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As farming developed, so did cooperation — and violence

Elaina Hancock, University of Connecticut
Phys.org
Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:10 UTC
corn
© CC0 Public Domain
The growth of agriculture led to unprecedented cooperation in human societies, a team of researchers, has found, but it also led to a spike in violence, an insight that offers lessons for the present.

A new study out today in Environmental Archaeology by collaborators from UConn, the University of Utah, Troy University, and California State University, Sacramento examines the growth of agriculture in Eastern North America 7,500 to 5,000 years ago, and finds that while the domestication of plants fostered new cooperation among people, it also saw the rise of organized, intergroup violence.

"We were interested in understanding why people would make the shift from hunting and gathering to farming," says Elic Weitzel, a UConn Ph.D. student in anthropology. "Then I started to get interested in what happened in society after they made that shift and started farming on a larger scale."

Comment: This article initially raises the question but doesn't really answer why humans would adopt agriculture suddenly after tens of thousands of years as hunter gatherers. For further clues on what changes may have motivated peoples all over the planet around the same time, see: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Info

Proof of a mysterious lost ancient GLOBAL Civilization?

Jimmy
Bright Insight
Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:51 UTC
Global Civilization
© YoTube Screen Capture
This will likely blow your mind. 250+ photos and comparisons of ancient sites around the world, show that there is a LOT more to the story of our ancient past. Proof of a lost ancient global civilization that has been hiding in plain sight, for thousands of years.
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Cardboard Box

Rare 15th-century bust discovered in England


Medievalists
Tue, 03 Mar 2020 21:09 UTC
St Agnes
© National Trust / Rah Petherbridge
The reliquary bust of St Agnes, c. 1465, made in the workshop of Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden, now on display in the Dining Room at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
A carved 15th-century sculpture displayed on top of a cupboard at Anglesey Abbey in central England has been discovered to be a unique reliquary bust, previously thought to have been lost to the art world.

The bust of the martyr St Agnes has been identified as being by Niclaus Gerhaert von Leyden or his workshop, arguably the most important 15th-century sculptor in northern Europe. But only 20 of his works are believed to have survived and the newly-discovered sculpture is the only work by Gerhaert in a UK public collection.

The discovery was made as part of a National Trust four-year sculpture cataloguing project to fully record and research all 6,000 sculptures and statues in its collection. It is the first time the Trust has had the resource to study all of its sculptures in this way.

Comment: See also:

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Colosseum

Megiddo: The archaeology of Armageddon - No sign of King Solomon

Andrew Robinson
Nature
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
Megiddo
© Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
In the 1920s and 1930s, a hydrogen balloon photographed the Megiddo site from the air.
BOOK REVIEW: Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon Eric H. Cline Princeton Univ. Press (2020)
"Welcome to Armageddon," say Israeli tour guides, as groups from many countries climb the steep incline of the archaeological mound Tel Megiddo, southeast of Haifa and close to Nazareth. Within it are the remains of at least 20 cities, piled up, dating from about 5000 bc to the fourth century bc. Passing through the current gate, the tourists often burst into hymns or prayer.

"Our small group of archaeologists smile tolerantly," recalls Eric Cline in Digging Up Armageddon. They have been digging since before dawn to avoid the heat. A chain-link fence around the excavations jokingly requests: "Please do not feed the archaeologists."

Comment: See also:

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Dig

Amazing Ancient Cave Dwellings of Armenia


People of AR
Sun, 02 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
Armenian Caves
© Unknown
Ancient cave-dwellings of Khndzoresk
Armenian Highland is distinguished with countless ancient cave dwellings, dating far back into history of human settlement. Discoveries in the Areni cave complex in Armenia yielded phenomenal finds such as the discovery of the world's oldest leather shoe (5,500-year-old), oldest wine making facility (6,100-year-old), a straw skirt dating to 3900 BC, singes of animal domestication and even a well preserved human brain. There is almost every kind of cave in Armenia, there are man made caves and even caves of hydrothermal origin, which are very rare in the world. These hollows originate when lava from the inner core of the earth mixes with hot springs, creating caves. We also know that people themselves created caves. Elaborate and often architecturally magnificent, monastery complexes with entire villages, carved out of rock, are found in abundance on the Armenian plateau. Armenians used caves as fortresses, places of worship, as housing, as storage facilities and as shed for the animals. Because of minimal airflow, these caves are warm in winter and cool in summer. Armenian cave-dwellings were well known to the ancient classical writers. Xenophon during his journey in Armenia describes an Armenian village as follows:
"Their houses were under ground, the entrance like the mouth of a well, but spacious below; there were passages dug into them for the cattle, but the people descended by ladders. In the houses were goats, sheep, cows, and fowls, with their young; all the cattle were kept on fodder within the walls. There was also wheat, barley, leguminous vegetables, and barley-wine, in large bowls."[1]

Comment: Check out the video below of the caves with the unique doors:
Several unique caves located on the bank of Amberd river in Armenia. Stone doors protect entrances into these caves. Each door have an axis around which it rotates. Also door have a mark of lock.

