Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)

Subject: Armchair Archaeologist
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 18 - 01:12 PM

Every so often I come across an archaeological article about some new discovery and then I travel to the location via Google Earth to look around. This one, to do with desert agriculture along the ancient Silk Road route yielded quite an interesting look at that part of China.

The trick is to find the way to name the place so Google Earth can find it. "Tian Shan Mountains China" got me to the area, and then if you look at the photo in the article that gives you "Bosten Lake" you can look for the lake shape and navigate to the NW to find just the right ridges and look around and see those cisterns and fields that are clearly outlined. They stretch all down and around that small river delta.

What adventures have you taken with the help of Google Earth?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jan 18 - 02:52 PM

A few years ago, I tried to view my husband's birthplace (Adjame, Abidjan, Ivory Coast) but the pictures were spoiled by loads of thick cloud. It's a tropical/equatorial climate, so there were obviously storms obscuring the satellite photo!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 18 - 06:19 PM

This is fun stuff. Even kids have found unknown pyramid ruins.

A different discovery.... http://www.newsweek.com/ancient-china-1000-year-old-royal-palace-summer-home-mongol-empire-liao-777972


http://www.newsweek.com/ancient-china-1000-year-old-royal-palace-summer-home-mongol-empire-liao-777972

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 04:21 AM

Not having the inclination for long distance travel these days, I've looked at my cousin's house in North Island, New Zealand, and at my sister's house in Tucson, Arizona - both via Google Earth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:01 AM

Ir's gives you a fascinating perspective of those western U.S. trout streams I've become enamored of.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:08 AM

it also enhances the reading of Himalayan mountaineering books. It gives you at least a vague sense of place that you wouldn't have without having visited a certain area.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:26 AM

...it's also fun to follow along the trail when you're reading Western novels or American history and just about any book that's set in the outdoors.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 06:30 PM

Looked fr my cousin's house in Coburg Ontario.

And went looking for the house I lived in in Ngiao Gorge Wellington NZ. Not so easy, since memory is unreliable and things move on in 25 years.

Saw the section (aka plot) where my neice is about to build in Napier NZ.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:43 PM

I suppose the ultimate success story of using Google Earth to track down places you remember from years ago is Lion. Here is some of the real story.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Jan 18 - 12:55 PM

I sometimes use it to locate the towns named in folksongs. It's fun to discover (sometimes) that an old song is describing an actual region.

It's not digital, but a great book on archeology from above is called "History from the Air." It is about the British Isles. I got it from the library and liked it so much that I bought my own copy (used.)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jan 18 - 09:05 PM

Here's another one, looking up McIntyre Promontory?s frozen slopes in the Transantarctic Mountains: Antarctica fossils story

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 18 - 12:13 PM

I clicked on a page in a New York Times obituary for Allison Shearmur and down at the bottom of an article about her closet (whose closet has a sitting room?) is a video player that I can't break (not even viewing source code.) For the time being an article about the remote island of Saint Helena is the first in a playlist at this Elle magazine page. Scroll down to "Watch Next" to find it. Here's a BBC story about it. It's billed as the most isolated island, but it looks like Ascension Island is a contender. Both can be explored via Google Earth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Vashta Nerada
Date: 02 Feb 18 - 01:20 PM

Sprawling Mayan network discovered under Guatemala jungle

Researchers have found more than 60,000 hidden Mayan ruins in Guatemala in a major archaeological breakthrough.

Laser technology was used to survey digitally beneath the forest canopy, revealing houses, palaces, elevated highways, and defensive fortifications.

The landscape, near already-known Mayan cities, is thought to have been home to millions more Mayans than other research had previously suggested.

The researchers mapped over 810 square miles (2,100 sq km) in northern Peten.

Archaeologists believe the cutting-edge technology will change the way the world will see Mayans' ancient civilisation.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Feb 18 - 08:21 PM

A lot of the surface evidence for archaeology in Britain is on cultivated land or in upland areas. Aerial photography has long been used to pick it out, and archaeologists choose their moment carefully. Field marks often show up best in low sunlight, especially in winter when vegetation is less overwhelming, or in droughts, or when there's been a light dusting of snow. Google Earth, for all its glories, doesn't focus in that way, though it does reveal much of interest. It's easy to find my house, which is very isolated and hard to get to, but unfortunately Google Earth's resolution is low in my area. I noticed that it's updated the images since I filled in my pond this time last year. I wonder how long it'll be before it picks up the fact that I've just spread five tons of different-coloured gravel on my drive. My back's killing me.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 01:22 AM

Good one, Steve. I see that Google Earth has my house fairly close and up to date, though it's still a year or two old, based on the size of the trees. The resolution is excellent for my urban area, though it shows some kind of cartoon-ish 3D features. The small raised beds in my vegetable garden are clear, as are the paths in the back yard worn down by my dogs. I was hoping to see one of the dogs in the yard, and there might be one, but not recognizable. The garden beds show the footprint before I re-tilled it 2 years ago. Also, the photo was taken before part of the patio cover came down last year, and I think before the hail storm two years ago that punched holes in the cloth over the patio cover.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 03:48 AM

Google Street View showed an ex of mine still living in the same house after 40 years. She was putting out the wheely bins and looking puzzled by the strange camera car going by.

Ah, things could have been so different. Not better, but different...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 08:20 AM

Just had another look at my patch. I can see the fields that have been newly-planted with Miscanthus, including one which was only done a few months ago, which still has very patchy growth. That's pretty up to date. The shadows are pointing more or less north, which means the pics were taken around midday, but the shadows are quite long, so, going from the colour of the vegetation, I'm guessing the the pics were updated in the autumn (my location is about fifty degrees north). You can sign up with Google to get them to alert you when your area has been updated.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 06:18 PM

Here's a group to explore in their region: The Bajau are a nomadic Malay people who have lived at sea for centuries, primarily in a tract of ocean by the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Feb 18 - 05:14 PM

Countless Mayan city ruins discovered in Guatemala
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/02/03/mayan-civilization-was-much-vaster-than-known-thousands-of

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Feb 18 - 05:38 PM

One that I bookmarked in GE several years ago is
Ggantia
"Ggantija (Maltese pronunciation: [d?gan'ti?ja], "Giants' Tower") is a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic on the Mediterranean island of Gozo. The Ggantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta. The Ggantija temples are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ggantija temples during the Neolithic (c. 3600–2500 BCE), which makes these temples more than 5500 years old and the world's second oldest existing manmade religious structures after Göbekli Tepe. "

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 18 - 09:39 PM

I've spent a lot of time poking around for abandoned sites that are discussed in articles like this. WHATEVER YOU DO, don't let Google convince you to switch to the new photo layer. There is very little there. Supposedly they're gradually transferring photos, but right now, you go from a view (for example) of Hirta Island, Scotland, that is dotted with photos, to a view with five iffy shots.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 18 - 10:02 PM

From that last article I poked around to find the Villa de Vecchi, east of Lake Como (look for Varenna on the eastern shore of Lake Como and move due east, into the river valley where you find Bindo to the NW of the house and Cortenova to the SE of the house.) There area few photos in the new layer, but there are probably tons of photos in the old Panoramio layer, with lots inside the house over the years. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/villa-de-vecchi.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 18 - 11:00 PM

Here. A volcano in Iceland. Another great armchair exploration.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 04:07 PM

Senoufou, je me souviens du marche d'Adjame... on y allait moins souvent qu'a celui de Treichville. On allait au Plateau, d'habitude.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 05:01 PM

Ya know who started this LIDAR survey of Guatemala big time?

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/20160511-Maya-Lost-City-Canadian-Teen-Discover-Constellations-Archaeology-Satellite-Stars-Gadoury/

updated - the old link was broken - the story changed over the months. Here is more about it

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 06:08 PM

I keep saying Guatemala but the Mayan discoveries are predominantly in the northern Yucatan Peninsula.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 07:03 PM

Acme, we spent two days in Varenna last June. We were staying directly across the lake in Griante in a fabulous little alberghetto and we liked Varenna so much on our first visit that we went for a second day, when we climbed (in the heat!) to Castello Di Vezia, from the top of which we had glorious views, all the better as a vicious thunderstorm the night before had cleared away the customary haze. My camera went berserk. That was one of our best holidays ever.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 07:59 PM

Taiwan trembles from a 6.4 earthquake. Are there real time satellite images?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 08:16 PM

That would be Vezio. Grr.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 18 - 08:16 PM

I've wondered if there's a way to subscribe to a closer to real-time satellite service. I'm sure the FBI, the CIA, and the Kremlin do. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 03:09 PM

Is anyone doing any interesting armchair travelling this summer?

