Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 06:29 PM

Seriously though, I've just been reading about it. It's a truly amazing find and it's good to see that there are plans to restore the site.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 06:09 PM

Stones? Y'mean that people had already been eating avocados there?

I'll get me coat... :-(

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Aug 22 - 06:00 PM

Huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones discovered in Spain Archaeologists says prehistoric site in Huelva province could be one of largest of its kind in Europe.
A huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones has been discovered in southern Spain that could be one of the largest in Europe, archaeologists have said.

The stones were discovered on a plot of land in Huelva, a province flanking the southernmost part of Spain’s border with Portugal, near the Guadiana River.

Spanning about 600 hectares (1,500 acres), the land had been earmarked for an avocado plantation. Before granting the permit the regional authorities requested a survey in light of the site’s possible archaeological significance. The survey revealed the presence of the stones ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Aug 22 - 06:57 PM

I have a 15 volume Art encyclopedia that is almost 50 years old that has photos of UR and other ancient sites that look much nicer than they do today. They also have many Iraq artifacts that are now looted and lost. I expect to find more surprises. Some of the assumptions made 50 years ago are absurd today but the plates are great.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Aug 22 - 06:35 PM

In the Greek islands, the Antikythera shipwreck yields statues, human teeth and the missing head of Hercules In 1900, sponge divers working near the Greek island of Antikythera accidentally discovered a 2,000-year-old mystery.

Dressed in a canvas suit with a helmet made of copper, Elias Stadiatis plunged through the cool ocean depths, in search of the soft sponges he had spent his career gathering.

But as he reached the rocky bottom at a depth of about 50 metres, he uncovered a long-forgotten tragedy.

Hidden between layers of debris on the ocean floor were what appeared to be rotting corpses and horses.

Stadiatis immediately began signalling to the crew above and was soon dragged back to the surface, apparently shaking with fear and mumbling about "seeing a heap of dead people".

They feared Stadiatis was delirious, suffering from nitrate poisoning or seasickness ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Aug 22 - 05:57 AM

one of my sources is the Smithsonian Magazine

Why Did 16th-Century Andean Villagers String Together the Bones of Their Ancestors? Researchers suggest the practice was a response to Spanish conquistadors’ desecration of the remains ...
... The dates the researchers obtained from the vertebrae fall in a range between 1520 and 1550 C.E. The reeds, meanwhile, date from about 1550 to 1590, which coincides with the time period the Spanish arrived in Chincha. To Bongers and his colleagues, this timeline points to a tentative explanation: The vertebrae were collected from previously buried, disjointed human remains and put on reeds as a deliberate mortuary practice, developed perhaps in response to European destruction of the tombs ...

Archaeologists Uncover Remains of 13 Hessian Soldiers at Revolutionary War Battlefield The discovery came as a surprise to the team at New Jersey’s Red Bank Battlefield Park ...

Evidence of Fur and Leather Clothing, Among World’s Oldest, Found in Moroccan Cave Humans likely sported clothes made of jackal, fox and wildcat skins some 120,000 years ago ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Aug 22 - 08:58 AM

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-there-wasnt-an-advanced-civilization-12-000-years-ago/

We would have to go back hundreds of millions of years when there were no homosapiens and a different species built a civilization in which any trace is now ground to dust.
We’re used to imagining extinct civilizations in terms of sunken statues and subterranean ruins. These kinds of artifacts of previous societies are fine if you’re only interested in timescales of a few thousands of years. But once you roll the clock back to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years, things get more complicated.

I don’t believe the Earth once hosted a 50-million-year-old Paleocene civilization. But by asking if we could “see” truly ancient advanced civilizations, what is left is life itself in DNA or other unknown things to look for. Some things will always be unseen but as they say anything is possible, just not likely.

Did someone mutter exo aliens? Sorry Bill the only evidence is for actual flying objects, everything else are just stories.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Aug 22 - 10:51 AM

A link about this was posted on Facebook today. There are other pages devoted to it. This one seems to have the most detail.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9177867/Rare-5-000-year-old-crystal-dagger-uncovered-Prehistoric-Iberian-megalithic-tomb-Spain.html

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Aug 22 - 06:33 AM

I read interesting sources & & like sharing what I find

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Aug 22 - 07:31 PM

Sandra you make this thread exciting,

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Aug 22 - 06:55 PM

Discoveries in Pompeii reveal lives of lower and middle classes Archaeologists are enriching our knowledge about those who were ‘vulnerable class during political crises and food shortages’
A trunk with its lid left open, a wooden dishware closet and a three-legged accent table topped by decorative bowls. These are among the latest discoveries by archaeologists that are enriching knowledge about middle-class lives in Pompeii before Mount Vesuvius’s furious eruption buried the ancient Roman city in volcanic debris.

