Secret HistoryS


Cow Skull

Human spines mounted on sticks found in 15th century graves in Peru, and archeologists think they know why

Marianne Guenot
Business Insider
Thu, 03 Feb 2022 10:39 UTC
spine
© Jacob L. BongersAn example a reassembled human spine found in Peru.
People in the Chincha valley of Peru threaded the spines of the dead onto wooden rods around 500 years ago, a mostly-unknown practice only recently documented by archaeologists.

It may have been an attempt to restore the bodies of the dead during the European colonization, according to a study by the researchers who unearthed 192 examples of such spines. They include the remains of children.

"Our findings suggest that vertebrae-on-posts represent a direct, ritualized, and Indigenous response to European colonialism," Jacob L. Bongers, lead author of the study and archaeologist from the University of East Anglia, UK, told Insider.

Comment: See also:

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Tattoos were for criminals and outcasts in ancient Greece

Anna Wichmann
Greek Reporter
Wed, 02 Feb 2022 18:36 UTC
Tattooed Greeks
© Twitter/Michael Lara/ Louvre MuseumA tattooed Thracian Maenad killing Orpheus is shown on a red-figure amphora.
Tattoos were considered a sign of "otherness" in ancient Greece, as it was either foreigners or slaves, criminals, and captives who had tattoos in ancient Greek society.

Body modification, such as tattoos and piercings, have been found throughout human societies across the word since the Neolithic times. Humans have felt the urge to modify their bodies with tattoos for various cultural, religious, and aesthetic reasons for centuries.

While tattooing developed independently across countless cultures, Greeks were among the first people to begin inking their skin, as historical records date ancient Greek tattooing to as early as the 5th century BC.

Tattooing has only become part of the mainstream in much of the world in recent decades, as it was previously linked to criminality in many places. A 2019 poll showed that three in ten Americans had at least one tattoo, and this number may be growing.
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Footprints

Tangled tale of NATO expansion at the heart of Ukraine crisis

Joe Luria
Consortium News
Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:00 UTC
NATO map
© NATO
The end of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union two years later presented the United States with a choice: triumphalism or reconciliation.

There was hope of a "peace dividend" because the fortune spent on armaments for so long could now be spent on domestic needs. The Warsaw Pact dissolved and there was hope that its counterpart, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, would also pass into history. Rather its expansion has become a flashpoint in the current standoff over Ukraine.

To assent to the reunification of Germany, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ultimately agreed to a proposal from then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker that a reunited Germany would be part of NATO but the military alliance would not move "one inch" to the east, that is, absorb any of the former Warsaw Pact nations into NATO.

On Feb. 9, 1990, Baker said:
"We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO's military organization to the East."
On the next day, then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said: "We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity."
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Comet 2

A comet impact 13,000 years ago may have reset ancient civilizations

Ivan Petricevic
Curiosmos
Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:13 UTC
asteroids hit Earth
© unknownIllustration showing asteroids impacting Earth
A massive cosmic impact (or disintegration) around 13,000 years ago may have caused the extinction of numerous animals on Earth, but also a catastrophic reset in developing ancient civilizations of the time.

Some 13,000 years ago, a massive comet fragmented and impacted Earth, changing a planet in more ways than one. The catastrophic collision was powerful. It is likely to have triggered a mass extinction on the planet, resetting along the way a number of ancient cultures that may have already been relatively well-developed at the time.

Around 13,000 years ago (12,800 to be precise), Earth cooled off rapidly.

Scientists have found that in the span of just a few years, the average temperate on Earth dropped abruptly, resulting in a climate as low as -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions of the planet's Northern Hemisphere. It was an extreme change, and scientists have found evidence that this cooler period lasted for up to 1,400 years, thanks to layers of ice found in Greenland.

This abrupt change in Earth's climate is defined by the so-called Younger Dryas theory, which marked the start of an abrupt decline in ice-age megafauna, leading to the extinction of around 35 different genera of animals in Northern America alone. During the Younger Dryas, not only animals went extinct. It is believed that this period also marked the abrupt decline among different cultures around the globe, including the Clovis culture in America. The catastrophic collision 12,800 years ago is now seen and widely accepted as leaving a profound imprint in many developing cultures, starting a kind of global reset.

