Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 08:59 AM

You don't have to go far, some of you, to check out this lost bit of history: Long-Forgotten Secret Passageway Discovered In A Wall At U.K. Parliament

Within the wood paneling of a hallway in the British House of Commons, there was a small brass keyhole.

Members of Parliament and staff walked past the tiny hole each day. The rare person who noticed the hole took it for an electrical cabinet.

Enter a team of historians planning the much-needed restoration of the Palace of Westminster, which is home to the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The oldest part of the estate, Westminster Hall, dates to 1099 and is still in use.

The team was at the Historic England Archive poring over some 10,000 uncatalogued documents relating to the palace when they found something interesting: plans for a doorway in the cloister behind Westminster Hall.

Back at the palace, they found that tiny keyhole in the wood paneling — just where the plan suggested it would be. They had a key made so they could open the door – and they discovered a secret passageway 360 years old. . . .

If you can't read the rest of the story from outside the US let me know and I'll paste it in later.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 29 Feb 20 - 09:07 AM

thanks, stilly

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 05:12 PM

I decided to refresh this thread because during social isolation we can't travel in real life but we can do it virtually.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 05:47 PM

Technically this probably doesn't count as an archaeological site in that I don't think anyone has dug around it looking for clues to the past but as a link to the history of our land it stacks up as one of the biggest and best:

Uluru aka Ayers Rock

For some impressive photos of the rock drag the little yellow sightseeing icon from bottom right to the Sunset Viewing Area to the right and below the rock.

But an important archaeological site in Australia is
Lake Mungo in NSW

Mungo National Park

"Scientists have discovered artefacts of this ancient culture dating back over 50,000 years across the expanses of the last ice age. This makes Mungo one of the oldest places outside of Africa to have been occupied by modern humans since ancient times."

I have said before that making some visits to outback Australia has been the highlight of my travels and I was privileged to visit Lake Mungo on a bus tour arranged through our University. We had a man who had studied indigenous people, an historian and the bus driver was a geologist. We also visited Wilpena Pound which is an impressive rock formation.

In all of the three places it was not just the sightseeing aspect which impressed me. It was the spiritual power of those places and the connection going back over 50,000 years for the indigenous people of our land.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 07:18 PM

I can see the ice age glacial scour marks in parllel that indicate direction. The glacier that carried that rock must have been a mile or more high. The rock dropped and the glacier scrubbed it from above.

50,000 years! There are some possible indications of man at 75,000.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 07:19 PM

or not?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 27 Mar 20 - 07:55 PM

Well, I was quoting the Mungo website on the "over 50,000 years" but I recall seeing an article recently which placed them here at around 60,000 years.

I don't think glaciers had anything to do with the formation of Uluru. I'd have to do a bit of searching to find out more, but I'd be surprised if we had glaciers slap bang in the centre of Australia.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 20 - 12:32 AM

I love looking at landscapes using Google Earth. I pulled it up just now to look in north Quebec to get a link to some of the glacial scars, then noticed Lac Manicouagan, a circular lake with land in the middle. But that's not a volcanic area, so I looked it up. Wow! It's a meteor crater!

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_crater
If you plug this into Google Earth or maps you should go straight to it.
51°27'24.83" N 68°43'43.84" W

What a pleasure, a site that I can go do more reading about. Thanks for reopening this, Helen. In this case, it would be for an armchair geologist or astrophysicist or whoever it is who explores meteors - but wait! This might be part of a "multiple-impact event." From Wikipedia:

The Manicouagan crater may have been part of a multiple impact event which also formed the Rochechouart crater in France, Saint Martin crater in Manitoba, Obolon' crater in Ukraine, and Red Wing crater in North Dakota. The five craters form a chain, indicating the breakup and subsequent impact of an asteroid or comet,[5] like the impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in 1994.

The Wikipedia site has several links in that paragraph.