Archaeologists uncover ancient palace of the Mittani Empire in Kurdistan Region

Only last year, due to a lack of rainfall and water, archeologists were able to launch a spontaneous rescue excavation of the ruins exposed by the receding water levels.

The research was headed by Dr. Hasan Ahmed Qasim (Duhok) and Dr. Ivana Puljiz (Tübingen), as a joint project between the University of Tübingen and the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization (KAO) in cooperation with the Duhok Directorate of Antiquities.

"The Mittani Empire is one of the least researched empires of the Ancient Near East," Ivana Puljiz of the Tübingen Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) said.

"Information on palaces of the Mittani Period is so far only available from Tell Brak in Syria and from the cities of Nuzi and Alalakh, both located on the periphery of the empire."

One of the few helpful aspects of climate change, uncovering ancient ruins.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jul 19 - 02:20 PM

https://www.thedailybeast.com/one-of-the-oldest-mosques-in-the-world-was-just-discovered-in-israel (you may have to disable your ad blockers.)

Archaeologists surveying a future construction site in Rahat, Israel have unearthed something unexpected: the remains of one of the oldest mosques in the world. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the building was constructed around 600 or 700 A.D., when the region was mostly rural farmland. If this date is correct, this means that the newly discovered mosque was built only a few years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 A.D.

I'm not sure one can fly there via Google Earth, it may not have been tagged on the map yet. If you look at the photos in the BBC article, it appears to be out on the fringes of town somewhere, and there appears to be lots of construction around the edge of town.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49036815

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 28 Jul 19 - 04:53 PM

Not as interesting as all of your armchair travels, but when I discovered the name of the street in Wales where my Grandma was born, I Googled it and saw the row of houses where she lived. That was exciting to me. I have never travelled overseas and most likely I never will so this is the next best thing for me.

When our house was newly built and for a few years afterwards if I went to street view and virtually drove past the house at the front and turned down the side street, the front view of the verandah was partially completed and the side view showed a completed verandah. A virtual TARDIS!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jul 19 - 05:19 PM

Thanks, Stilly... I'll browse those and others.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Jul 19 - 01:07 PM


Is anyone doing any interesting armchair travelling this summer?

Do it all the time. To locate Village Halls, because they rarely have Post Codes and even if they do it could be the caretaker's house some distance.
And because I hunt OS Bench Marks (benchmarks.mister.red) I prefer to see the terrain first - narrow roads with no footpath forewarn me of the danger of any plan. And recently I found the Milestone Society website has 12000 logs and many photos, a percentage of which reveal Bench Marks - at lest 600 in total, and I don't even have to be there! Good as the Milestone Society is, they have anomalies and it is rewarding to go GE and see where the problem is or is in my imagination.

And http://what3words.com use GE - the URLs of which I publish on the Bench Mark website, so if people want to go find - I can point to within 3 metres. eg Sidmouth Anchor Gardens, where better to hold an outdoor ceilidh than at ///jumps.plus.scared or ///gladiators.bumps.games ?
or a singsong at ///sing.volunteered.values

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 01 Aug 19 - 04:05 PM

I have started watching a TV show presented by Dr Alice Roberts: King Arthur's Britain and the initial investigation begins with an aerial view of Tintagel in Cornwall, so I am planning to do a bit of armchair investigations of my own when I have finished watching the show.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 19 - 01:11 PM

If you go to Rahat, Israel on GE, there is a large construction area south of the main part of the town... and one of the images> on the story page shows houses in the background. I think the discovery must be in that basic location.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Aug 19 - 02:05 PM

That's what I concluded also. But with so many cul-de-sac neighborhoods marked out, you can't tell exactly which one.

That reminds me - do you ever find yourself driving past a house or property and telling yourself "I'm going to look that up on Google Maps when I get home?" I often forget, doing the same exercise several times before I actually do pull up the map. Exploring my own neighborhood, in person and virtually.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Aug 19 - 09:31 PM

Yes... I do that a lot. I also look up all my old addresses from the past.. only to find urban renewal has eaten up many of them.
But I did find an OLD B&W pic in a family album of where my father was born in 1907 in Pitcairn, PA... with the address noted. I went to GE and LO! The house is till there and recognizable and occupied. I also find ancestors' cemeteries and look up where they are buried.... and, because the Santa Fe Trail went right by a tiny town where my father went to school, there is a site that collects old pics & info about it, and my family owned the hotel there from about 1911 to 1920 or so. About 8 years ago, I sent them some info and pics, which are included near the bottom. I now have even more to send.
(and because I know where you live after the Katlaughing memorial, I browse your neighborhood also...)

My GoogleEarth placemarks are around 50-60 now.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: JennieG
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 08:59 PM

Interesting photos, Bill! Tell me, please - what is "Booster Day", as shown in some of those pics? I have never heard the term before.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 09:49 PM

A "booster" is someone who promotes the local businesses in a community for the benefit of both. It can probably be used on a larger scale, but I'm thinking in particular of a novel. If you've ever read Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, he is a big booster in his community.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 10:07 PM

Yep.. like an early version of Civic Associations.... promoting the virtues and attractions of the town. I have one photo of a model T with a big sign hanging on the side saying "Good Eats at Day Hotel"
I was in Lost Springs once... when I was about 10-12... for my father's HS reunion. All I really remember is that it was still small, off the main road, and had nothing for kids to do! Boosting only works when you have something to offer.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Aug 19 - 12:25 PM

This travel is more time consuming and distant but is also interested in ancient history - Mars Missions Stop in Their Tracks as Red Planet Drifts to the Far Side of Sun. (Google Earth didn't participate in this one, but I think they do have a site for exploring the moon.) Through some glitch this page has the message repeated several times, the actual article is only five paragraphs).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Aug 19 - 10:09 PM

Here's something interesting from Smithsonian magazine: This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years.

Interactive Map the article describes how to use it.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Sep 19 - 03:06 PM

This one via YouTube, Sir David Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur, the Titanosaur, this one found in Patagonia, Argentina.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27441156

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/orientation-center/the-titanosaur

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Sep 19 - 03:11 PM

Bones of Roman Britons provide new clues to dietary deprivation

Researchers at the University of Bradford have shown a link between the diet of Roman Britons and their mortality rates for the first time, overturning a previously-held belief about the quality of the Roman diet.

Using a new method of analysis, the researchers examined stable isotope data (the ratios of particular chemicals in human tissue) from the bone collagen of hundreds of Roman Britons, together with the individuals' age-of-death estimates and an established mortality model.

The data sample included over 650 individuals from various published archaeological sites throughout England.

The researchers—from institutions including the Museum of London, Durham University and the University of South Carolina—found that higher nitrogen isotope ratios in the bones were associated with a higher risk of mortality, while higher carbon isotope ratios were associated with a lower risk of mortality.

Romano-British urban archaeological populations are characterised by higher nitrogen isotope ratios, which have been thought previously to indicate a better, or high-status, diet. But taking carbon isotope ratios, as well as death rates, into account showed that the nitrogen could also be recording long-term nutritional stress, such as deprivation or starvation.

Differences in sex were also identified by the researchers, with the data showing that men typically had higher ratios of both isotopes, indicating a generally higher status diet compared to women. (The rest is at the link)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 06:51 PM

Hidden Japanese Settlement Found in Forests of British Columbia



More than 1,000 items have been unearthed there, among them rice bowls, sake bottles and Japanese ceramics

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 01:09 AM

Is this an old enough site to be classified as "archaeology"? Probably not, but interesting:

Missing man's remains found after 22 years thanks to Google Earth

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 10:19 AM

wow!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 11:03 AM

Agreed - wow! There are lots of archaeological discoveries made this way also.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 11:20 AM

Helen, I was about to post that!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 03:49 PM

Great minds, Mrzy!!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 11:13 PM

If your armchair was at the beach or on a boat: 11 amazing message-in-a-bottle stories.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 10:15 AM

Temple to ancient Roman cult resurrected beneath London

In central London, seven meters underground, lies an ancient Roman temple to a mysterious god called Mithras.

Nearly 2,000 years after the temple was frequented by the all-male members of an exclusive, enigmatic cult, it has now been faithfully restored and opened to the public.

Visitors descend into a dimly lit cave beneath the new London headquarters of business news outlet Bloomberg. The temple slowly comes to life as torch light flickers and a recording of a low chanting fills the room.

Channels of light and haze extend from the rocky ruins, recreating shadowy columns to give the impression of the temple's superstructure.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 02:26 PM

I was introduced to Mithra in History 101 in college about 1958. It was explained as descending from Persian Zoroastrianism and having been brought, in various forms, to Rome...probably by slaves... where gradually, Mithra became the focus until it was displaced by, as DR. J. Kelly Sowards called it "dockyards Christianity".