Pompeii’s archaeological park, one of Italy’s top tourist attractions, announced the recent finds on Saturday.

Its director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, said the excavation of rooms in a domus, or home, first unearthed in 2018 had revealed precious details about the domestic environment of ordinary citizens of the city, which was destroyed in 79AD. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 09:48 AM

The Bahamian gold is destined for the Bahamas Maritime Museum.

The expedition is also collecting data on the reef health, seafloor geology and plastic pollution to understand how the archaeology and marine environment interact.

“The sea bottom is barren,” said Allen. “The colourful coral that divers remembered from the 70s is gone, poisoned by ocean acidification and choked by metres of shifting sand. It’s painfully sad. Still lying on those dead grey reefs, though, are sparkling finds.”

Sad.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 06:47 AM

After 350 years, sea gives up lost jewels of Spanish shipwreck Marine archaeologists stunned by priceless cache long hidden beneath the Bahamas’ shark-infested waters.
It was a Spanish galleon laden with treasures so sumptuous that its sinking in the Bahamas in 1656 sparked repeated salvage attempts over the next 350 years. So when another expedition was launched recently, few thought that there could be anything left – but exquisite, jewel-encrusted pendants and gold chains are among spectacular finds that have now been recovered, having lain untouched on the seabed for hundreds of years ...

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 02:44 AM

‘Weird, wonderful’: rare dig at Arthur’s Stone writes new story of neolithic site Visitors flock to Herefordshire burial plot that inspired CS Lewis amid excitement at what is being found.
High above one of western Britain’s loveliest valleys, the silence is broken by the sound of gentle digging, scraping and brushing, along with bursts of excited chatter as another ancient feature is revealed or a curious visitor stops by to find out what is going on.

This summer archaeologists have been granted rare permission to excavate part of the Arthur’s Stone site, a neolithic burial plot with soaring views across the Golden Valley in Herefordshire and the Black Mountains of south-east Wales.

Using their version of keyhole surgery, the archaeologists unearthed features, including what appear to be stone steps leading up to the 5,000-year-old tomb, and tools used by the first people to farm this landscape. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Rain Dog
Date: 14 Jul 22 - 09:30 AM

Ancient Cave Art in Alabama May Be The Largest Ever Found in North America

"New details of our past are coming to light, hiding in the nooks and crannies of the world, as we refine our techniques to go looking for them. Most lauded is the reconstruction of the evolution of humanity since our African origins around 300,000 years ago, by analyzing our living and fossil DNA.

Replete with the ghosts of African and Eurasian populations of the deep past, these have been resurrected only through the ability of science to reach into the world of the minuscule by studying biomolecules.

Now, digital analysis of rock surfaces reveals how other ghosts of the deep past – this time from almost 2,000 years ago in North America – have been coaxed into the light.

Writing in the journal Antiquity, professor Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee and colleagues have published images of giant glyphs carved into the mud surface of the low ceiling of a cave in Alabama.

The motifs, which depict human forms and animals, are some of the largest known cave images found in North America and may represent spirits of the underworld."

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 06:30 PM

And another nifty slider article, this time around the valley where I grew up:

Aerial images show how roads and a highway to
major regional NSW towns were submerged in July flood

The first two images with sliders show something else, too. If you look at the grass in the before images, they must have been taken before the drought broke because there is not much green to be seen, but in the after images with the floods there is green grass and trees, so at least the recent rainy periods have had some positive effect. But more rain isn't better. Just enough would have been good.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 12:06 PM

This article has a few images with a nifty left-right slider so that you can see what a place looked like before and just after the recent floods in NSW:

Aerial images show south-west Sydney suburbs before and after July flood disaster

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 10:55 AM

Rare ‘time capsule’ cobalt mine abandoned over 200 years ago is discovered in Cheshire   Interactive tour of the mine Take a look underground at Alderley Edge in this state of the art immersive fly-through. See the newly-discovered mine up close, thanks to cutting edge 3D scanning technology.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 10:39 PM

2 posts - a zillion inteseting links! I could add more ...








sometime later!

thanks, stilly for your links, I'd never heard off the area. I've only scanned your first 2 links - so far - lots of interesting reading there.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 07:56 PM

Looks like I have a full day tomorrow looking at all these links !!