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Mar 20 - 02:33 AM

Uluru from wikipedia

Uluru is an inselberg, literally "island mountain".[6][7][8] An inselberg is a prominent isolated residual knob or hill that rises abruptly from and is surrounded by extensive and relatively flat erosion lowlands in a hot, dry region.[9] Uluru is also often referred to as a monolith, although this is a somewhat ambiguous term that is generally avoided by geologists.[10]

The remarkable feature of Uluru is its homogeneity and lack of jointing and parting at bedding surfaces, leading to the lack of development of scree slopes and soil. These characteristics led to its survival, while the surrounding rocks were eroded.[10]

For the purpose of mapping and describing the geological history of the area, geologists refer to the rock strata making up Uluru as the Mutitjulu Arkose, and it is one of many sedimentary formations filling the Amadeus Basin.[6]

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Mar 20 - 11:29 AM

Those who have traveled through the Texas panhandle know that the region is a flat plain, cut by the passage of water (to create such marvels as Palo Duro Canyon. But north of Amarillo there is an ancient buried mountain range that pushed to the surface and is the source of metamorphic minerals (rubies, etc.) and in Central Texas there are remnant ancient mountains that have igneous granite, quartz, tourmaline, silver, etc. and topaz. While topaz is number 9 on the Moe hardness scale (diamond being 10), it formed in igneous areas, versus diamonds as carbon under pressure in metamorphic areas. Who knows, maybe one day they'll find diamonds in the Texas Panhandle.

Anyway, this riff is offered up as an appreciation of ancient rocks that stick up out of the newer surrounding stuff. It can be very interesting.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Mar 20 - 02:34 PM

Australia started off in Antarctica https://youtu.be/UkDzSZfWFAQ

Land of glaciers

It's still moving about 20 feet Northeast per 20 years.
One day Australia will approach Hawaii.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Mar 20 - 10:53 PM

I clipped this some time ago to add to a site I work on, but it is a great one for this thread also:

5,200-year-old grains in the eastern Altai Mountains redate trans-Eurasian crop exchange

Most people are familiar with the historical Silk Road, but fewer people realize that the exchange of items, ideas, technology, and human genes through the mountain valleys of Central Asia started almost three millennia before organized trade networks formed. These pre-Silk Road exchange routes played an important role in shaping human cultural developments across Europe and Asia, and facilitated the dispersal of technologies such as horse breeding and metal smelting into East Asia. One of the most impactful effects of this process of ancient cultural dispersal was the westward spread of northeast Asian crops and the eastward spread of southwest Asian crops.

http://www.geologypage.com/2020/02/5200-year-old-grains-in-the-eastern-altai-mountains-redate-trans-eurasian-crop-exchange.html

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Apr 20 - 03:39 AM

We moved to West Clare in Ireland 20 years ago and have visited here since the early 70s, yet have never ceased being amazed by the archeological wonders of 'The Burren', fifteen miles from our doorstep
It is 250 km of limestone plateau covering most of North Clare covered with Bronze Age remains and ruined medieval churches as well as containing some rare plants in the grikes (limestone (fissures)
New sites are being worked on and opened up for public access fairly regularly and it is so respected that, after a long battle, the council was forced to close a hideous car part, visitors centre that it began to construct a few decades ago
It features on the programme of our local History Society regularly, both as a lecture topic and on our guided tour programmes
POULNABRONE DOLMEN and THE CLIFFS of MOHER tend to be overused but both are well worth a visit when the crowds have gone home
The cliffs are said to be the highest in Europe - they aren't but they've got a better publicity tear - they are in Donegal
Like all worthwhile visitors spots, it's great to take an overview, but it takes time to see the really place

The Traditional music of Clare is rightly reputed to be the best in Ireland, but the true officiados avoid Doolin like Covit 19 - that's where the visitors with 12 string guitars and Bodhrans go to listen to (or talk over) each other - try Ennis off better still (he boasted) Miltown Malbay
Well worth an Google Earth (or Bing) viewing, or better still, an as-long-as-you-can-manage visit
Caed mile failte (he said in his best Liverpool Irish)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 04:30 PM

Just reading this article:

Skull of a toddler is the oldest known fossil of the earliest human, Homo erectus

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 04:32 PM

Oops. Lost the last "s" in homo erectus. Too long for the Mudcat Linkmaker, I'm guessing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 20 - 12:56 AM

Fixed it. It didn't affect the link itself.

Here's one someone posted on the Mudcat Facebook page (though that isn't really the place, unless there's a song about it? I'm pasting it in with only a glance at the content)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/us/maine-shipwreck-colonial.html

In 1769, a cargo ship laden with flour, pork and English goods set sail from Salem, Mass., headed to Portland, Maine.

The ship encountered a fierce storm and never made it to its destination. Now a maritime archaeologist believes he may have solved the mystery.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Apr 20 - 08:17 AM

thanks for posting this link, stilly

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 May 20 - 05:35 PM

Here's an interesting story: The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

The article begins with a discussion of the Golding story, then switches to information about Captain Peter Warner, who discovered some boys actually shipwrecked on an island in the Tonga archipelago. This is the "armchair archaeology part of the story:

On the way home he took a little detour and that’s when he saw it: a minuscule island in the azure sea, ‘Ata. The island had been inhabited once, until one dark day in 1863, when a slave ship appeared on the horizon and sailed off with the natives. Since then, ‘Ata had been deserted – cursed and forgotten. . . .