Here is a quote from the Zoroastrian Avesta scriptures: " We sacrifice to Mithra, The Lord of all countries, Whom Ahura Mazda created the most glorious, Of the Supernatural Yazads. So may there come to us for Aid, Both Mithra and Ahura, the Two Exalted Ones,...."
Rome has a myriad of barely explored underground tunnels and tombs. Some may never be excavated due to the city above them.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 19 - 04:08 PM

I recognize the name because it periodically comes up in historical novels. :-/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Nov 19 - 07:08 PM

Interesting related programme on BBC One just now - "Earth from Space".

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Nov 19 - 10:15 PM

Canine Archaeologists Sniff Out 3,000-Year-Old Graves in Croatia

A new study shows how canines trained to find human remains could help archaeologists locate new sites

Dogs have helped law enforcement and search-and-rescue crews discover human remains for decades. But recently, a new group has enlisted the help of canines and their olfactory superpowers: archaeologists.

In a recent paper in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory, Vedrana Glavaš, an archaeologist at the University of Zadar in Croatia, and Andrea Pintar, a cadaver dog handler, describe how dogs trained to find human remains helped them track down gravesites dating to around 700 B.C. . . .To test the dogs, Glavaš had them sniff around an area where they she had excavated three grave sites the year before. The human remains had been removed, and due to weathering, it was no longer apparent where the excavations had taken place. Two dogs, working independently, easily located all three spots.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: leeneia
Date: 06 Nov 19 - 06:38 PM

that's interesting. And amazing. Thanks, SRS.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 01:22 PM

WWI German vessel Scharnhorst found off of Falkland Islands

Maritime archaeologists have located the wreck of the S.M.S. Scharnhorst, an armored battle cruiser that served as the flagship of German Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee’s East Asia Squadron during World War I, the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust announced this week.

The Scharnhorst sank in the south Atlantic on December 8, 1914, with more than 800 crew members onboard. The cruiser was one of four German ships lost during the Battle of the Falkland Islands; according to official dispatches, two support vessels from the squadron were later evacuated and scuttled.

Per a press release, the heritage trust started looking for the sunken ships on the centenary of the battle in 2014. Initial search attempts were unsuccessful, but archaeologists recently returned to the site of the naval engagement with state-of-the-art subsea exploration equipment, including a specialized vessel called the Seabed Constructor and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

The rest is at the link.

There are other views of it here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Dec 19 - 06:33 PM

thanks for posting, Stilly, I now have a new bookmark (here) - Live Science, lots of interesting stuff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 07:14 AM

Yes indeed, thanks for your Herculean efforts Professor Sage.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 07:35 AM

google lidar Earth

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 12:06 PM

Lidar! Another way to get sucked into the close details using Google Earth. It's also very good for hard science.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 01:20 PM

I was comparing photos of the polar regions of Saturn and Jupiter and noticed a profound similarity. Saturn has a north polar vortex that is in the perfect shape of a hexagon. Jupiter has a brand new polar storm of 6 hurricanes that trace a hexagon shape, all surrounding a central storm. There are obviously forces that resolve into a hexagon shape around planetary gas giant polar regions. THE questions are how and why.

Ancient images of the hexagon and star of David as well as Gurjiefian and Kabalistic cosmology may have no bearing but there is an intriguing cosmic question here.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:11 PM

Back on Earth there are many early Olmec sites but the Mayans have on occaision built on top of other ancient structures so even lidar can not show everything.

The Olmec people interest me the most since they are the most global cosmpolitan ancient civilization I have ever seen. There are quite a few links with India Hindu statues of various gods like Garuda and Shiva as well as stone heads with African features. Europeans, not so much.

I am leaning toward India as the heart of ancient civilization. Now I will look at the genetic records, architecture and dates to see if my guess is reasonable.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:22 PM

Check the Grand Egyptian Museum's construction, not far from the pyramids.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:54 PM

WHY ? What do we look for?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 03:57 PM

Could follow its construction (will be the biggest museum in the world, I think), as priceless items are moved across Cairo from the old museum.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Dec 19 - 04:00 PM

Ramses II does look buff.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 12:05 PM

This one is out of this world: Indian Moon Lander Crash Site located by an amateur astronomer.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 01:04 PM

I am leaning toward India as the heart of ancient civilization. Now I will look at the genetic records, architecture and dates to see if my guess is reasonable.

Conventional archeology holds that the Romans built Baalbek. They may have built the temple to jupiter However this sits atop 3000ton dressed megaliths. Funny the Romans left no written record of how they moved those megaliths. Even stranger they had the technology to move them.
But this is a pattern repeated throughout the world, ancient ruins are built on top of carefully dressed megaliths. Frequently the basal craftmanship is of far greater quality than the overlying constructions.
This suggests to me that conventional archeology needs to get out and about more and rethink a few basics. Gobekli Tepi has given them a bit of a poke in the eye as far as shifting boundaries back is concerned. In the last 20000 years sea level has risen 400feet. How many ruins lie under the sea? I suspect a paradigm shift is in the offing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 02:22 PM

Archaeological materials underwater are old news, Iains, New World and Old, with divers finding Mayan relics in an underwater cave and Robert Ballard has pushed those limits even further with discoveries of the ancient ruins under the Black Sea. To say nothing of Alexandria, Egypt, many Greek ruins, all sorts of Mediterranean stuff, etc.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 03:26 PM

Not disputing some are old news. Others are more recent news. If the accepted dating of gobekli tepi is 12000BP then I would anticipate many more underwater discoveries. It is probably no exaggeration to say we know more of the surface features of Mars than the underwater features of our own planet.
The Yonaguni Island Submarine Ruins are subject to controversy as to whether they are manmade or natural.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 06:37 PM

wikipedia on Yonaguni Monument

thanks to all who post here, I've seen so many interesting pages & bookmarked several more pages.

I've been buying 2 magazines over the past year or so as my local libraries no longer get archaeology magazines (shock, horror, no regular archaeology!) & a growing pile of magazines when I'm trying to downsize. Fortunately I have a friend who volunteers on archaeological sites ...

Current World Archaeology - Archaeological Institute of America
Current World Archaeology

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 08:17 PM

When I was in college in the 1960s, I remember a lecture noting that Mohenjo-daro in India and Harappa in what is now Pakistan were some of the earliest known major cities known. Other excavations find evidence of settlements, but very few large ones.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 08:23 PM

Admiral O Voyus says it is clear that sea levels were significantly lower in the past. In addition to the underwater architecture already mentioned, there are structures remaining off of Japan, Cuba, India, China, Argentina and HERE

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 19 - 09:14 PM

I am a huge Globeki Tepi fan. Some distance away in Turkey there is an underground city with ventillation and room for livestock that is nearly 20 stories deep.

I've climbed cliffside dwellings and seen pictures of mountain top temples in Nepal, Peru, underground cities and now underwater cities. We are damn clever animals especially in trying to escape other predatory people or enviorments. We are now looking to interplanatary travel while our ancestors were more advanced in building with 'unliftable stone'.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Dec 19 - 12:04 AM

I probably saw this in Smithsonian when it first came out and forgot all about it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 19 Dec 19 - 04:51 AM

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150325-underground-city-cappadocia-turkey-archaeology/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/05/20160511-Maya-Lost-City-Canadian-Teen-Discover-Constellations-Archaeology-Satell

I wonder how that Mayan City?is going to play out.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jan 20 - 11:58 AM

Archaeologists find a Roman London Bridge in a very short video added to British Pathé.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 20 - 08:21 PM

thanks, Stilly, that link led me to other good info

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jan 20 - 12:51 AM

Down the rabbit hole, eh?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 20 - 01:24 AM

yes!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 03:17 PM

This will keep a few of you busy. Crank up the Google Earth and start exploring. (You might want to save a copy of this map in case the link isn't durable.)

You're welcome. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 06:31 PM

Not shown on the map from SRS, Aborigines were probably trading with Malay people back then.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 06:48 PM

Many things aren't shown, this is the Big Picture wide-ranging stuff. There was lots of trading in the Americas, literally from North to South and between the coasts.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 07:54 PM

I had a problem with "Ragusa" on the map, a town which I know from Sicily. Having been forced to look it up, I discovered that it's also the ancient name for Dubrovnik. So I've learned something today!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 03:04 PM

From Reddit, "The Roman Empire at its height, superimposed on modern borders" https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/etzi6v/the_roman_empire_at_its_height_superimposed_on/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 06:24 PM

I think Scotland is just as happy that Hadrian built that wall.

