http://www.sott.net/signs/list_by_category/19-Secret-History Signs of the Times: The World for People who Think. Featuring news and commentary on world events. en-us Original content Copyright 2012 by Signs of the Times/Sott.net. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net. Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:13:23 -0600 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241897-Claim-7-500-Year-Old-Stone-Toy-Car-Found-in-Eastern-Turkey The "toy car" is on display alongside toy dolls and whistles - all made out of stone - at the Mardin Museum [map]. Archaeologist Mesut Alp reports that the toy car is at least 7,500 years old - dating back to the late Stone Age. When speaking with the Cihan news agency and reporters with Todays Zaman, Alp insisted that the item is a toy car. Culture and Tourism Director of Mardin, Davut Beliktay, confirmed that the exhibit piece as a 7,500-year-old toy car. Beliktay said that the car is "like a copy" of cars today; adding that it also resembles a tractor. However, he didn't explain how a toy car could be 7,500 years old. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241897-Claim-7-500-Year-Old-Stone-Toy-Car-Found-in-Eastern-Turkey Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:12:47 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241896-20-000-Year-Old-Buildings-Discovered-in-Jordan A joint British, Danish, American and Jordanian team of archaeologists has discovered 20,000-year-old hut structures at the archaeological site of Kharaneh IV in eastern Jordan. According to the University of Cambridge, the discovery suggests that the area was once intensively occupied and that the origins of architecture in the region date back twenty millennia, before the emergence of agriculture. A paper, published in the journal PLoS-ONE, describes huts that hunter-gatherers used as long-term residences and suggests that many behaviors that have been associated with later cultures and communities, such as a growing attachment to a location and a far-reaching social network, existed up to 10,000 years earlier. "What we witness at the site of Kharaneh IV in the Jordanian desert is an enormous concentration of people in one place," said Dr. Jay Stock from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, a co-author on the paper. "People lived here for considerable periods of time when these huts were built. They exchanged objects with other groups in the region and even buried their dead at the site. These activities precede the settlements associated with the emergence of agriculture, which replaced hunting and gathering later on. At Kharaneh IV we have been able to document similar behavior a full 10,000 years before agriculture appears on the scene." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241896-20-000-Year-Old-Buildings-Discovered-in-Jordan Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:02:07 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241853-Egypt-Archaeologists-begin-restoring-ancient-boat-near-pyramids Cairo - Archaeologists on Monday began restoration on a 4,500-year-old wooden boat found next to the pyramids, one of Egypt's main tourist attractions. The boat is one of two that were buried next to the Pharaoh Khufu, spokesmen for a joint Egyptian-Japanese team of archeologists said. The boats are believed to have been intended to carry pharaohs into the afterlife. Khufu, also known as Cheops, is credited with building the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of the pyramids. Khufu, son of Snefru, was the second ruler of the 4th Dynasty around 2680 B.C. and ruled Egypt for 23 years. Both boats, made from Lebanese cedar and Egyptian acacia trees, were originally discovered in 1954. One of the boats is on display at a museum near the pyramids. The second boat, which is now undergoing the restoration, remained buried. It is thought to be smaller than its sister ship, which is about 140 feet (43 meters) long. The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mustafa Amin, said Egyptologists began taking samples of the wood for restoration on Monday. "The boat was found in a complete shape, intact and in place," he said, adding that the focus now is on taking samples of the wood. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241853-Egypt-Archaeologists-begin-restoring-ancient-boat-near-pyramids Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:04:05 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241809-Archaeologists-Make-Big-Find-at-Aztec-Temple-in-Mexico A total of 23 pre-Columbian stone plaques dating back approximately 550 years, with carvings illustrating such Aztec myths as the birth of the god of war Huitzilopochtli, were discovered by archaeologists in front of the Great Temple of Tinochtitlan in downtown Mexico City, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said. Bas-relief sculptures on slabs of tezontle (volcanic rock) relate the mythological origins of the ancient Mexica culture through representations of serpents, captives, ornaments, warriors and other figures, the INAH said in a statement. The pre-Columbian remains are of great archaeological value because this is the first time such pieces have been found within the sacred grounds of Tenochtitlan and can be read "as an iconographic document narrating certain myths of that ancient civilization," archaeologist Raul Barrera said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241809-Archaeologists-Make-Big-Find-at-Aztec-Temple-in-Mexico Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:50:31 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241745-US-Pyramids-in-Florida-and-Georgia-Constructed-by-Mayans- Around 200 AD Indians in Florida and Georgia began the construction of enormous earthen pyramids. At the same time corn also arrived in Florida. Corn is a native crop of Mexico and archaeologist William Sears, who first discovered this evidence of corn agriculture in Florida, argued in his book that it must have come from Mexico or Central America. One such earthen pyramid was constructed in the Florida panhandle at a site known today as the Letchworth-Love Mounds. This "mound," or more accurately "earthen pyramid," is the tallest such earthwork in Florida at over 46 feet high. Pottery collected from this site was mostly of a variety known as Weeden Island. Weeden Island pottery contains many designs and motifs which appear Mesoamerican in orign. Weeden Island pottery likely evolved from another type of pottery known as Swift Creek which was also decorated with a series of designs and symbols which several researchers have noted have a Mesoamerican-appearance. Across the border in Georgia another huge earthen pyramid was also constructed at the same time as Letchworth. The site, known as Kolomoki Mounds, also features large collections of both Swift Creek and Weeden Island pottery. The archaeologist who recently studied the site noted in his book, Kolomoki: Settlement, Ceremony & Status in the Deep South, that Kolomoki was the most populated settlement north of Mexico during its time period. The large pyramid at Kolomoki has a base larger than a football field and rises 57 feet high. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241745-US-Pyramids-in-Florida-and-Georgia-Constructed-by-Mayans- Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:25:39 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241728-Charlie-Chaplin-s-Real-Name-a-Mystery-Says-UK-Spies The real name and birthplace of legendary silent-film star Charlie Chaplin is shrouded in mystery, Britain's domestic spy agency concluded after a probe into U.S. claims he was a communist sympathizer, documents released on Friday revealed. British MI5 agents were asked in 1952 to investigate Chaplin's background by the FBI, which believed he was using an alias and that his real name was Israel Thornstein, over long-running U.S. suspicions about the actor's left-wing leanings. Chaplin, one of Hollywood's first and greatest stars famed for his Little Tramp character, believed he was born on April 16, 1889, in south London. But, an exhaustive search by MI5 found no record of his birth anywhere, nor anything to suggest he was any kind of security risk, declassified files from the spy agency revealed. "It's very unusual, particularly after investigation by MI5, for the date and place of birth for such a well-known celebrity as Charlie Chaplin to remain so mysterious," said Professor Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241728-Charlie-Chaplin-s-Real-Name-a-Mystery-Says-UK-Spies Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:45:14 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241708-Hitler-Had-Son-with-French-Teen Adolf Hitler had a son with a French teenager while serving as a soldier during the First World War, according to new evidence. Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War. His extraordinary story has now been backed up by a range of compelling evidence, both in France and in Germany, which is published in the latest edition of Paris's Le Point magazine. Hitler is said to have had an affair with Mr Loret's mother, Charlotte Lobjoie, 16, as he took a break from the trenches in June 1917. Although he was fighting the French near Seboncourt, in the northern Picardy region, Hitler made his way to Fournes-in-Weppe, a small town west of Lille, for regular leave. There he met Miss Lobjoie, who later told their son: "One day I was cutting hay with other women, when we saw a German soldier on the other side of the street. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241708-Hitler-Had-Son-with-French-Teen Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:55:43 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241705-Hitler-s-Secret-Photos-Reveal-Nazi-Leader-s-Vanity A collection of private photographs showing Adolf Hitler in a series of bizarre poses to rehearse his public speeches has been published. The album features black and white images of the Nazi leader using expressive hand gestures and unusual poses taken by his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. In one, he is seen raising his fist in the air while in another, he appears to be pointing to an imaginary audience. He is also seen leaning against a tree wearing lederhosen. The photographs, taken in the late 1920s to show the dictator how he appeared to the German public, were later banned from being published by Hitler for being "beneath one's dignity". http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241705-Hitler-s-Secret-Photos-Reveal-Nazi-Leader-s-Vanity Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:41:25 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241684-Garrow-s-Guilty-Secret His barnstorming performances in court rewrote the law books. But it was 18th-century barrister William Garrow's shocking love life that caused the biggest rumpus in Georgian society It was 1791, and chaos reigned in the Old Bailey courtroom. Men and women spat their abuse from the public gallery, the faces of bewigged legal officials remained impassive and in the dock, wringing his hands in abject misery, stood 23-year-old Rhynwick Williams. The search for the notorious London Monster - who had slashed and stabbed women in vicious, unprovoked attacks, thus striking fear throughout the capital - was apparently over. Corrupt and inept police, under intense pressure to find a man, had done just that. Williams, a drunken reprobate, had found himself hauled before court. It didn't matter that two honourable witnesses could testify that he had been with them when several of the attacks had occurred. All that mattered was that the baying crowd were about to get their blood. In these times of swift trials - many court hearings lasted just eight minutes - and death penalties meted out without hesitation, Williams' future looked bleak indeed - and everyone in court knew it. Suddenly, out of the chaos, stepped a young barrister. Grasping the attention of the court and the rabble in the gallery, he turned on those giving evidence and launched a savage verbal attack. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241684-Garrow-s-Guilty-Secret Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:45:18 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241664-Haunting-Sounds-at-an-Ancient-Peruvian-Site Vancouver - More than three millennia ago, ancient people flocked to Chavín de Huantar, a village in a high valley in the Peruvian Andes, to hear the oracles speak. And indeed they spoke - in the voice of resonant conch shell trumpets, and with the help of some clever architectural design, according to findings presented here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). The research suggests that the Chavín culture - and perhaps other ancient cultures - knew acoustic tricks that might be the envy of a modern concert hall engineer. Chavín de Huantar consists of terraces, squares, ornate megaliths, and a temple, and there's abundant evidence that it was used for religious ceremonies. The site also contains bas-relief sculptures sporting powerful animal imagery, including jaguars, condors, and snakes; images of hallucinogenic plants; and artifacts of the tools used to prepare them for consumption. Chavín de Huantar is particularly well suited to the study of ancient uses of sound, says Miriam Kolar, an archeoacoustics researcher at Stanford University. That's because the interior architecture contains elaborate, multilevel mazes with long corridors and staircases that affect acoustics today and are well enough preserved to detect what the original residents must have heard. What's more, ancient conch shell trumpets have been excavated in the village; when blown into, the shells make a haunting, warbling sound, and fossil conch shells are embedded in stones on the floor of the temple. Kolar played a recording of the conch shell trumpet at the meeting. "It's not very imposing over loudspeakers," she said. "But in person it rattles your bones." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241664-Haunting-Sounds-at-an-Ancient-Peruvian-Site Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:32:42 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241654-Prehistoric-cybermen-Sardinia-s-lost-warriors-rise-from-the-dust Archaeologists and conservation experts on the Italian island of Sardinia have succeeded in re-assembling literally thousands of fragments of smashed sculpture to recreate a small yet unique army of life-size stone warriors which were originally destroyed by enemy action in the middle of the first millennium BC. It's the only group of sculpted life-sized warriors ever found in Europe. Though consisting of a much smaller number of figures than China's famous Terracotta Army, the Sardinia example is 500 years older and is made of stone rather than pottery. After an eight year conservation and reconstruction program, 25 of the original 33 sculpted stone warriors - archers, shield-holding 'boxers' and probable swordsmen - have now been substantially re-assembled. The warriors were originally sculpted and placed on guard over the graves of elite Iron Age Sardinians, buried in the 8 century BC. The stone guardians are thought to have represented the dead individuals or to have acted as their eternal body-guards and retainers. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241654-Prehistoric-cybermen-Sardinia-s-lost-warriors-rise-from-the-dust Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:45:18 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241653-UK-Solent-s-Stone-Age-village-had-modern-high-street-links- Work on an 8,000-year-old Stone Age settlement under the surface of the Solent in Hampshire is throwing up evidence of clear parallels of the modern "high street", archaeologists say. After 30 years of excavating the area around Bouldnor Cliff, a boatyard was uncovered last summer, which teams have been working on ever since. Since The Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology spotted a swamped prehistoric forest in the 1980s, the Stone Age village was found by chance at the end of the last century. Divers taking part in a routine survey spotted a lobster cleaning out its burrow on the seabed and to their surprise the animal was throwing out dozens of pieces of worked flint - which turned out to be the first sign of the village. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241653-UK-Solent-s-Stone-Age-village-had-modern-high-street-links- Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:42:08 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241639-Stonehenge-Inspired-by-Sound-Illusion-Archaeologist-Suggests Theories about the purpose of Stonehenge range from a secular calendar to a place of spiritual worship. Now, an archaeologist suggests that the Stonehenge monument in southern England may have been an attempt to mimic a sound-based illusion. If two pipers were to play in a field, observers walking around the musicians would hear a strange effect, said Steven Waller, a doctoral researcher at Rock Art Acoustics USA, who specializes in the sound properties of ancient sites, or archaeoacoustics. At certain points, the sound waves produced by each player would cancel each other out, creating spots where the sound is dampened. It's this pattern of quiet spots that may have inspired Stonehenge, Waller told an audience Thursday (Feb. 16) in Vancouver, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The theory is highly speculative, but modern-day experiments do reveal that the layout of the Stonehenge ruins and other rock circles mimics the piper illusion, with stones instead of competing sound waves blocking out sounds made in the center of the circle. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241639-Stonehenge-Inspired-by-Sound-Illusion-Archaeologist-Suggests Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:34:30 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241634-Human-evolution-Cultural-roots Metal scrapes on hard sand as archaeologist Chris Henshilwood shaves away the top layer of sediment in Blombos Cave. After just a few moments, the tip of his trowel unearths the humerus of a pint-sized tortoise that walked the Southern Cape of South Africa many millennia ago. Next come shells from local mussels and snails amid blackened soil and bits of charred wood, all remnants of an ancient feast. It was one of many enjoyed by a distinct group of early humans who visited Blombos Cave over the course of thousands of years. The Still Bay culture was one of the most advanced Middle Stone Age groups in Africa when it emerged some 78,000 years ago in a startlingly early flourishing of the human mind. Henshilwood's excavations at Blombos Cave have revealed distinctive tools, including carefully worked stone points that probably served as knives and spear tips, and bits of rock inscribed with apparently symbolic designs. But evidence of the technology disappears abruptly in sediment about 71,000 years old, along with all proof of human habitation in southern Africa. It would be 7,000 years before a new culture appeared, with a markedly different toolkit, including crescent-shaped blades probably used as arrowheads. