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Bones from rare Mesolithic cave burial rediscovered in England

Cannington Park
Cheddar Man lived in the Somerset area 9,000 years ago and was buried in Cheddar Gorge, where his nearly complete skeleton was discovered in 1903
Two boxes of human remains rediscovered after 55 years have been found to be as old as the Cheddar Man - Britain's oldest complete skeleton.

The bones were discovered in a cave in Cannington Park Quarry near Bridgwater, Somerset, in the 1960s.

Soon after they "disappeared", and were recently found at Somerset Heritage Centre near Taunton, Cotswold Archaeology said.

Radiocarbon dating has shown them to be more than 9,000 years old.

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Dishing the dirt on Denisova cave: A refuge for hominins and a home to bears, wolves and hyenas

denisova
© Dr Mike Morley, Flinders UniversityMicroscopic studies of sediment left in the cave includes fossil droppings left by predatory animals such as hyenas and wolves.
Fossil animal droppings, charcoal from ancient fires and bone fragments litter the ground of one of the world's most important human evolution sites, new research reveals.

The latest evidence from southern Siberia shows that large cave-dwelling carnivores once dominated the landscape, competing for more than 300,000 years with ancient tribes for prime space in cave shelters.

A team of Russian and Australian scientists have used modern geoarchaeological techniques to unearth new details of day-to-day life in the famous Denisova Cave complex in Siberia's Altai Mountains.

Large carnivores such hyena, wolves and even bears and at least three early nomadic human groups (hominins) - Denisovans, Neanderthals, and early Homo sapiens - used this famous archaeological site, the researchers say in a new Scientific Reports study examining the dirt deposited in the cave complex over thousands of years.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's: MindMatters: America Before: Comets, Catastrophes, Mounds and Mythology


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The earliest evidence for spears in Europe

A team of Japanese and Italian researchers, including from Tohoku University, have evidenced mechanically delivered projectile weapons in Europe dating to 45,000-40,000 years - more than 20,000 years than previously thought. This study, entitled "The earliest evidence for mechanically delivered projectile weapons in Europe" published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, indicated that the spearthrower and bow-and-arrow technologies allowed modern humans to hunt more successfully than Neanderthals - giving them a competitive advantage. This discovery offered important insight to understand the reasons for the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans.
Stone Artifact
© K.SanoA backed piece with an impact fracture from Grotta del Cavallo. The impact fracture demonstrates that this small stone artifact was used as a hunting weapon.
Apparently, Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Europe for at least 5,000 years. However, little is known about why modern humans could increase their population size after migrating to Europe and successfully occupy new territories, while autochthonous Neanderthals went extinct ~ 40,000 years ago.

The research team included 17 scientists from Italy and Japan, coordinated by the archaeologists Katsuhiro Sano (Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University) and Adriana Moroni (Department of Environment, Earth and Physical Sciences, University of Siena), and the paleoanthropologist Stefano Benazzi (Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna).

Butterfly

420,000 years ago archaic humans collected swan feathers in Qesem Cave, Israel

swan wing bone
© Ruth BlascoA swan wing found at Qesem Cave has marks that can only be from defeathering: Like among the ancient Owl People of Louisiana, feather-based ritual may have been a mark of respect, says Tel Aviv University's Ran Barkai.
Over a million years ago, archaic humans ate of the rat, did not shrink at the shrew and somehow caught and consumed birds too. No sign has yet been found that they harbored ritualistic or symbolic regard for micro-mammals, but regarding the birds at least — these ancient hominins didn't just eat them.

New evidence found at Qesem Cave, a Paleolithic site occupied on and off from about 420,000 years to 200,000 years ago, indicates that the hominids living there were going to some effort to remove the feathers from their prey.

That practice adds to indications from other sites throughout the history of human evolution that our ancestors not only exploited their environment but appreciated it too, says the team.

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Question

Körtik Tepe - Older than Göbekli Tepe?

Older than Gobekli Tepe, ...Located on the Tigris River, Körtik Tepe to me provides part of the answer to who built Gobekli Tepe...and were they hunter gatherers? This site was occupied 12,500 years ago to 11,700 years ago, right in the window of the Younger Dryas cataclysms 12,800 years ago and 11,600 years ago.
Kortik Tepe Excavations
© Hurriyet Daily NewsExcavations in Körtik Hill (Körtik Tepe) in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır’s Bismil district have unearthed more than 30,000 artifacts in 17 years.