"No, nothing of interest up here. Those sheep in the south will keep you busy."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 06:55 PM

Hadrian's Wall doesn't anything like follow the modern-day Scottish border. Its western end is pretty close but the eastern end is almost 70 miles south of the border. It's very unlikely that the wall was built to keep out (or in) the ravening hordes. In fact, passage across the wall was probably fairly free, and its function was more likely to be something akin to a customs border. I'm amazed and disgusted with myself that I've never seen it (even though I've crossed its path a good few times).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 07:04 PM

This is fascinating stuff. Once between flights in an airport I met a guy who had seen Youtube videos of white (Beluga) whales in Alaska and, according to him, noticed something that no one else had. He'd observed that while the whales had no dorsal fins, they were able to contract their bodies along their sleek sides and form them into a kind of triangular cross-section effectively giving their spine-side a more vertical shape. His observations had gotten him a free trip to Alaska to tell people about it.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 07:39 PM

citizen science.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jan 20 - 10:53 PM

I saw this mentioned somewhere but can't find it now. Archaeologists have found a bottle with nails in it - if they want to find a modern version of that, my work bench and just about every family workshop probably has something similar. Suspected ‘Witch Bottle’ Full of Nails Found in Virginia

In 2016, archaeologists excavating sections of a southern Virginia interstate unearthed dinnerware and a brick hearth at a Civil War encampment called Redoubt 9. Near the hearth, they found a blue glass bottle made in Pennsylvania between 1840 and 1860. Eerily, the vessel was filled with nails.

At first, the team didn’t know what to make of the bottle, theorizing it was perhaps just a place to collect spare nails. Now, however, experts suspect the container may be a “witch bottle”—one of less than a dozen such protective talismans found in the United States to date, according to a statement from the College of William & Mary.

Witch bottles originated in England during the 1600s, when a witch panic was overtaking Europe. Per JSTOR Daily’s Allison C. Meier, the charms were believed to use hair, fingernail clippings or urine to draw in evil spirits that were then trapped in the bottle by sharp objects like nails, pins or hooks. An alternative theory regarding the vessels suggests they were used not to fight bad luck, but to attract good luck, longevity and health.

Placed near a hearth, metal items enclosed in the bottles would heat up, making them more effective. A witch bottle filled with fishing hooks, glass shards and human teeth, for instance, was found in an English pub’s chimney last November. . .

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jan 20 - 08:00 AM

There's a thread on it above the line, Maggie. Maybe someone thought you could get a tune out of it... :-)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 20 - 05:53 PM

Speaking of glass jars ancient Egypt had glass jars and perhaps windows

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Feb 20 - 04:19 PM

The 2 mile high glaciers over N America and Europe were mostly melted by 10 K BC. The inundation covered an area of 10,000,000 sq. mi., the size of China and Europe combined. The archeological ruins of the prior seaside civilizations would therefore be under water today. What google earth technologies allows us a peek underwater?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 06:56 PM

Rats were the 'first curators' at Sydney museum Hyde Park Barracks Rat infestations may have been a nightmare for convicts at Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks in the 1800s, but today historians are grateful for the rodents.
Scuttering beneath the floorboards, the rats hoarded scraps of fabric, food and personal treasures.
Researchers joke that these rats inadvertently became the barracks' first curators.
The material looked like big piles of dusty, dirty rubbish when it was discovered in 1979, but archaeologists were thrilled upon closer inspection.
"It turns out the accumulated rat nests contained more than 80,000 archaeological artefacts that had been trapped under the floorboards and undisturbed for up to 160 years," said Beth Hise from Sydney Living Museums.

A short history of the Hyde Park Barracks with links to other articles on Sydney's Living Museums, including archaeology & history of music in these former homes & Government buildings.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 08:32 PM

Will LIDAR work to look under water?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Iains
Date: 20 Feb 20 - 03:12 AM

https://gisgeography.com/lidar-light-detection-and-ranging/

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.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 20 - 12:16 PM

https://www.livescience.com/meteorite-crater-australia-outback.html

"When geologists at Evolution Mining, an Australian gold mining company, came across some unusual rock cores at Ora Banda, they called Jayson Meyers, the principal geophysicist, director and founder of Resource Potentials, a geophysics consulting and contracting company in Perth. Meyers examined the geologists' drill core samples, as well as rock samples from the site, and he immediately noticed the shatter cones — telltale signs of a meteorite crash."

This is a geology story, not an anthropology one, but it's another opportunity to prowl around the desert with your Google Earth.

"Shatter cones form when high-pressure, high-velocity shock waves from a large impacting object — such as a meteorite or a gigantic explosion (such as would occur at a nuclear testing site) — rattle an area, according to the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), a nonprofit group based in Tucson, Arizona, which was not involved with the new find. These shock waves shatter rock into the unique shatter cone shape, just like a mark that a hard object can leave on a car's windshield.

Because "we know they didn't do any nuclear testing at Ora Banda," the evidence suggests that an ancient impact crater hit the site, Meyers told Resourc.ly."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Sep 20 - 04:59 PM

‘The mystery is over’: Researchers say they know what happened to ‘Lost Colony’

BUXTON, N.C. — The English colonists who settled the so-called Lost Colony before disappearing from history simply went to live with their native friends — the Croatoans of Hatteras, according to a new book.

“They were never lost,” said Scott Dawson, who has researched records and dug up artifacts where the colonists lived with the Indians in the 16th century. “It was made up. The mystery is over.”

Dawson has written a book, published in June, that details his research. It is called “The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island,” and echos many of the sentiments he has voiced for years.

A team of archaeologists, historians, botanists, geologists and others have conducted digs on small plots in Buxton and Frisco for 11 years.

Dawson and his wife, Maggie, formed the Croatoan Archaeological Society when the digs began. Mark Horton, a professor and archaeologist from England’s University of Bristol leads the project. Henry Wright, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, is an expert on native history.

Teams have found thousands of artifacts 4-6 feet below the surface that show a mix of English and Indian life. Parts of swords and guns are in the same layer of soil as Indian pottery and arrowheads.

The excavated earth looks like layer cake as the centuries pass.

“In a spot the size of two parking spaces, we could find 10,000 pieces,” he said.

Pieces found during the project are on display in the community building in Hatteras Village. The rest are in storage.

The rest is at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Sep 20 - 10:40 PM

Australia - stunning rock art 6,000-9,400 years old Key points
    Archaeologists and Traditional Owners have documented rock art from 87 sites across north west Arnhem Land
    The team identified more than 570 images of animals, humans and spirits created between 6,000 and 9,400 years ago
    The images are painted in a style, known as Maliwawa, not seen elsewhere before

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Oct 20 - 01:33 PM

Egypt Unveils 59 ancient coffins.

Story on Al Jazeera.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Oct 20 - 02:16 PM

Sandra, your article mentions rock art of dugong - on "Arnem Land" - I looked that up and find it is close enough to water for it to be something the artist would see in their regional travels. I wonder if they hunted them, or revered them, or both? I suppose bone fragments would have to tell that story.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 08 Oct 20 - 08:52 AM

google search on dugong rock art arnham land gives many references, I'm not sure how many would help,

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Oct 20 - 09:30 AM

Here's a likely discussion: Introducing the Maliwawa Figures: a previously undescribed rock art style found in Western Arnhem Land.

In the Maliwawa paintings, human figures are frequently depicted with animals, especially macropods (kangaroos and wallabies), and these animal-human relationships appear to be central to the artists’ message. In some instances, animals almost appear to be participating in or watching some human activity.

Another key theme is a male or indeterminate human figure holding an animal, often a snake, or another human figure or an object.

Such scenes are rare in early rock art, not just in Australia but worldwide. They provide a remarkable glimpse into past Aboriginal life and cultural beliefs.

and further on

We first found some of these figures during a survey in 2008-2009 but they became the focus of further field research from 2016 to 2018.

So I guess understanding the relationships between these humans and animals is still being studied.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Oct 20 - 01:23 PM

In my Instagram feed I follow a number of science-related sites, including one to do with geological features around the world. This morning they posted a photo of Izvor Cetina or Cetina spring, in Croatia. You look at a place like that and instinctively know that it was always an important human site, even in the current rural configuration of the area.

From Wikipedia:

The Cetina Valley and the narrow passage at Klis have always functioned as a principal trade route between the Croatian coast and hinterland. Strategically, it has been pivotal to the development, not only of the Balkans, but also of significant parts of Europe.[3]


Mouth of the Cetina river in Omiš, 2017
The earliest evidence for agricultural activity is from the Early Neolithic in the upper part of the valley. In the Early Bronze Age the Cetina culture, a geographically pervasive group with contacts throughout the Adriatic basin, became dominant. Extensive mound fields are recorded on the lower valley slopes at several locations around Cetina, Vrlika and Bajagic. As in other parts of Europe, the river appears to have been the focus of the intentional deposition of artifacts throughout prehistory. This is particularly true at the confluence of the Cetina and Ruda rivers at Trilj.

