollocks. Even if you make a cursory glance at the internet you can find that gradually rising sea levels had reduced "Doggerland" to a series of low lying islands which were then consumed by the sea.

A Tsunami caused by a massive landslide off the coast of Norway MAY had led to a temporary rise in sea levels.

@Although Doggerland was permanently submerged through a gradual rise in sea level, it has been hypothesized that coastal areas of both Britain and mainland Europe, extending over areas which are now submerged, would have been temporarily inundated by a tsunami triggered by the Storegga Slide. This event would have had a catastrophic impact on the Mesolithic population at the time.@ (Wiki)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 10:30 AM

Giant mesolithic hand axesfound in southern England.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/06/giant-handaxes-unearthed-kent

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 10:33 AM

Not mesolithic, my mistake.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 11:29 AM

To the stars and beyond - Have We Found Fragments of a Meteor from Another Star?

The story began in April 2019, when I found what’s thought to be the first known interstellar meteor, hiding in plain sight in publicly accessible data sourced from the U.S. government. Called IM1, this object had burned up in the atmosphere and rained fragments down into the ocean off the coast of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, five years prior, registering as an anomalously speedy and bright fireball in the sensors of secret spy satellites operated by the U.S. Department of Defense. Working with my then-adviser, the Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, I analyzed the U.S. government data to show how the trajectory and other properties of IM’s fireball were consistent with the meteor having an interstellar origin.

It seemed at first too good to be true; scientists had been searching for interstellar meteors for at least seven decades, and here I was, a sophomore in college sitting in my dorm room, thinking I’d bagged one. And sure enough, there was a catch—but it had nothing to do with my calculations. Because the data came from spy satellites, the U.S. government didn’t publish how precise the measurements were. And without knowing the level of precision, we couldn’t know for sure whether IM1 was truly interstellar, or just a fluke.

It took three years for U.S. government officials to publicly confirm that their satellite data supported our interstellar hypothesis for IM1. While I was waiting, I dreamed of searching the ocean floor for fragments of the object, and to learn more I reached out to the only team to ever go after submarine meteoritic material from an observed meteor fall. It turned out that the mile-deep water at the most likely region where IM1’s debris fell would be advantageous, as the relative inaccessibility of such depths would ensure the fragments remained unperturbed. So once official confirmation arrived, planning for an ocean voyage to 1.3S, 147.6E began in full force.

This sounds like a needle in the haystack, on steroids. They were clever, though - these meteor fragments have iron, so they calculated a path and dragged a magnet through the area.

Who knows what else one might find dropping a magnet into some of the areas where travelers are known to have sailed through millennia ago? (Magnet fishing is actually a favorite pastime of a couple of my Facebook friends; they occasionally post photos of large round heavy duty magnets studded with antique nails and old bottle caps.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 05:56 PM

Re catastrophic flooding: I have in front of me a copy of the April 2017 issue of A&G (News and Reviews in Astronomy and Geophysics), open at an article titled "A megaflood in the English Channel". I can't paraphrase five pages of densely-argued prose here, still less include the illustrations; but the subheading is:

In the 2016 Harold Jeffrey Lecture, Jenny Collier describes the discovery of plunge pools and streamlined islands in the English Channel, the geological consequences of a Pleistocene Brexit.

Doggerland is a different case, and somewhat more recent. This Wikipedia article gives a decent summary of all this, both the gradual and the catastrophic. Hope this helps.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 08:32 PM

An ice dam collapse may have done the Channel scouring. In the spring I used to watch the ice speed down the Niagra River. You could hear it almost a mile away.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jul 23 - 09:34 PM

Archaeologists may have found ruins of fabled entrance to Zapotec underworld
Spanish missionaries deemed Lyobaa to be a "back door to hell" and sealed all entrances.

In 1674, a priest named Francisco de Burgoa published his account of visiting the ruins of the Zapotec city of Mitla in what is now Oaxaca in southern Mexico. He described a vast underground temple with four interconnected chambers, the last of which featured a stone door leading into a deep cavern. The Zapotec believed this to be the entrance to the underworld known as Lyobaa ("place of rest"). Burgoa claimed that Spanish missionaries who explored the ruins sealed all entrances to the temple, and local lore has long held that the entrance lies under the main altar of a Catholic church built over the ruins.

An international team of archaeologists recently announced that they found evidence for this fabled underground labyrinth under the ruins—right where the legends said it should be—after conducting scans of the site using ground penetrating radar (GPR), electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), and seismic noise tomography (SNT). The team also found evidence of an earlier construction stage of a palace located in another part of the site.

Mitla is one of the most significant archaeological sites in Oaxaca Valley. It was an important religious center, serving as a sacred burial site—hence its name, which derives from Mictlan ("place of the dead" or "underworld"). The unique structures at Mitla feature impressively intricate mosaics and geometric designs on all the tombs, panels, friezes, and walls, made with small polished stone pieces fitted together without using mortar.

Spanish soldiers and Christian missionaries began arriving in the valley in the 1520s, and several mentioned the ruins of Mitla in their accounts. Naturally, they interpreted the underground temple as a site for an "evil spirit" and its "demoniacal servants." Burgoa's writing is the most descriptive, detailing how the Zapotec high priest used the palace of the living and the dead. He marveled at the mosaics and skilled construction of the site. And he specifically mentioned four chambers above the ground and four chambers below the ground.

A little further in the article it says

A stone slab covered the entrance. "Through this door they threw the bodies of the victims of the great lords and chieftains who had fallen in battle," Burgoa wrote. It seems that certain "zealous prelates" decided to explore the underground structures, carrying lighted torches and using ropes as guides to ensure they didn't get lost. They encountered "putrefaction," foul odors, and "poisonous reptiles," among other horrors.

Then, of course, the Spanish built Catholic churches with the rubble from the site, including right on top of the site. Gotta tear down those buildings, they have no business being there. They did that way too often in villages they conquered.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 07:06 AM

The backdoor to hell lies under the main altar of a Catholic church built over the ruins. Sounds like a cheap plot device for a horror movie.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 05:34 PM

Lavish tomb for Spain's 'Ivory Lady' challenges assumptions of prehistoric gender roles Analysis of two teeth dating back nearly 5,000 years has shown that a lavish megalithic tomb in Spain contained a high-status woman, not the young man archaeologists first assumed.

Researchers used a new method of determining sex that analyses tooth enamel. This technique, developed about five years ago, is more reliable than analysing skeletal remains in poor condition, according to their study published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

The finding indicates the leadership role women played in this ancient society that predated the pyramids of Egypt — and perhaps elsewhere.

She has been dubbed the "Ivory Lady" because of the finely crafted ivory grave objects surrounding her and the fact that a full elephant tusk was laid above her head during burial, as if protecting her, in a tomb dating to between 2800 and 2900 BC.

The tomb, excavated in 2008 near the city of Valencia, was more impressive than any other known from the Iberian peninsula from the time.   (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 12:43 AM

Cavers Discover 200-Year Old Mine, Untouched Since the Moment It Was Abandoned
Found in northwest England, the cobalt mine is perfectly preserved due to a lack of oxygen

Members of the Derbyshire Caving Club have uncovered a cobalt mine in Cheshire, England, that operated in the early 19th century.

Sealed off from oxygen, the site contains a “time capsule” of artifacts from the day workers abandoned it, shedding light on what mining was like some 200 years ago, according to a statement from the National Trust, which owns the site.

The small town of Alderly Edge has been a mining destination since the Bronze Age. While the caving club, which has leased the mines since the 1970s, has discovered other mines in the past, the newly-discovered mine is in “pristine condition,” says caving club member Ed Coghlan in the statement.

“This mine hasn’t been disturbed by later mining, it’s not been broken into by kids in the 1960s, it’s not been filled with bottles or other rubbish,” Jamie Lund, a National Trust archaeologist, tells the Guardian’s Esther Addley. “It literally is a time capsule in terms of giving a glimpse into the environment that these miners, who were extracting cobalt, encountered.”

Artifacts found in the mine include shoes, clay pipes and a windlass—a type of winch that would have been used to lift heavy objects. On clay handle holders, the miners’ fingerprints are still preserved, as is the imprint of one miner’s corduroy pants where he leaned against a wall.

Read the rest at the link.

There's a 3D "scan" of the cave here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jul 23 - 10:03 AM

Mysterious giant 300,000-year-old hand axes were found at an Ice Age site in England

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 03:13 AM

Hm: "lack of oxygen" sounds like a journalistic Mondegreen to me (too many subeditors spoil the sense). "Undisturbed air", anyone?

.... That's gonna annoy me all day now. I know that earth that has been freshly dug for the first time in decades has a distinctive smell, which I was told comes from the soil bacteria having gone anaerobic.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 06:47 AM

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/europe-bog-bodies-reveal-secrets-180962770/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stanron
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 07:27 AM

It's a few days since I read the article but i vaguely remember an image of a vertical shaft and, at the bottom of that, horizontal shafts going off both ways. Over a couple of hundred years it is perfectly feasible that the horizontal shaft could get blocked by various kinds of debris and water run off, leaving the horizontal areas without access to fresh air.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 10:30 AM

Setting aside the odd sweeping statements from the last few posts, bog archaeology is actually very interesting. A good read is the wiki article "Bog body," q.v. The chemistry of the particular bog determines the amount and the type of preservation of human bodies. Some bog chemistry is good for bone preservation, some is better for skin, hair and clothing, etc. Tollund Man from Denmark was found with the strangulation rope still round his neck and the anguished expression on his face tells a thousand stories (photo in said wiki article).

---

The last few bickering posts have been swept aside - PLEASE resist the urge to tangle these topical threads with personal animosities. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 10:44 AM

Bill the handaxes could be weapons for a Mammoth hunt.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 10:50 AM

Hand axes would be awfully large as weapons - and throwing them at mammoths is a non-starter. Large tools to process large animals could match up with the straight-tusked elephants mentioned in the article.

Don't forget about Roald Dahl's BFG (Big Friendly Giant). Or Grendel or his mother. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 23 - 02:47 PM

This article is making the rounds. Science Alert has the same as the Yahoo article linked above. From Business Insider: Mysterious giant 300,000-year-old hand axes were found at an Ice Age site in England. Scientists can't work out why they are so big.

It appears that the Yahoo & Science Alert articles all originated with the Business Insider article. Following the photo credit under the BI photos, I land on Archaeology South-East:

Archaeology South-East is part of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. We work across south-east England, London and internationally to bring the world-class expertise of UCL to clients and communities in need of advice on heritage protection and archaeological research. We help shape the future through understanding the past.

A good place to visit for future shares on this thread!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 03:32 AM

Internet Archaeology

was mentioned in the original Guardian report about the hand axes.

"Internet Archaeology (ISSN 1363-5387) is the premier open access archaeology journal. The journal publishes quality academic content and explores the potential of digital publication through the inclusion of data, video, audio, images, visualisations, animations and interactive mapping. Internet Archaeology is international in scope - a journal without borders - and all content is peer-reviewed. Internet Archaeology is hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and digitally archived by the Archaeology Data Service. Internet Archaeology has been awarded the Directory of Open Access Journals Seal in recognition of our high standards in publishing best practice, preservation and openness. Internet Archaeology was established in 1995 and has been publishing online since 1996.

The journal is hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and is produced, managed and edited by Judith Winters, who is supported by co-directors Prof. Julian Richards (York) and Dr Michael Heyworth (Council for British Archaeology). Advisory editors support the Editor. The contents of the journal are archived with the Archaeology Data Service whose remit is the long-term preservation of digital research materials."

Plenty of reading there.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 07:26 AM

You don't throw them you cut the spinal chord at C1 to C7.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 11:19 AM

Before or after they're dead?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jul 23 - 06:48 PM

*grin*

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 05:40 AM

My last Wooly Mammoth hunt was so long ago I may have forgotten some of the finer points. It was a lot harder than cow tipping.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 08:22 AM

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/giant-sloth-pendants-suggest-ancient-migration-americas-rcna93812

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 08:42 AM

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ice+Age+Footprints+%7C+Full+Documentary+%7C+NOVA+%7C+PBS&rlz=1C1YTUH_enUS1037US1037&biw=1920&bih

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 23 - 10:34 AM

I saw that program when it was first broadcast, it really is an interesting look at who was walking and what they were doing (and the child they were carrying). And who crossed their path at some point soon after.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jul 23 - 07:23 AM

m-m-m ground sloth brisket is so tasty and tender.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jul 23 - 07:01 PM

I'm playing the video of the footprints and am suitably impressed.

My only problem is the background narration, which seems to have been added later by the younger guy. He recites the script as if he were reading a fairy tale to a young kid, over EMPHASIZING certain SYLLables and words 'what it might be LIKE to meet a giant GROUND sloth!"

   I will finish the program tomorrow and try not to dwell on someone telling how me INTERESTING his expeditions are.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 06:10 AM

Wreck of the Batavia brought back to life in forensic reconstruction by Flinders University Experts have used 3D imaging to bring the story of one of Western Australia's most tragic shipwrecks to life in intricate detail.
The Batavia was wrecked at the Abrolhos Islands on its maiden voyage from the Netherlands in 1629.
A deadly mutiny followed.
The wreck was not discovered until 1963, when all that remained was the ship's hull, now on display in the Maritime Museum in Fremantle.
But for the first time, antique models housed in Dutch museums are being used to make 3D scans revealing how the Batavia was made ...