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 06:54 PM

I decided to create a new post because I don't find a current article on the topic I was looking for. Back when I was in high school my oceanography class (yes, not archeology) took a field trip to the Olympic Peninsula, where among other things, we were going to visit the western-most point of the contiguous US, at Cape Alava. It's in a rain forest area where it rains so much that the trail exists but has a long line of planks to walk on for much of the length of it. I don't remember if we ever got to where we were going, or if it was raining so hard that when we got there we just turned around and headed back.

This is on the Makah Reservation, and the village near there was Ozette. Ozette: Excavating a Makah Whaling Village.

Ruth Kirk’s Ozette: Excavating a Makah Whaling Village presents a detailed account of a world-famous archaeological site on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Full-scale excavations from 1966 to 1981 revealed houses and their contents—including ordinarily perishable wood and basketry objects that had been buried in a mudflow well before the arrival of Europeans in the region.

Aside from the archeological site, there are several small villages on Cape Flattery, and basket making is an activity there, for tribal use and for sale to tourists. They have a unique way of making baskets that includes a crosshatch base made of thinly split cedar, and I collected a few over the years.

Probably 20 years ago now there were some stories in the news about canoe whaling, that Makah tribal members proved that it is possible to kill a whale from canoes, that the stories about it weren't just tribal tall tales. A Native Tribe Wants to Resume Whaling. Whale Defenders Are Divided
The Makah are the only Native Americans with an explicit treaty right to hunt whales, but they have not been allowed to do so for 20 years. A recent proposal could change that.

The whole larger area is called Cape Flattery, and the nearest town is Neah Bay.

So here are some of the tidbits about Ozette.

Ozette Indian Village Archeological Site

From the Washington Post archives,
Civilization Lost...And Found

The University of Washington Special Collections has a short video online: The Tribe and the Professor Petroglyphs and Artifacts, approximately 1975

The National Park Service has a PDF of a booklet about the site: The Ozette Archeological Expedition

And finally, the Makah Museum has a website https://makahmuseum.com/about/ozette-archaeological-site/

Map coordinates: 48°09'54.22" N 124°38'00.22" W"

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 06:39 PM

a few sites I found recently

Spanish Stonehenge discovered

Blood Stained Glass Panels At Canterbury Cathedral Saw Becket Die

English Heritage brings Roman town’s lost Edwardian navvies to life

UC discovers princely tombs near 'Griffin Warrior' Startling find adds to amazing story of powerful Greek figure

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 06:11 PM

I don't think dinosaur fossils fall into the realms of archaeology either. However, I'm not bothered and I enjoy the ride.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 04:46 PM

We had a professor at my university who was well-known for her detective work in identifying works of art that turned up with no provenance. She got to dig around in monasteries and museums in Europe to do her work. I heard her lecture a couple of times, and the knowledge of materials and brush strokes, of art formats (paint, drawing, lithograph, etc. makes it as interesting a discovery as some of the archaeological finds either out in the landscape or things found and stored away in museum vaults without any knowledge of what they were till later.

Oddball things creep into the thread because of the nature of the research into such old objects. Best to ignore the few that aren't exactly dinosaur fossils or cave paintings and just enjoy the ride.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 04:05 PM

https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/archaeology
No offense RT but you can be as strict as Frau Blucher.
A Blucher is a hide glue maker that holds instruments together.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 02:12 PM

"mostly to do with archeology, but sometimes geology or other hard sciences"

And fascinating it has been too SRS, I don't see how renaissance art fits into your criteria though.

Much as it is interesting I consider a separate thread would be the order of the day, that too could then be expanded on with futher contribution of a similar nature.

I have often clicked onto what sounds like an interesting discussion only to find that thread creep has lead the original topic into something far removed from the title.

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

Raggy, I started this thread years ago as a place to store interesting stories, mostly to do with archeology, but sometimes geology or other hard sciences, so new threads wouldn't be needed.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 28 Jun 22 - 06:29 AM

Donuel. I was making what I consider to be a valid point. I am not going to get involved with you about it.