The area is intimately associated with the heartland of the Delmatae and the area's strategic importance is emphasised by the citing of the legionary fortress at Tilurium (Gardun), just above today's city of Trilj, which guards the entrance to the valley from the south and the approach to the provincial capital at Salona.

During the early medieval period, toponymic evidence suggests that the Cetina Valley and perhaps the river itself became a frontier between Slavic and Late Roman power. The area around Sinj eventually emerged as a centre of Slavic power and ultimately established itself as a heartland of the Early Croatian State, especially in the areas of its upper flow.

During later periods the area was highly contested and passed between a number of regional and local powers before conquest by the Ottoman Empire during the early 16th century. After this it retained a frontier role between Ottoman Empire and Republic of Venice until the reconquest of the area 150 years later.

Okay as far as that goes, but this is a karst region and that means caves. So I went looking for information about cave art, because if ever a place screamed out to be a Clan of the Cave Bear setting, this is it. :)

The First Cave Art of the Balkans May Date Back 30,000 Years

34,000-Year-Old Figurative Cave Paintings Found in Croatia

PHOTOS: First prehistoric figurative cave art identified in Croatian cave by archaeologists

These stories all seem to be from last year. Here's a story from 2004 by an archeologist from the UK, his version of a published article in a subscription journal. So people can read it for free, one presumes.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Oct 20 - 10:32 AM

A Japanese high tech technolody called muon photography can detect cavities inside solid rock. Used on the great pyramid it was able to detect another enormous previously undiscovered great gallery above the great gallery we have all seen.

From our perspective a muon decays in a couple of milliseconds but due to a relativistic effect from moving at the speed of light it can travel many hundreds of km before it goes poof. A gamma ray hits our atmosphere and with a collision, gives birth to muons as well as a host of other sub atomic particles. The Japanese found a way of placing detector plates similar to X ray film and render a picture with super computers. It takes months to expose the 'film' and more time to render. Egypt's antiquites director Zwass is not thrilled with this technology.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Oct 20 - 03:59 PM

That would be Zahi Hawass.. and he is no longer director. I think Sharif eased him out..(translation...fired)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Oct 20 - 05:29 PM

Hawass revealed too much, obstructed too many and lied alot but that is a whole different story.
Muon tech is well over 10 years old now.

Hawass is still too big for his trousers. :^/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Oct 20 - 08:44 PM

I have no idea what you're talking about - and I could Google it, but maybe you'd like to look at the links and see if there is a particularly well represented story about this and post the link?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Oct 20 - 07:19 AM

Here's a link with a Texan scientist.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/great-pyramid-giza-egypt-void-1144325

Hundreds of Japanese links but language is not my forte'

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Oct 20 - 05:57 PM

The Wikipedia page on Hawass says about as much as I know...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Oct 20 - 07:23 PM

thanks for posting the link, Bill, I wonder when it will be updated.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 20 - 04:50 PM

Possible Neanderthal Artifacts Unearthed in Denmark

It's just the abstract, but there are enough key words to do some more digging:

ROSKILDE, DENMARK—Yahoo! News reports that worked flint and mussel shells thought to have been shaped by Neanderthals some 120,000 years ago have been found in a steep cliff on the Danish island of Ejby Klint by archaeologists from Denmark’s National Museum and Roskilde Museum. It had been previously thought that reindeer hunters first settled Denmark some 14,000 years ago. “I did not think we would find anything at all, but we have actually found some stones that have possible traces of being worked by people, and that in itself is amazing,” said Lasse Sørensen of the National Museum. Between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, Denmark was about four degrees warmer than it is today, and was home to beavers, steppe bison, fallow deer, wood rhinos, forest elephants, Irish giant deer, and red deer. “The door may have been opened for more excavations to be made for Neanderthals in Denmark,” added Ole Kastholm of Roskilde Museum. To read about a Neanderthal gene variant that may make those who have inherited it more susceptible to pain, go to "Painful Past."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 06:36 PM

Some of these network stories don't stick around long, but there will be keywords to find more about it later.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/archaeologists-uncover-ancient-viking-ship-burial-site-norway/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab8c&linkId=104286086


Archaeologists uncover 1,000-year-old Viking ship burial site in Norway

By Sophie Lewis

November 11, 2020 / 12:24 PM / CBS News

Archaeologists in Norway have uncovered a unique Viking burial site, hidden deep underground, dating back over 1,000 years ago. Using only a radar, researchers identified a feast hall, cult house, farmhouse and the remnants of a ship.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 07:03 PM

I was sure I saw this earlier... a search on 'Gjellestad ship' finds
https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/viking-ship-museum/gjellestad-ship/index.html

and
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/01/17/confirmed-norways-gjellestad-ship-is-from-the-viking-age/?sh=7e5896a99bb2

and more

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Nov 20 - 08:53 PM

Mayan high civilization was advanced in astronomy projecting events by more than a quarter million years into the past and future. Math and literature has less evidence since most of it has been destroyed.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
They descended into madness and society collapsed en masse.

Here is the explanation; They had a magnificent water purification and storage technology. In their city plazas they created an expansive water collection area that filtered through fine sand and minerals to purify the water and directed it to underground storage and irrigation complexes. All well and good but the decorative buildings and temples were painted a bright vermillion red that was full of mercury. Over time the entire filtration layers became polluted with mercury that flowed off the pyramids and structures. Mad as a hatter is the English expression for those who made hats with mercury. China had its tradgedies with mercury and so did the Mayans. In Rome their pollution was lead.
The transition to madness from a poison water supply may have been a remarkable story that probably took longer to take hold than we might expect.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 12:00 PM

That's an interesting theory.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 06:31 AM

Today most of the mercury we injest originates at coal fired power plants tainting land and sea food.. I heard the theory on a PBS documentary.
Drifting farther; On Amazon prime I learned about liquid salt Flouride Thorium nuclear power plants that were invented in 1958 that can not melt down, never runs out of fuel and is not under pressure.
It was not used since the Pentagon since thorium did not make plutonium for bombs. More than here are the other benefits here
Or google floride thorium reactors
I am a nuke plant advocate since it really can replace oil, gas an wind and solar, which seems likely.

Part of the cure for climate change is found in our ignored past.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 03:13 PM

"other benefits"? All I see there is a list of movies. Why would info on reactors be found on Amazon Prime?

But upon searching, I did find this list of disadvantages

More research perhaps, but for the foreseeable future I'd prefer solar, with banks of collectors in deserts and roof-top panels like two of my neighbors have. Add in some new wind turbines that can sit on city buildings, and the need for fossil fuels can be greatly reduced.

Ask Germany and Spain...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 05:58 PM

The same guy who was the creator of the initial N plants also invented the Flouride Thorium reactors. The atomic regulatory agency handed him his hat when he pushed for his safe reactor designs. I like the no 'forever' waste part.

The movie I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA

If we ever crack the fusion problem thorium sounds like a good alternative for the next 50-100 years. I am just a consumer and not a scientist.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Nov 20 - 06:22 PM

A slicker video you tube

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 20 - 05:02 PM

I'll look, but I almost never look to YouTube for news and information.

My hearing is bad and I don't process spoken words quickly..unless it is close-captioned. I really prefer to read at my own pace from several trusted web sites.

Far too many videos are by proselytizers who don't have an HTML address, and who are advancing 'odd' personal theories.... and YouTube then links you to other similar ones.

we shall see.. in my copious spare time.. :>)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 20 - 11:09 AM

Norway ice melt reveals 'frozen archive' of ancient reindeer-hunting arrows

London (CNN)Archaeologists have uncovered a haul of ancient artifacts from a melted ice patch in Norway, including a record number of arrows used for reindeer hunting from more than 6,000 years ago.

The team found 68 arrows at the Langfonne ice patch in the Jotunheimen Mountains, tracing the artifacts back to various periods of time across thousands of years, from the Stone Age all the way through to the Medieval Period.

The discovery, published this week as a study in The Holocene journal, also included the remains of reindeer antlers, Iron Age scaring sticks used in reindeer hunting and a 3,300-year-old shoe from the Bronze Age. The arrows mark the earliest ice finds in Northern Europe, according to the study's authors.

Norway's Jotunheimen Mountains are located more than 200 miles (in excess of 320 kilometers) north of the capital, Oslo.

