Secret HistoryS


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Latest evidence shows that resin was used by Neandertals in central Italy

Neanderthals
© NASA
Archaeologists working in two Italian caves have discovered some of the earliest known examples of ancient humans using an adhesive on their stone tools-an important technological advance called "hafting."

The new study, which included CU Boulder's Paola Villa, shows that Neanderthals living in Europe from about 55 to 40 thousand years ago traveled away from their caves to collect resin from pine trees. They then used that sticky substance to glue stone tools to handles made out of wood or bone.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that suggests that these cousins of Homo sapiens were more clever than some have made them out to be.

"We continue to find evidence that the Neanderthals were not inferior primitives but were quite capable of doing things that have traditionally only been attributed to modern humans," said Villa, corresponding author of the new study and an adjoint curator at the CU Museum of Natural History.

That insight, she added, came from a chance discovery from Grotta del Fossellone and Grotta di Sant'Agostino, a pair of caves near the beaches of what is now Italy's west coast.
Flints bearing traces of resin
© Degano et al. 2019, PLOS ONEFlints bearing traces of pine resin. The letter "R" indicates the presence of visible resin, and the arrows point to spots where researchers sampled material for chemical analysis.
Those caves were home to Neanderthals who lived in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic period, thousands of years before Homo sapiens set foot on the continent. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 1,000 stone tools from the two sites, including pieces of flint that measured not much more than an inch or two from end to end.

In a recent study of the materials, Villa and her colleagues noticed a strange residue on just a handful of the flints-bits of what appeared to be organic material.

"Sometimes that material is just inorganic sediment, and sometimes it's the traces of the adhesive used to keep the tool in its socket" Villa said.

Archaeology

Paleontologists discover 12-foot bird that lived alongside early human relatives in Europe

Pachystruthio dmanisensis
© ANDREY ATUCHINThe giant flightless bird Pachystruthio dmanisensis, seen here in an illustration, lived in what is now the Black Sea region almost two million years ago and may have been a source of food for early human relatives.
Almost two million years ago, giant hyenas, saber-toothed cats, and camels roamed across the European continent, perhaps sometimes clashing with a few of our early human relatives. Now, in a surprise to paleontologists, it seems these Pleistocene mammals and our hominin cousins also shared their domain with an enormous bird that was almost 12 feet tall.

The discovery, described today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, represents the first giant flightless bird known to have lived in the Northern Hemisphere. The extinct animal, dubbed Pachystruthio dmanisensis, weighed in at a whopping 990 pounds-almost three times as much as its closest living relative, the ostrich.

"We think of [giant birds] in Madagascar, New Zealand, and Australia, but this is very solid evidence that they were also in the European region," says Helen James, curator of birds at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the new study.

People 2

Upper-class Viking men were buried with cooking gear

vikings
© Vikings in the West), published in 2009. (Illustration: Peter DuunScientists often imagine that men’s and women’s roles during the Viking Age were clearly differentiated, archaeologist Marianne Moen says. “The illustrations show women making food and holding children, while men were active, in battle,” she says. But maybe this wasn’t the way things were. The illustration is from “Vikinger i vest”
Marianne Moen says that gender roles during Viking times weren't nearly as differentiated as we might think.

"I think we need to move away from distinguishing between men's and women's roles during the Viking times," she said. Moen has completed her PhD on Viking Age gender roles at the University of Oslo. Her research shows that upper-class men and women generally were buried with the same types of items - including cooking gear.

Moen went through the contents of 218 Viking graves in Vestfold, a county on the southwest side of Oslo Fjord, and sorted the artefacts she found according to type. Many of the graves were richly equipped with everything from cups and plates to horses and other livestock.

Comment: Throughout most of humanity's history gender roles seem to have been rather clearly defined, and for obvious reasons that relate to the fundamental differences that are rooted in our biology. It seems that it's only in recent times, and in other periods where civilisation is in decline, where a vanishingly small portion of people in a society - perhaps like this 'gender' archaeologist - who attempt to blurr or subvert these differences. While it certainly is interesting that cookware is included in these upper-class men's burials, could it simply be evidence that the man was able to provide quality goods to his household and that they were wealthy enough that they could be buried with it? Or maybe he did cook, but does that really throw the question of gender roles into the mix?