"[The Batavia] is an iconic ship from the point of view of Australian archaeology, and also one of the only ships of this type where we have physical remains of the hull that … lends itself to this forensic reconstruction approach."
Dr McCarthy said the Batavia was a case study on how forensic imaging could be used to reconstruct other shipwrecks and archaeological sites ...
caption of a photos - A view from the air of the reef indentation made by the Batavia.

In 1976 my sister moved to Perth & some time after that took me to visit friends who worked in the Museum & I had a private backroom tour - wow! I can't remember now if the hull & artifacts were on public display.

Batavia's History - Western Australian Museum

video - Mudcatter Daniel Kelly's cover of John Warner's Batavia Shanty

~~~~~~~

THE BATAVIA SHANTY - words & music John Warner

John Warner’s song of the tragic and grisly tale of shipwreck, mutiny and slaughter in Houtman’s Abrolhos, a group of islands off the central coast of Western Australia, in 1629 by renegade sailors of the Dutch East India Company.

Nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, tea
Heave and fall on the southern swells
Fill the holds of the VOC
Roll Batavia down

But down in stout Batavia’s hold
There’s a massive weight of jewels and gold
Quarter-million guilders worth, all told
Roll Batavia down.

For months the murderous plot’s been laid
Heave and fall on the southern swells
To slip away from the ships of trade
Roll Batavia down

Make passage south to the unknown land
Turn buccaneer as the skipper has planned
Slaughter all others out of hand
Roll Batavia down.

What’s that gleam on the larboard quarter?
Heave and fall on the southern swells
Moonlight glinting on the water
Roll Batavia down

No moonlight here, but the crashing wave
The lookout cries too late to save
Batavia from her island grave
Roll Batavia down

Now some did drown and some made land
Heave and fall on the southern swells
But few can hide from death’s cold hand
Roll Batavia down

The sword and dagger do their work
Who knows where bloody murderers lurk
To silence traitors with a dirk
Roll Batavia down

The commander’s gone and the captain too,
Heave and fall on the southern swells
Along with the best of the barge’s crew
Roll Batavia down

Protection that they might have made
By this desertion is betrayed
Throats stretched to the slaughterer’s blade
Roll Batavia down

The rescue ship has come too late
Heave and fall on the southern swells
For those who met a bloody fate
Roll Batavia down

The thieves have paid for their plunder dear
Trial and torture, pain and fear
Death for every mutineer
Roll Batavia down

Stark the creaking scaffolds stand
Heave and fall on the southern swells
The dead swing over the blowing sand
Roll Batavia down

They say that dead men tell no tales
Who knows but many a spirit wails
In the cold lament of the southern gales
Roll Batavia down

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 10:18 AM

Speaking of bringing tragic shipwrecks to life, we found an old newspaper account of a tragic shipwreck off the coast of Oregon in the attic of the Hurlbert house where the family resided in the civil war era. The family was the first to patent a telescope in the US and later another Hurlbert learned how to train horses without reins and use only a light touch on the neck with a crop. This method was featured in one of the earliest issues of Scientific American Magazine. While there were no survivors the horses told the story. They were on tour across the US when the ship went down. The victims that washed ashore included the horses that had numerous life vests attached to them. The final moments of the ship must have lasted long enough to try a desperate attempt to save the lives of the Hurlbert horses.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 03:38 PM

Attics of homes a century or more old are full of simple treasures.
My Mom also found; photos, pictures, letters, and sheet music from the civil war to 1929.;

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 09:02 PM

1929 barely classifies as "history" on this side of the pond.

A while back someone said to me that the difference between Americans and the Irish and British is that Americans think 100 years is a long time ............. and we think 100 miles is a long way.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 11:51 PM

History is relative to where we live. I'm in a house built in 1976 on an area that was a dairy farm for decades, probably the first European use of land in this area beyond the occasional transit of cattle being driven north through the region. Prior to this, it had Comanche encampments, US military encampments, and in the distant past, wild horses (escaped from early Europeans to the continent), Clovis-era people, and the passage of charismatic large mammals. Bison (southern populations), perhaps antelope, and way back, mammoths.

British and Europeans had long since killed off the elephants, lions, etc. that once roamed outside of Africa. Think of the Lascaux caves.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 01:12 AM

"British and Europeans had long since killed off the elephants, lions, etc. that once roamed outside of Africa."

I think that the climate played a big part too.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 09:49 AM

Mammoth tusks are not simple treasures but I'll even take ones that smell.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 11:01 AM

Perhaps, but it doesn't take humans long to kill off the big stuff once they settle in an area. "Charismatic megafauna" don't fare well when people start hunting them.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 03:43 PM

*Agree*, SRS. I twice entered, and twice cancelled, blethers about the suspicious correlation in the archaeological record between the arrival of Hom Sap in various parts of the Americas and catastrophic population decline of the big beasts. Then, come to think, it happened all over again with the bison when the railroads opened the Central US to immigrants with guns.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jul 23 - 01:52 PM

The earliest examples of homo sapiens burial are about 100,000 years ago. Our ancestors like homo erectus, Neanderthal and Homo naledi whose brain was only a third our size. The naledi did bury their dead in a very purposeful manner.

Here is a wonderful film about the naledi cave of bones

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Jul 23 - 02:04 PM

Here is a photo of a pile of extra Bison skulls courtesy of new Americans.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/arthistorystudycollection/636/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jul 23 - 07:26 AM

A quarter million years ago our ancestors were humanoid but not us. Primate social cooperation traits were there but megalithic structures are not seen until 15,000 years ago despite homo sapiens being around for 100,000 years. We are the builders. Perhaps older structures may be found but an Ice Age and great floods could have obliterated the evidence. The capacity for language is more powerful than muscles when it comes to building.
100,000 years is a blink in the fullness of time.

Could such a blink have occurred and failed long before homo sapiens?
As Stilly said, "it's a matter of science fiction".
There are many dead ends in evolution but there is no fossil evidence for such a prehistoric blink.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Jul 23 - 10:16 AM

Mammals may have hunted dinosaurs much larger than them, rare fossil find suggests An unusual fossil find in China suggests some early mammals may have hunted dinosaurs for dinner.
The fossil shows a badger-like creature chomping down on a small, beaked dinosaur, their skeletons intertwined ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jul 23 - 06:39 PM

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/stone-tools-and-camel-tooth-suggest-people-were-in-the-pacific-northwest-more-than-18000-years-ago

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 06:39 AM

3,000-Year-Old Grave of Charioteer Could Rewrite Siberian History

2 related links on the same page

2,000-Year-Old Mummified ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Dressed in Silk Emerges from Siberian Reservoir

Legal Bid Fails to Rebury Remains of 2,500-year-old Tattooed Ice Princess

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 06:59 AM

not just archaeology - The Channel Islands were the only piece of British territory Germany ever managed to occupy during the Second World War. On this deserted island, the Germans left a fingerprint of the Holocaust: SS concentration camps run on U.K. soil ...

Wikipedia - Alderney Camps

Journal article - Nazi camps on British soil by Gilly Carr -Journal of Conflict Archaeology

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 09:49 AM

From The Observer

"Were small-brained early humans intelligent? Row erupts over scientists’ claim

Homo naledi was claimed to be artistic, make tools and bury its dead, but warring experts now ask, where’s the evidence?"


Homo naledi’s resting place

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 06:43 PM

A Trove of Rare Gold Coins Found In a Cornfield May Actually Be Worth More Than $2 Million The coins were minted between 1840 and 1863.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 23 - 11:41 AM

This goes farther back than archaeology topics, but still, it's fascinating: the late Miocene was relatively recent (10.4 to 5 million years ago). Exquisitely Preserved Fossil Forest Uncovered in Japan. The story is in Science Alert, and I think sometimes it throws up a paywall.

The forest was first seen in modern times during a severe drought in 1994, when roughly 400 fossilized tree stumps emerged from the water.

Most of the stumps have since been submerged once more, but researchers have successfully examined 137 of them, and the surrounding fossilized leaves.

They've now published their analysis of the site and provided a picture of the plants that once covered the wooded area.

They could build a coffer dam in the area if they really want to work on it.

This forest offers a rare opportunity because one type of trunk and one type of leaf were clearly dominant in the area. Of the 137 stumps examined, 130 were identified as Wataria parvipora.

Apparently all of the scientific names that things were called by were decided based upon particular items found individually, not together with other parts of the plant. So different parts of the plant found at different times or places received other names. Now they have to fit it all together.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 06:29 PM

a Miocene jigsaw!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 07:47 PM

We have a submerged forest a few miles north of here. You can only see it at very low spring tides, on the beach at Westward Ho! (Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the town's name). I went there on a field trip in 1990 and was able to pick up some wood and acorns, around six thousand years old. All to do with sea level changes during warmer and colder periods since the last Ice Age. I think the submerged forest is around 6000 years old. The town is also slightly famous because Rudyard Kipling lived there for a few years. One of the shoreline features is called Kipling Cliff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 11:09 AM

The Olympic Peninsula in the northern coast of Washington State has a "ghost forest" from when the land level dropped in an ancient earthquake/tsunami event that bounced across the Pacific. Actually, a search on "ancient tsunami buried forest in Washington State" brings up results of "ghost forests" along the west coast. This may be the one I learned about years ago in Geology class. There's a similar place in Oregon where earthquake mud slides or a tsunami dropped debris, burying and killing them. Here is a US Geological Survey paper about that earthquake zone.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 12:26 PM

There are a few examples of living fossils. A forest variety of a very old remaining species is the Pando forest

Since it can clone itself or make seed there is no way to judge its ancient age. It is believed to be the last stand of what was a widespread species.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 01:54 PM

That's one of those huge organisms, along with things like creosote bush that when discovered open new avenues of study. There may be things like that all over the world, we just never thought to look. (Perhaps all of the hackberry trees in Texas are spreading from a huge old one somewhere Under the X in Texas.) :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 06:40 PM

The Wollemi Pine is one of the world's oldest and rarest plants dating back to the time of the dinosaurs With less than 100 adult trees known to exist in the wild, the Wollemi Pine is now the focus of extensive research to safeguard its survival. Assist in the conservation effort by growing your own Wollemi Pine and becoming part of one of the most dramatic comebacks in natural history.

My neighbour was one of the many gardeners who seized the chance to have one in his garden.

Turning this into a music thread - Lyrics - THE DAYS OF THE DINOSAUR [The Wollemi Pine] by Jim Low

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 07:28 PM

Fortunately, the Woolemi pine is easily propagated. Its future is secure. We have several (I think) at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Another brought back from the brink is the Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides. It is the only surviving species of the genus Metasequoia, a genus previously thought to be extinct for over a hundred million years. s you could guess from the name, it's related to the giant redwoods. It was found in a small area of China in the 1940s, but it's threatened in its only known native habitat by land degradation and over-collecting of seeds. Luckily, it's also very easy to propagate, and it grows into a beautiful specimen tree.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 10:25 PM

Dawn redwood wasn't on the brink of extinction, it, along with the gingko, were thought to be extinct until pockets of them were discovered in remote Chinese forests at the turn of the last century. In Washington State at Vantage is a highway overlook and park called Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, and at one time it was thought that these were examples of an extinct tree. (This park has a lot of types of petrified wood and it also has great petroglyphs).

Metasequoia glyptostroboides is the scientific name of dawn redwood, and was one I loved for the way it rolled off my tongue when I learned about it in a college botany class. It was such a great story. I must have told my daughter about it, because as a fluke, when she was spending a semester abroad in Japan and had a ceramics class she made me a mug and spelled out the scientific name under the glaze around the base. (I tried planting one here at the house, but it got fried one summer, and I realized I'd set it too near to some overhead wires so would have had to trim it a lot if it had survived).

(Ginkgo were also brought to many places in the US after this discovery and it's a feature in many parks and arboretums.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 03:09 AM

snip - From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 27 Jul 23 - 07:28 PM

Fortunately, the Woolemi pine is easily propagated. Its future is secure. - snip

yes, but bushfires don't know that! Inside top-secret mission to save NSW's last surviving Wollemi pines from bushfire - January 2020 the pine was saved but some were damaged

No doubt fires will approach their little corner again, but fire protection measures are in existence.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 04:15 AM

The fact that the trees we're talking about are easy to propagate and are popular does ensure their future existence, even if their habitat is degraded or damaged. This is indeed the case with the Dawn Redwood in China, where over-collecting of cones for its seeds is preventing its ability to propagate itself (its habitat has been degraded too). In an ideal world we'd fervently protect the habitats of rare species. I understand that this has happened in the case of the Aussie ravines which support the Woolemi pine, but it seems that this has not happened in those limited areas of China in which Dawn Redwoods are hanging on. Keeping species alive "in captivity" is second-best but it's better than letting species go extinct, or (as we do) force them towards extinction.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 04:40 AM

