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Earliest spread of millet agriculture outside China linked to herding livestock

Kiel University
Phys.org
Fri, 06 Sep 2019 12:00 UTC
Dzhungar
© Paula Dupuy
Herding sheep and goat in the Dzhungar Mountains of Kazakhstan c. 2011
5000 years before the modern rise of millet as a popular grain, this Chinese crop was spread far and wide by ancient food aficionados, not for their plates but instead for their animals, suggests new research from an international collaboration led by Kiel University (Germany) and Washington University in St. Louis (USA).

At the newly discovered Dali settlement, ancient DNA from the skeletal remains of sheep and goats show that animals first domesticated in the Near East had reached eastern Kazakhstan by 2700 BC. Stable isotope analysis illustrates that these animals were fed millet spreading westward from its center of domestication in China to help them survive the punishingly cold winters of Inner Asia.

"A thriving pastoralist economy using Chinese millets at 2700 BC is a massive leap forward in understand the earliest food globalization processes in Eurasia," said Taylor Hermes, lead author of the study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, who is a post-doctoral researcher at Kiel University.

Comment: See also:

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Dig

Archeologists in awe at 2,100 year old iPhone-like belt buckle unearthed in Atlantis grave in Siberia


The Siberian Times
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 10:16 UTC
Ancient Xiongnu-era woman took stylish accessory to the afterlife
iphone burial site russia
© HMC RAS/Pavel Leus
'This site is a scientific sensation', said Dr Marina Kilunovskaya from the St Petersburg Institute of Material History Culture, who leads the Tuva Archeological Expedition.
To archeologist Pavel Leus the striking new find resembled a modern smartphone.

The black rectangular object was located in a burial site known as 'The Russian Atlantis' in mountainous Republic of Tuva, for it only appears from under water for few weeks a year.

Archeologists jokingly nicknamed the ancient female Natasha, while her accessory was called 'an iPhone'.

''Natasha's' burial with a Xiongnu-era iPhone remains one of the most interesting at this burial site,' Pavel Leus said in a new publication summarising results of several years of recent archeological expeditions to the Ala-Tey burial site.
iphone burial siberia
© HMC RAS/Pavel Leus
In fact, the discovery is a large - 18cm by 9cm - chic belt buckle made of gemstone jet with inlaid decorations of turquoise, carnelian and mother-of-pearl.

The woman's belt was decorated with Chinese wuzhu coins which helped the scientists to date it.

They believe it might be up to 2,137 years old because this is when such coins were first minted.

Comment: That is one impressive piece of craftsmanship. Jet (lignite) is soft enough to be cut and polished to either a matt or luster finish, but that thing still looks like it was machined!

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Quenelle

The legacy of Israel's first person to refuse military service

Alasdair Soussi
The Electronic Intifida
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Joseph Abileah
© Adi Abileah
Joseph Abileah
Joseph Abileah is considered as the first person in Israel to go on trial for refusing to join its military.

Appearing in a Haifa court a few months after Israel was founded in 1948, the violinist made clear that he would play no part in the war Israel was then fighting against its neighbors. He regarded Arabs as his brothers, not his enemies.

As his case was heard, the Austrian-born Abileah made no apologies for his stance. This included his objection to the establishment of a distinctly Jewish state.

Even before Israel was founded, he had refused to join the Haganah - the main Zionist militia in Palestine.

Abileah escaped a prison sentence, but the judges failed to persuade him to take on a noncombat role, which, in the words of the late Anthony Bing, author of Israeli Pacifist: The Life of Joseph Abileah, "he likened to the case of a thief who watched for the police while another thief performed the actual robbery."

"I feel very honored to be a descendant of the Abileah family - and I've been specifically inspired by Joseph's work and his courage," said his grand niece Rae Abileah, a Jewish Voice for Peace activist living in Colorado. Rae is best known for disrupting an address made by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to the US Congress in 2011.

Comment: Adi Abileah's conscience fueled his refusal to be a part of an organization that is hell bent on dominance, wanton destruction and slow-motion genocide. His legacy continues on with many others - who the Israeli government would rather we know nothing about.