We have an expressionn this side of the pond "you can't educate pork.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jun 22 - 08:39 PM

What is your Raggytash professional advice regarding DNA evidence?
8 years ago I held a Rembrandt drawing in Michigan, with security guard assistance.
Do you know the one about the $34 1st century marble Roman head?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 27 Jun 22 - 06:47 PM

Although interesting though they were Donuel and SRS, your last two posts have not concerned archaeology.

Could I politely suggest you start a new thread with such posts, perhaps entitled ancient art works.

Cheers

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jun 22 - 02:28 PM

https://news.artnet.com/market/jan-lievens-discovery-tefaf-2130975

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 22 - 02:12 PM

This isn't archeological (unless someone next digs up his bones): A ‘Sleeper’ Discovered at Auction Tells a Very Dutch Tale
A naval commander killed centuries ago has come back to life — artistically, at least — thanks to the persistence of a New York art dealer.

AMSTERDAM — In art world parlance, you’d call the drawing a “sleeper.” A small auction house in Massachusetts offered it for sale as a “an unidentified gentleman, initialed I.L., and dated 1652,” with an estimate of $200 to $300. Within about 10 minutes, it sold for half a million dollars.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jun 22 - 06:29 PM

perfectly preserved baby wooly mammoth found by gold miners in western Canada.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/06/24/mummified-woolly-mammoth-calf-discovered-by-gold-miners-in-yukon.html

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 25 Jun 22 - 10:04 AM

Pompeii excavation unearths remains of pregnant tortoise Animal thought to have been seeking place to lay egg in ruins of quake-hit home when Mount Vesuvius erupted. Archaeologists in Pompeii have discovered the remains of a pregnant tortoise that sought refuge in the ruins of a home destroyed by an earthquake in AD62 only to be covered by volcanic ash and rock when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The 14cm (5.5in) long Hermann’s tortoise and her egg were discovered during excavations of an area of the ancient city that, after being levelled by the quake, was being rebuilt for the construction of public baths, officials said Friday. Pompeii was then destroyed after the volcanic eruption in AD79 (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jun 22 - 08:04 AM

I know Paleontology is the study of fossils, while archaeology is the study of human artifacts and remains. Its getting to the point where all that separates the two are DNA traces. In popular culture it was assumed that ancient amber is nature's zip lock baggie for DNA. meh

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 22 - 05:48 PM

10,000 years ago during a recent ice age this supernova first exploded.
Now we call it the veil nebula.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 22 - 02:17 PM

The Bad Lands of North Dakota at the dry creekbed of Hell Creek is devoid of any green living thing but 66 million years ago it was full of life. It is here that the last day of the dinosaurs has been identified as being caused by the Chixalub Iridium asteroid.
chose" Dinosaurs the last day with Richard Attenbourough

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 22 - 08:37 PM

The taint land between Disney and Canaveral has ancient bodies so well preserved but fragile that brain tissue is intact unless shaken or stirred. Excavation is needed before rising salt water ruins the ponds.

PS Off shore the Bermuda triangle has analagous sites along a similar parallel. Maybe these sites are more than a place where rogue waves cause havoc. The legends are fun if they weren't so tragic.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Jun 22 - 08:16 AM

Mystery of Waterloo’s dead soldiers to be re-examined by academics Modern techniques to test traditional explanation that most bones from 1815 battle were ground into powder for fertiliser.

It was an epic battle that has been commemorated in words, poetry and even a legendary Abba song, but 207 years to the day after troops clashed at Waterloo, a gruesome question remains: what happened to the dead?

While tens of thousands of men and horses died at the site in modern-day Belgium, few remains have been found, with amputated legs and a skeleton unearthed beneath a car park south of Brussels among the handful of discoveries.

The long-held explanation is grisly: according to reports made soon after the conflict, the bones were collected, pulverised and turned into fertiliser for agricultural use. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 12:46 PM

One detail I find delightful:

> halfway between Disney World and Cape Canaveral.

.... between fantasy made manifest and science fiction made fact. I couldn't have made that up if I tried. I can see it now: scientists in hazmats converging from one side, and the Seven Dwarfs from the other. Which team will be whistling the Hi-Ho Song?