On the issue of gender and it's influences, the article How genetics is proving that race is not necessarily a social construct notes:
For me, a natural response to the challenge is to learn from the example of the biological differences that exist between males and females. The differences between the sexes are far more profound than those that exist among human populations, reflecting more than 100 million years of evolution and adaptation. Males and females differ by huge tracts of genetic material - a Y chromosome that males have and that females don't, and a second X chromosome that females have and males don't.

Most everyone accepts that the biological differences between males and females are profound. In addition to anatomical differences, men and women exhibit average differences in size and physical strength. (There are also average differences in temperament and behavior, though there are important unresolved questions about the extent to which these differences are influenced by social expectations and upbringing.)
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Alarm Clock

Yazılıkaya: A 3000-year-old Hittite mystery may finally be solved

Hittite
© GettySome call Yazılıkaya in Turkey the Sistine Chapel of Hittite religious art
FOR 3200 years they have guarded their secret. The deities carved in limestone near the ancient city of Hattusa are as enigmatic as they are beautiful.

Perhaps no longer. A controversial theory suggests the ancient carvings may have functioned as a calendar, with a level of sophistication way ahead of its time. "It's not only a striking idea, it's reasonable and possible," says Juan Antonio Belmonte at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, Spain, who wasn't part of the work.

Hattusa was the capital city of the Bronze Age Hittite empire, based in what is now Turkey. A few kilometres to the north-east of Hattusa are the ruins of an ancient religious sanctuary centred on a large limestone outcrop.

Comment: If this was a calendar, considering the efforts that went into it, it must have been tracking and recording something of great import:



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What ancient humans live on in our DNA?

Neanderthal in CAve
© Yulliii/Shutterstock
When the Neanderthal genome was first sequenced in 2010 and compared with ours, scientists noticed that genes from Homo neanderthalensis also showed up in our own DNA. The conclusion was inescapable: Our ancestors mated and reproduced with another lineage of now-extinct humans who live on today in our genes.

When the Denisovan genome was sequenced soon after, in 2012, it revealed similar instances of interbreeding. We now know that small populations from all three Homo lineages mixed and mingled at various times. The result is that our DNA today is speckled with contributions from ancient hominin groups who lived alongside us, but did not survive to the present day. Genes from Denisovans and Neanderthals are not present in everyone's DNA - for example, some Africans have neither, while Europeans have just Neanderthal genes. But, these genetic echoes are loud enough to stand out clearly to scientists.

On one level, it's not shocking that DNA from other human groups resides within us. H. sapiens today is the result of millions of years of evolution; we can count numerous species of ancient hominin among our ancestors. But the Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions to our genetic makeup happened far more recently, after H. sapiens had already split from other human groups. Those interbreeding events, also called introgressions, did not create a new species of human - they enriched an already existing one. Some of the traits we acquired are still relevant to our lives today.

"There's a lot of evidence for some type of introgression from ancient hominins into modern humans, particularly modern humans out of Africa," says Adam Siepel, a computational biologists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "I don't think there's any real question among experts in the field as to whether the evidence overwhelmingly supports that event."
Finger Bone Fragment
© Thilo Parg/Wikimedia CommonsReplica of a Denisovan finger bone fragment, originally found in Denisova Cave in 2008, at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels, Belgium.
Some evidence also suggests that there may be more than two additional human groups lurking in our DNA, what researchers sometimes call "ghost lineages." Modern humans living in Africa may have interbred with one or more hominin species there, resulting in even more addition to our current DNA. And a recent study of modern-day Indonesians suggests that what we call Denisovans was actually three separate groups of hominins, at least one of which can be thought of as its own species. The ancestors of Asians and Melanesians mated with at least one of these groups, and possibly more.

Sherlock

Severe scurvy found in mouth of skull believed to belong to failed crusader king Louis IX

Louis IX
© J Stomatol Oral Maxillofac Surg (2019)An image of the jaw shows an 18th Century parchment attached identifying it as belonging to Louis IX. Credit: Charlier P, et al. The mandible of Saint-Louis (1270 AD): Retrospective diagnosis and circumstances of death.
One of the last crusader kings had scurvy when he died, a new forensic analysis finds - contradicting old narratives that he died of plague or dysentery.