Although many authors and scientists have theorized that such an event took place around 13,000 years ago, the evidence was scarce, albeit there.
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Genetic marker discovered for descendants of Robert the Bruce clan


The University of Strathclyde
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 20:36 UTC
Robert The Bruce
© My Medieval Genealogy - Robert the Bruce
A distinct genetic marker, carried by descendants of Robert the Bruce's close relatives, has been identified by researchers at the University of Strathclyde.

The genealogy researchers have found the marker in male line descendants of the Bruces of Clackmannan, who were related to Robert the Bruce, King of Scots from 1306 to 1329.

It is in the Y chromosome DNA of two different lines of descent from Robert Bruce, 2nd Baron of Clackmannan, who lived in the second half of the 14th century.

One of the descendants who has taken a test is Rollo Bruce, a retired textile research editor from Oxfordshire.

Although there are varying theories about the exact relationship between the Bruces of Clackmannan and King Robert the Bruce, there is a consensus that it was very close. In the Register of the Great Seal for 1365, a charter of King David II confirms a grant of lands in Clackmannan to Robert Bruce, who is described in Latin as dilecto et fideli nostro consanguineo (our beloved and faithful kinsman). This Robert is first mentioned in 1360 as the young heir of his father, Thomas Bruce.

The genetic marker has been given the name FTB15831.
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Oldest Buddhist temple discovered in Pakistan


Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Thu, 27 Jan 2022 16:50 UTC
Italian mission discovers ancient Buddhist temples in Gandhara, Pakistan.
An aerial view of the temple
© ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of VeniceAn aerial view of the temple.
One of the most ancient Buddhist temples in the world has been uncovered during the latest archaeological excavation campaign of the Italian mission in the city of Barikot, in the Swat region of Pakistan.

The findings date back to approximately the second half of the 2nd century BC, though they may be even older and date back to the Maurya period (3rd century BC) — only Carbon-14 dating will provide more solid evidence. This discovery sheds new light onto the forms of ancient Buddhism and its spread in old Gandhara, adding a piece to the puzzle of what we know about the ancient city.

The oldest Italian archaeological mission in Asia was started by Giuseppe Tucci in 1955 and is currently led by Professor Luca Maria Olivieri of Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Department of Asian and North African Studies). Since 2021, Ca' Foscari began a collaboration with ISMEO (the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies), which is jointly funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums KP Province (DOAM KP) and the Swat Museum.

"The discovery of a great religious monument created at the time of the Indo-Greek Kingdom testifies that this was an important and ancient centre for cult and pilgrimage. At that time, Swat already was a sacred land for Buddhism," says Professor Olivieri.
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Comet's fiery destruction led to downfall ancient Hopewell

Michael Miller
University of Cincinnati
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 17:33 UTC
UC researchers find evidence of cosmic cataclysm 1,500 years ago at 11 ancient sites.
UC Researchers
© Larry SandmanUniversity of Cincinnati researchers take sediment samples at a Hopewell site at the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami rivers. From left they are anthropology student Louis Herzner, biology student Stephanie Meyers, anthropology professor Kenneth Tankersley and UC geology alumnus Stephen Meyers.
The rapid decline of the Hopewell culture about 1,500 years ago might be explained by falling debris from a near-Earth comet that created a devastating explosion over North America, laying waste to forests and Native American villages alike.

Researchers with the University of Cincinnati found evidence of a cosmic airburst at 11 Hopewell archaeological sites in three states stretching across the Ohio River Valley. This was home to the Ohio Hopewell, part of a notable Native American culture found across what is now the eastern United States.

The comet's glancing pass rained debris down into the Earth's atmosphere, creating a fiery explosion. UC archaeologists used radiocarbon and typological dating to determine the age of the event.

The airburst affected an area bigger than New Jersey, setting fires across 9,200 square miles between the years A.D. 252 and 383. This coincides with a period when 69 near-Earth comets were observed and documented by Chinese astronomers and witnessed by Native Americans as told through their oral histories.