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241634-Human-evolution-Cultural-roots Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:54:12 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241580-Nikola-Tesla-Was-Murdered-by-Otto-Skorzeny- Otto Skorzeny's Deathbed Confession ... edited by Sir Vojislav Milosevic, Director, Center for Counter-terrorism & World Peace Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest and most gifted men ever to have walked this Earth. A huge amount has been written about the prodigal genius of Nikola Tesla and so there may not be a great need to say more here about his life, his brilliance, his vision, and his achievements. But in brief, Tesla was an extraordinary, intuitive, creative genius who, among a great deal else, invented alternating current (which powers the the modern world) and radio (for which Marconi is often falsely given credit). Contemporary biographers of Tesla have deemed him "the father of physics", "the man who invented the twentieth century", and "the patron saint of modern electricity". Much of his life's work was about providing for the world free (i.e. zero-cost) energy, which Tesla envisaged would be broadcast wirelessly through the air or through the Earth itself with no need for powerlines - but despite years of trying, he never obtained the funding to achieve this, one of his dreams. It has long since been rumored that he invented or developed a significant number of electrical and electronic devices which were decades ahead of their time and would have been of special interest to US military and intelligence circles. Around 300 patents were issued to Tesla in 25 countries, many of them major and far-reaching in concept. The reality of Tesla's murder was brought home to us after listening to this Youtube presentation. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241580-Nikola-Tesla-Was-Murdered-by-Otto-Skorzeny- Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:52:37 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241576-UK-Downton-s-greatest-secret-The-extraordinary-claims-about-a-real-life-Lord-Carnarvon Now here's a Downton Abbey storyline that writer Julian Fellowes would dismiss as too far-fetched: that the steely Earl of Grantham has no right to his title and should be booted out of the Abbey to make way for a distant cousin. Yet, in real life, this could indeed be the case for the poor unassuming 8th Earl of Carnarvon, whose family history has been plundered for the storyline of the top-rated TV series and whose stately home, Highclere Castle, is used as its backdrop. For new genealogical evidence points to the uncomfortable fact that Lord Carnarvon's grandfather may well have been the son, not of an English aristocrat, but of an Indian prince. Furthermore, there's evidence that the family knew about it and covered it up. If this is true, it would mean that the present earl, Eton and Oxford-educated George Carnarvon, has no right to his title, and that the privilege should pass to an unassuming 39-year old Devon teacher, Alan Herbert. The author of a new biography of 55-year old Lord Carnarvon's great-grandmother has unearthed explosive evidence which could alter the 218-year history of the famous title - and provide Julian Fellowes with some rich source material for the next series of Downton. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241576-UK-Downton-s-greatest-secret-The-extraordinary-claims-about-a-real-life-Lord-Carnarvon Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:20:31 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241553-Animal-Mummies-Discovered-at-Ancient-Egyptian-Site A wealth of new discoveries, from animal mummies linked to the jackal god and human remains to an enigmatic statue, are revealing the secrets of an ancient holy place in Egypt once known as the "Terrace of the Great God." The mysterious wooden statue may be a representation of Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh who ruled the land 3,500 years ago, the researchers say. She was typically portrayed as a man in statues, but this one, giving a nod to femininity, had a petite waist. The discoveries were made during one field season this past summer by a team led by Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner, director of the excavation and a professor at the University of Toronto. The findings offer insight into Abydos, a site that was considered a holy place, Pouls Wegner said at a recent meeting of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities in Toronto, Canada. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241553-Animal-Mummies-Discovered-at-Ancient-Egyptian-Site Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:22:00 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241475-Archaeologists-Strike-Gold-in-Quest-to-Find-Queen-of-Sheba-s-Wealth- A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba derived her fabled treasures A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures. Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator, who headed the excavation on the high Gheralta plateau in northern Ethiopia, said: "One of the things I've always loved about archaeology is the way it can tie up with legends and myths. The fact that we might have the Queen of Sheba's mines is extraordinary." An initial clue lay in a 20ft stone stele (or slab) carved with a sun and crescent moon, the "calling card of the land of Sheba", Schofield said. "I crawled beneath the stone - wary of a 9ft cobra I was warned lives here - and came face to face with an inscription in Sabaean, the language that the Queen of Sheba would have spoken." On a mound nearby she found parts of columns and finely carved stone channels from a buried temple that appears to be dedicated to the moon god, the main deity of Sheba, an 8th century BC civilisation that lasted 1,000 years. It revealed a victory in a battle nearby, where Schofield excavated ancient bones. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241475-Archaeologists-Strike-Gold-in-Quest-to-Find-Queen-of-Sheba-s-Wealth- Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:03:01 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241464-Malta-Workmen-discover-a-Muslim-cemetery Roadwork excavations in Marsa have revealed the archaeological remains of a Muslim cemetery dating back to 1675, confirming historians' belief of the existence of a Turkish slave cemetery in the area. The find is being documented and excavated by the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and an archaeologist specialising in documentation of human remains is closely following the investigation. The roadworks have been temporarily halted on the relevant sections until the preservation works are complete. Sections likely to be impacted by ongoing roadworks will be scienti-fically extracted and taken to the superintendence for further testing, analysis and conservation. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241464-Malta-Workmen-discover-a-Muslim-cemetery Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:17:13 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241463-Ethnic-Cleansing-in-a-Zionist-Fairyland 'De-Arabizing the history of Palestine is another crucial element of the ethnic cleansing. 1500 years of Arab and Muslim rule and culture in Palestine are trivialized, evidence of its existence is being destroyed and all this is done to make the absurd connection between the ancient Hebrew civilization and today's Israel. The most glaring example of this today is in Silwan, (Wadi Hilwe) a town adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem with some 50,000 residents. Israel is expelling families from Silwan and destroying their homes because it claims that king David built a city there some 3000 years ago. Thousands of families will be made homeless so that Israel can build a park to commemorate a king that may or may not have lived 3000 years ago. Not a shred of historical evidence exists that can prove King David ever lived yet Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly along with their schools and mosques, churches and ancient cemeteries and any evidence of their existence must be destroyed and then denied so that Zionist claims to exclusive rights to the land may be substantiated.' -- Miko Peled, Israeli dissident. Indeed, archaeology has become a state apparatus for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Zionist fairyland aka the City of David Archaeological Park located in the Palestinian village of Silwan in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is the proclaimed capital of the proposed Palestine state. It was illegally annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. Prohibiting annexation of territories gained by military conquest is one of the major principles of international law. The international community does not recognise Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem nevertheless over 50,000 illegal premises have been built for 250,000 illegal Israeli colonists. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241463-Ethnic-Cleansing-in-a-Zionist-Fairyland Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:11:58 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241430-India-Iron-Age-Satavahana-era-remnants-found-in-Andhra-Pradesh Hyderabad -- A team of archaeologists and historians have discovered remnants of Iron Age and Satavahana era from Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, a senior official said today. A series of 20 megalithic burial cairn circles have been reported on a hillock in Madugula village of Mahabubnagar region yesterday, AP Archaeology and Museums Department Director P Chenna Reddy said. "It's an important and first time discovery in Mahabubnagar," he said. An Archaeology team, headed by E Sivanagi Reddy, officer on special duty, discovered the site. The burials are encircled by 14 to 20 huge boulders, in which, the actual cist burials are topped by a huge capstone that are datable to 1000 BC, Chenna Reddy said. The team, in its explorations, discovered a huge Satavahana site in an extent of 100 acres, littered with bricks, brick bats, red polished ware (pottery of different sizes), shell bangle pieces, iron slogs and stone millers, datable to 1st century BC to 2nd century AD on the north-east corner of the village, he said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241430-India-Iron-Age-Satavahana-era-remnants-found-in-Andhra-Pradesh Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:57:47 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241429-Turkey-Acropolis-of-forgotten-kingdom-uncovered Istanbul - Numerous archaeological excavations are underway at a huge site in Anatolia which will uncover an ancient and rich yet forgotten kingdom known as Tuwana from the darkness of history, which will be featured in an open-air museum. The news was reported by Lorenzo d'Alfonso, an Italian archaeologist leading the joint mission by the University of Pavia and NYU, who provided details on the excavation campaign in a press conference in Istanbul this month, during which the details of the Italian archaeological missions in Turkey were explained. This "new discovery" from the pre-classical age which "needs to be continued" in southern Cappadocia took place in Kinik Hoyuk, the scholar said, referring to a site mainly involving the beginning of the first millennium BC. The area is "fully" part of the "forgotten kingdom" of Tuwana, said d'Alfonso, known until now through hieroglyphics and from several sources from the Assyrian Empire, but "never studied archaeologically": "A completely intact site that has been left untouched", trying to "place it historically to understand which civilisation it belonged to and what it's role was in the region". Kinik Hoyuk, the archaeologist said, is "one of the major sites" in terms of size in pre-classical Anatolia, if you leave the capital of the Hittites out: the most conservative estimates say that it spans 24 hectares "but topographers say that it could cover 81 hectares". http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241429-Turkey-Acropolis-of-forgotten-kingdom-uncovered Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:44:40 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241385-Canada-Scientists-Discover-an-Unusual-Stone-Circle-in-British-Columbia Although it resembles stone circles made by humans, scientists believe that an unusual ring of stones in British Columbia is a natural feature. Scientists investigated an unusual ring of stones that was discovered in the Chilcotin Range of British Columbia and concluded that the stone circle was likely deposited by glacial activity and is not of human origin. The results of their research were published in the December 2011 issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. The ring of stones is composed of white colored felsite rocks that are high in silica. The stones are arranged in circle nearly 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter above the tree line along the Chilcotin Range in British Columbia, Canada. The white rocks stand out in stark contrast to the other darker rocks in the region, which are composed of granitoid gneiss and grandodiorite. The circle can be seen easily from the air and by viewing the terrain on Google Earth. Many stone circles were created by humans during prehistoric times (approximately 3700 BC to 1500 BC). Archeologists believe that these circles were created either for use in religious ceremonies or as an aid in making astronomical observations. Europe contains a high number of stone circles of human origin, but examples of these structures can be found in other regions of the world as well. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241385-Canada-Scientists-Discover-an-Unusual-Stone-Circle-in-British-Columbia Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:03:03 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241351-These-Are-the-Earliest-Human-Paintings-Ever According to new dating tests, these are the first paintings ever made by humans. They are seals painted more than 42,000 years ago, located in the Cave of Nerja, in Málaga, Spain. And they may change our ideas about humanity's evolution. Until now, archeologists thought that the oldest art was created during the Aurignacian period, by modern humans. But these are way older, way more primitive than the ones in Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, the 32,000-year-old paintings featured in Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. According to the latest dating of the charcoal found next to the paintings - used either to make the paintings or illuminate them - these seals may have been made more than 42,300 years ago. In fact, they may be as old as 43,500 years. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241351-These-Are-the-Earliest-Human-Paintings-Ever Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:28:38 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241242-Did-Easter-Islanders-Mix-It-Up-With-South-Americans- The scattered islands of the vast Pacific Ocean were settled by seafarers who set out from the eastern coasts and islands of Asia and traveled thousands of kilometers by boat. Meanwhile pre-Columbian South America was populated by people who crossed a now-vanished land bridge far to the north. Did these two groups ever meet in the New World? There's a good chance of that, according to a new study, which finds evidence that Easter Islanders may have reached South America and mixed with the Native Americans already there. University of Oslo immunologist Erik Thorsby first began analyzing the people of Easter Island in 1971 to see if he and colleagues could detect traces of an early contribution of Native Americans to Polynesians. He believes that his recent finds may show that Native Americans may have accompanied Polynesians from the coast of South America to Easter Island before the arrival of Europeans. The island, also called Rapa Nui, is a remote and rocky place 3700 kilometers west of the coast of South America. The people were forcibly deported to Peru in the 1860s and enslaved; therefore, evidence of mixed Polynesian and Native American genes may stem from this time. But Thorsby was able to use blood samples from the islanders, collected since the 1970s, to examine their DNA for particular genetic markers. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241242-Did-Easter-Islanders-Mix-It-Up-With-South-Americans- Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:29:11 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241202-Ancient-Fortress-Proof-Hill-of-Jonah-Was-Inhabited Remains of thick stone walls uncovered recently atop a hill in Israel - where tradition says the prophet Jonah was buried - indicate the site was occupied during the time of the prophet, almost 3,000 years ago. The Israeli Antiquities Authority announced the discovery, on Giv'at Yonah (the Hill of Jonah) above the modern city Ashdod, today (Feb. 6). Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures tell of the prophet Jonah, who at first fled God's instructions to preach against wickedness in Nineveh, an ancient city in Iraq. After spending three days and three nights inside the belly of a fish or whale Jonah was forgiven by God and released. According to the story, he then went to Nineveh and persuaded the inhabitants to repent. According to some traditions, including Muslim lore, Jonah was buried on Giv'at Yonah. This new discovery does not provide any archaeological evidence of Jonah's tomb. However, it, along with other evidence unearthed atop the hill, show Giv'at Yonah was occupied during the time of Jonah, the late seventh and early eighth centuries B.C., according to Sa'ar Ganor, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241202-Ancient-Fortress-Proof-Hill-of-Jonah-Was-Inhabited Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:48:43 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241181-The-Triumphant-Beast My husband and I had a conversation in bed last night that I'm going to share with you. Don't be shocked! You should have figured out by now that pillow-talk between a mathematical physicist and a historian is probably not what you would call a racy conversation! But I guess that depends on what you think is "racy." Anyway, I was telling him about some things that were weighing on my mind as a result of the book I am currently reading: The Origin of Comets by Clube, Bailey and Napier. The topics covered in the book include the more-than-dismal record of science in the fields of astronomy and cosmology. I was bemoaning how incredibly backwards our Science of today truly is because of all the great ideas that have been quashed by governments and religions in the interests of control of the masses and that has led to the dire state of our world and so-called 'civilization'. As I wrote in "Dark Ages and Inquisitions": Science took a serious wrong turn in the middle of the nineteenth century, about the time Darwin published his Origin of Species and that is why we do, indeed, live in a Dark Age as a consequence. It wasn't that Natural Selection was wrong, per se, but the way the principles have been applied has been disastrous. Natural Selection was seized upon as the one and only underlying law of the Universe - and this seizing was done by individuals with a very particular psychological make-up as we will see. The same kinds of people that become uber-religious and kill people in the name of their god, can - and often do - become adherents of the religion of science. [...] [I]n the nineteenth century, certain discoveries led to economic and political considerations, and that is when Science took the wrong turn because those folks who tend to black and white thinking also have other character traits that include a need to dominate others, as well as a strong tendency to greed. The pursuit of science became a career rather than a hobby, and an army of scientific workers was sought to serve the agendas of what was to become known as the Military-Industrial Complex. My husband, as some of you know, is currently working on a book about the corruption of science in modern times, (to be