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Bulb

100 years ago Sears invented society's most disruptive technology

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 08 Sep 2019 17:33 UTC
old sears catalog

1920 Sear Catalog
The history of US consumerism starts with the Sears Roebuck mail order catalog. Yes, the very same Sears that is struggling to emerge from bankruptcy today. But 125 years ago the company was every bit the disruptive innovator. A brief summary of how that happened:
  • Mail order became viable in the late 1800s because of the expansion of the US rail system, post office regulations that allowed for catalog mailers at 1 cent/pound, and Rural Free Delivery.
  • The first Sears catalog was published in 1894 with the slogan "The Cheapest Supply House on Earth".
  • Its target audience was rural America, which in 1900 was 60% of the US population. This was a deeply underserved community, often with just a thinly stocked general store to supply all their needs.
  • The 1903 catalog added the commitment of "Your money back if you are not satisfied", reassuring customers that buying a product sight-unseen was a viable way to shop.
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Dig

Largest-ever ancient-DNA study illuminates millennia of South and Central Asian prehistory, including Indus Valley Civilization


Phys.org
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 17:27 UTC
indus tomb skeleton
© Vasant Shinde/Cell
The first sequenced genome from an archaeological site associated with the ancient Indus Valley Civilization came from this woman buried at the city of Rakhigarhi.
The largest-ever study of ancient human DNA, along with the first genome of an individual from the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, reveal in unprecedented detail the shifting ancestry of Central and South Asian populations over time.

The research, published online Sept. 5 in a pair of papers in Science and Cell, also answers longstanding questions about the origins of farming and the source of Indo-European languages in South and Central Asia.

Geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists from North America, Europe, Central Asia and South Asia analyzed the genomes of 524 never before-studied ancient individuals. The work increased the worldwide total of published ancient genomes by about 25 percent.

By comparing these genomes to one another and to previously sequenced genomes, and by putting the information into context alongside archaeological, linguistic and other records, the researchers filled in many of the key details about who lived in various parts of this region from the Mesolithic Era (about 12,000 years ago) to the Iron Age (until around 2,000 years ago) and how they relate to the people who live there today.
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Dig

Dead Sea scrolls study raises even more questions over texts' age and origins

Nicola Davis
The Guardian
Fri, 06 Sep 2019 19:00 UTC
Temple scroll
© Michael Kappeler/AFP/Getty Images
Part of the Temple scroll, one of the Dead Sea scrolls.
The Dead Sea scrolls have given up fresh secrets, with researchers saying they have identified a previously unknown technique used to prepare one of the most remarkable scrolls of the collection.

Scientists say the study poses a puzzle, as the salts used on the writing layer of the Temple scroll are not common to the Dead Sea region.

"This inorganic layer that is really clearly visible on the Temple scroll surprised us and induced us to look more in detail how this scroll was prepared, and it turns out to be quite unique," said Assistant Professor Admir Masic, co-author of the research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

"These salts are not typical for anything we knew about associated with this period and parchment making," he added.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Attention

Ex-CIA analyst: Putin warned Bush about impending attack two days before 9/11


RT
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 16:31 UTC
9/11 wtc lights
© Reuters / Ueslei Marcelino
The Tribute in Light installation in New York City, marking the location of the World Trade Center buildings destroyed on September 11, 2001
Russian President Vladimir Putin had called his US counterpart George W. Bush two days before the 9/11 attacks in 2001, warning about an imminent terrorist plot coming from Afghanistan, a former CIA analyst has revealed.

The urgent warning coming from the Russian leader is mentioned in the book 'The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe,' released earlier this week and written by George Beebee, a senior Bush-era CIA analyst.
Putin had telephoned President Bush two days before the attacks to warn that Russian intelligence has detected signs of an incipient terrorist campaign, 'something long in preparation,' coming out of Afghanistan.
The revelation by the former CIA operative appears to be yet another proof that Washington has been repeatedly warned about the attacks that ultimately happened on September 11, 2001.