The Langfonne ice patch, where the arrows were found, has retreated by more than 70% over the past two decades as global warming has caused dramatic ice melt, the study says.

"With the ice now retreating due to climate change, the evidence for ancient hunting at Langfonne is reappearing from what is in essence a frozen archive," said Lars Pilø, the study's lead author and an archaeologist from the Innlandet County Council, in a statement.

"The ice melt, sad as it is, provides an unprecedented archaeological opportunity for new knowledge."

The oldest arrows, dating back to 4000 BC, are in poor condition. But surprisingly, the arrows from the Late Neolithic period (2400-1750 BC) were better preserved in comparison to those from the following 2,000 years, according to the study.

Using ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology, researchers believe that the bad state of the oldest arrows may be due to ice movement.

GPR data revealed ice deformation deep inside of the patch may have broken the old, brittle arrows, but it also helped to bring them to the surface to be discovered.

"Ice patches are not your regular archaeological sites," Pilø said. "Glacial archeology has the potential to transform our understanding of human activity in the high mountains and beyond."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Nov 20 - 06:27 PM

thanks, stilly

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 20 - 09:42 PM

I pulled that Norwegian location up on Google Earth; it's an odd looking piece of land, and I'd really like to see a topographic map of the area, but wasn't able to find any.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Nov 20 - 08:50 AM

WOOF Follow the shoe and the broken arrow. Ice mining for artifacts in melting glacial ice with the assistance of GPR, sounds like the way to go. Of course we can only look where we are allowed to look.

I would personally prefer a nicer climate and buried architectural remains that have carvings of the early Holocene animals and even a dinosaur or two. Someplace in Turkey to the fertile crescent. China would be great too but these places are politically off limits lately.
Sneaky satillites are the key to seeing with new eyes.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Nov 20 - 05:40 PM

These things kind of come in clumps.

Frozen Bird Found in Siberia is 46,000 Years Old

In 2018, a well-preserved frozen bird was found in the ground in the Belaya Gora area of north-eastern Siberia. Researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, a new research center at Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, have studied the bird and the results are now published in the scientific journal Communications Biology. The analyses reveals that the bird is a 46,000-year-old female horned lark.

"Not only can we identify the bird as a horned lark. The genetic analysis also suggests that the bird belonged to a population that was a joint ancestor of two sub species of horned lark living today, one in Siberia, and one in the steppe in Mongolia. This helps us understand how the diversity of sub species evolves," says Nicolas Dussex, researcher at the Department of Zoology at Stockholm University.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Nov 20 - 05:59 PM

I've heard of flash
freezing events in a temperate Siberia ~40,000 years ago

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Nov 20 - 09:39 PM

Best images & maps I found of the Norwegian ice patch

https://secretsoftheice.com/news/2020/04/16/mountain-pass/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 02:53 AM

Bill, that is an amazing website, I've spent the best part of hour following links from that article. The site is now bookmarked

like this one showing a 1720-1850 woven hat

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 04:24 AM

after my archaeology binge, I checked out my regular news sites & found more archaeology - 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 10:49 AM

What deep rabbit holes Bill and Sandra have provided! And so many photos and maps! Good stuff!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 02:57 PM

It was links inside of links..often buried down the page. Just reading how the research and collection was done is amazing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 03:08 PM

The graffiti chapel of the ancients is great! It reminds me of NYC

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 04:39 PM

It reminds ME of taking the metro from Silver Spring to Metro Center... every structure that faces the tracks was a potential target for graffiti.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Nov 20 - 11:59 PM

I know it's a form of vandalism and some of it is significant in the message, but a lot of the graffiti out there from taggers is actually quite attractive. I suspect I hold a minority opinion (and this is acknowledging that a lot of it turns up in less than public places that are inappropriate, like private property, fences, houses, etc.) I'm thinking in particular of the sides of trains.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Dec 20 - 12:41 PM

In the trip I referred to one legendary writer, Cool “Disco” Dan, has been featured in a local graffiti museum. See this search

Disco Dan & others

A friend of mine who used to ride the line daily wrote a song about him.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Dec 20 - 12:54 PM

BANKSY - silver spring

I've seen TV documentaries of the highest forms of graffiti art that are painted over after viewing. What is the the name of the NYC graffiti arist that sells works for 5 figures?

Pigments mixed with egg yolk (tempura) can last thousands of years.

Egg whites can weather seal old wooden instruments on te inside.
Today I use 1 micron thick glass which transmits sound the same as spruce.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Dec 20 - 01:13 PM

Maybe here?
https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/10-new-york-graffiti-legends-still-kicking-ass

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Dec 20 - 11:58 AM

I wonder if Bob Ross ever imagined some of his 'Liquid clear' techniques for global shading would be used by graffiti artists.
Ancient Egyptian graffiti exists in the Great Pyramid as well as the valley of the kings. They range from just names to sexual acts on the intended honored. Roman graffiti is a subject of its own. Some folk tunes are the musical graffiti of its time. - jus ramblin

Mostly I am impressed by the cliffside painting discovery

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Dec 20 - 12:28 PM

Keith Haring got his start doing graffiti in NY City subway stations.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 04 Dec 20 - 10:26 PM

This TV show has just started in Oz a couple of weeks ago. Brilliant!

Earth From Space

I'm probably going to buy the DVD so that I can watch it over and over again. I'm also probably going to buy a copy for my nephew's young family.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Dec 20 - 04:27 PM

The clips are the best I've ever seen.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Dec 20 - 05:38 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Dec 20 - 05:59 PM

Pterosaurs evolved from small, wingless reptiles called lagerpetids

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Dec 20 - 06:23 PM

"But what they discovered may help fill a 28-million-year gap in the evolution of flying reptiles instead."

Those pesky gaps! That one looks like a chasm. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Dec 20 - 09:07 PM

I enjoy eating mini dinosaurs. Tonight I had chicken. Scaley two legged creatures with beaks and the later advancement of warm blood and feathers. They sort of split the difference between us and dinos.
Due to climate even some tyranosaurs had beautiful feathers not unlike peacocks. Evolution found a path to flight with size vs weight issues a million years AFTER the first dragon flies that were over a meter long.

Dragon flies did not taste like chicken.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Dec 20 - 06:27 AM

Tudor coins dedicated to three of Henry VIII's wives found in family garden

Welcome to the Portable Antiquities Scheme The Portable Antiquities Scheme is run by the British Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales to encourage the recording of archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. Every year many thousands of archaeological objects are discovered, many of these by metal detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening or going about their daily work. Finds recorded with the Scheme help advance knowledge of the history and archaeology of England and Wales.

British Museum says metal detectorists found 1,311 treasures last year

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Dec 20 - 10:48 AM

This may have come through before, but I'll add it in case it didn't: Cache of Roman letters discovered at Hadrian's Wall. The Guardian is telling me that this article is more than 3 years old, but then, the letters are much older than that!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Dec 20 - 04:02 PM

tour a royal tomb
Tomb of
Menna

valley of the Kings you tube

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Dec 20 - 04:13 PM

https://www.virtualangkor.com/

3D scroll down for your personal tours

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Dec 20 - 07:52 AM

true glory of 1,000-year-old cross - Dec 2020 after reading this I needed more info so went searching -

The Galloway Hoard (2014) The Galloway Hoard brings together the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland.

Conserving the Galloway Hoard - it was in an urn & wrapped in textiles

Galloway Hoard’s Anglo-Saxon ‘owner’ identified?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Dec 20 - 08:00 AM

photos

more pics!

lots more articles, but I really have other stuff to do

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 03:12 AM

Lost artefact from Great Pyramid of Giza found in cigar box in Aberdeen

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 04:14 PM

This story had me online looking for the Queen's Palace in Madagascar.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 05:02 PM

I was watching Japan's NHK channel earlier today and there was news of a "snack bar" being uncovered at Pompeii

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 05:51 PM

Arnies snack bar sold wolf nipple chips and Rococo cola. :*]
Have you ever thought of archeology of the future. If it is far enough away the present we discover will be ancient and our present will be the future. its a light speed thing/

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 08:20 PM

Tau Zero

There was a young physicist, Bright
Who traveled much faster than light.
   He set out one day,
   In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 08:30 PM

Poul Anderson is fun to read.
my kind of poul

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 06:59 PM

Remains of well-preserved Ice Age woolly rhino found in Siberia

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 07:07 PM

I hadn't noticed the articles linked below the woolly rhino article

fossilised feathers

Canadian boy finds fossils critical to the study of the hadrosaur

Australia - Richmond's dinosaur museum goes digital

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 10:02 PM

The story of wood artfacts from the great pyramid found in Scotland reminds me of the actual mummy of Ramses being found in Niagara Falls NY.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 20 - 10:43 PM

I'm watching the TV series Fringe again from this week. Only another 85 episodes to go.