And: 10 world's oldest artifacts from Armenia

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Archaeology

Thousands of Denisovan tools reveal skilled Stone Age technologies

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 20:39 UTC
denisovan cave altai
© Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
Denisova cave in the Altai mountains in Siberia has layers of Stone Age tools
Excavations at the Denisova cave in Siberia have uncovered almost 80,000 stone artefacts that extinct humans left over a 150,000-year period. Collectively, they seem to show how technology developed by Denisovans evolved through the Stone Age, culminating with the production of spectacular bracelets, beads and tiaras about 50,000 years ago.

Denisova cave lies in a river valley within the Altai Mountains, a few hundred kilometres from the Russian border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. Ancient human remains in the cave are extremely rare, but artefacts are not.

"There are lots of stone artefacts at Denisova cave, as well as many implements made of bone and antler in the upper levels," says Richard Roberts at the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Comment:

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Blue Planet

Laser tech reveals secrets of 100km Maya road

Anthony Wood
New Atlas
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
maya road
© Traci Ardren/University of Miami
The road, part of which is seen from above in this image, may have been created as two great ancient powers prepared to square off against one another
Archaeologists have used laser technology to map a 100-km (62-mile) Maya stone road that could have been built 1,300 years ago to help with the invasion of an isolated city in modern-day Mexico. The ancient highway is thought to have been constructed at the command of the warrior queen Lady K'awiil Ajaw, and would have been coated in white plaster.

The 26 ft (8 m)-wide road, also known as Sacbe 1 or White Road 1, stretches from the ancient city of Cobá - one of the greatest cities of the Maya world - to the distant, smaller settlement of Yaxuná, located in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Newly-published research has shed new light on the nature of Lady K'awiil Ajaw's great road by making use of light detection and ranging, otherwise known as LiDAR technology. To take their measurements, the authors made use of an airborne LiDAR instrument, which beamed lasers at the surface as it passed over the ancient road.

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

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Cow

Farming gave us salmonella, ancient DNA suggests

Ann Gibbons
Science Mag
Mon, 24 Feb 2020 11:00 UTC
farming
© Annette Günzel
When humans began to farm and live with their livestock, they evolved a more virulent form of salmonella.
Pity the pig. We have blamed it for giving us swine flu, a porcine coronavirus in 2012, and — in some ancient hovel — salmonella, which causes gut distress as well as typhoid fever. Now, though, it seems humans got salmonella first, thousands of years ago, and might have passed it to pigs.

A new study suggests early farmers in Eurasia brought a more deadly form of salmonella on themselves when they switched from a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to farming. By settling down in close quarters with domestic animals and their waste, they gave Salmonella enterica, which was lurking in an unknown animal host, easy access to the human gut where it adapted to humans. Pigs picked up the pathogen later, perhaps from people or another animal.

Comment: See also:

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SOTT Logo Radio

MindMatters: Zarathustra Returns! What We Can Learn From The Persian Prophet

Harrison Koehli, Elan Martin, Corey Schink
Sott.net
Wed, 26 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
zoroastrianism
Everything old is new again. Or it can be, if we let it. Though several thousand years old, the teachings and guidance for making the right decisions - in all things - can be seen in the words and ideas of Zoroaster, and the writings that grew out of his movement. Seeking to give individuals a view of their place in the grand scheme of life, and acknowledging the part that man has in manifesting a higher order of thought and action - was the 'mission' of the profoundly influential prophet.

In MindMatters' continued discussion of Zarathustra and the religion known as Zoroastrianism, we examine just what this leading figure of antiquity sought to do. And just how far-reaching and relevant his concepts became. We also take a look at Zoroaster's pre-Christian eschatology or his take on what an 'end times' was really about - among several other concepts that informed the world's great monotheistic religions to come. Sometimes we have to look back at things to take a step forwards; what things might we take in about this ancient teaching that would assist us in just such an effort? It turns out there is a lot to learn from Zoroastrianism's cosmology and its framework for the moral uplifting of the world.


Running Time: 00:56:29

Download: MP3 — 51.7 MB

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Dig

Unknown Iron Age kingdom discovered under mound in central Turkey

Peter Dockrill
Science Alert
Tue, 25 Feb 2020 12:00 UTC
Karahöyük
© James Osborne
The archaeological mound at Türkmen-Karahöyük.
It was said that all he touched turned to gold. But destiny eventually caught up with the legendary King Midas, and a long-lost chronicle of his ancient downfall appears to have literally surfaced in Turkey.

Last year, archaeologists were investigating an ancient mound site in central Turkey called Türkmen-Karahöyük. The greater region, the Konya Plain, abounds with lost metropolises, but even so, researchers couldn't have been prepared for what they were about to find.

A local farmer told the group that a nearby canal, recently dredged, revealed the existence of a large strange stone, marked with some kind of unknown inscription.

Comment: See also:

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