And here's more from the article:

No one noticed the small craft leaving the harbour that evening. Skies were fair; only a mild breeze ruffled the calm sea. But that night the boys made a grave error. They fell asleep. A few hours later they awoke to water crashing down over their heads. It was dark. They hoisted the sail, which the wind promptly tore to shreds. Next to break was the rudder. “We drifted for eight days,” Mano told me. “Without food. Without water.” The boys tried catching fish. They managed to collect some rainwater in hollowed-out coconut shells and shared it equally between them, each taking a sip in the morning and another in the evening.

Then, on the eighth day, they spied a miracle on the horizon. A small island, to be precise. Not a tropical paradise with waving palm trees and sandy beaches, but a hulking mass of rock, jutting up more than a thousand feet out of the ocean. These days, ‘Ata is considered uninhabitable. But “by the time we arrived,” Captain Warner wrote in his memoirs, “the boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination.” While the boys in Lord of the Flies come to blows over the fire, those in this real-life version tended their flame so it never went out, for more than a year. . . .

They survived initially on fish, coconuts, tame birds (they drank the blood as well as eating the meat); seabird eggs were sucked dry. Later, when they got to the top of the island, they found an ancient volcanic crater, where people had lived a century before. There the boys discovered wild taro, bananas and chickens (which had been reproducing for the 100 years since the last Tongans had left).

https://matangitonga.to/2020/04/16/ata-archaeology

http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-slave-raids-on-tonga-documents-and.html

https://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/sold-slavery

https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/27-02-2017/they-have-six-fingers-on-their-hands-part-1-of-the-strange-story-of-tongas-lost-island-of-ata/

https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/28-02-2017/a-masterpiece-of-pacific-story-telling-part-2-of-the-strange-story-of-tongas-lost-island-of-ata/

https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/01-03-2017/the-long-nightmare-of-imperialism-part-3-of-the-strange-story-of-tongas-lost-island-of-ata/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBAta

Here area few of the links I found in searching out this story. Down a rabbit hole!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 May 20 - 09:18 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?Ata

To read about it and get Google Earth link...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 12:00 AM

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain genetic clues to their origins

Animal DNA gleaned from parchments is helping researchers piece together the scrolls’ history

Researchers have used animal DNA from fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the one shown here, to identify which pieces come from the same manuscripts and where those documents originated.

Genetic clues extracted from slivers of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls are helping to piece together related scroll remnants and reveal the diverse origins of these ancient texts, including a book of the Hebrew Bible.

The scrolls are made of sheepskin and cow skin, which retain DNA from those animals. Analyzing that DNA represents a new way to figure out which of the more than 25,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments come from the same animals, and thus likely the same documents, say molecular biologist Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University and his colleagues.

Findings so far suggest that the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect religious and biblical developments across southern Israel around 2,000 years ago, not just among people who lived near the caves where many scrolls were stored, as some scholars have contended, Rechavi’s team reports June 2 in Cell.

The rest is at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 10:59 AM

.... and what a lot of 'rest' at the link! I got the basic point, but the details of DNA, locations, linguistic features...etc. is for scholars.
What I, personally, took from the link is that there were several
'versions' of certain biblical manuscripts, and that decisions as to which to make part of accepted text were highly selective.... depending on theological persuasions. Not a bit surprising...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 09:52 PM

It was mostly an excuse to poke around the area in Google Earth, but I notice the resolution over Israel isn't very good. Probably on purpose.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: JHW
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 08:20 AM

Walking one recent day a few miles from home and 2metres from a farmer also walking he pointed to a flat field of green grain. "Try Google Earth, there are barely known Roman remains in that field".