As we're talking of long-lived trees: Many years ago, I heard a report about someone investigating the fungi in a wood. Much to their surprise, they found it constituted a single plant, which was basically wearing the wood like a wig. It was thought to be the world's largest-known organism, but they were expecting to find bigger ones, as it wasn't a particularly large wood.

.... If anyone can find the article, please do paste the link here. My google fu has deserted me this morning.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 06:49 AM

There will be many examples. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/upsettingly-michigan-does-not-have-the-largest-fungi-on-earth-humongous-fungus

I discovered in my backyard a lifeform known to exist only in one small area in the world. It was an insect that made its own inch-long flying craft in the shape of a snow flake that was like stiff spider silk. It would repel being touched because of an electromagnetic charge. This tiny aphid like thing would sit in the middle and fly around. Unique LIFE can be very local to one small area.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 07:09 AM

btw Any mass extinction event or die off has been followed by an age of fungus. Fungi are not likely to leave any fossil trace. There were mushrooms as big as small trees.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 07:17 AM

"Fungi are not likely to leave any fossil trace. There were mushrooms as big as small trees."

How do you know without evidence ?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 07:34 AM

Ancient Roman ruins of Nero's Theatre discovered under hotel garden Archaeologists had been excavating deep under the walled garden of the Palazzo della Rovere since 2020 as part of planned renovations on the frescoed Renaissance building

...The palazzo takes up a city block along the broad Via della Conciliazione leading to Saint Peter's Square near the Vatican.

It is home to an ancient Vatican chivalric order that leases the space to a hotel to raise money for Christians in the Holy Land.

Officials hailed the findings from the excavation as "exceptional", given they provide a rare look at a stratum of Roman history from the Roman Empire through to the fifteenth century AD.

Among the discoveries are 10th century AD glass coloured goblets and pottery pieces that are unusual because so little is known about this period in Rome ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 02:19 PM

"I discovered in my backyard a lifeform known to exist only in one small area in the world."

What is the name of this lifeform?"

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 03:10 PM

U of Rochester professors researched it for me but I forget the name.
The area was Binghamton NY.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jul 23 - 04:04 PM

Probably since I look Scandinavian/German Aryan, a German tour group asked me for directions in the DC metro. I did defer to my wife.
I don't have much sense of direction underground.

I gave up comic sarcasm on the web 10 years ago. Stevy has given no evidence for his one-trick pony claim.

Now can we get back to the topic.

Prototaxites

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Prototaxites
ancient tree sized fungus from en.wikipedia.org
Prototaxites /?pro?to?'tæks?ti?z/ is a genus of terrestrial fossil fungi dating from the Middle Ordovician until the Late Devonian periods, ...
?Morphology · ?History of research · ?Species · ?Ecological context
People also ask
What is the largest prehistoric fungi?
Prototaxites - Wikipedia
Prototaxites
With a diameter of up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in), and a height reaching 8.8 metres (29 ft), Prototaxites fossils are remnants of by far the largest organism discovered from the period of its existence.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Jul 23 - 07:02 PM

43,000 year old fossil + living plant Ancient clonal tree, King's lomatia, excites scientists in Tasmania's remote south west.

Before the last ice age, deep in the mountains and valleys of south-western Tasmania an unusual little sprout grew from a seed.

The plant grew and grew, eventually unfurling deep red flowers, but as the curled petals dropped to the ground no viable seeds formed.

Today, its wild population is limited to just a 1.2 kilometre square and it may be among the world's oldest clonal plants — having grown from a single seed, genetically cloned many times over through the millennia ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 09:26 AM

Plantation slavery was invented on this tiny African island, according to archaeologists A 16th-century sugar estate on the tiny African island of São Tomé is the earliest known example of plantation slavery.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Aug 23 - 11:43 AM

I recognize the name because the island had a weird role in an odd novel I read (The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel - save yourself the trouble and don't read it, it's just plain odd.)

From your article (it took a couple of tries to fix the link, but I'd seen this myself this week so figured out where it was):

While other Portuguese sugar mills relied on enslaved people solely for manual labor, in the São Tomé sugar plantation system, enslaved people — largely from what are now Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — performed nearly all the tasks, from the harvesting and processing of sugarcane to the carpentry and stone masonry needed to build and run the mills.

This made São Tomé "the first plantation economy in the tropics based on sugar monoculture and slave labour, a model exported to the New World where it developed and expanded," the researchers wrote in a new study, published Monday (Aug. 14) in the journal Antiquity.

"The island's plantations were so successful that in the 1530s, São Tomé surpassed Madeira — an Atlantic archipelago that the Portuguese used for their lucrative sugar operations — in supplying the European markets with sugar, and dozens of sugar mills were built." - unpaid labor will do that.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Aug 23 - 09:27 PM

oops, I always use DaveRo's https://revad.github.io/linkifier.html to post links, did I leave off the first character?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Aug 23 - 05:18 PM

Archaeologists discover 3,000-year-old tomb honouring elite religious leader in northern Peru Archaeologists in northern Peru have unearthed a 3,000-year-old tomb which they believe might have honoured an elite religious leader in the Andean country some three millennia ago.

Dubbed the "Priest of Pacopampa," referring to the highland archaeological zone where the tomb was found, the priest would have been buried around 1200 BC, Peru's Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The body was buried under six layers of ash mixed with black earth, with decorated ceramic bowls and seals indicating ancient ritual body paint used for people of elite standing ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 08:02 AM

https://greekreporter.com/2023/08/10/humans-neanderthals-lived-together-50000-years-ago/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 10:36 AM

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/01/1191263572/turkey-archaeology-zerzevan-castle-discoveries

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 06:48 PM

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkeys-underground-city-of-20000-people

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 07:16 PM

3D maps of Swan River lead maritime archaeologists to unexplored wreck in Perth, Western Australia Detailed 3D maps of the bottom of the Swan River have led maritime archaeologists to a sunken barge right in the heart of Perth that has lain unexplored for about a century.

Patrick Morrison, who is completing a doctorate in archaeology at the University of Western Australia, said the find was made after studying maps of the riverbed released by the state government.

"We had seen … some of the shipwrecks that we knew existed, but we also saw some interesting lumps," Mr Morrison told Nadia Mitsopoulos, on ABC Radio Perth.

"We ended up diving one of those after checking on the sonar, and it was a shipwreck … it could be about 100 years old." (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 02:52 PM

The Nova episode 'The Maya Metropolis' is highly recommended.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 10:28 AM

Old Roman swords found

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 05:23 AM

can't read it cos I have an ad blocker. They politely ask me to turn it off, but 1. I dunno how, & more importantly 2. I wouldn't even if I knew how, so I asked google - roman swords dead sea caves - & found this on BBC site

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Sep 23 - 05:37 PM

World's oldest wooden structure discovered in Zambia, dating back 476,000 years, archaeologists say Archaeologists say they have unearthed the oldest wooden structure ever discovered, dating from nearly half a million years ago, which suggests that our ancestors may have been more advanced than previously thought.

The exceptionally well-preserved wooden structure was found at Kalambo Falls in the north of Zambia, near the border with Tanzania.

It dates back at least 476,000 years, well before the evolution of Homo sapiens, according to a study describing the find in the journal Nature.

The wood bears cut-marks showing that stone tools were used to join two large logs to make the structure, which is believed to be a platform, walkway or raised dwelling to keep our relatives above the water.

The ancestors of humans were already known to use wood at this time, but for limited purposes such as starting a fire or hunting.

Larry Barham, an archaeologist at the UK's University of Liverpool and the study's lead author, told AFP that to his knowledge the previous record-holder for oldest wooden structure dated back around 9,000 years. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 06:37 AM

WOW great find Sandra.



What separates homo sapiens from our smart and clever ancestors
seems to me to be art.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 12:46 PM

Following breadcrumbs from Sandra's story takes me to the Smithsonian entry about Homo heidelbergensis. In particular the description:

In 1908 near Heidelberg, Germany, a workman found the type specimen of H. heidelbergensis in the Rösch sandpit just north of the village of Mauer. This mandible was nearly complete except for the missing premolars and first two left molars; it is heavily built and lacks a chin. German scientist Otto Schoentensack was the first to describe the specimen and proposed the species name Homo heidelbergensis.

Before the naming of this species, scientists referred to early human fossils showing traits similar to both Homo erectus and modern humans as ‘archaic’ Homo sapiens.

A point to make here is that while it says it "lacks a chin" doesn't mean that part of the mandible broke off, it's one of those early humanoid features. It seems that only Homo sapiens have a pronounced chin on the bottom of the face. I read about this recently, that earlier humanoids didn't have chins.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 08:34 PM

Our friend gnu shared this with me on my FB page, but it needs sharing over here.

Temple of Aphrodite Discovered in Egypt’s Sunken City of Heracleion

The submerged city of Heracleion, discovered back in 2000, continues to yield stunning archaeological treasures. The city, once called Thonis-Heracleion, thrived near present-day Alexandria.

Exploration in the submerged city of Heracleion unveils a remarkable ancient gem: a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, shining new light on Greek presence in ancient Egypt.

It's not a very long article but it has a link out to more about Heracleion. And Googling this probably brings up other sites, perhaps with more photos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 02:29 AM

Kofun Burial Chamber and Two Iron Swords Uncovered in Parking Lot Shrubbery - it's just a little round garden, surrounded by a low stone wall!!

lots more interesting articles

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 10:51 AM

The discoverer of the submerged island cities in the Nile Delta was neither an archeologist or a scientist. His strength was in math.
He said he took a lot of flack from the empty-handed 'experts'.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:09 PM

The comprehensively-discredited politician, Michael Gove, "Britons have had enough of experts..."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 04:03 AM

Further evidence points to footprints in US National Park being the oldest sign of humans in the Americas New research has indicated fossil human footprints in New Mexico are likely the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that up-ends what many archaeologists thought they knew about civilisation in the region.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lake bed in White Sands National Park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published Thursday in the journal Science ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 06:00 AM

Animal footprints in that area include the giant sloth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 08:49 AM

Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time".

Other innovative amateurs who were open without agendas were Leonardo D'Vinci and the Wright brothers. Government-funded Harvard experts like Samual Langley could not solve the problem of controlled flight.

An armchair amateur archeologist doesn't have to be a genius to make a discovery. If one could dig down 10 meters they would find more than gas and sewer lines or unexploded armaments. If one is curious enough and study twice before digging once, I bet people would be surprised by what they find. My grandmother found rare Eohippus fossils (tiny horses) in the Midwest that were millions of years old.

If you are spry
give it a try
you'll be surprised
by what you find

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 12:52 PM

Leonardo da Vinci. Just so.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 05:41 AM

1,900-year-old Knot-Frilled Child’s Gown Discovered in Israel's Cave of Letters The Cave of Letters in Israel has yielded many artifacts from the famous Bar Kokhba revolt, offering deep insights into Jewish history. Recently, a 1,900-year-old child's nightgown with intriguing "knots" was discovered, prompting speculation regarding their protective significance within ancient Jewish practices and beliefs.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 05:49 AM

Coin hoard could be linked to 1692's Glencoe Massacre (2023 article)

The dig uncovering Glencoe's dark secrets (2019 article)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 09:33 AM

Earliest known wooden structure found

"Close to half a million years ago, someone built an ancient structure from wood near Kalambo Falls in modern-day Zambia, at a time in human prehistory that archaeologists would previously never have expected."

Subject: BS: Mac Iain's summer house
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:07 PM

I find this story tragic, this family fleeing to their booleying house and burying some coins, perhaps enough to get the children away safely, but being killed by the guests they'd hosted.

---

This is the same story Sandra posted earlier today. It fits in the Archaeology thread - or you could start a music thread to discuss this kind of thing that might be the subject of a song (or many songs.) ---mudelf

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 06:35 PM

Meanwhile, Far, Far Away . . .

Osiris-Rex: Nasa reveals first look at 'beautiful' asteroid sample

"It's beautiful, it really is - certainly what we've seen of it so far," said Dr Ashley King.

The UK scientist was in a select group to put first eyes and instruments on the rocky samples that have just been brought back from asteroid Bennu.

The materials, scooped up by a US space agency (Nasa) mission and returned to Earth 17 days ago, are currently being examined in a special lab in Texas.

"We've confirmed we went to the right asteroid," Dr King told BBC News.

The three-day analysis by the Natural History Museum (NHM) expert and five others on the "Quick Look" team showed the black, extraterrestrial powder to be rich in carbon and water-laden minerals.

That's a great sign. There's a theory that carbon-rich (organic), water-rich asteroids similar to Bennu may have been involved in delivering key components to the young Earth system some 4.5 billion years ago. It's potentially how we got the water in our oceans and some of the compounds that were necessary to kick-start life.

The asteroid samples will be used to test these ideas.