The new find comes from an old jawbone that was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral. It was said to belong to Louis IX, a king of France who died besieging Tunis during the Eighth Crusade in 1270 and was later canonized as St. Louis. They found forensic evidence that the bone did indeed come from St. Louis, and that he had a severe case of scurvy when he died. The results of their examinations were made available online June 8 in the Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

Comment: So, it's not definitive that this was Louis IX, or whether the scurvy was because his diet consisted solely of fish. It is notable that during that time scurvy appears to have been widespread, and even in people of high status. Was it really caused by a seriously restricted diet - because there is evidence that the Inuit avoid scurvy by eating fresh meat and raw fish - or was it for another reason, perhaps because resources were scarce or the knowledge of how to prevent it wasn't known? Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: 'Muslim Hordes' - The Islamic origins of Western Civilization


Archaeology

'Russian Atlantis' where women were revered unearthed in Siberia

siberian atlantis
© RGO
Relics from not one, but two ancient peoples have emerged from the depths at a site dubbed the 'Siberian Atlantis.' The race is on to unearth as many artifacts as possible before the 50ft (15m) waters consume the site once more.

Treasures from two civilizations dating from the Bronze Age to the era of Genghis Khan were uncovered as the waters receded at a 240-square-mile site in the Tuva Republic in southern Siberia, the Siberian Times reports.
siberian atlantis
© RGO

Palette

Elaborate mosaics uncovered at massive and mysterious Roman villa in Spain

roman villa spain
© R.G./El PaisA section of the triclinium at the Roman villa of Noheda. This scene depicts Dionysus’ retinue, including centaurs,
musicians, satires and Silenus, represented as an old man riding a donkey
Once upon a time, there was an immensely rich man. He was so wealthy that he could afford to have wine sent from Syria to his home, nearly 5,000 kilometers away, even though this was back in the fourth century, in Roman Hispania. His estate, known as Villa de Noheda, was a testament to his great power: it covered more than 10 hectares, according to recent geo-radar measurements. Just his dining room (known in Roman as a triclinium) was 291 square meters, and it was decorated with mosaics fit for the palace of an emperor.

"This man really existed," explains Miguel Ángel Valero, professor of ancient history at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. His name is not yet known "but sooner or later, we'll find out," says Valero, who has spent a decade uncovering the dazzling features of the villa, which is located in Villar de Domingo, a hamlet of 218 inhabitants in Cuenca province, in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Julius Caesar - Evil Dictator or Messiah for Humanity?


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First evidence of humans cooking starches found in South African cave

Starchy Tubers
© Marco Verch/FlickrHumans have been cooking starchy tubers—not unlike the potato—far longer than was previously estimated.
More than 100,000 years ago, humans lived in the caves that dot South Africa's coastline. With the sea on their doorstep and the Cape's rich diversity of plant life at their backs, these anatomically modern Homo sapiens flourished. Over several millennia, they collected shells that they used as beads, created toolkits to manufacture red pigment, and sculpted tools from bones.

Now some of these caves, along the country's southern coast, have shed light on humanity's earliest-known culinary experiments with carbohydrates, a staple in many modern diets. Small pieces of charred tubers found at the Klasies River site in South Africa date back 120,000 years, making them the earliest-known evidence of H. sapiens cooking carbs, according to recent research published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The study joins a suite of new findings that illuminate the evolution of our ancestors' diet. For example, in recent years, scientists have determined that hominins have been eating meat for at least 2.6 million years-with some researchers contending that hominins were butchering bones for marrow as much as 3.4 million years ago. And hominins were roasting nuts, tubers, and seeds about 780,000 years ago. Humans specifically, as another South African find revealed, ate shellfish some 164,000 years ago. And last year, ancient crumbs revealed that H. sapiens has been eating bread for 14,400 years.

Cynthia Larbey, an archaeologist at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and lead author of the new study, suspects that roasting tubers provided critical nutrition to our species. "It was the way we were able to continue feeding ourselves as we moved and migrated," she says. Hunting was difficult and unreliable, so "it was a skill to be able to find food as they moved to different ecologies."

Dig

Ancient lead sarcophagus discovered during restoration works in Granada

sarcophagus
© Fermín RodríguezWorkers remove the sarcophagus in Granada.
When archaeologists began exploring underneath a building in Granada, in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, they weren't expecting to find anything of importance. After all, they were just completing a standard prospection of the Villamena building, as required for any planned underground work in the city to rule out the existence of historic remains. The survey was going ahead as planned. They found a few remains from the Christian era and from the days of Muslim rule, but nothing truly relevant.

The sarcophagus weighs between 300 and 350 kilograms

But before finishing the work, they decided to explore a little deeper. And that's when they found it: a Roman grave covered with sandstone and mud, 2.5 meters below the surface.