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 11:42 AM

Send us the coordinates and we can take a look!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 02:13 PM

A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure associated with Durrington Walls Henge (the durable link https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4 brings you here)

A series of massive geophysical anomalies, located south of the Durrington Walls henge monument, were identified during fluxgate gradiometer survey undertaken by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project (SHLP). Initially interpreted as dewponds, these data have been re-evaluated, along with information on similar features revealed by archaeological contractors undertaking survey and excavation to the north of the Durrington Walls henge. Analysis of the available data identified a total of 20 comparable features, which align within a series of arcs adjacent to Durrington Walls. Further geophysical survey, supported by mechanical coring, was undertaken on several geophysical anomalies to assess their nature, and to provide dating and environmental evidence. The results of fieldwork demonstrate that some of these features, at least, were massive, circular pits with a surface diameter of 20m or more and a depth of at least 5m. Struck flint and bone were recovered from primary silts and radiocarbon dating indicates a Late Neolithic date for the lower silts of one pit. The degree of similarity across the 20 features identified suggests that they could have formed part of a circuit of large pits around Durrington Walls, and this may also have incorporated the recently discovered Larkhill causewayed enclosure. The diameter of the circuit of pits exceeds 2km and there is some evidence that an intermittent, inner post alignment may have existed within the circuit of pits. One pit may provide evidence for a recut; suggesting that some of these features could have been maintained through to the Middle Bronze Age. Together, these features represent a unique group of features related to the henge at Durrington Walls, executed at a scale not previously recorded.

And a side trip dictated by the text of the abstract, the Larkhill causewayed Enclosure.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 06:51 PM

Which just goes to show that there's still hidden history even in our most intensively-studied places ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 04:40 PM

There was a program on PBS this week a program called "Secrets of the Dead" looking at Viking graves on a particular island and warrior excavated in the last century who has turned out to be a woman. A blurb about it says Nearly 20 miles from Stockholm, Björkö, Sweden, is a small island just two miles long and a half-mile wide. From 750-950 AD, it was home to Birka, one of the most powerful towns in the region and one of the major centers for trade in the Viking world. What I find surprising is just how far inland that island is, way upstream from the Baltic Sea. Google Earth goes to both Birka, Sweden or Björkö, Sweden, the former taking you to the archaeological site.

Viking Warrior Queen on PBS may only be viewable in the US.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 02:03 PM

Some Polynesians Carry DNA of Ancient Native Americans, New Study Finds

A new genetic study suggests that Polynesians made an epic voyage to South America 800 years ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/science/polynesian-ancestry.html

The results of a new study suggest that they did. Today, people on Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, and four other Polynesian islands carry small amounts of DNA inherited from people who lived in Colombia about 800 years ago. One explanation: Polynesians came to South America, and then took South Americans onto their boats to voyage back out to sea.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 04:31 PM

There is more proof Pharoic Egypt traded with the ancient Venezuealeans.

Polenesian navigators still possses amazing power.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jul 20 - 10:40 AM

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2019/04/20/cocaine-mummies-the-search-for-narcotics-in-historic-collections/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Sep 20 - 11:47 PM

Egyptian Authorities Have Discovered 13 Completely Sealed 2,500-Year-Old Coffins

"Saqqara is believed to have served as the necropolis for Memphis, once the capital of ancient Egypt. For 3,000 years, the Egyptians interred their dead there; as such, it's become a site of much archaeological interest.

It's not just the high-ranking nobility and officials buried there, with their grave goods, their cartouches, their mummified animals, and their richly appointed tombs. Those are more likely to be found, since their interment was more elaborate - but recent excavations have turned up simpler burials, likely of people from the middle or working class."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 03:24 AM

tahanks, Stilly

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 04:41 AM

Years ago a colleague once told me that Wednesbury was built on an Iron Age Hillfort. The topography is fairly hilltop, and there are roads that now run downhill with strange level section. Tell-tale signs of ditched.

I have since looked at other towns with the same eye, Tetbury for instance. And Old Sarum outside Salisbury** is a good historical reminder. It is still a hillfort with the outline of a cathedral within, which was demolished when they re-located and built an humungous edifice in the valley. The hillfort became a rotten borough which clearly indicated that it had been a bustling town (aka village) when the cathedral was there. And hillforts (a misnomer) were what Ceaser called opida, they were fortified conurbations. And it would be inevitable that some had continued occupation in one form or another throughout history, and a church at the top, in a sort of Norman corporate identity fashion. Hence Wednesbury (aka Wodensburg) and Walsall (fro Wales sale - eg market town).