The rest at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 08:25 AM

Phallus and the boar: Türkiye digs yield clues to human history The dry expanses of south-eastern Türkiye, home to some of humanity's most ancient sites, have yielded fresh discoveries in the form of a stone phallus and a coloured boar.
For researchers, the carved statue of a man holding his phallus with two hands while seated atop a bench adorned with a leopard, is a new clue in the puzzle of our very beginnings.
The 2.3-metre work was discovered at the end of September at Karahantepe, in the heart of a complex of some 20 sites that were home to thousands of people during the Stone Age.
Karahantepe is part of the network around UNESCO-listed Gobekli Tepe, a place where our prehistoric ancestors gathered to worship more than 7,000 years before Stonehenge or the earliest Egyptian pyramids.

... Archaeologists found a 1.2 metre long by 70 centimetre tall depiction of a boar, with red eyes and teeth as well as a black-and-white body.
This 11,000-year-old wild pig is the first coloured sculpture from this period discovered to date, Mr Karul said ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 02:38 AM

Prehistoric skeletons of Australia's giant 'wombat' Diprotodon excavated in the Pilbara Skeletons belonging to a gigantic Australian proto-wombat have been unearthed by scientists in Western Australia's north, shedding light on the state's rich natural history.
Western Australia Museum's palaeontology team descended on a remote mine site at Du Boulay Creek, in the Pilbara, where several Diprotodon fossils have lurked beneath the surface for tens of thousands of years.
Related to the modern-day wombat and koala, the diprotodon is the largest known marsupial to have ever lived, growing up to four metres in length and 1.7 metres tall, and reaching weights of almost three tonnes (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 01:16 AM

I see no leopard…?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:01 AM

Do you mean you can't spot it ?   :-)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 08:23 AM

a few more pics - NEW MONUMENTAL STATUES DISCOVERED AT GÖBEKLITEPE AND KARAHANTEPE

New Statues and Fresh Insights from Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe

I finally found some leopards! Carving of man holding his penis and surrounded by leopards is oldest known depiction of a narrative scene, archaeologists say

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 09:19 AM

*grin* Did you identify those 'leopards', or just take it for granite? ;>)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 04:24 PM

groan ....

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:14 PM

Amazing discovery in the Orkneys, the far-flung group of islands north of Scotland: a beautifully built tomb from five thousand years ago, containing fourteen skeletons of adults and children, two positioned as if they were embracing. We'll never know the stories of these people who were commemorated with such beauty and such technology.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 06:40 AM

And what looks to me like an attack by slavers in Scandinavia during the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 09:40 AM

WOW The World’s Oldest Human Statue Discovered at Karahan Tepe dating back 11,400 years may not be a fertility symbol.-insert joke here like it is a towel hook-
Look closer and you will see a woven/knitted sweater but no pants.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:24 AM

link to 'attack by slavers' doesn't work as the final letter of the URL is missing

A google search on "Can archaeologists solve Sweden's 150 year old mystery" led to the article, but alas, it's only for subscribers

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: DaveRo
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 08:11 AM

The Mudcat link maker has a 128 character limit on a URL. If you paste a longer one it gets truncated.

My Simple Linkier has no such limit.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:41 PM

& I only use your linkifier, Dave!!

testimonial from very satisfied customer

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Oct 23 - 07:02 AM

Sandra in Sydney, here's the link

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/10/can-archaeologists-solve-swedens-1500-year-old-murder-mystery

and if that doesn't work, search for the headline or subhead:

Can archaeologists solve Sweden's 1,500-year-old murder mystery?
The remains of 26 massacred men were uncovered at the Iron Age site of Sandby Borg, where a grim tale of societal collapse is revealing itself.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 03:29 PM

I fixed the first link to NatGeo, but as noted, the article is for subscribers only.

Here's one everyone should be able to read: Declassified Cold War Satellite Photos Reveal Hundreds of Roman-Era Forts
Once thought to be defensive military bases, the forts may have supported peaceful trade and travel

The program ran from 1960 to 1972, Cold War spy satellites taking a look at the landscape and recording patterns on the ground that are archaeologically important sites.

Using declassified photos from Cold War-era spy satellites, researchers have identified hundreds of previously undiscovered ancient Roman forts in Iraq and Syria. Their findings, published last week in the journal Antiquity, are changing long-held assumptions about the Roman military’s role in the area.

Previously, historians knew about a smaller number of the forts. Dating to between the second and sixth centuries C.E., they were thought to function as defensive military posts. The new research upends these ideas, suggesting the forts were more likely built to support trade and travel.

As lead author Jesse Casana, an archaeologist at Dartmouth, tells CNN’s Mindy Weisberger, they were “places of dynamic cultural exchange and movement of goods and ideas.”

In the 1920s and 30s, French archaeologist Antoine Poidebard discovered 116 of the forts by photographing them from a biplane. These forts appeared to form a defensive wall that ran from north to south along an eastern boundary of the empire. Poidebard thought this wall likely acted as a Roman military barrier against invaders.

More at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 04:30 PM

thanks, Maggie.

another article form my favourite site - Declassified Cold War Spy Satellite Images Reveal Roman Forts In Syria and Iraq
                     
Archaeologists Unearth a Medieval Skeleton with a Prosthetic Hand ...Historically, while this find is exceptional, it's not unique. There are approximately 50 known prosthetic devices from the late Middle Ages and early modern period in Central Europe. They range from rudimentary, non-moving models to intricate devices with mechanical components. The famed knight, Götz von Berlichingen, is a notable figure from this era. He wore an "Iron Hand" prosthetic after losing his right hand during the siege of Landshut in 1530. Unlike the Freising discovery, von Berlichingen's prosthetic was a marvel of engineering for its time, featuring movable parts and a complex design. ...

Origin of Ancient Mummified Baboons in Egypt Found and Points to a Location for Punt

This 15th Century French Painting Features A Precisely Drawn Prehistoric Tool ... he study concludes, that after artistic license is accounted for, it would appear that Fouquet painted an actual handaxe, that perhaps he had seen with his own eyes. Kangas wrote in the study that Fouquet spent a lot of time painting the stone, and this means he had “probably seen one that struck his attention and imagination". ...

before I end up linking lots more articles, here's the source page

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 05 Nov 23 - 06:35 PM

Tens of thousands of ancient coins found off the coast of Sardinia

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 23 - 10:52 PM

From Helen's most recently linked article:

The coins, dating from the first half of the fourth century AD, were found in seagrass not far from the town of Arzachena.

They were first spotted by a diver who saw something metallic out of the corner of their eye.

The diver alerted authorities, who sent divers from an art protection squad along with others from the Italian cultural ministry's undersea archaeology department.

Exactly how many coins have been retrieved has not been determined yet, as they are still being sorted.

A ministry statement estimated that there are at least about 30,000 and possibly as many as 50,000, given their collective weight.

"All the coins were in an excellent and rare state of preservation," the ministry said.

The few coins that were damaged still had legible inscriptions, it said.

"The treasure found in the waters off Arzachena represent one of the most important coin discoveries," in recent years, said Luigi La Rocca, a Sardinian archaeology department official. . . . Given the location and shape of the seabed, there could be remains of ship wreckage nearby.

That ship will be a story, if they find it!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 06 Nov 23 - 01:39 AM

Thanks SRS. The country that the coins came from was not stated in the article and the markings on the coins were not legible in the photos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Nov 23 - 01:11 AM

Danish archaeologists have discovered the importance of a queen long relegated to wifehood: Thyra.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 10 Nov 23 - 03:04 AM

This isn't archeological but...

Hexham bunyip folklore continues to intrigue as conservationists work to protect Australasian bittern

"One night well over a century ago three miners headed to Hexham Swamp, between Newcastle and Maitland, for an evening of wild duck hunting.

"But instead of finding ducks, they came across a terrifying creature with a tremendous roar 'like that of a lion' and two eyes like 'golden orbs in the night'.

"And so, the legend of the Hexham bunyip was born.

"That infamous night in 1879 may have become a local legend, but today this swamp creature is now rarer than ever and residents are trying to save it from extinction."

Before you tune out of this article, it relates to a bird which is now close to extinction around the world.

"It turns out the mysterious creature that scared the three miners in 1879 was a bird; the endangered Australasian bittern, also known as the 'bunyip bird'".

...

"The Australasian bittern is globally endangered, with fewer than 2,500 individuals estimated to be left in the world.

"It is also believed that more than 90 per cent of its habitat has been lost in Australia."

There is a dedicated wetlands area at the riverside suburb of Hexham which is about 15 minutes drive north of where I live in Newcastle, NSW.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 10:36 AM

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/01/1191263572/turkey-archaeology-zerzevan-castle-discoveries

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 10:28 AM

Old Roman swords found

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 09:33 AM

Earliest known wooden structure found

"Close to half a million years ago, someone built an ancient structure from wood near Kalambo Falls in modern-day Zambia, at a time in human prehistory that archaeologists would previously never have expected."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 09:19 AM

*grin* Did you identify those 'leopards', or just take it for granite? ;>)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 07:01 AM

Do you mean you can't spot it ?   :-)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 08:02 AM

https://greekreporter.com/2023/08/10/humans-neanderthals-lived-together-50000-years-ago/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Sep 23 - 06:48 PM

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkeys-underground-city-of-20000-people

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 02:52 PM

The Nova episode 'The Maya Metropolis' is highly recommended.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 06:37 AM

WOW great find Sandra.



What separates homo sapiens from our smart and clever ancestors
seems to me to be art.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 10:51 AM

The discoverer of the submerged island cities in the Nile Delta was neither an archeologist or a scientist. His strength was in math.
He said he took a lot of flack from the empty-handed 'experts'.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 06:00 AM

Animal footprints in that area include the giant sloth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 08:49 AM

Basil John Wait Brown (22 January 1888 – 12 March 1977) was an English archaeologist and astronomer. Self-taught, he discovered and excavated a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in 1939, which has come to be called "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time".

Other innovative amateurs who were open without agendas were Leonardo D'Vinci and the Wright brothers. Government-funded Harvard experts like Samual Langley could not solve the problem of controlled flight.

An armchair amateur archeologist doesn't have to be a genius to make a discovery. If one could dig down 10 meters they would find more than gas and sewer lines or unexploded armaments. If one is curious enough and study twice before digging once, I bet people would be surprised by what they find. My grandmother found rare Eohippus fossils (tiny horses) in the Midwest that were millions of years old.

If you are spry
give it a try
you'll be surprised
by what you find

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Sep 23 - 12:46 PM

Following breadcrumbs from Sandra's story takes me to the Smithsonian entry about Homo heidelbergensis. In particular the description:

In 1908 near Heidelberg, Germany, a workman found the type specimen of H. heidelbergensis in the Rösch sandpit just north of the village of Mauer. This mandible was nearly complete except for the missing premolars and first two left molars; it is heavily built and lacks a chin. German scientist Otto Schoentensack was the first to describe the specimen and proposed the species name Homo heidelbergensis.

Before the naming of this species, scientists referred to early human fossils showing traits similar to both Homo erectus and modern humans as ‘archaic’ Homo sapiens.

A point to make here is that while it says it "lacks a chin" doesn't mean that part of the mandible broke off, it's one of those early humanoid features. It seems that only Homo sapiens have a pronounced chin on the bottom of the face. I read about this recently, that earlier humanoids didn't have chins.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 23 - 08:34 PM

Our friend gnu shared this with me on my FB page, but it needs sharing over here.

Temple of Aphrodite Discovered in Egypt’s Sunken City of Heracleion

The submerged city of Heracleion, discovered back in 2000, continues to yield stunning archaeological treasures. The city, once called Thonis-Heracleion, thrived near present-day Alexandria.

Exploration in the submerged city of Heracleion unveils a remarkable ancient gem: a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, shining new light on Greek presence in ancient Egypt.

It's not a very long article but it has a link out to more about Heracleion. And Googling this probably brings up other sites, perhaps with more photos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 06:35 PM

Meanwhile, Far, Far Away . . .

Osiris-Rex: Nasa reveals first look at 'beautiful' asteroid sample

"It's beautiful, it really is - certainly what we've seen of it so far," said Dr Ashley King.

The UK scientist was in a select group to put first eyes and instruments on the rocky samples that have just been brought back from asteroid Bennu.

The materials, scooped up by a US space agency (Nasa) mission and returned to Earth 17 days ago, are currently being examined in a special lab in Texas.

"We've confirmed we went to the right asteroid," Dr King told BBC News.

The three-day analysis by the Natural History Museum (NHM) expert and five others on the "Quick Look" team showed the black, extraterrestrial powder to be rich in carbon and water-laden minerals.

That's a great sign. There's a theory that carbon-rich (organic), water-rich asteroids similar to Bennu may have been involved in delivering key components to the young Earth system some 4.5 billion years ago. It's potentially how we got the water in our oceans and some of the compounds that were necessary to kick-start life.

The asteroid samples will be used to test these ideas.

The rest at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Aug 23 - 05:18 PM

Archaeologists discover 3,000-year-old tomb honouring elite religious leader in northern Peru Archaeologists in northern Peru have unearthed a 3,000-year-old tomb which they believe might have honoured an elite religious leader in the Andean country some three millennia ago.