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 10:42 AM

The Windover Bog Bodies, Among the Greatest Archeological Discoveries Ever Unearthed in the United States t was only after the bones were declared very old and not the product of a mass murder that the 167 bodies found in a pond in Windover, Florida began to stir up excitement in the archeological world. Researchers from Florida State University came to the site, thinking some more Native American bones had been unearthed in the swamplands. They were guessing the bones were 500-600 years old. But then the bones were radiocarbon dated. It turns out the corpses ranged from 6,990 to 8,120 years old. It was then that the academic community became incredibly excited. The Windover Bog has proven to be one of the most important archeological finds in the United States.

In 1982, Steve Vanderjagt, the man who made the find, was using a backhoe to demuck the pond for the development of a new subdivision located about halfway between Disney World and Cape Canaveral. Vanderjagt was confused by the large number of rocks in the pond as that area of Florida was not known to be particularly rocky. Getting out of his backhoe, Vanderjagt went to investigate and almost immediately realized that he had unearthed a huge pile of bones. He called the authorities right away. It was only thanks to his natural curiosity that the site was preserved. After the medical examiners declared them ancient, the specialists from Florida State University were summoned (another brilliant move by Vanderjagt- too often sites are ruined because experts are not called). Deeply intrigued, EKS Corporation, the developers of the site, financed the radiocarbon dating. Once the striking dates were revealed, the State of Florida providing a grant for the excavation. (read on)

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 08:05 AM

It seems that rock formations (the Pinnacles, for example) look as interesting to us today and they must have looked to our distant ancestors. A good place to look for signs of ancient life.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Jun 22 - 07:54 AM

An astonishing Anglo Saxon graveyard was discovered last year on the line of the HS2 railway in the UK.




https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/16/stunning-anglo-saxon-burial-site-found-along-hs2-route

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 06:31 PM

I'd forgotten APOD, I used to have it bookmarked, thanks for the reminder. I've bookmarked it again.

The Pinnacles check out the tiny little tourists among the pinnacles

Mystery of Black Death’s origins solved, say researchers International team link spike in deaths at cemeteries in Kyrgyzstan in 1300s to start of plague pandemic

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 02:34 PM

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 22 - 12:39 PM

Western Australia desert in an area called the spires or towers. Time lapse shows more satillites than I am used to seeing.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Jun 22 - 08:44 PM

Beautiful picture Donuel, just where in Australia is it????

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 22 - 07:26 PM

Australian satillite sky

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jun 22 - 11:21 AM

First Australians ate giant eggs of huge flightless birds, ancient proteins confirm

Proteins extracted from fragments of prehistoric eggshell found in the Australian sands confirm that the continent’s earliest humans consumed the eggs of a two-metre tall bird that disappeared into extinction over 47,000 years ago.

Burn marks discovered on scraps of ancient shell several years ago suggested the first Australians cooked and ate large eggs from a long-extinct bird – leading to fierce debate over the species that laid them.

Now, an international team led by scientists from the universities of Cambridge and Turin have placed the animal on the evolutionary tree by comparing the protein sequences from powdered egg fossils to those encoded in the genomes of living avian species.

Humans were hard on charismatic megafauna on the North American continent as well. Over-hunting to extinction. Mammoths are one NA example.

Subject: RE: Armchair Archaeologist (via Google Earth)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jun 22 - 06:03 PM

very ancient wooden artifacts. The Clackton spear was mentioned in a news article - Wood 'shaped the whole of human history', says this expert, which is why we must protect trees so I went looking for info

Clacton Spear The Clacton Spear, or Clacton Spear Point, is the tip of a wooden spear discovered in Clacton-on-Sea in 1911. It is 400,000 years old and the oldest known worked wooden implement.(read on)

the article mentioned the Schöningen spears The Schöningen spears are a set of ten wooden weapons from the Palaeolithic Age that were excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. They were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools.[1][2][3][4] The excavations took place under the management of Hartmut Thieme of the Lower Saxony State Service for Cultural Heritage (NLD).
The age of the spears, originally assessed as being between 380,000 and 400,000 years old,[5][6][7][8] was estimated from their stratigraphic position, 'sandwiched between deposits of the Elsterian and Saalian glaciations, and situated within a well-studied sedimentary sequence.'[9] However, more recently, thermoluminescence dating of heated flints in a deposit beneath that which contained the spears date the spears to between 337,000 and 300,000 years old, placing them at the end of the interglacial Marine Isotope Stage 9.[10][11] The Schöningen spears thus postdate the earlier fragmented Clacton spear point, attributed to Marine Isotope Stage 11,[12][13] but remain the oldest complete wooden weapons (read on)