Comment: Körtik Tepe, a new Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site in south-eastern Anatolia


Flashlight

Wemyss: The Scottish caves housing mysterious carvings from the Bronze Age to the Picts

Wemyss Caves
Wemyss Caves
The Wemyss Caves house mysterious carvings from as early as 300AD. In the face of natural and human threats, archaeologists are racing to decode them before they vanish.

Hidden beneath the medieval ruins of Macduff's Castle in Fife, Scotland, lies an even more ancient wonder: a series of 4,000- to 1,500-year-old carvings that archaeologists have yet to fully comprehend.

Inside the shadowy, red-tinged Wemyss Caves hide ancient etchings of animals, hunting scenes and what might be the first rendering of a Scottish ship. As archaeologists and historians work to unravel the meanings of these mysterious drawings, environmental and human threats are forcing them into a high-stakes race against time.

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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Origins of the Power Elite: Inequality and "The 1%"

inequality
© SOTT
According to Walter Scheidel in The Great Leveler, the only ways to equalize the distribution of wealth effectively have involved violence on a massive scale: famine, war, state collapse, revolution. But how did things get so inequal in the first place? Today on MindMatters we discuss the first chapter of Scheidel's book, which provides an overview of the history of inequality. From chimps and hunter-gatherers to the first farmers and the emergence of classes of elites, there has always been - and arguably always will be - inequality. But certain circumstances and practices have made things perhaps more extreme than they need to be. Especially since the advent of agriculture and the possibility of surplus production, elite classes of thieves and thugs (otherwise known as governments) have greatly exacerbated wealth inequality, and created new means accruing even more wealth and power to themselves. Join us today as we begin our discussion of inequality: is it good or bad, or both? And if it's inescapable, what can be done about its negative consequences?


Running Time: 01:15:12

Download: MP3 — 68.9 MB


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The temple of Queen Amastris possibly found at Black Sea coastal town

Ancient Ruins 2
© Arkeolojik Haber
Apparently belonging to a temple of columns and marble pedestals were found at Drilling excavations in the Amasra district of Bartın. It is estimated that the temple may belong to the temple of Queen Amastris, who gave the district its name.

Archeologists have discovered ancient pillars and pillar bases believed to be from the sanctuary of Princess Amastris in Turkey's northern Bartın province.

The pillars were found during drilling launched by Amasra Museum Directorate in the Amasra district in the port town.

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Pictish human remains found in Highlands may be of high status woman

pictish
© James McComas/TarradaleIt is believed the 1,400-year-old remains could be that of a woman.
A Pictish skeleton thought to be around 1,400-years-old has been found in the Highlands with the archaeologist who found the human remains speaking of his "eureka moment".

The bones were found at the site of what is believed to be a Pictish-era cemetery near Muir of Ord on the Black Isle.

Archaeologists did not expect to find any human remains given the acidic properties of the soil at the site.

But Steven Birch, who led the excavation on behalf of the North of Scotland Archaeological Society (NOSAS) made the discovery on the final day of the dig.

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Mysterious megastructures unearthed in Ukraine

Magnetic Anomaly
© Robert Hofmann, et al/CC by 4.0These magnetic anomalies in the soil at a site called Maidanetske clued the researchers into the existence of the megastructure that they eventually decided to excavate.
The excavation of a Stone Age community center in Ukraine is helping explain why large groups of tens of thousands of people flourished and then fell more than 5,000 years ago.

The "megastructure" excavated in Ukraine was large compared with the houses around it, though not particularly huge by modern standards. At 2,045 square feet (190 square meters), the structure was the size of a modest American home. However, some Eastern European megastructures were up to 18,000 square feet (1,680 square m) in size. Archaeologists have puzzled over these buildings, many of which have been discovered through methods that use magnetic anomalies in the soil to detect ancient structures. Now, the actual excavation of this one megastructure at a site called Maidanetske reveals that these buildings were used for everyday activities, like food preparation, storage and meals.

"It is similar to activities performed in normal houses," said Robert Hofmann, an archaeologist at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, who led the new research. "Somehow the intensity of these activities between normal houses and these megastructures is completely different."