Dubbed the "Priest of Pacopampa," referring to the highland archaeological zone where the tomb was found, the priest would have been buried around 1200 BC, Peru's Culture Ministry said in a statement.

The body was buried under six layers of ash mixed with black earth, with decorated ceramic bowls and seals indicating ancient ritual body paint used for people of elite standing ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Sep 23 - 07:16 PM

3D maps of Swan River lead maritime archaeologists to unexplored wreck in Perth, Western Australia Detailed 3D maps of the bottom of the Swan River have led maritime archaeologists to a sunken barge right in the heart of Perth that has lain unexplored for about a century.

Patrick Morrison, who is completing a doctorate in archaeology at the University of Western Australia, said the find was made after studying maps of the riverbed released by the state government.

"We had seen … some of the shipwrecks that we knew existed, but we also saw some interesting lumps," Mr Morrison told Nadia Mitsopoulos, on ABC Radio Perth.

"We ended up diving one of those after checking on the sonar, and it was a shipwreck … it could be about 100 years old." (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 05:23 AM

can't read it cos I have an ad blocker. They politely ask me to turn it off, but 1. I dunno how, & more importantly 2. I wouldn't even if I knew how, so I asked google - roman swords dead sea caves - & found this on BBC site

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Sep 23 - 05:37 PM

World's oldest wooden structure discovered in Zambia, dating back 476,000 years, archaeologists say Archaeologists say they have unearthed the oldest wooden structure ever discovered, dating from nearly half a million years ago, which suggests that our ancestors may have been more advanced than previously thought.

The exceptionally well-preserved wooden structure was found at Kalambo Falls in the north of Zambia, near the border with Tanzania.

It dates back at least 476,000 years, well before the evolution of Homo sapiens, according to a study describing the find in the journal Nature.

The wood bears cut-marks showing that stone tools were used to join two large logs to make the structure, which is believed to be a platform, walkway or raised dwelling to keep our relatives above the water.

The ancestors of humans were already known to use wood at this time, but for limited purposes such as starting a fire or hunting.

Larry Barham, an archaeologist at the UK's University of Liverpool and the study's lead author, told AFP that to his knowledge the previous record-holder for oldest wooden structure dated back around 9,000 years. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Sep 23 - 02:29 AM

Kofun Burial Chamber and Two Iron Swords Uncovered in Parking Lot Shrubbery - it's just a little round garden, surrounded by a low stone wall!!

lots more interesting articles

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 04:03 AM

Further evidence points to footprints in US National Park being the oldest sign of humans in the Americas New research has indicated fossil human footprints in New Mexico are likely the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that up-ends what many archaeologists thought they knew about civilisation in the region.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lake bed in White Sands National Park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published Thursday in the journal Science ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 05:41 AM

1,900-year-old Knot-Frilled Child’s Gown Discovered in Israel's Cave of Letters The Cave of Letters in Israel has yielded many artifacts from the famous Bar Kokhba revolt, offering deep insights into Jewish history. Recently, a 1,900-year-old child's nightgown with intriguing "knots" was discovered, prompting speculation regarding their protective significance within ancient Jewish practices and beliefs.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 05:49 AM

Coin hoard could be linked to 1692's Glencoe Massacre (2023 article)

The dig uncovering Glencoe's dark secrets (2019 article)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Oct 23 - 08:25 AM

Phallus and the boar: Türkiye digs yield clues to human history The dry expanses of south-eastern Türkiye, home to some of humanity's most ancient sites, have yielded fresh discoveries in the form of a stone phallus and a coloured boar.
For researchers, the carved statue of a man holding his phallus with two hands while seated atop a bench adorned with a leopard, is a new clue in the puzzle of our very beginnings.
The 2.3-metre work was discovered at the end of September at Karahantepe, in the heart of a complex of some 20 sites that were home to thousands of people during the Stone Age.
Karahantepe is part of the network around UNESCO-listed Gobekli Tepe, a place where our prehistoric ancestors gathered to worship more than 7,000 years before Stonehenge or the earliest Egyptian pyramids.

... Archaeologists found a 1.2 metre long by 70 centimetre tall depiction of a boar, with red eyes and teeth as well as a black-and-white body.
This 11,000-year-old wild pig is the first coloured sculpture from this period discovered to date, Mr Karul said ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Oct 23 - 02:38 AM

Prehistoric skeletons of Australia's giant 'wombat' Diprotodon excavated in the Pilbara Skeletons belonging to a gigantic Australian proto-wombat have been unearthed by scientists in Western Australia's north, shedding light on the state's rich natural history.
Western Australia Museum's palaeontology team descended on a remote mine site at Du Boulay Creek, in the Pilbara, where several Diprotodon fossils have lurked beneath the surface for tens of thousands of years.
Related to the modern-day wombat and koala, the diprotodon is the largest known marsupial to have ever lived, growing up to four metres in length and 1.7 metres tall, and reaching weights of almost three tonnes (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 08:23 AM

a few more pics - NEW MONUMENTAL STATUES DISCOVERED AT GÖBEKLITEPE AND KARAHANTEPE

New Statues and Fresh Insights from Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe

I finally found some leopards! Carving of man holding his penis and surrounded by leopards is oldest known depiction of a narrative scene, archaeologists say

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 04:24 PM

groan ....

Subject: BS: Mac Iain's summer house
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:07 PM

I find this story tragic, this family fleeing to their booleying house and burying some coins, perhaps enough to get the children away safely, but being killed by the guests they'd hosted.

---

This is the same story Sandra posted earlier today. It fits in the Archaeology thread - or you could start a music thread to discuss this kind of thing that might be the subject of a song (or many songs.) ---mudelf

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 19 Oct 23 - 01:16 AM

I see no leopard…?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Oct 23 - 11:14 PM

Amazing discovery in the Orkneys, the far-flung group of islands north of Scotland: a beautifully built tomb from five thousand years ago, containing fourteen skeletons of adults and children, two positioned as if they were embracing. We'll never know the stories of these people who were commemorated with such beauty and such technology.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Sep 23 - 03:09 PM

The comprehensively-discredited politician, Michael Gove, "Britons have had enough of experts..."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 12:52 PM

Leonardo da Vinci. Just so.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 05 Nov 23 - 06:35 PM

Tens of thousands of ancient coins found off the coast of Sardinia

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 06 Nov 23 - 01:39 AM

Thanks SRS. The country that the coins came from was not stated in the article and the markings on the coins were not legible in the photos.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 10 Nov 23 - 03:04 AM

This isn't archeological but...

Hexham bunyip folklore continues to intrigue as conservationists work to protect Australasian bittern

"One night well over a century ago three miners headed to Hexham Swamp, between Newcastle and Maitland, for an evening of wild duck hunting.

"But instead of finding ducks, they came across a terrifying creature with a tremendous roar 'like that of a lion' and two eyes like 'golden orbs in the night'.

"And so, the legend of the Hexham bunyip was born.

"That infamous night in 1879 may have become a local legend, but today this swamp creature is now rarer than ever and residents are trying to save it from extinction."

Before you tune out of this article, it relates to a bird which is now close to extinction around the world.

"It turns out the mysterious creature that scared the three miners in 1879 was a bird; the endangered Australasian bittern, also known as the 'bunyip bird'".

...

"The Australasian bittern is globally endangered, with fewer than 2,500 individuals estimated to be left in the world.

"It is also believed that more than 90 per cent of its habitat has been lost in Australia."

There is a dedicated wetlands area at the riverside suburb of Hexham which is about 15 minutes drive north of where I live in Newcastle, NSW.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 09:40 AM

WOW The World’s Oldest Human Statue Discovered at Karahan Tepe dating back 11,400 years may not be a fertility symbol.-insert joke here like it is a towel hook-
Look closer and you will see a woven/knitted sweater but no pants.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 03:29 PM

I fixed the first link to NatGeo, but as noted, the article is for subscribers only.

Here's one everyone should be able to read: Declassified Cold War Satellite Photos Reveal Hundreds of Roman-Era Forts
Once thought to be defensive military bases, the forts may have supported peaceful trade and travel

The program ran from 1960 to 1972, Cold War spy satellites taking a look at the landscape and recording patterns on the ground that are archaeologically important sites.

Using declassified photos from Cold War-era spy satellites, researchers have identified hundreds of previously undiscovered ancient Roman forts in Iraq and Syria. Their findings, published last week in the journal Antiquity, are changing long-held assumptions about the Roman military’s role in the area.

Previously, historians knew about a smaller number of the forts. Dating to between the second and sixth centuries C.E., they were thought to function as defensive military posts. The new research upends these ideas, suggesting the forts were more likely built to support trade and travel.

As lead author Jesse Casana, an archaeologist at Dartmouth, tells CNN’s Mindy Weisberger, they were “places of dynamic cultural exchange and movement of goods and ideas.”

In the 1920s and 30s, French archaeologist Antoine Poidebard discovered 116 of the forts by photographing them from a biplane. These forts appeared to form a defensive wall that ran from north to south along an eastern boundary of the empire. Poidebard thought this wall likely acted as a Roman military barrier against invaders.

More at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 23 - 10:52 PM

From Helen's most recently linked article:

The coins, dating from the first half of the fourth century AD, were found in seagrass not far from the town of Arzachena.

They were first spotted by a diver who saw something metallic out of the corner of their eye.

The diver alerted authorities, who sent divers from an art protection squad along with others from the Italian cultural ministry's undersea archaeology department.

Exactly how many coins have been retrieved has not been determined yet, as they are still being sorted.

A ministry statement estimated that there are at least about 30,000 and possibly as many as 50,000, given their collective weight.

"All the coins were in an excellent and rare state of preservation," the ministry said.

The few coins that were damaged still had legible inscriptions, it said.

"The treasure found in the waters off Arzachena represent one of the most important coin discoveries," in recent years, said Luigi La Rocca, a Sardinian archaeology department official. . . . Given the location and shape of the seabed, there could be remains of ship wreckage nearby.

That ship will be a story, if they find it!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 10:24 AM

link to 'attack by slavers' doesn't work as the final letter of the URL is missing

A google search on "Can archaeologists solve Sweden's 150 year old mystery" led to the article, but alas, it's only for subscribers

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 04:41 PM

& I only use your linkifier, Dave!!

testimonial from very satisfied customer

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Nov 23 - 04:30 PM

thanks, Maggie.

another article form my favourite site - Declassified Cold War Spy Satellite Images Reveal Roman Forts In Syria and Iraq
                     
Archaeologists Unearth a Medieval Skeleton with a Prosthetic Hand ...Historically, while this find is exceptional, it's not unique. There are approximately 50 known prosthetic devices from the late Middle Ages and early modern period in Central Europe. They range from rudimentary, non-moving models to intricate devices with mechanical components. The famed knight, Götz von Berlichingen, is a notable figure from this era. He wore an "Iron Hand" prosthetic after losing his right hand during the siege of Landshut in 1530. Unlike the Freising discovery, von Berlichingen's prosthetic was a marvel of engineering for its time, featuring movable parts and a complex design. ...

Origin of Ancient Mummified Baboons in Egypt Found and Points to a Location for Punt

This 15th Century French Painting Features A Precisely Drawn Prehistoric Tool ... he study concludes, that after artistic license is accounted for, it would appear that Fouquet painted an actual handaxe, that perhaps he had seen with his own eyes. Kangas wrote in the study that Fouquet spent a lot of time painting the stone, and this means he had “probably seen one that struck his attention and imagination". ...

before I end up linking lots more articles, here's the source page

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Oct 23 - 07:02 AM

Sandra in Sydney, here's the link

https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2021/10/can-archaeologists-solve-swedens-1500-year-old-murder-mystery

and if that doesn't work, search for the headline or subhead:

Can archaeologists solve Sweden's 1,500-year-old murder mystery?
The remains of 26 massacred men were uncovered at the Iron Age site of Sandby Borg, where a grim tale of societal collapse is revealing itself.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 22 Oct 23 - 06:40 AM

And what looks to me like an attack by slavers in Scandinavia during the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Nov 23 - 01:11 AM

Danish archaeologists have discovered the importance of a queen long relegated to wifehood: Thyra.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: DaveRo
Date: 23 Oct 23 - 08:11 AM

The Mudcat link maker has a 128 character limit on a URL. If you paste a longer one it gets truncated.

My Simple Linkier has no such limit.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Dec 23 - 03:51 PM

& of course, this link was created using it!!

sandra (Simple Linkifier's No. 1 fan)

Palorchestes was a blind, sharp-toothed creature with a trunk that lived for millions of years in Australia Central Australia's fossil bed at Alcoota holds many mysteries including the story of the extremely rare Palorchestes.

Palorchestes was a strange creature that lived for millions of years in pockets across Australia, but has no living relatives.

Adam Yates, senior curator of earth sciences for the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery, said it was one of the weirdest creatures found at the fossil bed.

"It is a distant relative of wombats but it is very un-wombat-like in many respects and it has a number of really unusual anatomical features," Dr Yates ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Dec 23 - 05:17 PM

DNA Study Sheds New Light On The Mysterious 9,000-Year-Old Shaman Burial In Bad Dürrenberg (Central Germany)

Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - The 9,000-year-old shaman burial in Bad Dürrenberg, Germany, is one of Central Europe's most spectacular discoveries.