The study was published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
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Donut

Ancient Maya's sacred groves of cacao trees discovered

Todd Hollingshead, Brigham Young University
Phys.org
Mon, 31 Jan 2022 12:00 UTC
maya
© Richard TerryResearcher Chris Balzotti climbs an ancient staircase discovered in a sinkhole near Coba, Mexico.
As much as modern society worships chocolate, cacao — the plant chocolate comes from — it was believed to be even more divine to ancient Mayas. The Maya considered cacao beans to be a gift from the gods and even used them as currency because of their value.

As such, cacao bean production was carefully controlled by the Maya leaders of northern Yucatan, with cacao trees only grown in sacred groves. But no modern researcher has ever been able to pinpoint where these ancient sacred groves were located — until now.

Researchers at Brigham Young University, including professor emeritus Richard Terry and graduate students Bryce Brown and Christopher Balzotti, worked closely with archaeologists from the U.S. and Mexico to identify locations the Maya used to provide the perfect blend of humidity, calm and shade required by cacao trees. While the drier climate of the Yucatan peninsula is inhospitable to cacao growth, the team realized the vast array of sinkholes common to the peninsula have microclimates with just the right conditions.

Comment: It brings to mind a reference Graham Hancock makes in his book America Before that in the Amazon rainforest food crops like the Brazil nut and the ice cream bean tree are in such abundance when compared to other species of plant that researchers believe that they must have been intentionally cultivated: Also check out the MindMatters podcast on the book mentioned above: MindMatters: America Before: Comets, Catastrophes, Mounds and Mythology



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Pharoah

18,000 inscribed sherds documents life in ancient Egyptian city of Athribis


Universität Tübingen
Mon, 31 Jan 2022 17:38 UTC
The temple of Athribis
© IDW OnlineThe temple of Athribis
Egyptologists have recovered more than 18,000 inscribed sherds in ancient Athribis - the remains of vessels and jars that served as writing material some 2,000 years ago. The sherds, known as ostraca, document lists of names, purchases of food and everyday objects, and even writing from a school, including lines written by pupils as a punishment. It is very rare to find such a large volume of ostraca. They were recovered during excavations led by Professor Christian Leitz of the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen in cooperation with Mohamed Abdelbadia and his team from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

In ancient times, ostraca were used in large quantities as writing material, inscribed with ink and a reed or hollow stick (calamus). Such a large quantity of finds has only been made once before in Egypt, in the workers' settlement of Deir el-Medineh, near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. The ostraca now recovered provide a variety of insights into the everyday life of the ancient settlement of Athribis, nearly 200 kilometers north of Luxor.

Around 80 percent of the pot sherds are inscribed in Demotic, the common administrative script in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which developed from Hieratic after 600 BC. Among the second most common finds are ostraca with Greek script, but the team also came across inscriptions in Hieratic, hieroglyphic and - more rarely - Coptic and Arabic script.

They also discovered pictorial ostraca - a special category, says Christian Leitz. "These sherds show various figurative representations, including animals such as scorpions and swallows, humans, gods from the nearby temple, even geometric figures."
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Star of David

New Anne Frank book sparks scandal in Netherlands: Claims family was betrayed by Jewish collaborator


DutchNews.nl
Tue, 01 Feb 2022 11:12 UTC
anne frank house book
The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
The Dutch publishers of a new book about the betrayal of Anne Frank have delayed a decision about a second print run pending 'answers from the investigative team to questions that have arisen' following the publication earlier this month.

Ambo Anthos said in a letter to its authors that it apologised to everyone who felt offended by the book, which claims a Jewish notary was 85% certain to have handed the Frank's secret address to the Nazis.

The publisher, which bought the Dutch rights to the book four years ago, now says it should have been more critical about the book Who Betrayed Anne Frank? and that it had been caught up in the momentum toward its international unveiling.

The book was launched to a highly orchestrated publicity onslaught, including very strict rules for journalists given an advance copy.
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