** you can see the foundations of the old cathedral.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 08:25 AM

Red, have you ever watched the series "Ancient Britain'?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 12:17 PM

You may have to click on the button to "view as list" - from Mashable in 2012, 10 Amazing Google Earth and Maps Discoveries. As old as the article is, not all of the links go to the photos or map coordinates original linked, but if you pull up Google Earth and search you'll often find the sites.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 20 - 07:44 PM

I often find that searching for a place... for example, London, will bring up many links, but usually near the top of the list is the Wikipedia article-- at least for most site with names.
thus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London

In the upper right corner will be the clickable HTML to the coordinates... clicking it takes to the "Geohack" page
for 51° 30' 26? N, 0° 7' 39? W

This gives a list for many map links. I use almost entirely the GoogleEarth links, (but you may find some items of special interest).... If you have G.E. installed, these will download and send the correct address to G.E. and start it up and take you directly to a spot over London.
   From there, you can browse..or enter specific search terms...

Play with it.. or use the Wikipedia + Geohack links to do many things.. I seldom find sites that show coordinates as well or in a clickable format as Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Sep 20 - 02:37 PM

Good tip. I love simply looking as closely at some areas as possible, to see the marks on the ground of old roads, foundations, earth moving evidence, etc. Then marking if it I want to go back later. It's ridiculously easy to mark places, even if you didn't intend to. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 20 - 08:17 PM

I have 30-40 places with markers. Some are places I used to live.. some are locations from my geneology researches in Western PA... and some are just interesting places. They can be named, explained in a note... etc. Sure saves trying to remember exactly where something is.
I use a Microsoft keyboard and it has 5 programmable buttons to open things in one click.... my #4 is G.E.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 20 - 02:32 AM

Red, have you ever watched the series "Ancient Britain'?

Can't say specifically, but tell you what .................

I live it.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Sep 20 - 04:11 PM

Bill I explored some unusual places in PA. Ever heard of Gallitzin?
The old steel baron mansions given to religious orders?
A waterfall from 50 carved half shells placed into a mountain side spilling from one shell to the next. A 50 yard long slip and slide carved by water into solid rock, wierd stuff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 11:53 AM

No, Don... I'll go search on it as an interesting place, but my primary concern was how G.E. helped me view my ancestors' locations in Green County and a couple other far western areas.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 20 - 12:40 PM

I was up in the Catskills with a friend many years ago and he knew about the masonry remains of a huge old Revolutionary War-era foundry or mill of some sort, now ruins standing in a forest. It was a remarkable area and I need to dig out the slides and digitize them.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Sep 20 - 04:38 PM

Antarctica archeology

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Sep 20 - 05:41 PM

Really?

Two minutes into that and alarm bells about hocum are going off.

Gregg Braden (born June 28, 1954)[citation needed] is an American New Age author, who is widely known for his appearances in Ancient Aliens and his show Missing Links, and other publications about linking science & spirituality.[1] He became noted for his claim that the magnetic polarity of the earth was about to reverse.[2][3][4] Braden argued that the change in the earth's magnetic field might have effects on human DNA.[5] He has also argued that human emotions affect DNA and that collective prayer may have healing physical effects.[6][7] He has published many books through the Hay House publishing house. In 2009, his book Fractal Time was on the bestseller list of The New York Times.[8]His works consist mainly of parascience.

Lets stick to actual sites.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 20 - 06:01 PM

Yes, let's... ;-)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 08:08 AM

Modern humans are a complex mixture of neanderthals , homo sapiens, Denosovians and others. Irrelevant bells went off for me too regarding the big head hype in that link BUT the idea of Denosovian archaeology and still existing architecture is intriguing while never proved. Sometimes if you don't look you won't see. There are plenty of scholorly sites that put the 'out of Africa' theory in the shade.

I should paint a grinning 14ft. tall Denisovian holding an adult Hobbit in one hand. :^/

Didn't Pharoh Achenaton have a wierd head?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 10:06 AM

Sometimes you have to look deeper - find actual legitimate searches for stuff on the ground under the Antarctic ice. Just because Braden has mastered SEO doesn't mean he actually has anything to say. Just to sell.

Go enter your search terms into Google Scholar and see if something turns up.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 10:56 AM

All we can say with certainty is that our understanding of the diversity of human form in the very recent past has increased once again, and that the mysterious Denisovans have at last come in from the cold. If you want to search for giants you will find Andre' was real.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 11:07 AM

I wouldn't throw epigenetics out the window with the bathwater
just because Brayden sounds like a nutter.
Thats the second time I should have watched the entire you tube.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 04:34 PM

This is related to the wannabe Indians with their spiritual crystal-worshiping teepee-sleeping drivel that they push out that is so offensive to actual people who are American Indians and to people who study and discuss actual American Indian literature, music, art, etc. New Age is simply different packaging for snake oil.