Discovered in 1934 during construction works, the double burial of an adult woman and an infant has long fascinated scientists and the public. Who was this woman, and what was her relation to the child?

When examining the ancient grave goods, scientists could determine the woman buried in a seated position in Bad Dürrenberg was a shaman.

Genetic research now reveals the relationship between the woman and the child: the boy is not her son but a fourth- or fifth-degree relation. The phenotypic variants analyzed in the woman's genome inform us that she had a relatively dark skin complexion, dark straight hair, and blue eyes.

Here's an earlier report about the same individual.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 23 - 05:03 PM

An outstanding Archaeologist I agree with.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Dec 23 - 06:29 AM

A longer piece about the German shaman and her young friend.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Dec 23 - 07:58 AM

Between nystagmus and teeth filing she certainly could be dramatic. There could be other explanations for the 600 year younger antlers.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Dec 23 - 04:49 PM

Thompson, thanks for the link - more pics here

latest articles from 'Ancient Origins' for those who want (need) more archaeology!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Dec 23 - 02:28 AM

On Sunday mornings ABC (Aus. Broadcasting Commission) Radio National has been playing Stuff the British Stole a podcast (& TV series). This morning it was the episode about the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles
Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Today the Empire's loot sits in museums, galleries, private collections and burial sites with polite plaques. But its history is often messier than the plaques suggest.
In each episode of this global smash hit podcast, Walkley award-winning journalist, author and genetic potluck, Marc Fennell, takes you on the wild, evocative, sometimes funny, often tragic adventure of how these stolen treasures got to where they live today. These objects will ultimately help us see the modern world — and ourselves — in a different light.
This is a co-production between the ABC and CBC Podcasts.

“The antidote to A History of the World in 100 Objects. Marc Fennell, fab Aussie podcaster of It Burns and Nut Jobs, investigates a single cultural artefact in each episode of his new podcast, thus exposing what he calls the “not-so-polite history” of the British empire. The latest show uses pekinese dogs to take us to 1860 and the British-Chinese opium wars; previous episodes explain the British theft of Benin’s bronzes, and how Tipu’s Tiger ended up in the V&A. Fennell is immensely entertaining, his podcasts are always gripping and this is an excellent series that uses history, colonialism and art to examine where we are today. Recommended.” — Miranda Sawyer, The Guardian

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via book report) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Dec 23 - 07:40 AM

'The Dawn of Everything' fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of individuals.
Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Dec 23 - 04:37 PM

Ancient Origins' Most Extraordinary Archaeological Treasures of 2023

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Dec 23 - 01:34 PM

Cache up to 7000 years old from British Colombia

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Dec 23 - 04:09 PM

thanks, Bill, I went looking for more info & found a few articles & a new rabbit hole to travel into!

When It Rains It Pours - Ancient Egyptian law It didn’t rain frequently in ancient Egypt, but when it did, says Sapienza University of Rome archaeologist Aneta Skalec, it could come down so violently that it led to legal quarrels between neighbors. Skalec examined a papyrus known as the Demotic Legal Code of Hermopolis West, which was recorded in the time of the pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (reigned 285–246 B.C.), although its origins are likely centuries earlier. The document contains the most extensive known collection of Egyptian laws, many of them concerning leasing of property and rules of inheritance. “Among the various regulations, we find those concerning neighborly disputes,” Skalec says. “I was surprised when I came across the regulations relating to rain”

I borrow Archaeology from the library & have now bookmarked it's home page.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 01 Jan 24 - 11:15 AM

From The Guardian

Another cock-and-balls theory

"Cerne Abbas giant is Hercules and was army meeting point, say historians

Dorset hillside chalk figure was originally a muster station for West Saxon armies fending off Vikings, experts suggest."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 03:05 AM

Meanwhile, another set of experts have also been pondering ...Cerne Abbas Chalk Figure Now Identified As the Greek Hero Hercules

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Rain Dog
Date: 03 Jan 24 - 05:21 AM

It is the same two experts. Both links are based on the same source.

I like this quote from Sandra's link:

"It remains to be seen how widely accepted this new theory about the origin and meaning of the Cerne Abbas giant will be. Those who've invested time and energy pursuing other explanations may not be ready to give up just yet. This isn’t the end of attempts to understand the meaning of the Cerne Abbas giant, since conclusive proof that the giant is actually Hercules is lacking, as Drs. Morcom and Gittos concede."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Jan 24 - 06:53 PM

oops an incomplete link - here 'tis Artifacts Recovered From Antakya’s Earthquake Rubble - Feb 2023 earthquake


The Elusive Quest: The Search for Antony and Cleopatra's Lost Tomb

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Jan 24 - 07:12 PM

sigh, so many things to do, so many rabbit holes to jump into ...

Why Did Ancient Scots Prepare ‘Frankenstein’ Mummies?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jan 24 - 04:15 PM

The strange story of the grave of Copernicus

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 07:44 PM

Copernicus deduced the sun was at the center of our solar system after Leonardo DaVinci surmised the same thing. Da Vinci's genius was tempered by procrastination. He never took the time to publish his findings. From the evidence of the notebooks that survive, if even a fraction of Da Vinci's discoveries or insights had made it into the public domain when he was alive, science could have been advanced by an era (i.e., imagine if we had next century's technology today). It was he who first surmised that "The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 06:35 AM

Calling Leonardo "Da Vinci" is like calling me "Of Bude" instead of Steve (I've been called worse). Vinci is merely the town in Tuscany where he came from. In context, "Leonardo" is just fine, in other words as long as you're talking about the great Italian polymath, not "Titanic."

I hadn't heard the story of Copernicus's grave. What a great piece of science.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 06:52 AM

The only hill figure I've seen close up is the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex. There's no reference to it in any literature before 1710. It may have been carved out of the grass around that time by an enterprising monk. It's been seriously messed about with down the years (it may never have been originally in chalk, its feet have been altered, headgear removed, its two staves shortened and changed, a massive penis drawn on it, a face mask added, etc.). It's now marked out by white-painted blocks. It's still mightily impressive, and, to see it in correct human proportion, you have to view it from the bottom of the hill. Clever!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 07:26 AM

thanks for your report, Steve, this is how I travel.

I never did the big O/S trip when I was young, I bought my flat instead & travelled with books, & later the www. I see the world thru other people's eyes.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 07:50 AM

Sorry I didn't do a link but it's an immediate google!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 10:07 AM

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-fortifications-revealed-undernea

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 03:49 PM

A friend posted a photo on Instagram of a re-discovered deep cave community in Turkey that looks interesting but she offered no links and little information so I'll do some digging before I post more about it. I think she did a cut/paste with the text, so that's my starting point.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 07:06 PM

Turkey is known for many ancient underground cities but I think it is this one...https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/inside-turkey-underground-cities#:~:text=Beneath%20the%20streets%20throughout%20parts,

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 07:18 PM

This one is considered to be the biggest https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/derinkuyu-turkey-underground-city-strange-maps

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jan 24 - 02:32 PM

"Jewels" being decorative things and not necessarily stones, it appears the jewels here are metal, gold and silver, though it lists coral and amber as part of it.

Ancient temple filled with gold and silver jewels discovered in Greece

Archaeologists excavating a sanctuary honoring the ancient Greek goddess Artemis have announced they discovered a significant number of structures, as well as plentiful relics, including gold and silver jewels.

A "monumental building in the heart of the sanctuary" was first found in 2017, according to a recent social media post from Greece's Ministry of Culture. Another temple was found in 2023. Excavating this second temple turned up "rich relics" and jewelry, the ministry said. Other excavations found buildings from the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.

The excavations are conducted annually by a group of Swiss and Greek archaeologists, the Ministry of Culture said in a news release. The research project began about 15 years ago, the ministry said.

A bonus link at the bottom of that story says an ancient aqueduct was uncovered along with a few coins.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 24 - 08:18 AM

Rare Crouching Bodies Found Amongst Mass Ancient Burial site in Wales

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jan 24 - 09:03 PM

Scottish tartan: World's oldest tartan brought 'back to life' ... An original piece of tartan material was discovered in a peat bog in Glen Affric in the Highlands, around 40 years ago.

After testing by The Scottish Tartans Authority, it was confirmed to be the oldest in the world, dating from around 1500-1600 AD.

Now, a team of fashion designers from the House of Edgar, alongside a tartan historian, have recreated this special tartan, for anyone to wear.

Peter E. MacDonald, a historian at at the Scottish Tartans Authority, who helped with the research said: "It is quite special to see the tartan remade as it could have been 500 years ago." ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 24 - 11:42 AM

I played detective this morning to track down a sharable version of this story from 2020. Journals like Science and Nature have a hefty paywall, but sometimes you can get one or two articles free a month. Were humans living in a Mexican cave during the last ice age?
Startlingly early dates for stone tools could upend ideas about peopling of the Americas

It has to do with finding stone tools in a cave in Mexico, but since the cave doesn't also have a fire pit area (classic in human habitation) they can't be sure if the stones are tools or just naturally occurring fragments.

At first glance, Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico's Zacatecas state is an unlikely place to find signs of early humans, let alone evidence that might change the story of the peopling of the Americas. It sits a daunting 1000 meters above a valley, overlooking a desert landscape in the mountains north of Zacatecas. Getting there requires a 4- or 5-hour uphill scramble over a moonscape of jagged boulders.

But in the soil below the cave's floor, a team led by archaeologist Ciprian Ardelean of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, University City Siglo XXI, dug up almost 2000 stone objects that researchers think are tools. By combining state-of-the-art dating methods, the team argues that humans were at the site at least 26,000 years ago—more than 10,000 years before any other known human occupation in the region. "Chiquihuite is a solitary dot" of human occupation, Ardelean says.

The dates place humans there during the height of the last ice age, when ice covered much of what is now Canada and sea levels were much lower. To have settled in Mexico by then, Ardelean says, people must have entered the Americas 32,000 years ago or more, before the ice reached its maximum extent.

That's a sample from the article, but if you can't open that, this via Google Scholar. It's just the abstract, but it has a lot of the author names you can use to track down other stuff along these lines.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jan 24 - 11:49 AM

This paper was also referred to in the one above about Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico's Zacatecas state:
Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada

The Mexican site seems to be on a par with a Canadian site age-wise. From the Bluefish paper:

Introduction
Beringia, a vast region stretching from the Lena River in Siberia to the Mackenzie River in the Yukon Territory [1, 2], is thought to have played a pivotal role in the initial dispersal of human populations from Asia to North America. The exact timing of the initial dispersal remains uncertain, however. Recent genetic and palaeogenetic analyses [3–10], as well as dental morphological evidence [11], confirm that human populations migrating into North America originated in Siberia. They also suggest that dispersing groups reached Beringia during the LGM (dated to ca. 18,000–24,000 cal BP) where they were genetically isolated for up to 8,000 years before moving south of the ice-sheets into North America [3–11]. Unfortunately, archaeological support for the standstill hypothesis is scarce [12]. Recent archaeological discoveries prove that humans were able to adapt to high-latitude, Arctic environments by at least 45,000 cal BP [13]. The Yana River sites, in Siberia, demonstrate that modern human populations had reached Western Beringia by 32,000 cal BP [14, 15], i.e., well before the LGM. Human activity is not recorded again in Western Beringia until the post-LGM period, however, with occupations of two open-air sites, Berelekh and Ushki, dated to ca. 14–13,000 cal BP [16–18]. In Eastern Beringia, the oldest currently accepted human occupations occur in the Tanana valley (interior Alaska) at Swan Point, Broken Mammoth and Mead [19–21], and at the Little John site, located 2 km east of the international border in the Yukon Territory [22]; these sites are no older than ca. 14,000 cal BP, however [19–22]. The only potential candidate for an earlier, LGM occupation of Beringia is the controversial Bluefish Caves site.

Excavated from 1977 to 1987 under the direction of Jacques Cinq-Mars (Archaeological Survey of Canada), the Bluefish Caves site (northern Yukon Territory, 67°09’N 140°45’W) occupies a unique place in Eastern Beringian prehistory. The site is comprised of three small karstic cavities, not exceeding 30 m3 in volume, located in the Keele range about 54 kilometres southwest of Old Crow village. The caves are situated at the base of a limestone ridge about 250 meters above the right bank of the Bluefish River [23–27]. All three cavities contain a loess layer (Unit B) up to one meter thick, deposited on bedrock (Unit A) and overlain by a humus layer mixed with cryoclastic debris (Unit C) and finally, a modern humus layer (Unit D) [25, 27]. The loess deposit (Unit B) can be differentiated into three sub-layers based on granulometric and sedimentological examinations and was excavated in 5 cm spits [23]. Small artefact series were excavated from the loess in Cave I (MgVo-1) and Cave II (MgVo-2) and rich faunal assemblages were recovered from all three caves [23–27]. The lithic assemblages (which number about one hundred specimens) include microblades, microblade cores, burins and burin spalls as well as small flakes and other lithic debris [23–26]. Most of the artefacts were recovered from the loess of Cave II at a depth comprised between about 30 to 155 cm. The deepest diagnostic pieces–a microblade core (B3.3.17), a burin (B3.6.1) and a core tablet (B4.16.4) found inside Cave II, as well as a microblade (E3.3.2) found near the cave entrance–derive from the basal loess at a depth of about 110 to 154 cm below datum, according to the CMH archives [28]. While the artefacts cannot be dated with precision [24, 25, 29], they are typologically similar to the Dyuktai culture which appears in Eastern Siberia about 16–15,000 cal BP, or possibly earlier, ca. 22–20,000 cal BP [30]. There are no reported hearth features [24]. Palaeoenvironmental evidence, including evidence of herbaceous tundra vegetation [31, 32] and vertebrate fauna typical of Pleistocene deposits found elsewhere in Eastern Beringia [27, 33, 34], is consistent with previously obtained radiocarbon dates which suggest that the loess layer was deposited between 10,000 and 25,000 14C BP (radiocarbon years Before Present), i.e., between 11,000 and 30,000 cal BP [23–27, 35] (Table 1).