released in late Spring/early Summer) and he had a story to tell me during our bedtime chat. Apparently, back in the 1930s, a man named Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss astronomer working at CalTech, came up with the idea of Dark Matter. Zwicky used mathematics to infer the average mass of galaxies and obtained a value about 160 times greater than expected from their luminosity, and proposed that most of the matter was dark. So, what's my point? Zwicky was correct, but nobody believed him since he had a reputation of being "eccentric". Now, what is wrong with that last sentence? Did you catch it? Nobody BELIEVED Zwicky. What that means is, BELIEF blocked all of the scientific community from doing one, simple, scientific thing: check the math! And so, for over 30 years, science was ignorant of Dark Matter and all the work - entire careers - of hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of individuals, was lacking a key piece of data. Because nobody believed Zwicky. They didn't bother to check his math because he was "eccentric." That is to say, he was not an authoritarian follower. Authoritarian followers have the psychological characteristic known as right-wing authoritarianism. This personality trait consists of authoritarian submission, a high degree of submission to the established authorities in one's society; authoritarian aggression, aggression directed against various persons in the name of those authorities; and conventionalism, a strong adherence to the social conventions endorsed by those authorities. Why do psychologists call authoritarian followers "right-wing" authoritarians? Are they all members of a conservative political party? No. Right-wing is used here in a psychological sense, meaning wanting to please established authority. One of the original meanings of the adjective right (riht in Old English) was "lawful, proper, correct," which in those long ago days meant doing what your local lord and the king wanted. - Cambridge Dictionary of Psychology Over and over again it is seen, in retrospect, of course, that irrational beliefs that are promulgated by authorities who desire to maintain control, and believed by the followers who want to be 'good', trump True Science; and here I mean the mode of Scientific Cognition, not just 'science' since the so-called Enlightenment. Over and over again, throughout history, going back even to ancient times, you can note that there were a few really intelligent free thinkers who made observations, drew useful inferences from those observations, and suggested solutions that were ignored, ridiculed, reviled, buried; and often, the thinker who dared to voice his ideas was destroyed by one means or another because Authoritarian Followers are also aggressive against anything that is not pronounced to be 'okay' by their leaders. Most often this destruction was - and is even today - due to power considerations: the individual has an idea that, in some way, threatens the political/social power structure. Why is it, one has to ask, that truth is so threatening to power? http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241181-The-Triumphant-Beast Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:45:39 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241176-Ancient-Greek-Medicine-Found-in-Greek-Shipwreck In 130 BC, a ship fashioned from the wood of walnut trees, bulging with medicines and Syrian glassware, sank off the coast of Tuscany, Italy. Archaeologists found its precious load 20 years ago and now, for the first time, archaeobotanists have been able to examine and analyse pills that were prepared by the physicians of ancient Greece. DNA analyses show that each millennia-old tablet is a mixture of more than 10 different plant extracts, from hibiscus to celery. "Medicinal plants have been identified before, but not a compound medicine, so this is really something new," says Alain Touwaide, director of the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, which has the world's largest digital database of medical manuscripts. The pills, which researchers believe were diluted with vinegar or water to make them easier to ingest, were preserved inside tin boxes and were the size of coins. "What is remarkable is that we have written evidence [from the ancient Greeks] of what plants were used for which disorders," says Alisa Machalek, a science writer for the National Institute of Health, one of the world's leading research centres. "This research is interesting, especially for medical historians, because it confirms that what we eat affects our bodies." The shift toward synthetic chemical medicines occurred in the 20th Century, but according to Mark Blumenthal, the founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council, there is renewed interest in the medicinal benefits of natural foods - including those found in the pills. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241176-Ancient-Greek-Medicine-Found-in-Greek-Shipwreck Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:21:44 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241161-JFK-s-Teen-Mistress-Addresses-Relationship-Pol-s-Cold-War-Fears-in-Memoir She always called him "Mr. President" - not Jack. He refused to kiss her on the lips when they made love. But Mimi Alford, a White House intern from New Jersey, was smitten nonetheless. She was in the midst of an 18-month affair with the most powerful man in the world, sharing not only John F. Kennedy's bed but also some of his darkest and most intimate moments. In her explosive new tell-all, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath, Alford, now a 69-year-old grandmother and retired New York City church administrator, sets the record straight in searingly candid detail. The book, out Wednesday was bought by The Post at a Manhattan bookstore. In the summer of 1962, Alford was a slender, golden-haired 19-year-old debutante whose finishing-school polish and blueblood connections had landed her a job in the White House press office. Four days into her internship, she was invited by an aide to go for a midday swim in the White House pool, where the handsome, 45-year-old president swam daily to ease chronic back pain. JFK slid into the pool and floated up to her. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/241161-JFK-s-Teen-Mistress-Addresses-Relationship-Pol-s-Cold-War-Fears-in-Memoir Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:06:06 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/152271-Chaos-and-Consent-The-Logistics-of-the-One-World-Government Reading "Columnist Calls for Internet "Quality Control" to Quash Dissent sent absolute shivers up my spine. As I posted on my Facebook Wall: "Is it just me noticing the increasing lock-down, the increasing propaganda FOR lockdown and abrogation of human rights, and the masses seem to be sleep-walking through it all?" But what is happening has happened before in many times and places; it's just that now it seems to be spread over the entire globe. Just so you know, I'm not one of those who is taken in by the saber-rattling war propaganda. That too, has happened before and before and before. It's a ruse, a drama played out between ostensible adversaries to keep the masses afraid and loaded with stress so that they will welcome draconian controls everywhere. Another thing that has happened before is the end result of such dramas: mass death and destruction AKA "collateral damage". A few comments on my FB wall indicate that I am not alone in what I see. One poster wrote: "Not just sleep-walking, but sycophantically justifying their own abuse and mindlessly trying the same failed methods to "solve" it over and over. It's been said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different." (HB) That's it, exactly. Psychopaths in power never seem to be able to get it that the end result is always and ever the same: the germs do not realize that they will be burned alive in the fire to which the body they have infected and killed will be consigned. Another comment was: "This is the long-planned and meticulously coordinated recrudescence, on a global scale, of Nazism." (DST) Exactly. And that is why I am resurrecting this topic which I wrote about back in 2008, back when Bush - remember Bush, the guy who was the puppet who got all this mess started? - was still president of the U.S. The article was focused mainly on Bush and the U.S., but since then, so many other world leaders and nations have gotten on the Totalitarian/Fascist/Nazi bandwagon that I have done a little re-working of the piece to bring it up to date. Back then I wrote: Reading Robert Parry's When a Great Power Goes Mad gave me the shivers especially when I read: With the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the grim milestone of 4,000 US dead, the nation has been awash with news retrospectives on the war and speeches by politicians, mostly offering sanitized versions of what's transpired. [...] In the news media, there were specials, including a much-touted PBS "Frontline" two-parter on "Bush's War" which followed the mainstream line of mostly accepting the Bush administration's good intentions while blaming the disaster on policy execution - a lack of planning, bureaucratic rivalries, rash decisions and wishful thinking. [...] Remaining outside the frame of mainstream U.S. debate was any serious examination of the [Iraq] war's fundamental illegality. During the post-World War II trials at Nuremberg, the United States led the world in decrying aggressive war as "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Yet, "Frontline" and other mainstream U.S. news outlets shy away from this central fact of the Iraq War: by invading Iraq without the approval of the U.N. Security Council and under false pretenses, the Bush administration released upon the Iraqi people "the accumulated evil