Nothing to do with the thread topic but everything to do with these comments in the thread:

Bill D's limerick: "There was a young physicist, Bright..."

Donuel's comment: "Have you ever thought of archeology of the future. If it is far enough away the present we discover will be ancient and our present will be the future. its a light speed thing".

(If you have never seen the series but you are into weird sci-fi with a sense of humour, I can highly recommend watching Fringe. I first discovered it when I happened to record the end of an episode before a different show which started in the wee hours of the morning and then got totally hooked on it. It was never advertised by the TV channel, and funnily enough they replayed the whole series in the last few weeks - again in the wee small hours - and didn't advertise it this time either. I sense a conspiracy at work. There could be a pattern. Fringe in-joke. Sorry! At least this time they didn't play series 1 and then series 4 episodes on the same day. Very confusing and it was very much a spoiler alert because I didn't realise they were two different series.)

Sorry. Back to the topic.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 12:20 AM

I've been meaning to watch that. Thanks for the reminder (I didn't realize it had that many episodes).

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 03:01 AM

not having a TV, I knew nuffin' about it - & having just read a few (too many) paragraphs on wikipedia, I know even less ....

my brain feel sore & my eyes hurt, tho admittedly they have been sore all day, but they are even sorer

& it appears there are 100 episodes, lucky you!

getting back on topic Liu He and the Tomb of Two Million Coins

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 04:57 AM

Believe me Sandra, you'd be just as confused if you watched all the episodes. Predictability is not their thing. LOL

I bought the whole set on DVD when I first discovered the series. This will be my third or maybe fourth time watching it all.

Back on topic - Australia's shame: Pilbara mining blast confirmed to have destroyed 46,000yo sites of 'staggering' significance

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 11:47 AM

Wow, Sandra!

Archaeology is always full of surprises. When an excavation is started, the team never knows what the next artifact will be to see the light of day. Many times a find is mundane – pottery shards, inconclusive artifacts, and ancient garbage. But there are rare occasions when the dig proves to be an excavation of a lifetime and is certain to make the headlines. Such is the story of this unbelievable archaeological dig from China, when a stunning 10 tons of ancient coins were unearthed in a single burial chamber. There’s no doubt that the history of ancient China was filled with wonders and extravagance, but this discovery really put the benchmark way up high. It was Liu He’s tomb filled with two million coins and other luxury items.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 10:05 PM

who said you can't take it with you?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 10:16 PM

Fringe??? Why do I not know of that? Gotta go look at my 200+ channels...Maybe in between the Televangelists...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 10:22 PM

Huh... ran from 2008-2013! No wonder it's not on these days.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 10:40 PM

NetFlix.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 10:59 PM

Yes, but it pops up unannounced every few years or so here in Oz. It's brilliant! Funny, clever, thought provoking, and some things in it come completely out of the blue to make sense of previous events in past episodes.

To pretend to stick to this thread topic (LOL) I'll mention episode 15 of series 1. Inner Child: A mysterious child is recovered from a secret chamber that has been sealed for more than a half-century.

Does finding a live child in a room sealed for about 70 years beat finding 2 million coins?? :-D

Sorry. I should start a separate thread.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 21 - 10:30 PM

3,500 year old bear amulet that I spotted on Twitter this evening. If you're using the Chrome browser right-clicking a photo gives you a dialog box with a number of options for opening the image, including to search for the image on Google. I use this all of the time to track down the sources of memes, etc.

More from Reddit (just part of it)

Thanks to an unknown stroke of fate, the copy encountered the original, after many years, in the Historic Museum in Stralsund. In the summer of 2002, the German press announced that the copy of the bear was presented to public, whereas the original amulet did not leave the museum's safe. It is a secret how the museum became the owner of these two figures. However one should be happy that both of them survived. The copy of the famous bear appeared again in the history of Slupsk. Thanks to the president, Maciej Kobylinski, the amber bear attracts tourists tothe town hall, where it is exhibited in a special show case. Once a year, the tiny figure is put on auction, and the funds raised are dedicated to charity.

They don't say what happened to the original after Nazi's stole it and a lot of other amber during WWII. It looks like something that could be reproduced fairly easily.

The Polish town near where it was found is Slupsk, and it is in the Pomeranian region (state). No surprise it's near the Baltic Sea, a major source of amber. Szczecin, Poland, is where it was safeguarded until WWII when it was lost for a while.

Stuff to look for includes archaeology in Poland to do with amber - it washes up on the beach there.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jan 21 - 12:10 AM

Medieval Chinese Coin Unearthed In The UK (found near Petersfield, Hampshire).

it was unearthed at Buriton in Hampshire, around 14 kilometers (9 miles) from the southern coast of the UK. It’s not totally clear whether the coin was dropped by a modern collector or medieval rambler. However, some historians have some well-founded suspicions that the coin was most likely dropped at some point during the Middle Ages.

Dr Caitlin Green, a historian at the University of Cambridge in the UK, has written a blog post describing this discovery and argues that the coin was likely not dropped by a modern-day collector.

For one, the coin was discovered in a field that was full of Medieval artifacts, including a coin of King John minted at London in 1205–7, a cut farthing coin dating between 1180 to 1247, fragments of medieval or early post-medieval vessels, and two 16th century coins. Furthermore, archeologists have previously discovered another Northern Song dynasty coin in England. The newly discovered coin was also found in the same area as the only confirmed medieval imported Chinese pottery from the 14th century.

Looks like another visit via Google Earth.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jan 21 - 12:44 AM

only 1300 gold coins

from the Smithsonian magazine which has lotsa' other interesting articles, including a genetic analysis of Seabiscuit's hoof!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 21 - 09:58 PM

Squatters issue death threats to archaeologist who discovered oldest city in the Americas

Wikipedia on Caral archaeological site.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 05 Jan 21 - 04:13 AM

lots of great info on 'OLDEST SONG IN THE WORLD' thread. https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=157520&messages=33#3717921

a few of the links

Did Syria create the worlds first song ? VIDEO From the BBC, an interesting article on recreating songs, melodies, and instruments from archaeological finds. Michael Levy is a prolific composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, whose musical mission is to create an entirely new musical genre, which could best be described as a 'New Ancestral Music' - dedicated to reintroducing the recreated lyres, ancient musical modes and intonations, back into the modern musical world.
Ancient Lyre It does say a bit about the process from the Cuneiform to the musical notes. This seems to be the work of a Dr. Richard Dumbrill. Well done him. Not so well done the scores of commenters on the Youtube clip, who seem not to want add any information, but simply to demonstrate to the world what arseholes they are.

Hurrian Songs

Seikilos epitaph

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 12:11 PM

Queen’s temple, 50 coffins, Book of Dead: Ancient Egypt trove ‘remakes history’

Unveiling funerary temple found at vast necropolis near Cairo, archaeologists showcase 3,000-year-old sarcophagi, papyrus with spells for directing the dead through the underworld

SAQQARA, Egypt — Egypt on Sunday unveiled ancient treasures found at the Saqqara archaeological site near Cairo, including sarcophagi over 3,000 years old, a discovery that “rewrites history,” according to famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass.

Saqqara is a vast necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to more than a dozen pyramids, ancient monasteries, and animal burial sites.

A team headed by Hawass made the finds near the pyramid of King Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

There are photos and more to the story at the link.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 05:07 PM

Check out the 30,000 year old cave painting. no typo 30,000

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 05:19 PM

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03826-4

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jan 21 - 07:54 PM

Speaking of cave art
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230990-700-in-search-of-the-very-first-coded-symbols/?fbclid=IwAR013iSuGAaGoul7beJKeTJ45RXK07uR90PBSR9PkyGtR8B9kuRDP6EH1ko#ixzz6i02U2nTE

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Jan 21 - 04:46 AM

I've been reading The 50 greatest prehistoric sites in the world by Barry Stone, so off I went to google for more info on the sites.

here are a few

Gabarnmung rock art, Australia, 46,000 BCE

Varna Necropolis - grave 43 - the bloke was covered in 1000 gold items!!

Nebelivka archaeological site in Ukraine

Arkaim archaeological site

Nuragic towers Sardinia

hypogeum Hal-Saflieni, Malta

Rujm El-Hiri Golan Heights

Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO site

Jebel Hafeet tombs, Abu Dhabi

Shepsi and dolmens of North Caucasus

Sanxingdui, Sichuan, China

megaliths on Nias Island Indonesia - contemporary megolithic culture!