And if you haven't flogged this topic enough, Wikipedia has an entry about the Mexican cave and the controversy.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jan 24 - 12:58 PM

Why Did Champagne Bottles On The Titanic Not Implode?
Titan imploded, so why not champagne bottles at lower depths?

When the doomed submersible the Titan imploded as the crew attempted to explore the wreck of the Titanic in June 2023, people began asking a lot of questions about implosions, including why the Titanic itself didn't implode despite being at a lower depth.

One such question, asked a number of times over the last year, is why champagne bottles found on the Titanic did not implode. Instead, there are bottles that appear to be largely intact.

It is possible to find the location on Google Earth, but I can't get it to give me a link to the coordinates. Google Maps will give one.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jan 24 - 02:57 PM

Sandra, that revived/recreated tartan is beautiful.

The first mention of tartan was in 1538, but now there are thought to be around 7,000 unique tartans in the world - even former US President Obama and Hello Kitty have their own tartan!

The first mention - I wonder what kind of document houses that mention? And I wonder if there are paintings of tartans that far back?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Jan 24 - 07:08 PM

I'm involved in a project making wallhangings for the Museum of Australian Democracy & City of Sydney Council to commemorate the South Sea Islanders brought to Australia as slaves (oops, fancy typing that, they really signed work agreements!!) in the 19 & early 20th century.

Info on the project here https://www.instagram.com/helenfraser_artist/ under Yumi Olgeta (= 'you & me together' in Bislama language) - scroll down to pic of 2 metre long wallhanging on the floor. I'm not on instagram so can't look at the pics.

I originally saw a workshop on Council's What's site on so went along & started learning about the Blackbirding days & started sewing islander motifs. Aunties from the community talked about their ancestors & their own ives - 12 & 14 year old boy & girl taken from 2 islands certainly did not sign anything. The first Blackbirder, Ben Boyd had a tartan & we were given printed reproduction pieces of this pattern to use!

turning this into a music thread, here's one of Phil d'Conch's contributions - Note: Fijian shanghai.
“...Other plans have also been adopted. One of the best known is perhaps that of counterfeiting a missionary ship. A white macintosh coat has done duty for a surplice, the ship's log-book for a Prayer Book; and as no one could sing a hymn, the sailors joined in chanting that impressive ditty, 'Give me some time to blow the man down.' The natives were then invited below to prayers, and a barrel of biscuit left open as if by accident. Many went down to the hold, but on attempting to return found the hatches had closed over them….”
[Two Years in Fiji, by Litton Forbes. London, Longmans,1875]

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 07:10 AM

Re Champagne bottles at Titanic depths: They're built strong on purpose to contain the pressure from the contents. Given that it's more difficult to make something which can withstand pressure from inside than from outside, it doesn't surprise me that the bottles have survived intact.

What I'd like to know is whether any seawater has made it past the cork into the wine, which (come to think) would reduce the pressure differential; this would help preserve the bottle, if not the contents. And No, I do not volunteer as a taste-tester.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jan 24 - 04:49 AM

Amelia Earhart's long-lost plane may have been found, says underwater exploration company Deep Sea Vision

"In short: A deep sea exploration company has released sonar images of what it says is likely the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane.

"The disappearance of the American pilot during a round-the-world flight in 1937 is one of the most enduring mysteries in aviation history.

"What's next? The team that made the discovery is planning to take more images to confirm it's her long-lost Lockheed 10-E Electra plane."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jan 24 - 10:56 AM

Champagne corks are more elastic than corks for wine but the glass is stronger and is not sealed with wax. Only wire is used to secure corks to contain 4 bars of pressure. At the Titanic depth external pressure wins. So Maloc's salty champagne sounds plausible.


Kudos for an ocean water landing by Amelia without having a breakup.
She would not have desired to go down with the plane so DNA is probably lost. Plane confirmation is all they need now.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jan 24 - 02:01 PM

From: Sandra in Sydney, on 22 Jan 24 - 09:03 you mentioned the Tartan found in a bog/

Interesting! I wish the article had been specific about all the dyes used to create the colours because a few decades back I used to create natural dyes, mostly from plants, to dye wool.

In the article they say:

"The original tartan was analysed to figure out what dyes were used to make it the colour it was, and how many woollen threads were used to make up the pattern.

"They discovered that green, yellow and red dyes were used, which would have come from woad or indigo to create the green, along with other natural dyes.

.......

"Tartan can be used to make kilts, or scarves, and they come in many different colours and designs, to represent different clans, or families.

"Originally, clans people used local plants, mosses and berries to dye the wool."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jan 24 - 05:26 PM

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but dyeing wool using natural or plant dyes is kind of archaeological because it has been done for centuries, e.g. info on this site:

dyes from plants

Thinking about the yellow and burnt orange/brown colours in that Tartan piece found in a bog:

Some of my best results came from coreopsis, which is a roadside weed here in Oz but I just discovered this week while watching a UK TV show called Love Your Garden that it grows in the UK. I suspect it may have been brought out here to plant in gardens and then it escaped into the wild. I also managed to get a beautiful dark burnt orange type of red from it.

Another excellent and reliable source for yellow and burnt orange/brown dyes is brown onion skins. The trick is that if you want yellow you put the untreated homespun wool yarn in the pot early in the cooking time, but the longer you boil the onion skins before putting the wool in, the more burnt orange/brown it gets.

I had a lot of fun experimenting, back in my younger days.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 24 - 09:46 PM

Tonight on PBS the program NOVA is looking at the fossil remains in Egypt of the ancestors of whales. Years ago I read about whale fossils found in Egypt, and they suggested that cows might be a progenitor. Now it seems that the hippopotamus is closer to whales.

It is fascinating to consider that land mammals moved back into the water (after leaving the water millions of years before). If you pull up Google Earth and search on "Valley of the Whales, Egypt" you'll land on Wadi Hitan National Park. Some of the 360^o photos show fossil whales in situ. Walking whales may have contributed to the gods in Egypt - imagining what skeletons might be would be something humans thousands of years ago thought about. (Consider how dinosaur fossils might have contributed to the idea of dragons.) When Whales Could Walk (again, as mentioned in another thread, you might need a VPN set on a US IP address to watch this).

"All modern whales have a pelvis, and some have tiny leg bones, too." Swimming mammals wouldn't need these, but they are there due to the ancestry. It is fascinating.

After it was an ocean, the area cooled and dried and forests grew, with trees up to 150'. The animals of the region left or failed. If they survived, they learned to live in colder water.

I'll be poking around Google Earth more to see if I can find some of the sites mentioned in the program. It's difficult to save coordinates in Google Earth, but they will come up in Google maps. Go figure.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Feb 24 - 03:08 AM

Human footprints dating back 90,000 years found on Moroccan beach ... They say they're the oldest footprints attributed to Homo sapiens to have been discovered in the northern Africa and the southern Mediterranean region (read on)

Alexander the Great’s Family Identities Confirmed at Vergina Tumulus Where is Alexander the Great buried? This mystery, that has baffled historians and devotees of the legendary conqueror, might be closer to an answer, as a group of archaeologists found the occupants of three tombs, situated within the Great Tumulus of Vergina in northern Greece. A study has now conclusively identified those interred as members of the family of Alexander the Great including his father, stepmother, half-siblings, and son. Alongside skeletal remains, a wealth of artifacts and items associated with Alexander himself, including armor and other personal belongings, were also found! (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Feb 24 - 03:48 AM

"Culture is a powerful social tool that can create a sense of common purpose, help us accomplish great projects, or survive in the toughest conditions. It is also a concept that can easily move us to hate and attack those we perceive as being different from us," writes Ariel David in the Israeli publication Haaretz, which has an excellent archaeological section.
He's writing about the Gravettians, who lived all across Europe from Iberia to Russia, 34,000 to 24,000 years ago.
These are the people who made the fantastic cave paintings and the clinically obese Venus statuettes.
You'd think they were the same gang. But a new study of the ornaments they made, by Jack Baker, Solange Rigaud, Daniel Pereira, Lloyd A Courtenay and Francesco d’Errico, published in Nature Human Behaviour, has found that they were a group of different peoples.
On studying their ornaments, it turns out that - like Irish emigrants in America or Polish emigrants in Israel - the people making these ornaments often had greater cultural affinities with faraway places than with the place they were living in.
"For example, ornamental assemblages found in southwestern France, in the Pyrenees, are statistically much closer to those from Belgium than to those much closer in nearby northeastern Spain, Baker and colleagues say.
"So geographical distance was not necessarily the main factor in determining how the Gravettians decorated themselves and who they identified as being part of their group, the researchers infer.
"'What we think is at work here is just this feeling of belonging to a culture,' Baker says. 'It's saying: I dress in this way, and regardless of whether my people move or migrate to another place we are going to keep that style.'"
Really interesting piece. One of the illustrations, however, which to me looks like a man or woman wearing corn rows, "the Lady of Brassempouy" has it reconstructed as a woman wearing a decorative frame over her hair. Well, we shall see what we shall see…

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Feb 24 - 05:08 PM

Peatland ‘time capsule’ reveals prehistoric woodland habitat and insects which still exist today

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Feb 24 - 04:41 PM

Aylesbury Roman egg with contents a 'world first', say scientists The only intact chicken's egg found from Roman Britain is now thought to be the only one of its type in the world - after scientists found it still had liquid inside.

The egg, which is about 1,700 years old, was found during a dig in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Researchers said at the time it was a "genuinely unique discovery".

However, they admitted they were "blown away" recently to find it still contained the yolk and egg white.

A micro CT scan - that produces 3D images - revealed the contents of the egg, complete with the air sac.

... It was the only egg to survive intact, with others breaking during the excavation, releasing a "potent stench"... (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 07:01 AM

WOW

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 08:07 AM

Submerged Australian Land Was Spoken of in Indigenous Myths

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Feb 24 - 12:43 PM

That is interesting -

In a groundbreaking revelation, researchers have unveiled the discovery of a vast submerged land to the north of contemporary Australia, that held up to 500,000 people. Submerged due to rising sea levels at the conclusion of the last glacial period, the researchers propose that echoes of this forgotten land resonate today within indigenous mythology.

The old question about Atlantis - real or mythical - comes up again and again in many places.

I recently started watching an old National Geographic series called Drain the Oceans that gives a look at things as they might appear were the water removed. Simple concept, I'm sure there is a lot of LIDAR and such involved.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 02:41 PM

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/kailash-temple


This is considered to be the largest megalithic structure on Earth.
It was carved out of a mountain instead of moving stones.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 04:20 PM

wow!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 06:26 PM

Colombia to start recovering bounty from wreck of 18th-century San Jose galleon

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 08:37 PM

Kailash looks like a huge version of Petra, Jordan.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 05:00 AM

Wreck of SS Nemesis discovered off Wollongong coast, 120 years after it disappeared

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Feb 24 - 04:12 PM

Statue of Atlas Reconstructed at Greek Temple of Zeus in Agrigento, Italy

A Roman Wooden Cellar Unearthed in Frankfurt's Nida

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Mar 24 - 07:49 AM

The UK has so many Roman Amphitheaters you might think some could be repurposed for folk song gatherings. https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/11/8-roman-ampitheatres-in-britain/101973

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Mar 24 - 04:46 PM

217-year-old sweater — still ‘pristine’ — found in unopened package, UK archive says
Then check out the links below the article - Uncover more archaeological finds - it's a good rabbit hole!!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 08 Mar 24 - 09:22 PM

World’s Oldest Fermented Bread, Dated to 6,600 BC, Found at Çatalhöyük

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 08 Mar 24 - 11:42 PM

but wait, there's more!

Magnet Fisher Drags 1,200-Year-Old Viking Sword from English River & a few more articles on Viking-era discoveries below it, like this one

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 24 - 09:43 PM

I have been looking at the Mayan language and see how the mind set of the Mayan is very different than ours. Our Western world is dualistic while the Mayans were not. For example, the Mayans saw no difference between natural and cultural. Special words signified 'neither this or that' and represented something in between like the ocean between lands. btw the way the word for water was ha aha aha. I thought it sounded funny and flowing.

The point is that the mind set and thoughts of the ancients can be as curious and phenomenal as what they left behind in architecture, art, costumes, weapons and kitchens.

Sandra try researching 'Sage Journals' about archaeology for some different perspectives.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Mar 24 - 03:54 AM