of the whole" - and committed the "supreme" war crime. An obvious reason why the mainstream U.S. press can't handle this truth is that to do so would mean that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, a host of other U.S. officials and even some prominent journalists could be regarded as war criminals. To accept that reality would, in turn, create a moral imperative to take action. And that would require a great disruption in the existing U.S. power structure, which hasn't changed much since Bush won authorization from Congress in October 2002 to use force and then invaded Iraq in March 2003. Not only are Bush and Cheney still in office - and two of the three remaining presidential candidates, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, voted for the war - but the roster of top Washington journalists remains remarkably intact from five years ago. We realize, of course, since the above was written, that even Barack Obama - supposed to be the NKOTB who was not part of the insiders was, in fact, very much an insider and selected to carry on the Bush/Neocon/Fascist legacy. The only "change" that Obama has brought has been more of the same and worse. It is obvious to many, though certainly not to everyone, that the World Body Social, following the Pied Pipers of the Body Politic have increasingly lost their ability to think rationally and perceive psychological reality with even a modicum of common sense. Almost the whole planet has descended into half-wittedness with its growing intellectual deficiencies and moral failings. Any group of people that can sit down and discuss the Iraq War as though it were anything other than a War Crime of the highest order, or debate whether or not waterboarding is torture, or whether or not torture is acceptable in this or that situation, has lost not only their moral compass, but their qualification as sentient beings on the evolutionary scale. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/152271-Chaos-and-Consent-The-Logistics-of-the-One-World-Government Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:40:29 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240999-Did-Leonardo-da-Vinci-Copy-His-Famous-Vitruvian-Man- Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a male figure perfectly inscribed in a circle and square, known as the Vitruvian Man, illustrates what he believed to be a divine connection between the human form and the universe. Beloved for its beauty and symbolic power, it is one of the most famous images in the world. However, new research suggests that the work, which dates to 1490, may be a copy of an earlier drawing by Leonardo's friend. Another illustration of a divinely proportioned man - the subject is Christ-like, but the setting is strikingly similar to Leonardo's - has been discovered in a forgotten manuscript in Ferrara, Italy. Both drawings are depictions of a passage written 1,500 years earlier by Vitruvius, an ancient Roman architect, in which he describes a man's body fitting perfectly inside a circle (the divine symbol) and inside a square (the earthly symbol). It was a geometric interpretation of the ancient belief that man is a "microcosm": a miniature embodiment of the whole universe. Leonardo and other scholars revived this vainglorious notion during the Italian Renaissance. After decades of study, Claudio Sgarbi, an Italian architectural historian who discovered the lesser known illustration of the Vitruvian Man in 1986, now believes it to be the work of Giacomo Andrea de Ferrara, a Renaissance architect, expert on Vitruvius, and close friend of Leonardo's. What's more, Sgarbi believes Giacomo Andrea probably drew his Vitruvian man first, though the two men are likely to have discussed their mutual efforts. Sgarbi will lay out his arguments in a volume of academic papers to be published this winter, Smithsonian Magazine reports. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240999-Did-Leonardo-da-Vinci-Copy-His-Famous-Vitruvian-Man- Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:43:58 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240965-Treasure-Hunter-Says-He-Found-3B-WWII-Wreck A treasure hunter said Wednesday he has located the wreck of a British merchant ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Cape Cod during World War II while carrying what he claims was a load of platinum bars now worth more than $3 billion. If the claim proves true, it could be one of the richest sunken treasures ever discovered. But an attorney for the British government expressed doubt the vessel was carrying platinum. And if it was, in fact, laden with precious metals, who owns the hoard could become a matter of international dispute. Treasure hunter Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research in Gorham, Maine, announced that a wreck found sitting in 700 feet of water 50 miles offshore is that of the S.S. Port Nicholson, sunk in 1942. He said he and his crew identified it via the hull number using an underwater camera, and he hopes to begin raising the treasure later this month or in early March with the help of a remotely operated underwater vessel. "I'm going to get it, one way or another, even if I have to lift the ship out of the water," Brooks said. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240965-Treasure-Hunter-Says-He-Found-3B-WWII-Wreck Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:12:06 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240959-Oldest-Known-Crocodile-Had-a-Shield-Like-Head-Study The oldest known species of crocodile had an armor-plated head and a body half the length of a subway car, according to research released Tuesday by US scientists who identified the now-extinct creature. Nicknamed "Shieldcroc" for its impressive head plate, the aquatic reptile swam in the waters of Africa some 95 million years ago and is the newest discovery of an ancient crocodile species, said the study in the journal PLoS ONE. University of Missouri anatomy professor Casey Holliday identified the croc, Aegisuchus witmeri, by studying a fossilized partial skull specimen that was first discovered in Morocco. The croc's shield was likely used as a way to intimidate foes, attract mates and even control its head temperature, researchers said. Its head was considerably flatter than other known species of crocodile. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240959-Oldest-Known-Crocodile-Had-a-Shield-Like-Head-Study Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:39:29 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240955-Earliest-copy-of-Mona-Lisa-found-in-Museo-Nacional-de-Prado A painting thought to be the earliest replica of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa has been discovered at Madrid's Prado Museum. Experts say the painting was completed at the same time as Leonardo's original A copy of the Mona Lisa has been discovered in the Prado which was painted in Leonardo's studio - created side by side with the original that now hangs in the Louvre. This sensational find will transform our understanding of the world's most famous picture. Conservators at the Prado in Madrid recently made an astonishing discovery, hidden beneath black overpaint. What was assumed to be a replica of the Mona Lisa made after Leonardo's death had actually been painted by one of his key pupils, working alongside the master. The picture is more than just a studio copy - it changed as Leonardo developed his original composition. The final traces of overpaint are now being removed by Prado conservators, revealing the fine details of the delicate Tuscan landscape, which mirrors the background of Leonardo's masterpiece. Darkened varnish is also being painstakingly stripped away from the face of the Mona Lisa, giving a much more vivid impression of her enticing eyes and enigmatic smile. In the Louvre's original, which will not be cleaned in the foreseeable future, Lisa's face is obscured by old, cracked varnish, making her appear almost middle aged. In the Prado copy we see her as she would have looked at the time - as a radiant young woman in her early 20s. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240955-Earliest-copy-of-Mona-Lisa-found-in-Museo-Nacional-de-Prado Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:10:53 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240931-Scotland-Archaeologists-and-Pagans-Alike-Glory-in-the-Brodgar-Complex Let's not jump to conclusions about ritual significance, but this site is clearly immensely important to ancient British history Archaeologists are notoriously nervous of attributing ritual significance to anything (the old joke used to be that if you found an artefact and couldn't identify it, it had to have ritual significance), yet they still like to do so whenever possible. I used to work on a site in the mid-1980s - a hill fort in Gloucestershire - where items of potential religious note occasionally turned up (a horse skull buried at the entrance, for example) and this was always cause for some excitement, and also some gnashing of teeth at the prospect of other people who weren't archaeologists getting excited about it ("And now I suppose we'll have druids turning up"). The Brodgar complex has, however, got everyone excited. It ticks all the boxes that make archaeologists, other academics, lay historians and pagans jump up and down. Its age is significant: it's around 800 years older than Stonehenge (although lately, having had to do some research into ancient Britain, I've been exercised by just how widely dates for sites vary, so perhaps some caution is called for). Pottery found at Stonehenge apparently originated in Orkney, or was modeled on pottery that did. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240931-Scotland-Archaeologists-and-Pagans-Alike-Glory-in-the-Brodgar-Complex Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:19:36 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240915-Closest-Photos-of-Uncontacted-Tribe-Reveal-Hidden-Way-of-Life New images of an uncontacted Peruvian tribe reveal a small band of people, clad in little more than beads and bands of fabric, sitting by a river in the southeastern part of the country. The photographs, released by advocacy group Survival International, are the closest-ever glimpse of uncontacted Indians ever caught on camera, according to the organization. They provide considerably more detail than earlier images taken from aircraft over settlements. The people in the photograph belong to the Mashco-Piro tribe. This tribe likely descends from a group that was attacked and displaced in 1894, when rubber baron Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald encroached on their ancestral lands. Surviving members of the tribe maintain voluntary separation from the outside world, though oil exploration may be encroaching on their solitude, according to Survival International. The dangers inherent in contacting tribes who'd rather be uncontacted came to the forefront this November, when a local Peruvian man of the Matsigenka tribe, Nicolas Shaco Flores, was found shot through the heart by a Mashco-Piro arrow. Flores had long been in touch with the tribe, albeit at a distance, wrote anthropologist and friend Glenn Shepard on his blog "Notes from the Ethnoground." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240915-Closest-Photos-of-Uncontacted-Tribe-Reveal-Hidden-Way-of-Life Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:05:08 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240861-Penn-Research-Finds-Genetic-Link-Between-Native-Americans-Russian-Region By comparing DNA samples from hundreds of volunteers, a Penn anthropologist and his colleagues have tied Native Americans to a group of people living in a small region of Russia called the Altai, near the borders of Mongolia, China, and Kazakstan. The results, published in Friday's issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, add another chapter to the story of the settlement of the Americas. Increasingly efficient DNA technology is helping scientists flesh out the prehistory of the Native Americans and of the human race in general. Archaeologists have long surmised that Native Americans came from Asia, migrating to Alaska during a time when sea levels were lower and it was possible to walk over the Bering Strait. But these latest results use the most complete genetic profiling done on the Asian and American sides, offering new insights into the ancestry of Native Americans, the routes they took to the New World, and the timing of the migration. Artifacts show that humans were living in North America 15,000 years ago; they reached the tip of South America over the next 2,000 years. Using techniques akin to DNA fingerprinting, scientists have continued to gather evidence that the majority of current native people of North and South America derive their ancestry from Asia. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240861-Penn-Research-Finds-Genetic-Link-Between-Native-Americans-Russian-Region Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:58:01 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240835-Hitler-Painting-Fetches-32-000-in-Slovak-Auction A 1913 painting by Nazi Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler sold for 32,000 euros ($42,300) in a Slovak internet auction on Sunday, the Darte auction house said. The starting price for the painting titled Maritime Nocturno was set at 10,000 euros, while an expert put its value at 25,000 euros, said Darte, which sold the painting in a closed VIP auction. The mixed-media painting depicts a full moon over a glittering seascape. "The painting has been offered for sale by an unnamed family of a Slovak painter who probably met Hitler personally when he was struggling to become an artist in Vienna during the early 20th century," Darte owner Jaroslav Krajnak said earlier. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240835-Hitler-Painting-Fetches-32-000-in-Slovak-Auction Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:48:39 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240757-Sugar-High-The-Dark-History-and-Nasty-Methods-Used-to-Feed-Our-Sweet-Tooth Sugar is now 20 percent of the American diet, but it's not just our health that suffers from its pervasiveness. Americans think an awful lot about sucrose -- table sugar -- but only in certain ways. We crave it and dream up novel ways to combine it with other ingredients to produce delectable foods; and we worry that we eat too much of it and that it is making us unhealthy or fat. But how often do Americans think about where sugar actually comes from or the people who produce it? As a tropical crop, sugarcane cannot grow in most U.S. states. Most of us do not smell the foul odors coming from sugar refineries, look out over vast expanses of nothing but sugarcane, or speak to those who perform the hard labor required to grow and harvest sugarcane. Of course, sugar can be made from beets, a temperate crop, and more than half of sugar produced in the United States is. But globally, most of the story of sugar, past and present, centers around sugarcane, not beets, and as biofuels become more common, it is sugarcane that is cultivated for ethanol. What's more, some conscious eaters avoid beet sugar as most of it is now made from genetically modified sugar beets. While I do not fool myself that sugar is "healthy," if I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I prefer cane sugar, maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey over the other choices: beet sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Of the bunch, most Americans can find only honey and perhaps maple syrup sustainably and locally produced, but cane sugar is often the most versatile product for baking. As a major consumer of cane sugar, I was disturbed to learn the realities of cane sugar production when I visited a sugarcane-producing area in Bolivia. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240757-Sugar-High-The-Dark-History-and-Nasty-Methods-Used-to-Feed-Our-Sweet-Tooth Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:58:11 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240724-Einstein-Letters-About-Nazis-to-be-Auctioned-in-US Three letters by Albert Einstein to a American-German group which campaigned against the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s will go on the auction block in Los Angeles next week. In one, the father of relativity praises the "Friends of Truth," a Cincinnati-based German-American group, for not allowing Jews to join it because it would weaken their anti-Nazi message. "I welcome your association and their work from the bottom of my heart," Einstein, who made his home in the United States after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, wrote in an August 1934 letter to group member August Hamelberg. "Every German who has the opportunity, by living away from Germany, to be healthy and stay out of life-threatening danger, should see it as their obligation to do so. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240724-Einstein-Letters-About-Nazis-to-be-Auctioned-in-US Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:02:41 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240718-Ancient-Walled-City-Older-than-Egypt-s-Pyramids-Unearthed-off-US-Georgia-Coast Six hours southeast of Atlanta off the Georgia coast on Sapelo Island, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of an ancient walled city which predates the construction of Egypt's pyramids. Known as the Sapelo Shell Ring Complex, this ancient city was constructed around 2300 B.C. and featured three neighborhoods each surrounded by circular walls twenty feet in height constructed from tons of seashells. Some of the earliest pottery in North America was also found buried in the remains of this lost city. The site is quite an enigma because at the time of its construction the Native Americans living in the area were simple hunters and gatherers who had yet to invent agriculture. Many scholars believe agriculture is a prerequisite for civilization. Did these simple tribal people somehow make the leap from hunting-and-gathering to civilization in a single bound producing not only a walled city but also the new technology of pottery without the benefit of agriculture? Or did an already civilized people arrive on the coast of Georgia from elsewhere and, if so, where did they come from and why? Just thirty years before the construction of the Sapelo Shell Rings researchers have noted that Bronze Age civilizations around the world show a pattern of collapse. According to the website LostWorlds.org: http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240718-Ancient-Walled-City-Older-than-Egypt-s-Pyramids-Unearthed-off-US-Georgia-Coast Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:36:46 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240699-Sex-Beer-Politics-Riddles-Reveal-Life-of-Ancient-Mesopotamians Millennia before modern-day Americans made fun of their politicians or cracked crude jokes over a cold one, people in ancient Mesopotamia were doing much the same thing. The evidence of sex, politics and beer-drinking comes from a newly translated tablet, dating back more than 3,500 years, which reveals a series of riddles. The text is fragmentary in parts and appears to have been written by an inexperienced hand, possibly a student. The researchers aren't sure where the tablet originates, though they suspect its scribe lived in the southern part of Mesopotamia, near the Persian Gulf. The translation, by Nathan Wasserman, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology, and Michael Streck, a professor with the Altorientalisches Institut at Universität Leipzig, is detailed in the most recent edition of the journal Iraq. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240699-Sex-Beer-Politics-Riddles-Reveal-Life-of-Ancient-Mesopotamians Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:55:18 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240694-7-500-Year-Old-Fishing-Seines-and-Traps-Discovered-in-Russia An international team of archaeologists led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has found a series of more than 7,500-year-old fish seines and traps at an archaeological site near Moscow. According to the CSIC, the newly discovered seines and traps display a great technical complexity and are among the oldest fishing equipment ever found in Europe. "Until now, it was thought that the Mesolithic groups had seasonal as opposed to permanent settlements. According to the results obtained during the excavations, in both Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, the human group that lived in the Dubna river basin, near Moscow, carried out productive activities during the entire year," said Dr. Ignacio Clemente, a researcher at the CSIC. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240694-7-500-Year-Old-Fishing-Seines-and-Traps-Discovered-in-Russia Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:10:01 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240676-Origin-of-Ancient-Jade-Tool-Baffles-Scientists The discovery of a 3,300-year-old tool has led researchers to the rediscovery of a "lost" 20th-century manuscript and a "geochemically extraordinary" bit of earth. Discovered on Emirau Island in the Bismark Archipelago (a group of islands off the coast of New Guinea), the 2-inch (5-centimeters) stone tool was probably used to carve, or gouge, wood. It seems to have fallen from a stilted house, landing in a tangle of coral reef that was eventually covered over by shifting sands. The jade gouge may have been crafted by the Lapita people, who appeared in the western Pacific around 3,300 years ago, then spread across the Pacific to Samoa over a couple hundred years, and from there formed the ancestral population of the people we know as Polynesians, according to the researchers. Jade gouges and axes have been found before in these areas, but what's interesting about the object is the type of jade it's made of: it seems to have come from a distant region. Perhaps these Lapita brought it from wherever they originated. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240676-Origin-of-Ancient-Jade-Tool-Baffles-Scientists Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:21:16 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240646-Ancient-Dog-Skull-Suggests-We-ve-Lived-with-Dogs-for-33-000-Years A dog skull unearthed in a Siberian cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and suggests modern dogs may be descended from multiple ancestors. The ancient skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and, together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, indicates that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event. In other words, today's dogs might have originated from more than one ancient ancestor, contrary to what some DNA evidence previously has indicated. Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory is co-author of the study that reported the find. He said: Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics. Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240646-Ancient-Dog-Skull-Suggests-We-ve-Lived-with-Dogs-for-33-000-Years Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:15:08 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240622-Ancient-Astronomers-Were-No-Fools There's no doubt ancient astronomers were clever folk. Realizing Earth was round, estimating the Sun's distance, discovering heliocentricity - it's quite a list. But Brad Schaefer (Louisiana State University) suggested at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin that we should add another light bulb to the glow shining from history: ancient astronomers may have corrected for dimming caused by the atmosphere, centuries before anyone came up with a physical model for it. This dimming is called atmospheric extinction. Extinction happens because starlight has to pass through Earth's atmosphere in order to reach us. But the effect isn't uniform: if you spend time stargazing you've probably noticed that a star high up in the sky's dome looks brighter than it does as it slides toward the horizon. That's because light coming to us from near the horizon passes through more atmosphere than if it shines straight down from overhead. (The Sun looks redder at sunset and sunrise for the same reason.) Astronomers have catalogued stars' magnitudes for at least two millennia, all the way back to an ancient document called the Almagest. It was the Almagest that Schaefer began with - but his goal wasn't to determine if astronomers in olden days accounted for extinction. He wanted to use the brightnesses reported in it to decide a long-standing debate over who wrote the catalog in the first place, Hipparchus of Rhodes (circa 150 BC) or Ptolemy of Alexandria (circa AD 150). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240622-Ancient-Astronomers-Were-No-Fools Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:28:28 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240610-Aegean-Sea-Hunt-for-the-ancient-mariner Armed with high-tech methods, researchers are scouring the Aegean Sea for the world's oldest shipwrecks Brendan Foley peels his wetsuit to the waist and perches on the side of an inflatable boat as it skims across the sea just north of the island of Crete. At his feet are the dripping remains of a vase that moments earlier had been resting on the sea floor, its home for more than a millennium. "It's our best day so far," he says of his dive that morning. "We've discovered two ancient shipwrecks." http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240610-Aegean-Sea-Hunt-for-the-ancient-mariner Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:58:37 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240562-Ancient-Jewish-Scrolls-Found-in-North-Afghanistan A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northern Afghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry. The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out - a sorry but common fate for the impoverished and war-torn country's antiquities. Israeli emeritus professor Shaul Shaked, who has examined some of the poems, commercial records and judicial agreements that make up the treasure, said while the existence of ancient Afghan Jewry is known, their culture was still a mystery. "Here, for the first time, we see evidence and we can actually study the writings of this Jewish community. It's very exciting," Shaked told Reuters by telephone from Israel, where he teaches at the Comparative Religion and Iranian Studies department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240562-Ancient-Jewish-Scrolls-Found-in-North-Afghanistan Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:35:21 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240504-Mysterious-Winged-Structure-from-Ancient-Rome-Discovered A recently discovered mysterious "winged" structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels. Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room. "Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms," said William Bowden, a professor at the University of Nottingham, who reported the find in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. The investigation was carried out in conjunction with the Norfolk Archaeological and Historical Research Group. The winged shape of the building appears to be unique in the Roman Empire, with no other example known. "It's very unusual to find a building like this where you have no known parallels for it," Bowden told LiveScience. "What they were trying to achieve by using this design is really very difficult to say." The building appears to have been part of a complex that includes a villa to the north and at least two other structures to the northeast and northwest. An aerial photograph suggests the existence of an oval or polygonal building with an apse located to the east. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240504-Mysterious-Winged-Structure-from-Ancient-Rome-Discovered Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:05:28 -0600 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240417-Indonesia-Finding-on-Garut-Pyramid-Verified-structure-is-highly-unlikely-to-be-of-natural-formation The phenomenon of "Garut Pyramid" found on a mount in Garut, West Java, has encouraged the Ancient Catastrophic Disaster Team to conduct verification. The verification is carried out to determine the existence of a man-made structure that formed Mount Putri in Garut using Superstring geo-electric instruments. The geo-electric instruments were used to scan geological layers on the hill by measuring its resistivity. In a written statement received by VIVAnews, Monday, Dec 19, a member of the Ancient Catastrophic Disaster Team, Iwan Sumule, said that the results of the geo-electric instruments within 20 meters and 10 meters electrodes showed that there was a horizontal unconformity on the intrusion (red) rocks within around 120 meters from the summit. The finding shows that the right-side intrusion branch seems to form a terrain morphological base that has similar topographical elevation with Cirahong valley. Then, the 120 meter-limit seems to coincide with the base of a steeper ascending topography, where the rocks turn red. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/240417-Indonesia-Finding-on-Garut-Pyramid-Verified-structure-is-highly-unlikely-to-be-of-natural-formation Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:11:57 -0600