Prince of Glauberg - life-sized sandstone statue of a Celtic ruler

Bronze age battle field along Tollense River Germany - latest theory is that it was a massacre of merchants

I was hoping to find a list of the 50 sites, but all I can find how to buy the book, but I found this interesting site map, click on an icon & get the name of the site & google maps reference, very much on topic!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Jan 21 - 05:17 AM

If anyone is perusing UK maps, particularly 1840 (upwards) I have put an OSGR / LatLong converter with several map/web links targeted to the location entered. The premise was to make it fast and not rely on the internet for calculation or embedded things.

osgr.mister.red (though if you put it on Fakebook use osgr.mister.red/osgr.htm because Fakebook cleverness doesn't like other's cleverness).

Best of luck. (thinks - I just thought of another useful link to add)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 21 - 03:26 PM

Sandra you just provided us a very deep rabbit hole to explore!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 12:57 AM

deepen your rabbit hole!!

Gulf of Campay, West India

Dolni Vestonice Czech republic

Upward Sun River, Alaska

Raqefet Cave, Israel

Gobekli Tepe, Turkey

Ceuva de las Manos, Argentina

Lepenski Vir, Serbia

Choirokitia, Cyprus

Goseck Circle,Germany

Wetzikon-Robenhausen, Switzerland

Man Bac, Vietnam

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 06:27 AM

My personal fave: Gobleki Tepe
(It was buried by hand not by time long ago)

Bill the evolution of writing is a great topic.
invented and reinvented over time and finally shifting from hiroglphics to REBUS style alphabet.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jan 21 - 05:39 PM

Remnants of mosque from earliest decades of Islam found in Israel

Yesterday I took some books to a charity Book stall & asked if they would like some archaeology magazines & the bloke running the store is a serious archaeology fan & collector of old & ancient pieces & wanted them!
I was taking '50 sites' back to the Library & we had a long conversation about archaeology. Charity shops don't always want magazines (& who would want to re-read old scandal about "famous" people?), so I wasn't sure if they would want them. I'll take the rest of my stash to him next week & probably have another chat with him!

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 21 - 06:00 PM

!..? Good luck, it sounds like a novel about love in the time of pandemic:*)

I have a very expensive art encyclopedia from the 1960's that includes many photos of the art objects from Iraq that are now missing.
The orthodoxy of that era is however silly in retrospect.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 09:36 AM

Anglo-Saxon graveyard discovered in Cambridge Graves found under demolished student halls are providing valuable insight into life in a post-Roman settlement.
An early medieval graveyard unearthed beneath student accommodation at Cambridge University has been described as “one of the most exciting finds of Anglo-Saxon archaeology since the 19th century”.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 10:01 AM

Sandra, that Cambridge location makes me wonder about how those buildings were constructed. One sees heavy earth-moving equipment working on the foundations of buildings when dormitories or other campus buildings are put up. These graves would have been just a few feet below the surface in that construction zone, so it sounds like they may have been pier and beam (no foundation)? Just posts in the ground?

That Roman bottle is gorgeous, quite a work of art!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 06:57 PM

I also wondered about the graves not being disturbed, the buildings must have had very shallow foundations or none. Perhaps the site was a garden or a park, so the builders might have had a level site to work with & not needed to dig down. If it was built during the Depression or even after the Depression, maybe lots of blokes with wheelbarrows did all the work ...

I'm reminded of a dig in Sydney several decades back. The new building, a Youth Hostel was being built on top of a concrete carpark (also decades old) & an enormous part of very early Sydney was sealed underneath.

The Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre is part of Sydney Harbour YHA in The Rocks heritage precinct of Sydney. The centre facilitates hands-on archaeology educational experiences and opens the archaeological site to the public.

pics of the site & some finds The Big Dig site is underneath a youth hostel in The Rocks area of Sydney, and guests walk through part of it to get to Reception upstairs. There are also a couple of display cases containing some of the objects found in the area. Wonderful!

google maps - The Rocks YHA

panels evoking the old streetscape displayed out on the streets

I was in the Rocks while it was being excavated in 2008 so took pics thru the mesh fence. One pic shows a pit with a broken china bowl poking out of the wall.

I also have pics of the YHA taken 2 years later. The building is in 2 parts, with the ruins in the middle so everyone (public & residents) can walk thru. It was put above the foundations so most of them (all of them??) were preserved.

sandra

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 07:11 PM

I post, then head for the news & find this - Tasmanian ship graveyard & related articles

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 07:26 PM

Talking about building on top of ancient things, a few years ago we went to Minori, on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. In one place there are ancient Roman ruins - with modern blocks of flats perched right on top!

I suppose it does at least preserve the ruins... I can't recall too clearly but I think we saw a similar thing in Herculaneum.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 21 - 11:40 PM

Neanderthal glue was a bigger deal than we thought

Making birch tar at all is a fairly complex process. It takes multiple steps, lots of planning, and detailed knowledge of the materials and the process. So the fact that archaeologists have found a handful of tools hafted using birch tar tells us that Neanderthals were (pardon the pun) pretty sharp.

But the Zandmotor Beach flake tells us more than that. Making birch tar adhesive for tools was so routine that Neanderthals would do it even for a simple domestic tool like a small flake—even in the extreme environment of Ice Age Northwestern Europe, in the shadow of glaciers at the very northern edge of where Neanderthals could survive. And all the while, they were using fairly advanced methods for more efficient production.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Feb 21 - 05:04 AM

Conch shell in French museum found to be 17,000-year-old wind instrument

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Feb 21 - 07:56 PM

World's oldest known beer factory may have been unearthed in Egypt

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 04:35 AM

Discovery of ancient Bogong moth remains at Cloggs Cave gives insight into Indigenous food practices 2000 years ago (Australia) see also links at end of article


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Emu_(book) Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? is a 2014 non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe. It reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building construction by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
In Dark Emu: Black seeds: agriculture or accident?, Pascoe examines the journals and diaries of early explorers such as Charles Sturt and Thomas Mitchell[5] and early settlers in Australia,[1] finding evidence in their accounts of existing agriculture,[6][7] engineering and building, including stone houses, weirs, sluices and fish traps, and also game management.[8][9] This evidence of occupation[10] challenges the traditional views about pre-colonial Australia[11] and "Terra Nullius".[12] The book also gives a description from Sturt's journal of his 1844 encounter with hundreds of Aboriginal people who were living in an established village in what is now Queensland (then part of New South Wales), in which a welcoming party offered him "water, roast duck, cake and a hut to sleep in".

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Feb 21 - 03:03 AM

'Unique' petrified tree up to 20m years old found intact in Lesbos First came the tree, all 19.5 metres of it, with roots and branches and leaves. Then, weeks later, the discovery of 150 fossilised logs, one on top of the other, a short distance away.

Nikolas Zouros, a professor of geology at the University of the Aegean, couldn’t believe his luck. In 25 years of excavating the petrified forest of Lesbos, he had unearthed nothing like it.

“The tree is unique. To discover it so complete and in such excellent condition is a first. To then discover a treasure trove of so many petrified trunks in a single pit was, well, unbelievable.” (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Feb 21 - 11:19 AM

I love petrified wood. petrified forest
I have some. In Australia petrified wood has opalized.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Feb 21 - 10:15 PM

I visited a couple of friends who were rangers at Petrified Forest and spent time hiking - we parked in a narrow area of the park, walked out onto private property where there is just as much petrified wood, and picked some up. We walked back through the park and tried not to look like we were each carrying 50 pounds of rocks. :)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Feb 21 - 08:13 PM

Pompeii archaeologists find intact ceremonial chariot at site of illegal dig

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Feb 21 - 06:52 AM

That Pompei find is amazing. It's a wonderful place and there's still a lot more excavating to do. The young new director's stated philosophy is to go slowly and carefully and to leave much unexcavated for now because new techniques in the future might yield better results than are possible today.

I've been twice to Pompei, once in 1968 (on a school trip: I have fond memories of the priest leading the trip standing at the entrance of the little street that contained the prostitutes' houses, the ones with erotic frescoes, with his arms folded, firmly denying us access) and once in 2013 (I made a beeline for that street, of course). The years peeled away... A full day's visit wouldn't do Pompei justice. It's huge and it's fabulous and it's confusing, even if you have a guide book. You can go round with a guide, but that misses things out and is all a bit "potted."

And, next day, go to Herculaneum!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Feb 21 - 09:48 AM

Two victims of Vesuvius eruption discovered in Pompeii.

Several of these casts made the museum rounds years ago, and I saw some of these casts (of what once were apparently just air gaps in the site, then someone decided to fill it in and see what had been there - and the shapes of people appeared.) I saw them at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.