Captain Matthew Flinders Archaeologists working on the HS2 project in Euston have discovered the remains of Captain Matthew Flinders. The Royal Navy explorer led the first circumnavigation of Australia and is credited with giving the country its name.
HS2 archaeologists were able to identify Captain Matthew Flinders’s remains by the lead depositum plate (breast plate) placed on top of his coffin. The discovery of his burial site among 40,000 other human remains, in Euston’s St James’s burial ground, so early on in the archaeological dig has thrilled archaeologists ...

His final resting place will be in at the Church of St Mary and the Holy Rood in Donington, near Spalding, where he was baptised, and where many members of his family are buried.

There is currently no set date for when his body will be reburied at the church. However, the diocese of Lincoln has given planning consent to the reburial and, now HS2 have announced the news, the Parochial Church Council is expecting to work speedily to submit the details of a suitable memorial.

A specialist team from HS2 will transfer the remains to the Diocese of Lincoln for safekeeping until further burial arrangements can be made. Details of which will be announced at a later stage by the diocese. (article dated 5th October 2023)

An article behind a paywall in today's Saturday Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/after-250-years-matthew-flinders-goes-on-his-epic-final-journey-20240314-p5fcf8.html says the funeral is going to be very soon

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Apr 24 - 02:50 PM

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/roman-paintings-uncovered-pompeii-2000-years-rcna147350

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 10:26 AM

I heard something about the floor in that room - it's all white with the black walls. I don't remember if they said it a white mosaic or is it a form of concrete or laid stone?

“You’re walking into a room with an all-white floor, all-black walls. I mean, that’s something that would be impressive today and it definitely was back then,” she said.

The discovery underlines just how much of Pompeii remains buried: More than a third of Pompeii is untouched and unexplored by archaeologists.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Apr 24 - 10:58 PM

Plato’s Final Resting Place in Athens Revealed! The revolutionary scanning and study of the Herculaneum papyri has revealed remarkable new details about the philosopher Plato, including the precise location of his burial. This significant archaeological achievement comes from a project deciphering ancient, carbonized papyri damaged by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD.

According to a press release by, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, the "Greek Schools" project, led by Graziano Ranocchia from the University of Pisa, has made extraordinary progress in restoring and interpreting the section of papyrus known as, History of the Academy by Philodemus of Gadara ...   read on!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Apr 24 - 07:23 PM

Keen explorer discovers many of Perth's shipwrecks aren't where the maps say they are

Australia's earliest European contacts happened on the West Australian coastline, some ships were wrecked, & over the years more were wrecked! Shipwrecks don't really move tho debris can, & with the latest technology sites are getting more precise locations.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Helen
Date: 03 May 24 - 07:39 PM

Two articles about facial reconstruction based on ancient skulls of two women:

Archaeologists reveal reconstructed face of 75,000yo Neanderthal woman

"The Neanderthal woman's skull was discovered in 2018 in a cave in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq."


This Australian school owns a 2,000-year-old human head. Here's what she once looked like

"By Nick Baker and Zoe Ferguson for Stuff the British Stole

"A NSW school has mummified human remains in its library. After years of mystery, a mix of science and art has shed more light on who this person was."

[My question is: why does a school have the 2000 year old human head in their collection??]

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 May 24 - 03:38 AM

an unanswerable question, Helen

A Regal Hue: The Discovery of Tyrian Purple in Roman Carlisle In an extraordinary archaeological find at Carlisle, UK, researchers have unearthed what appears to be Tyrian Purple, a rare and historically significant pigment once reserved for the highest echelons of Roman society. The discovery was made within the drainage system of a 3rd century Roman bathhouse at the Carlisle Cricket Club grounds, part of an extensive excavation dubbed the "Uncovering Roman Carlisle" project.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 May 24 - 04:17 AM

Famed 5,300-Year-Old Alps Iceman Was a Balding Middle-Aged Man With Dark Skin and Eyes

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 May 24 - 04:44 PM

Ancient Chesapeake site challenges timeline of humans in the Americas
An island eroding into the bay offers tantalizing clues about when and how humans first made their way into North America.

People should be able to read this, I used one of my gift articles for the link. Here's a bit of it:

Lowery’s site and others like it could revise the story again, pushing back the timeline earlier than most experts thought possible. In total, Lowery and a motley crew of collaborators have discovered 286 artifacts from the site on the island’s southwestern edge. The oldest, they reported, was embedded with charcoal dated to more than 22,000 years ago, a time when much of the continent would have been covered in ice sheets.

If Lowery is right, Parsons Island could rewrite American prehistory, opening up a host of new puzzles: How did those people get here? How many waves of early migration were there? And are these mysterious people the ancestors of Native Americans?

New claims of sites dated this far back face a wall of skepticism, rooted in legitimate scientific scrutiny and in the threat they pose to long-entrenched views.

To complicate matters, Lowery — who has been affiliated with the Smithsonian but does much of his work independently — presented the results of his study of Parsons Island in a 260-page manuscript posted online rather than in a traditional peer-reviewed journal.

The peer-review process is designed to help validate scientific claims, but Lowery argues that in archaeology it often leads to a circle-the-wagons mentality, allowing scientists to wave away evidence that doesn’t support the dominant paradigm. He says he isn’t seeking formal publishing routes because “life’s too short,” comparing this aspect of academic science to “the dumbest game I’ve ever played.”

If you're interesting this links to his ms.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 May 24 - 09:57 PM

A different kind of ancient history: 50,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Bones Have Remains of Human Viruses, Scientists Find
The preliminary analysis is a first step in testing the theory that infectious diseases played a role in Neanderthals’ extinction

Scientists have detected remnants of three types of viruses in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones. The findings, researchers say, are a first step in testing the theory that viral infections could have played a role in the extinction of Neanderthals.

In a paper posted to the preprint site bioRxiv, the researchers detected fragments of adenovirus (which causes cold-like illnesses), herpesvirus (linked to cold sores) and papillomavirus (HPV) in Neanderthal genome data. The findings have not yet been peer reviewed.

If confirmed, the new findings would be the oldest human viruses ever recovered, setting a record previously held by a 31,000-year-old adenovirus, reports New Scientist’s James Woodford.

“This DNA contains… a mixture of various DNAs, from the Neanderthal individual themselves, plus bacteria, fungus and viruses that might have infected this individual,” Marcelo Briones, a co-author of the new study and a genome researcher at the Federal University of São Paulo in Brazil, writes in an email to Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. “We show that the degree of such changes in the viral genome reads recovered are consistent with the age of the Neanderthal bones, thus showing that they are not present-day contaminants.”

“Taken together, our data indicate that these viruses might represent viruses that really infected Neanderthals,” he tells New Scientist.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jun 24 - 06:17 AM

Slain Woman Warrior Amongst a Large Burial of Medieval Knights in Guadalajara

Face of Killed Pharaoh ‘Seqenenre the Brave’ Revealed

Children’s Graffiti Reveals Witnessing of Gladiatorial Violence in Pompeii

Greek Marines Prove Mycenaean Suit of Armor Was Fit for Battle

enough! I'll let you read the other articles ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jun 24 - 07:03 PM

A Buried Ancient Egyptian Port Reveals the Hidden Connections Between Distant Civilizations
At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world

On Google Earth it shows up as Berenice Troglodytica.

Now 72, Sidebotham knew he wanted to be an archaeologist from the age of 14. When his father, who was in the U.S. Army, was posted in Turkey, the family moved to Ankara, and the teenager spent his free time photographing ruins and collecting Roman coins. After training in Cairo, Athens and the United States, he excavated sites in Italy, Greece, Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere before working on the Red Sea coast for the first time in 1980. “I just fell in love with this place,” he says. “I love the desert, the Bedouin, the sites, everything about it.” He became friendly with the local tribespeople, who showed him ruins that archaeologists didn’t know existed. “They’ll take you to places—the last Westerner was some Roman guy,” he jokes.

If you find the area on Google Earth, then scroll a bit south of the named location - there is a harbor near the modern site, than kind filled in or shallow, but clearly two older harbor sites south of it. Between the two you'll notice a tiny W for the Wikipedia page you can click on for that archeological site. I can't seem grab that link from Google Earth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jun 24 - 09:07 AM

There is an older article about Berenike (the first photo is missing - I went with Internet Archive to see it - it's not a photo I would have put on the head of an article). Photos further down give you a look at a few of the trenches they've dug as they work.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jun 24 - 06:26 PM

I do like pics of sunrises/sunsets! I've taken lots of sunsets, fewer sunrises cos I'm not an early riser

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jul 24 - 09:58 AM

Oldest known cave painting

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jul 24 - 10:48 AM

I was reading about it - wow!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 04:45 PM

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-archaeologists-discover-underwater-ancient-mo

World Archaeologists make stunning underwater discovery of ancient mosaic in sea off Italy

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 04:54 PM

Isn't that gorgeous! Thanks, Bill!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 07:14 PM

I can't read the article cos I use an ad blocker - & even if I knew how to turn it off I certainly wouldn't, but an image search on "discovery of ancient mosaic in sea off Italy" showed me lots of pics.

Some were not about this site, but also interesting - Rome’s hidden mosaics which also has some interesting links.

sandra (contemplating another rabbit hole, maybe a warren!)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 09:56 PM

Sandra, I did a Google search for other version of the image and found this.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 26 Jul 24 - 08:52 AM

wow!!!

It's one thing to kneel on solid earth to retrieve &/or put together ancient stuff on land, but to do so underwater is another matter!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 06:10 PM

Smallest adult human arm bone fossil so far discovered points to origins of 'hobbit' In short:

The remains of the smallest adult arm bone in the fossil record and two teeth, found on the Indonesian island of Flores, were dated to be 700,000 years old.

According to a new study, the discovery sheds light on how the tiny, now-extinct human Homo floresiensis, dubbed the "hobbit", evolved.
What's next?

Archaeologists hope to find further fossils to explain why this ancient hobbit individual was so small.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Sep 24 - 06:29 AM

They may have found where some of our earliest ancestors
- Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens - got together: the range of mountains that runs along Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Sep 24 - 06:31 AM

Meant to say, I wonder what kind of songs the Neanderthal had - were they beautiful musicians?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 24 - 01:17 PM

All we know is
they were able to speak

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Sep 24 - 05:57 AM

thanks for the links

How Reliable are Computer Reconstructions of Ancient Faces?

Cícero Moraes: Insights into the Fascinating World of Forensic Facial Reconstruction

The Origins and Development of Alphabets in Ancient Cultures

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Thompson
Date: 18 Sep 24 - 07:18 AM

All we know is they were able to speak
Really, someone should tell the Neanderthal people who model for those photos to comb their hair!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Sep 24 - 07:58 AM

right on!

checking out a site I bookmarked sometime back & forgot about - it's too interesting to ignore

17th c. gallows yields bone pits, revenant and suicide burials

Dig uncovers 200-year-old message in a bottle from archaeologist it was written in 1825.

Edfu temple restoration reveals original inscriptions, colors, gold

Brain and skin remains found in Bronze Age burials

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 24 - 12:57 PM

I've started reading a book called So Much Stuff by Chip Colwell, and it begins with an analysis of creatures around the world using tools, either opportunistic or crafted, and then into the wide range of humanoid ancestors over the last seven million years and their stone cutting tools. He has references and notes and citations, and from where I am in chapter one I can project that he will soon be talking about modern era archaeology and our looking back at what our ancestors chose to carry around and keep. (I think I bought this via Bookfinder.com, and though Amazon owns Bookfinder, you can still find new and used books much cheaper there because they have charity shop listings and such.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Oct 24 - 08:49 AM

Archaeologists discover 12 skeletons at a buried tomb in Petra, Jordan

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Oct 24 - 10:19 AM

thanks for posting the story

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Oct 24 - 08:42 AM

Not a new discovery, but fascinating link to Neolithic sites in Scotland

Skara Brae

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 24 - 06:01 AM

Here is the best discussion of the current state of archeology I have heard in a long time. Enjoy in two or three sittings, it is very inclusive.   Ed Barnhardt with Lex Fridman
source
https://youtu.be/AzzE7GOvYz8

While Egypt has 140 pyramids the Americas have thousands.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth) pt 2
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Nov 24 - 05:18 AM

Sacred Tunic of Alexander the Great Found in an Ancient Macedonian Tomb? ... The team of archaeologists uncovered a cotton textile dyed in purple that aligns with ancient accounts of the sarapis, a ceremonial garment worn by Persian kings, which Alexander adopted after his victory over Darius III ...

New Clues Finally Unravel Mysteries Surrounding Christopher Columbus’ Origins and Remains

Maya Storm God Huracán Taught That When We Damage Nature, We Damage Ourselves

Cannibalized Sailor From Doomed Arctic Expedition Identified Through a DNA ... While the wrecks were only recently found, the remains of crew members were discovered much earlier on the southwest coast of King William Island in Nunavut. Search teams came across boats tied to large sleds, seemingly in preparation for a journey toward the Back River ... Fitzjames is the second crew member to be positively identified. The first was John Gregory, an engineer on the Erebus, whose skull yielded a DNA match in 2021 ...