While the existence of a warning from Moscow has been public knowledge for years - senior Russian intelligence officials spoke about them shortly after the attacks - Beebee's book suggests that it was not limited to exchange between the intelligence agencies, and that Bush was warned by Putin personally.
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Star of David

Christians United for Israel: How the largest pro-Israel organization in the US rose to power

Whitney Webb
MintPress News
Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:00 UTC
Well before Theodore Herzl founded political Zionism and published The Jewish State, Christian Zionists in the United States and England were already seeking to direct and influence the foreign policy of both nations in service to a religious obsession end times prophecy

Christians United for Israel, John Hagee, Christian zionism
© Sebastian Scheiner | AP
Texas evangelist John Hagee of Christians United for Israel addresses a crowd of his followers and Israeli supporters at a rally at the Jerusalem convention center, April 6, 2008.
The largest pro-Israel organization in the United States is not composed of Jews, but of Christian evangelicals, with a total membership of 7 million, more than 2 million more members than the entirety of the American Jewish community.

Members of this organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), met in Washington on Monday, attracting thousands of attendees and featuring speeches from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. CUFI's leader, controversial evangelical preacher John Hagee, has met with President Donald Trump several times and was recently part of an exclusive White House meeting in March on the administration's upcoming "peace plan" for Israel and Palestine.

CUFI is but one of many organizations throughout American history that have promoted the state of Israel and Zionism on the grounds that a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is a requirement for the fulfillment of end-times prophecy and necessary for Jesus Christ to return to Earth — an event Christians often refer to as "the Second Coming."

While organizations like CUFI and its predecessors have long seen the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and the later Israeli victory and conquest of Jerusalem in 1967, as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, there is one prophecy that this sect of evangelical Christians believes is the only thing standing between them and the Second Coming. There are estimated to be more than 20 million of these Christians, often referred to as Christian Zionists, in the United States and they are a key voting bloc and source of political donations for the Republican Party.


Comment: As such, they're not actually Christians. We may as well just distinguish 'Israeli Zionists' from 'American Zionists'.


As was explored in previous installments of this series, these Christian Zionists, much like religious Zionist extremists in Israel, believe that the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock must be replaced with a Third Jewish Temple in order to usher in the end times.

Comment: See also:

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Info

Ancient and modern genome study reveals South Asia's prehistory

Dyani Lewis
Cosmos Magazine
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 19:02 UTC
Ancient Bones
© VASANT SHINDE / DECCAN COLLEGE POST GRADUATE AND RESEARCH INSTITUTE
A skeleton with typical Indus Valley Civilisation grave goods.
A massive study of ancient and modern genomes stretching from Europe to Central and South Asia and spanning the last 8000 years paints a complex picture of prehistoric human migrations.

The study, a herculean undertaking published in the journal Science and led by Vagheesh Narasimhan and colleagues at the Harvard Medical School, involved sequencing genomes from more than 500 new ancient individuals - more than any other ancient DNA study to date.

It drew together detailed information gleaned not only from ancient and modern genomes, but also from archaeology and linguistics - a "three-layered cake", as Narasimhan describes it - to understand how ancient groups interacted. Precise radiocarbon ages for 269 ancient remains also were determined.

The narrative that emerges is a complicated one, but it sheds light on an enduring mystery of the Neolithic period: whether languages and innovations such as farming spread from one place to the next.

"These are the most profound cultural transformations to occur in the past 10,000 years," says Narasimhan.

Before farming took off, two genetic gradients existed, one stretching across the north from Europe to Siberia and the other stretching across the south from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) to northern South Asia.
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Books

Leprechaun 'is not a native Irish word' new medieval dictionary reveals

Nuala McCann
BBC
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 11:05 UTC
Ireland manuscripts
© National Library of Ireland
A painstaking journey through Irish manuscripts has yielded great rewards
Leprechauns may be considered quintessentially Irish, but research suggests this perception is blarney.

The word "leprechaun" is not a native Irish one, scholars have said.

They have uncovered hundreds of lost words from the Irish language and unlocked the secrets of many others.

Although "leipreachán" has been in the Irish language for a long time, researchers have said it comes from Luperci, a group linked to a Roman festival.

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